Momma says I can show some pictures of us since we have new readers that want to know more about us. Sorry old readers but these pictures are repeats.

My name is Ruby, I’m 9 years old but Momma still calls me Kitten Girl. My hobbies are bird watching, bathing, playing in the cat jungle gym, grooming, napping, bathing and getting brushin’s. I live with my Momma, Daddy and my bio-daddy Rufus in south central Washington State where the Yakima River meets the Columbia River.

This is Rufus my bio-daddy. He’s over 13 years old and used to be something like a male model. Or I guess it was called Supreme Grand Champion show cat and stud daddy. His hobbies couch surfing, watching sports on TV with our humans, and an occasional romp in the snow with his big old furry feet.

This is our boy’s dog Teddy (or Theodore). He is half corgi and half yellow lab. We call him a corgidor. (Teddy has a cousin named Oli that is a corgi collie that lives in Cincinnati. So would that be a corglie??) He lives in Cambridge MA. He used to live in Seattle WA but boy and boy’s GF moved away last summer. We miss our boy something terrible!! We’d miss Teddy more but we only got to meet him one time the day he was adopted. He has good adventures at a place Momma calls Poop Park, just down the street from where he lives. His hobbies are chasing other dogs that are running with sticks, getting treats from his Kong toys, napping and going on great walks in their neighborhood.

Last week went by all too fast. Every day we slept in (nice darkened hotel room and windows open full tilt in 30F weather makes for a good sleep). Then we’d meet Hazel and Linda, and sometimes Bob and Larry for coffee at the Daily Grind. A buck fifty six buys you a big mug of really good coffee plus a refill. Any refills past that are 76 cents each. It’s good coffee. So good that it and little places like it drove Starbucks out of Marshfield WI. The Daily Grind is a half block’s walk from The Kitchen Table, owned by Lloie (EZ’s other daughter). This visit she was working the front half of her restaurant and we chatted ever so briefly with her. I think we went there 2 or was it 3 times for lunch. And Graham’s origami dollar bills are still at the register.

Monday we antiqued and wandered Central – the main N/S road in Marshfield. Tuesday was a trip out of town to that great cheese factory in Randolf. Yes we bought tons.

I used the back of Linda’s driver seat as my pattern holder for my Otrebmu cowl. Knitted from the bottom up in my latest handspun. Looks great finished but a bit rough yarn wise. So I’ll be finding some alternative methods of blocking and softening it up. I haven’t downloaded the finished cowl photo yet.

Thanksgiving was a house full at Linda and Bobs. I think Linda said there were 17-18 people including the little ones. Not including Poot and Smokey the cats. Somehow the smoked salmon with capers and dill that Knitting Hubby and I brought for the pre-dinner appetizer was not run off with by the cats. Mystery. Linda made a great turkey and lots of other goodies. And every one else that brought food – it was all yummy too. The following two photos are the only one taken Turkey Day. Due to all the cooking going on and 18 people in the house, my camera lens would fog up as soon as I’d get the lens cap off. After Thanksgiving dinner, this is what most of us looked like just laying around. (this is Smokey sharing a recliner with Knitting Hubby)

Linda and I had our first invitational holiday classic no boys allowed jacks tournament. She won 10-7 in a winner takes all, one game only tournament. Neither of us could really remember the rules and the rules on box the jacks and ball came in was rather vague. Plus we played on the counter top dodging the kitchen cabinets, pies and some serving dishes. It was fun and we can’t wait to do it again!!

On the train home we again enjoyed the scenery, knitting, reading and meeting wonderful people. Our seat partners for Saturday’s dinner were fun and interesting to talk to. So much so that we spent the remainder of the evening with them. Can’t beat an evening that involved talking about artists, cats, art, traditional sign painting techniques, snow ball fights and beer till late into the evening. So if you are reading this Vance and Rosalie, thank you Vance for sharing your portfolio! And Rosalie, want to join us at Black Sheep Gathering this June?

Well not to grandmothers house. But we did take Amtrak Train 28 late on Friday night and arrived in Wisconsin on Sunday to visit for Thanksgiving week! All you long time readers of Kitkatknit know we average an Amtrak trip once every 18 months or so. We like it because if you have the time and don’t have to be at a certain place at a certain time, it’s a fun way to travel.

