Disco Knitter

Artwork in the Ambassador Hotel lobby - an auspicious start to our journey…

We headed out early to the weekend markets, but we quickly convinced that with the amount of crap on offer, it was going to be spectacularly difficult to find any crap that we wanted.  I did get myself a single souvenir of Bangkok - everywhere we go there are portraits of the king, and about every 10th personn is wearing a yellow t-shirt with the kings symbol on it.  I found one with a glittery background, it seemed a fitting souvenir of our experience of Bangkok so far.

I stumbled across the animal section (some entire rabbit pelts, and some extremely cute labrador puppies), so we decided to catch the skytrain back to Siam station, where I saw a “Loft” department store sign.  If you know Japanese department stores, you’ll know that loft is AWESOME.  Bangkok Loft isn’t quite as awesome, but we did find some evil “Bloody Bunny” stationery.

No pictures yet, as we don’t have the card reader for the camera with us.  WE have to be back at the hotel in 3 hours to catch a taxi back to the airport for the short flight to Hanoi.

I’ve had 4 hours sleep, and rather more wierdness than I’ve experienced in quite some time.

The lovely Damian (parent to the trio of gorgeous bunnies I features on the blog a few weeks ago) has taken over as head chef at Club Denistone, and he was also kind enough to drive us to the airport, and usher us through security. My cunning postbag trick fell flat - no more post boxes at airports, and they don’t do the security check until after immigration - so I couldn’t even hand my weapons back to Damian if I got caught. I didn’t though! I practically had to take my pants off to get through the beepy door, but eventually they let us through to the duty free area.

We bought some booze, couldn’t find a Gorilla Pod (no internets while I am writing this in the hotel room, so no link, but you can google it), and then off to the plane. Mark had the blood supply to his left leg cut off for a minute or so while we took off (I am a slightly nervous flyer - saw rather too much of the Lockerbie disaster when working as a tape operator at Ch 9 years ago). We got exit row seats, and a pretty good vegan meal (except for the skim milk instead of soy, but no biggie), and three utterly crap movies. The iPod was great for 2 1 hour tv shows before the battery expired, so hopefully in this mecca for consumer electronics (Bangkok) we can find a battery pack for it today.

Checked in to the hotel after midnight last night, but were “upgraded” to a superior deluxe room which had been inhabited by tobacco breathing dragons. My lungs attempted to shut down, and so we traipsed back to the lobby to switch rooms. Once the guy with out bags finally found us in the new room, it was well past 1am. At that point I was too tired to sleep, so I considered going for a walk, but settled for a wee nightcap of duty free Baileys and Cointreau.

One small tip for anyone coming to Bangkok. Read an up to date guide book. The taxi fare from the airport is now 900baht, not 2-300 that it says in the guide book.

Off to breakfast now, and then heading to the sky train for a trip to the weekend markets. Apparently they sell live animals, and conditions are pretty revolting, but if I can avoid that bit I can pretend it’s not happening.

So I’ll leave you with something amusing to while away the hours. It involves endless timewasting, and a very cute bunny.

Here.

And speaking of bunnies - here is some news I found rather heartening. Australian scientists are working on a variant of the myxo virus that causes infertility instead of a slow painful death. Go Aussie!

Dad’s Christmas pressie.

When he was in hospital in Bangkok, about to have surgery under a general anaesthetic, Adam and I sent him flowers.  I hadn’t thought what we would write on the card, so when the florist asked, I got a bit flustered, and this was what I said.

Dad was chuffed.  He had never been sent flowers before, and he kept the card like a prized possession, and showed us when he got home.  So I figured a little subversive cross stitch was in order.  One of my better gifts…..

BTW.  Keen eyes will notice that the word “don’t” isn’t centred correctly.  Built in irony.

And tomorrow, the plane that interrupts your conversation in Sydney’s inner west around 5.10pm will be carrying me and my sweetie off to Bangkok to start out honeymoon.  Wish us luck.

I know I announced a little while ago that the bunnycam was back, but within about 24hrs, one of the little rotters sabotaged it.  It took me ages to get the right cable (no, you can’t splice a rabbited firewire cable), and now, finally, Live Nude Buns on the web is back. 

Emma and I spent today doing a yarn shop crawl, and choosing a project for the plane. Previously I’d looked online to find out whether or not knitting is prohibited on planes leaving Sydney Airport. Mijal has flown out of Sydney with knitting in her carry on luggage, and had no problems. I, on the other hand, am a magnet for security at airports, and if there is a chance of having my knitting taken away, it will happen to me.

