A Knitter in Transition: Fishy

How is it that I decide I'm gonna post, and even get all logged into blogger and then spend 40 minutes surfing OTHER people's blogs? How is it that I placed the SAME order twice at knitpicks? Well, the first is a little of MY ADD, and the second is a little of theirs. Just to let you know: take it with a grain (or Tblspn) of salt when they tell you they'll e-mail you in an hour re: your order. They'll wait an hour alright, an hour after you re-place the same order 36 hours later. Ratfinks.

I've been a busy bee since my last post.

The job: no go. Turns out the competition has teaching experience. Chaa. So, today I applied to be a banker. Stoked about the 3 piece suits.

This past weekend, I got baptized! That's right. I've been wanting to do it for a while now, but I really wanted to do it in the ocean. A freezing cold indoor baptism just seemed a little sterile to me, so when Pastor John mentioned in the service that he'd be doing baptisms, my hand shot up. The Lt was in the water with me (in real clothes, the champ), it was awesome!

The Lt and I officially started Marathon training. Also known as "listen to Ashley whine about running for 7 months." It will take us an extra month because the first week of our chosen program has us running 8 miles. Yeah-freaking-right. WHO on earth can run 8 miles at a time in the first week? NO ONE. Tha's hoo. So, I train on, working my way up to the unholy milage requirement. Saturday a.m. included nutella on whole wheat toast and 4 miles. 4 slow miles. In the rain. With a dog pulling the first 2 miles, because he LOVES sniffing the ground while it rains. What a weirdo.

I made gyoza! Gyoza are yummy fried dumplings with pork and veggies and ginger and YUMMM. It was the only saving grace, as I was also making wonton soup, but the wontons disintegrated in the boiling water, and I was nearly in tears. Hm, hormonal? Jest a touch. Granted, my gyoza didn't look quite so nice as the photo in the link, but they tasted like sushi joint specials.

A coupla weekends ago, we went to the Ocean Expo Park. A huge park complex with a western style aquarium, a botanical garden, a historic village set-up, and a hot-house complex. They have whale sharks, here, people. It was so sweet. Here's what we saw:

Whale sharks. HUGE. Like, Shamu huge. We were there for feeding time (dead batteries, drat!), and it was awesome. The sharks eat krill and shrimp, more like a baleen whale than a toothy beast. They hang in the water, almost perpindicular to the surface, and vacuum gallons and gallons of water and munchies into their great wide chompers. Then they whoosh the water out thru their gills, and are left with some serious sashimi. Here's a really horrible photo:

We also saw some things that surely have siblings in hell tormenting souls:
Creepy giant lobsters, look at the rusty things around the regular giant lobster. Who knew it was possible to see a 3 foot long losbter and NOT curse yourself for the ONE time you leave the melted butter at home...

Sand worm beasties. Eeeww. Makes me want to wear my steel toed combat boots to the beach.

We also saw and were seen by one of the coolest guys out there, a cuttlefish. Cuttlefish and octopi are really fascinating creatures. SO SMART!! Seriously, PBS. It rocks.