We spring for at a minimum one of the 2 person roomettes and only travel on the days when we can get them cheap (any given day the price is different). If the price is lower on any other of the other sleeping car rooms we reserve those instead. The roomette has two seats that face each other, that in the evening turn into a lower bunk. The upper bunk drops from above. You have to be a contortionist to launch yourself into the top bunk while the train is traveling 80 mph swaying over bumpy tracks. The top bunk is so close to the ceiling you can not sit up so you do this flying leap and turn 90 degrees to land. Which is actually pretty easy. Getting down? Not so. I really have to plan in advance for that one.

The biggest decision once you get on the train is what to eat during the three meals plus wine and cheese party that comes with the sleeper car accommodations. Usually we knit, read, sightsee and take short walks during the longer fuel up stops. This time our train had no observation/lounge/snack bar as it had broken down in Portland before it even made it to us. So no spreading all our knitting and magazines out all over the tables in the observation car! It’s dark out when we leave our train station. When we wake up on the second day we are in Glacier Park. This time we awoke to a snow storm.

On the Empire Builder Train 28 you’re traveling through Montana most of the day. It changes from the Rockie Mountains to the big sky part of Montana. With views like these all day long.

And as we headed into North Dakota this was the view out the back of the train.

On our way to the dining car, we noticed one of the cars was terribly hot every time we passed through. When we got to our 30 minute stop in Minot SD, Amtrak called the fire department. There was an electrical fire in that car and it had started smoldering and stinking up the car. The passengers and luggage we put into available remaining seats. We were so happy we were back in the sleeper car!! That little mishap put us 2.5 hours behind schedule and we never did make it back up.

Mid day on Sunday we crossed the Mississippi (which we’d followed from Minneapolis) and arrived in Wisconsin. We got off at Tomah.

We spent last night visiting. By mid evening Knitting Hubby and I were exhausted, barely making it through watching the finals of the “Next Iron Chef”. Woke up late this morning. Guess we got worn out doing nothing on the train for a couple of days!

Today we spent quite a long time at our favorite coffee place – The Daily Grind.

And then we stopped by Marshfield’s new Janet’s craft and yarn store.

We ended this afternoon (after a great lunch at the Blue Heron Brew Pub) by power napping.

NOT!!

But this was. I finished plying last night and left it this morning soaking before I set the twist. I have a couple cowl patterns to try it out on. The yarn starts with the blue lagoon color and slowly over 200 yards changes through a little pale pink, some bright orange and then fades to an orange-y wheat color. For you fellow Ravelry kids, it will be either the Chickadee Cowl or the Umberto Cowl.

If you’ve been reading KitKatKnit a long time you’ve seen this picture of my great great grandmother Ingeborg at her Norwegian spinning wheel. She took delivery of it in 1890. It was eventually passed on to her daughter Olene, to my Dad and to me. I spin on it when ever I’m visiting my parent’s in the Denver area. They drove out this past week for a visit and delivered it to me.

My Dad remembers Mor Mor Ingeborg buying fleece, cleaning it, carding it into rolags and spinning the yarn. I have two sets of her cards and a total of three bobbins. She’d knit socks, mittens, scarves and sweaters for the family when they lived in Phelps MN. I wonder if anything she knit still exists? My Dad also remembers Ingeborg reading to him from newspapers she received from Oslo, Norway. She would translate the cartoons and other stories but somehow the humor didn’t make much sense in English. Norwegian was spoken at home and at the one room 1st-8th grade school in Phelps where my Dad went, the classes were taught in Norwegian and Swedish with English being the third language.

I know. Behind again on my blogging all over again. The vacation was too short and it’s Sunday already and we’ve been back to work.

So to catch you armchair travelers, Monday we went to the top of the Prudential Tower. This again was part of our Boston City Pass. You ride an elevator to the observation deck on the 50th floor skywalk. Don’t worry, it’s all enclosed!! (and you can press yourself right up against the windows) Knitting Hubby and I in hindsight thought that this would be a better first day tour so you can see all the sights in context while listening to a taped tour. It was pretty glary out so I need to PhotoShop most of the pictures but here is an example view. Oh look, an Apple Store!

