checking in

no, i'm not dead.

first, i've been traveling, as you know. second, i've been recovering from said travels and their aftershocks. have you ever taken a 10-hour flight during which every single waking minute felt like someone was giving your brain a colonoscopy?

other than that, the trip was a success beyond all expression. you see, with all the infernal trouble i've had with my health during the past several years, i wasn't supposed to be able to fly overseas ever again. or anywhere, for that matter. but exactly one year ago certain events caused my life to take a completely different direction from what anyone, including myself, expected. and so, after 2.5 years of pain-induced limbo i forcefully took back my health, went back to work, and earned the money to fly over.

so it wasn't just any random two-week holiday. it was me proving to everyone that i'm in control of my own life again.

which i thoroughly celebrated by meticulously going through every yarn shop in vancouver, victoria and seattle and hoarding so much yarn that i had to get a separate bag to carry half of it as carry-on luggage, and at every single border crossing explain to the disbeliefed officers that all that yarn is really, truly, honestly for my personal use only. i guess their suspicion was valid, considering the final tally came to 34 skeins of yarn and four braids of fiber.

at the time 34 skeins and four braids of fiber seemed perfectly reasonable.

(as a humorous interlude and a testament to the exuberant niceness of the canadian national character, the baby-faced immigration officer at YVR, after seeing the project bag in my hand and thus hearing about my plans to have a very knittingy holiday, had only one question to ask:

"how do you feel about yarn bombing?"

much hilarity ensued.)

sadly, though, looking at the credit card bill back at home forced me to release half of the loot back into the wild. but the ones that got to stay with me are truly something i call "rakkauslanka".

so thank you maiwa supply, three bags full, wool is not enough, urban yarns, sweetgeorgia, beehive, button&needlework, knotty by nature, and last but not least, churchmouse yarns, where they just so happened to have a brooklyn tweed trunk show going on. the urge to stuff as many samples in my bag and run out like the wind was great, but i managed to resist it. scoring an armful of BT loft and two pounds of tea helped.

and a very special thank-you goes to melissa, the mastermind behind miso crafty, who graciously took me in for a full week, and even though i managed to catch a horrible cold on day one and left her house swarmed with used tissues and snot-related bacteria, provided me with the most relaxing time i've ever had in canada as well as the best knitting/gossiping/movie-watching company ever. and being the sneaky little devil she is, she had gotten two skeins of sweet fiber yarn for me, just because i had earlier mentioned in a casual conversation how i'd like to get my hands on some of that. melissa, you rule.

finally, as the ultimate cherry on my proverbial cake, the trip brought up some unexpected but pretty interesting prospects regarding my life, my universe and everything. at the risk of jinxing it i won't say anything before it's 100% confirmed, but if and when it is, it may become necessary to make some woot woot noises again.