So I’ve picked a project, bought yarn, and I’m ready to go. And then I found this. Note page 3 -

DON’T:
1 Make jokes about bombs or security threats.
This is now a criminal offence.
2 Pack sharp objects such as knives, scissors,
corkscrews, or knitting needles in your hand luggage.
3 Refuse screening.
4 Leave your hand luggage unattended at any time.
5 Refuse random explosive trace detection (ETD)
screening if you are asked to participate.

How rude.

Small problem with out hosting company not being overjoyed about the growing popularity of my blog. Apparently, more traffic = more downloads, and once we went more than 15% over our bandwidth limit for the month, we got shut out.

So we gave them more money, and we have double the bandwidth for the next 12 months. I am going to have to host my images somewhere else in future though - especially for picture heavy posts like the Nundle trip.

Glad to be back, but a little stressed - in the next 2 days I have to pack, tidy and clean the house for the wonderful Damian who is housesitting for us, sort out a knitting project for the plane/train/bus, and sort out what is going on with my lungs. Got a doctors appointment at lunchtime today to review my asthma treatment plan, and then a wee yarn crawl with the lovely Emma.

We tried bonding Custard With Blueberry and Monkey, but Custard ended up with a torn ear, and I am loathe to put him under that pressure again, but I also hate the thought of him being lonely. Grasshopper is mending well, and hopefully will be able to join the general population in the condo when we return from Vietnam.

Paris Hilton will celebrate New Years Eve in Sydney.

James Brown is dead at 73.

Though I’ve never been one for raving about musicians, this is one man that I have loved since childhood. The Godfather of Soul was a living legend to me, particularly after The Blues Brothers became one of my favourite movies.

He was also very politically outspoken - he once said that “When you hate, you blind yourself. When you hate, you can’t communicate.” He lived hard, and was generally known as a drug user and heavy drinker, but his charitable and political side is less well known.

I’m going to turn up the stereo, and blast out a tribute to the MAN.

I’ve been struggling a little with trip planning - trying to convert Vietnamese Dong into Australian dollars has been doing my head in. There are around 12,900 Dong to the Australian Dollar, so even though 200,000 Dong sounds like a lot of money for accommodation at the Banh Ma National Park, it’s really only about $15 in aussie beer vouchers, and a small price to pay for a chance to see endangered primates.

If you have the good fortune to be running Os 10.4, then you’ll already know what a widget is. And you probably have the default currency converter installed. But it has never been to Vietnam, and will only convert one currency at a time. This widget will convert multiple currencies, and has a huge range available (including legacy European currencies). So next time I need to know whether I’ll be paying more in US dollars, or if it would be cheaper to pay in Dong, I won’t have to take off my shoes to do the maths!

Click Here for the rest of the Alphabet.

I finally finished and blocked Mum’s Swallowtail, and here it is. Nineteen repeats of the budding lace instead of fourteen, and it is big enough to sit nicely on her shoulders.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day.

Today was Kerry’s birthday, so we joined her and Adam in Kangaroo Valley for a day of paddling on the river. A little more active than my usual Christmas Eve activities, but now that I’m a Nettle I think I’d better get used to it.
We had a lovely day, Bev packed a great lunch which we had on the river, and we even had cake - and tea, which Adam cooked up on his camping stove.

Unfortunately the camera was in the barrel to stay dry, so no photographic evidence, but we saw about 4 different varieties of gorgeous reptiles, heaps of ducks, ducklings, cormorants, plovers, some kind of wading bird, a kingfisher, a few different kinds of very tiny (and very cute) birdies, and on the way home, Bev skillfully avoided hitting a pair of kangaroos with a deathwish.

And on friday, I got new shoes.

Crocs Mary Janes. A few more pairs of these (black, lime green) and my collection is almost complete.

I had my last day at MacMedic yesterday (and Emma’s new iPod showed up finally). We had a Christmas party, and I celebrated a very positive interview with my “last ditch” job prospect. They offered me more money than I was originally going to ask for, and I’m going in to meet the other partner on wednesday.

And of course, the google Australia homepage has a festive image of knitting kangaroos. What could be more perfect?

Warning - I am under the influence of mood altering drugs.

Pink has released a video for Peta asking people to boycott Australian wool because of cruelty in the wool industry.

I still buy Australian wool, but this does give me pause.  Mulesing is done for the long term health of the sheep, but is only necessary because of selectively breeding for sheep that have more skin than they need to cover their bodies.  More skin = more wool, hence the distinctive “collar” of the merino sheep.  Unfortunately this loose skin can trap feces and make the sheep vulnerable to fly strike. 

Fly strike in a sheep can go undetected for a very long time, and will often kill an animal before it is detected, especially if the sheep has a long fleece.