After the Prudential and a cough light lunch we walked around downtown for a while. Again I must say what a great tourist town Boston is!! It is so walkable and if you can’t walk to it, the public transportation system can take you everywhere else in town that a tourist might want to go.

We spent the afternoon at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum. (Boston City Pass again). The Natural History museum is old but a very impressive collection. While we were there they were refitting the Pacific Islands exhibit, the lighting was on motion sensors so as you walked up to a case it lit. Nice but too dark to take pics without a flash. It was too dark to see much of campus once we were done.

There were whorls and bottom whorl spindles in one of the exhibits.

At sometime during the day I got an email from Dave Daniels talking about clam fests. Clam fests??? Seafood???? Lobster??? Where???? We waited till both Rachel and Graham were free for the evening and when they arrived at our hotel we did a last minute coin flip and decided on the Dolphin instead of the Helmand. We all hopped the red line to Harvard. It’s a quick walk down Mass Ave to Dolphin Seafood! I’d had lobster tail before but Graham and I had never had whole lobsters so that’s of course what we ordered. We giggled through the entire cracking and eating of our lobsters. Fun and very yummy! No wonder the restaurant is one of Dave’s favorites. (and still kicking ourselves that we didn’t have him there with us as he said he would have kicked butt if the service wasn’t top notch for us. We had great service.)

I still have tons of photos to load to Flickr on our sssllloooooww DSL so I’ll continue the Travelogue tomorrow.

First of all. What the heck is this getting pitch black dark stuff at 4:37 pm here??? I have it on authority that by December 21 it gets dark by 3 in the afternoon. What the heck?? (ok maybe SuperGuppy exaggerated a little??) My local zip code got 5 more evening minutes today, Boston gets 1 more evening minutes on December 21. All relative I guess!

Knitting Hubby and I did go to the Old North Church for Sunday service. (one if by land, two if by sea) Since I’d goofed and forgot Nov 1 was standard time we were up an hour early. I blame it on not picking up a Saturday Boston Globe at the hotel front desk. After breakfast we wandered around North End until 8:30 (it even smells great on a weekend morning – garlicky, olive oily and bread baking-y) and got a tour of the church from one of the pastors. He said during tourist season – even up to 2 weeks ago they have people hanging from the rafters to get a seat. He estimated we’d have 20 at the most and that’s exactly how big the “crowd” was today.

Graham, Knitting Hubby and I spent this morning at the New England Aquarium. Very nice. Bet though their whale watch tour doesn’t include 88 orca. The NEA is very nice, based on a 4 story tall coral reef central tank with a ramp that spirals upward around it. Very nice viewing. Other exhibits were on the walls behind the tank. The ticket was part of our Boston City Pass. It paid for itself by so far going to 2 of the 7 museums or observatories. And our $15 7-day MBTA pass paid for itself by Friday.

All this walking makes you hungry (which means you eat too much and have to walk it off again) so we looked for the Tap (we’d had clam chowder there on Friday and again today). Wait a minute, do I hear someone moaning “that lunch place? Ew. No.”???

We walked to our afternoon destination, the Institute of Contemporary Artwhere again, Graham can get in free by flashing his Student ID. Most museums so far, except the aquarium wave in MIT students free. (I’m sure there are others??). How nice is that? Anyway, I love installation art so I had a happy brain all afternoon.

After that we were pretty worn out, but not enough to keep us from shopping for dinner at Whole Foods. This was my only second time ever at a Whole Foods and this one had a completely different personality than the Bellevue WA one. This one was the very kind I’m sure you’d find in other college towns!! We don’t have anything like Whole Foods or Trader Joes (I’ve never been in one). Sigh.

As you might have noticed we are really enjoying ourselves here in Boston. We’re sad that we only have 2 full days and one half day left to play tourist and hang with Graham and Rachel. Boston is a great town for pedestrian touring. I really don’t know what I’d take off my list if we had less time! And even if Graham didn’t live 6 blocks east and the MIT campus wasn’t on the backside of our hotel, this would still be a great base of operations. (and they cut you a deal for extended stay!!)

