I have not been a particularly posty Yarnpirate of late. There's just been a lot going on. For one thing, I started my new job and have been training and learning about the company and I really like it. It is great fun, I appreciate the product we're selling as it goes with my whole 'small agriculture' philosophy, the food porn is fanastic and I get to memorize a lot of meaningless (outside of work) food trivia and spout it at people all day. You never knew there was so much to learn about olive oil, but believe you me, olive oil is a complex subject. It keeps my brain somewhat busy.

We spent the last 3 days aboard the HMS Crushing Boredom Monarch Of The Seas, having a cruise vacation to Baja with my entire family by marriage. Except the littlest pirate, who could not come due to visa issues. She went to the Grand Canyon instead and we missed her terribly. This was to celebrate the inlaws 50th wedding anniversary. It was terrifically generous of them to take the family and we are appreciative. The 'rental inlaws were happy, we celebrated with great celebration, we had pictures made, it was nice to get the family together and I enjoyed my nephews, as well as blowing off the tours and walking into Ensenada for the day on Saturday. I found two nifty art galleries - one with v. cool Dia De Los Muertos skelly swag amidst all the tourist crap.

This cruise, which was fairly cool the last time we did it, has sadly turned into a beer bongtastic, rum swilling singles revel. Do not to be getting the pirate wrong, we are all about the rum and the swilling of the rum and also why is the rum gone? However. We have limits. And 500+ singles on the lido deck with Vanilla Ice blasting at all hours? Not. My. Thing. I could not find anyplace peaceful or quiet to knit due to the disco that was blaring in every corner of the ship. Some asshat with a Tidy Bowl margarita slopped some onto Icarus, so now Icarus smells like... well... blue curacao, tequila, eau de la party and I'm not sure what else. Yarn and morons truly don't mix. Off with his head. Also, we all had to wear happy matching tee shirts. There was a customs clusterf*ck because one of the aforementioned beery singles tried to smuggle a bunch of drugs in from Mexico, in his luggage. So 4 extra hours on board and because we were disembarking, the rum was truly gone and all the partygoers were cranky and hung over and trapped on board. Thanks for that, Mr. Dumbass. Enjoy jail. And that is all we'll say about that.

Um, knitting? What knitting. Oh, you mean the sock I almost finished and then had to rip back to the heel because I made a huge glaring error (I was in pain due to some steel drummer mangling Erasure while I was knitting that part)? Or Icarus wot reeks of Tidy Bowl strong drink? Not a lot of knitting. I returned the heel on the sock. I gotta get this thing done by Thursday for my mom's birthday.

I did come home to my final reveal package of SP8 and found out that my pal was Mei Flower I love it! There is all manner of cool swagness but my favorite is the Anne Bonney action Figure which is now standing in pride of place on the knitting shelf. I promise a picture and details tomorrow when I can get the camera rolling. Thank you Secret Pal Mei Flower!