There are alternatives to mulesing, and there are anesthetics that can be used to ease the considerable pain.  These options have not been explored, and I am not above putting a little pressure on the decision makers to consider more humane alternatives.

Read no further if you want to keep buying Australian wool without concern for the creatures that grew your yarn.  While I would grant that prevention of a slow death is a laudable aim, I must question the methods.

Mulesing involves pinching a handful of skin above the vent, at the base of the spine, and using a razor sharp knife to remove the excess skin.  The animals are given no pain relief, and are left to heal naturally.

I didn’t think much about this until I took a closer look at one of the pictures I took on monday.  Here is a pic I took of the sheep on the road, in a slightly larger size.  If you look closely, you can see that these sheep have been mutilated, many are still showing the raw pink scar tissue.  The pictures aren’t too disturbing for those of weak stomachs, but I was surprised that I didn’t see this yesterday, but I did today.

We have travel insurance (thank goodness we applied for that before my lungs went haywire), we have visas (thanks to Mum for both), and as soon as we have tickets we’ll be ready to start packing.

Grasshopper is moving around a little better today, probably because of the pain meds, and he is eating well. I had an email back from the new vet, and we’ll continue to keep a close eye on him this week.

My new “unvented” stitch pattern is a winner, and I have finished the first hat (finally got the degreases working satisfactorily), and am well on my way to completing the second, proof of concept hat. I’ll write up the pattern, and hopefully someone will like it enough to knit it.

Next, to research what I can take on the plane. It’s not a terribly long flight, but I am a bit anxious about not being able to knit on the plane. I am also starting to think about travel knitting. I’ll need something lightweight, something a little bit interesting but not too over the top challenging. I’m thinking lace, because a big project can still travel light, and provide a few good solid weeks of knitting, and something not too furry in case the weather is warmish. We’re scheduled for a mild winter, a little like a Sydney spring, but there could be some warm weather at some point.

Some warm weather would be nice. I need to keep absorbing the rays

Last night, everybunny was fine. This morning, Grasshopper (our special needs child) wasn’t putting any weight on his left rear leg. I rang Matthew the wonder vet, but he was on day leave. Damn. I had visions of the day we lost Rhubarb, when a suburban vet sent us home without painkillers, and my precious boy died in a lot of pain. Vets are wonderful, and it is a tough job with not much reward, but bunnies need a vet with knowledge about bunny medicine, and a vet that has 20 years of experience treating dogs and cats is very unlikely to “get it”.

Then I remembered Dr David Vella. He’s an “exotics” vet, and has a particular interest in rabbits. I’ve heard good things about him, and I am so glad I thought of him today. He’s never met a European Brown Hare before, and was absolutely rapt to meet His Chops.

David gave him some opiates, and we saw a relaxed Grasshopper for the first time ever. Examining him was hard without a sedative, but x-rays without a sedative would never be possible. During the examination, I was covered in fur, and my lungs stopped taking in oxygen. I had a Ventolin with me, and went out in to the waiting room for some fresh air. Thirty minutes later, I had taken about 50 puffs of Ventolin, and still couldn’t breathe. I was considering calling an ambulance when the vet came back with Grasshopper, who was starting to wake up.

The good news was, his bones are in perfect condition. His teeth (which can be a problem with pet rabbits), are in superb condition. And I think the vet has a little crush on him.

We put the boys in the car, and I rang my GP, who recommended a trip to hospital for the human. We came home, gave Grasshopper his pain meds and set him up in a convalescent home, and Mark dropped me up at Ryde Hospital. Apparently Asthma is one of those things that they make a fuss about, so I saw a Dr. pretty quickly. By that stage I was breathing pretty well, and they put me on a nebuliser for a while. Then they gave me steroids, and made me hang around for an hour, after which time I was sent home with some meds, and a recommendation to find a home for the hare.

Not likely.

According to an article published in the British Medical Journal (abstract here), kids who had a high IQ when tested at age 10 were more likely to be vegetarian as adults.

But here’s the thing. 33.6% of the test group claimed to be vegetarian, but also said they ate fish or chicken. Vegetarians and vegans accounted for 4.5% of the subjects. Apparently they included the fish and chippocrites in the “vegetarian” group.

The study lumps them both together - claiming to be a vegetarian (or vegan), while having no concept of the difference between an animal and a plant doesn’t disqualify you from a high IQ.

I think they need to review the test.

Apparently David wants me to put the essay up here, so he can link to it. I think it might be an etiquette thing. Like I would understand….

Anyway, here it is.

It’s been two days of adventure, and I am working on the blog entries.

In the meantime, here is a cute bunny picture.