Wow, what a wonderful day. It started out cloudy and foggy. Our yarn hunt was going to start early and we figured out a location for Knitting Hubby and I to met Dave Daniels and we’d swapped physical descriptions. You know me, Sophia Loren from 1963 looking. Actually I think I described myself as a bit lumpy, wearing jeans and not wearing a coat if it was above 55 degrees out. And Knitting Hubby as having the same haircut as Dave.

We spotted each other from about a 1/4 block away. It was like a reunion with someone you hadn’t seen in a long time but instead this was friends that had never met in person. Kind of like the Heidi story but Knitting Hubby didn’t figure Dave was an ax murderer. (you know the knitting cabin story where Heidi and I had been commenting on each others blogs for a couple of years and I invited her to knitting cabin weekend? And Knitting Hubby thought I was nuts asking “what if she’s an ax murderer” and when I told Heidi what he said, she replied “what makes you think I’m not?”) But anyway I digress.

Dave took us on a walk through the Shops at Prudential Center with it’s 3 stories of stores all under glass. Once you get inside you can shop forever with out being exposed to the weather. Then we walked down Commonwealth Avenue where we saw beautiful homes with a parkway in the middle of the avenue. (the thing in common about the homes was the wealth involved in owning one) It was followed to the east by Clarendon Park and then Boston Commons (where I saw my first grey squirrel of the trip and the pigeons that inspired color combos in one of Dave’s woven scarves). From there we went into the heart of the city at Downtown Crossing. Got to see Filene’s Dept Store, or what’s left of it which is a big hole in the ground. And for you curiosity seekers, yes we witnessed Dave snapping photos like a trained assassin for Ass Watch Wednesday. (assassin – get it??)

The humidity was at least 103% again so we stopped in a grocers to get something to wet our whistles while we waited for our first stop to open. You know me, WAY over heated all the time. We told silly stories about how we got our cats and Dave recounted what a little devil Dusty can be. And then Dave handed us a bag. A very special bag containing 8oz of a 50/50 blend of silk/merino in a very special colorway dyed by Dave. And the colorway name? Ruby Kitty. Named after our little Ruby. And just as soft as her belly down. (again sorry about cell phone pics. I don’t have software with me to edit)

And then?!?!? Our first yarn store. One that I’d heard about for years – Windsor Button. The button collection at Windsor Button is about three times the collection of Button Emporium in Portland. It also carries yarn, cording, ribbons… I’d go on but you can just click the link. It’s a fun shop. One of those dangerous ones that carries things you didn’t know you even needed.

Meanwhile we ran a wild three way dialog about yarn, dying fibers, cherry wood, dumpster diving, spinning, weaving, Seattle, public transportation, trimming cat toe nails, herringbone twill….

We took the green line to the second LYS. Again one I’ve heard of and was really looking forward to it. A Good Yarn and it was! It was a hard store to limit myself yarn wise. And you know. I don’t need any more yarn. That was until I saw the Malabrigo sock yarn in Abril. The deep blue to deep plum to deep purple colorway. Yep, bought the last two skeins. It will be a woven scarf. A Good Yarn is out in Brookline, a tree filled neighborhood. To get there you take the green line to Brookline and get off at the Puppet Showplace Theatre. Well that’s what I’d use as a landmark.

The day passed all too quickly. Dave walked us around some other neighborhoods and took us back to the green line. It was a wonderful and most memorable day. Thank you Dave from Knitting Hubby and I.

BUT that’s not all. We took the T back to our hotel to regroup and check our travel instructions. And visited the USS Constitution. I was wondering if I’d remember much of it. Yes. Most of it. It had been 40-45 years since I’d been on it. I’d seen it before with the major 1925 restoration. Since then there has been an early 1990’s restoration and the current one for Old Ironsides 200th anniversary of the Battle against the Guerriere in the War of 1812.

From there Knitting Hubby and I wandered into the North End again this time looking for Italian food. We ate at the Trattoria di Monica. Fun little place. And you know it must be good if the table of 8 behind us was speaking Italian. And the tables were so close together and the food? Very good. Extra happy taste buds? Yes.

Ok for the rest of you that didn’t know either, Boston Commons is the Park T Station. (quit laughing you locals). Breakfast again in our hotel and then we hit the road (T) for the Freedom Trail. We skipped the first two stops and started at the Park Street Church. And next to it the Granary Burying Ground. We’d been on the trail for 2 minutes and spent the next 35 there. What a walk through history with a lot of familiar names. Three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine. And Paul Revere. How can you beat that.

Across the street and a bit down is Kings Chapel and the Kings Chapel Burying Ground. Again we spent a lot of wonderful time there. But I’ll skip right to the chase and tell you the highlight of the Freedom Trail for me. Paul Revere’s House.

We took our time walking through the outdoor markets. Where the prices should put Seattle’s Pike Street Market and our local farmers market to shame. We stopped at a nice espresso cafe called Caffé Paradiso in the North End. Where we had Macchiato’s. Real ones. Not the fakey Starbuck ones that they drizzle caramel sauce on to flavor, but one where the caramel flavoring is coming from the caramelly sweet shot of espresso.

This evening we celebrated Graham’s birthday, eating at a local seafood restaurant. On my list of things I wanted to try while in Boston was Lobster Roll. Yum, so sweet and good. Graham and Knitting Hubby had Mahi Mahi and Rachel had scallops. (A ton of scallops so she took half of them home)

And birthday is never done till you’ve had dessert at Toscanini (like we really needed dessert.

On the ride home I spotted this tile. Anyone know where it is?

Tomorrow? Tomorrow is going to be FUN!!!

Just a warning. No photos (ok I can hear you all say hooray at that one) until I remember if I can scale photos in Picasa. Yes, traveling with Gecko the Dell Mini instead of my Mac.

Our flights were wonderfully uneventful. No people chitchatting, no babies crying, no kids kicking seat backs. I had an empty seat next to me the first leg of the trip, Knitting Hubby had one the second leg. i opened my pack to find that I’d grabbed the wrong book to read on the flight. Then cast on for my Cherry Garcia cowl and after 3 rows decided I need smaller needles or different yarn. Tried watching the TV in the seat back in front of me but we lost reception for about 1000 miles. The woman in the window seat had it closed the entire flight. And my movie hadn’t downloaded to my iPod. Oh well.

Our flight got us to Boston ahead of schedule yesterday. Graham and Rachel were waiting for us at the luggage carousel. It was nice having help navigating and moving bags. We got to our hotel just in time for their nightly wine hour. We walked all over their neighborhood, had dinner at the Cambridge Brewing Co and then Graham toured us a bit around MIT. He says every once in a while he’ll be walking down a long long hallway and it will strike him “I go to MIT, I go to MIT!”. I of course as Mom get all teary eyed just thinking about it. (and the answer is yes, I did just cut and paste this from an email I just wrote)

Today Knitting Hubby and I took the T to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. My favorite? The Impressionist collection. I could have studied the van Gogh’s for hours. I am not a van Gogh groupie. I have other favorite artists. But to be in a room with his use of color and his brush strokes? Heaven. When I am in a room of Impressionist painting, I have to make my self eventually walk away and look at the painting as a whole. We had a late lunch at a little pub across the street. You ordered your beer there and then you ordered your lunch thru a little window in the back storage room that was connected to the sandwich shop next door. Over the bar was an oil painting of the Three Stooges. A nice painting if you like them.

From there we hopped the T to the Symphony Stop. We toured the First Church Of Christ Scientist Mother Church in Boston. Since it is nearly winter the fountains have been turned off. We started the tour in the Mother Church where our tour guide started her talk with the question “you do know this is not Scientology?” Yes I know it’s not, I have a few friends that are Christian Scientists. Mother Churches were built with donations and were paid for upfront before construction ended. From there we toured the Mapparium. A three story tall stained glass globe that you tour from the inside. It was really cool. From there we just wandered a bit and then took the T back to our hotel. Oh and dropped a few coins at the MIT COOP bookstore. T-shirts and the like.

Tonight we walked over to one of Graham and Rachel’s neighborhood restaurants. Helmand (Afghan Cuisine). Oh my. I’d go back there in a heartbeat! I had one of my favorites, Qabelee, It’s Pallow (Afghan-style rice) baked with chunks of lamb tenderloin, raisins and glazed julienne of carrots. We don’t know how we’re going to top that for Graham’s birthday dinner tomorrow night.