putting the knit in shizknitz

Typical vacations will retreat me into a type of panic - being away from internet, email and usually I will go to extremes to stay connected (Kinkos is my international friend). Perhaps it is the peacefulness of this place, or the fact that everything here is so down to earth, but I haven’t been as affected by the magnetism of getting online. It’s not even that I don’t have access - my boyfriend has a Treo 600 and the place we’re staying has cable modem.

This evening is probably the first time since we’ve been here that we haven’t been running around, eating or catching up on sleep which is my excuse for not posting anything so far. There is so much to say, and so many beautiful photos I have taken. I’ll backtrack later, but for now, I’ll give you a quick review of today

8 AM - Wake up…. yawn
9:45 AM - arrive at Pier 8, for our reserved tickets onboard the Star of Honolulu for some whale watching! The first interesting thing was that everyone at the ticket counter were Japanese, and every sign onboard the vessel were written in both English and Japanese. In fact, there was a J interpreter who translated everything into J. This really shows the amount of J tourists onboard this trip. We started by walking around the decks, followed by a nice lunch brunch. Towards the end of the trip we had some whale sightings!!
1:20 PM - stop at the dock, fed some gorgeous fish in the bay, walked downtown Honolulu (the historical district)
4 PM - Stop at Cold Stones for some hella good ice cream.
6 PM - Walk to the neighborhood Weight Watchers, as a good WW should, especially after gorging in ice cream.
8:30 PM - rotating Sushi, my favorite scallops and spicy tuna, yum!
9:20 PM - buying Aloe for all of my sunburns, ALL over my body…. I’m burnt krisp!!!! Who knew that whale watching was so exposing to the sun!

Stay Tuned for hopefully-soon updates!

Sniff… sniff… cough… countdown is now less than 1 day! I’m leaving work early today, getting my nails done, picking up …. well I can’t tell you this part because that’ll ruin a surprise for some readers! Hope to post some pics soon…..

Here’s my knitting project for the plane, its using Rowan Silk Haze in Majestic (their new color!)

Okay, so Christian inspired me to finish my 100 Random Things. This was originally going to be an “About” page, but what better kind of page is there? Here are 100 Random Things About Shiz that not even some of my closest friends know…..

Most of us are familiar with Little.Yellow.Different. (a good analogy would be - LYD::Shizknitz like Friends::The Littlest Groom) but I just came across his “The Best of LYD” and read the stories about his Mom, and couldn’t stop laughing.

This is me, last night. I was “practicing” talking to fishies.

I love mexican food. In fact, in my past life I was probably a member of the Tortilla Eating Journals. Even with all of the recent changes to my eating habits, one thing that I have not been able to give up is Mexican Food, and chances are, I probably never will.

Back home, there’s this place called Javier’s which I grew up on - we used to go once a week. I remember losing one of my last baby teeth on one of those tacos. When I moved to LA, I was afraid that I would never find a worthy substitute.

Lo and behold, a few years ago some friends introduced me to a place called Paco’s Tacos. OH. MY. GOD. The food is incredible! The salsa and chips are incredible! (and in fact, that mexican restaurant scene in Jerry Maguire? It was shot there) I still go about once a week and have gone three nights in a row before. Oscar, Paco’s son who works there, is a flirtatious and friendly man, always trying to remember your name. He tries so hard to remember “Tienshiao” - its a good thing he thinks my name is “Lisa” (my name is typically too complicated for these food places, so I use my sister’s name; in irony, my sister doesn’t use her name in food places because she complains its too common). To boot, they give the Spi-C Mints at the end, which are my absolute favorite!! My regular items? Guacamole, Abondigas Soup (no meatballs), flour tortillas, beef tacos no cheese, and of course, there’s no better way to stress eat than Chips and Salsa with beans.

Unfortunately last night, God was trying to send me a message not to eat there - and for the first time in all the years eating there, I got sick. Bleah. I do still recommend eating there

So someone on my staff today says, “a girlfriend is a full-time job”. Not that I particularly know, considering I’ve never had a girlfriend, but I have had boyfriends and I haven’t really considered that to be a “full-time job”. Perhaps a “lifestyle”, but never anything more than that. There’s been times where I’ve liked my job more than the boyfriend, but that’s another story.

There’s that old saying about “love shouldn’t be such hard work”, and “you have to work to make a relationship work” but a wise old man recently let me in on the *real* secret: “a successful relationship is when you feel good about you when you are with the other person”. As obvious as it sounds, it was a resounding, thought provoking statement.

The countdown begins!! TWO WEEKS until paradise!!
In the meantime, here’s another quiz.

Take the quiz.

Me:
You are bamboo. Warm, cozy, and thoughtful, you take your time and enjoy how things feel, smell, and taste. You love the craft and beauty of traditional things, and you value the comfort and experience of knitting as much as the results. But while you are reveling in your warm cozies, don’t get stuck. Warm is wonderful, but so is the whole wide world!

brought to you by Quizilla

I went to Yoga in the first time in about 6 months. Let’s face it, I haven’t been regularly going to the gym since September. I’m sure that has some association with the *W* issue. I stopped going to yoga before the gym entirely - I think I got bored, or it became a “chore” rather than something I enjoyed. Either way, I dusted off my yoga bag (which I love, I got the sushi one) and headed out this morning.

This was a new instructor, one that I wasn’t used to. As we started our session, I realized that this was over a year since I first tried Yoga. I’ll never forget my first attempt - I signed up for a $90, 10 week session through Culver City Adult School. Parking was impossible (worse than the Marina Del Rey Costco on a Saturday) and most of the people in the class were older and out of shape which made me feel at ease - until it started. It was this horrible feeling which accentuated my nervousness about being new and of course, my weight (the *W*).

I was okay with the first few poses - lay on your back, bring your knee to your chest, but then it became more intense. Child’s pose, which requires you to sit on your knees (which is a difficult task to do properly when you weigh a significant amount), put your forehead to the ground, and relax your arms to your sides and BREATHE. Okay, this pose did not work for me with all this *W*. First, when I sat on my knees there was so much, well, meat on my thighs and calves that I couldn’t sit down low enough. Then, bending down to put your head on the ground required folding of all the fat around my waist line. As I recalled to my coworkers the next day (as I was trying to be humorous, but serious at the same time) it is next to impossible to fold over all the fat that is already rolled up when you are standing. I went on about how they needed to have “overweight yoga” classes, where they taught you modified positions for the “curvier” people. I eventually modified this position by spreading my knees apart to give room for my belly to fit as I bent over.

Shoulder stance was a worse story - if you don’t know what this is, you are laying flat on your back, then roll your legs over your head until you are on your shoulders, legs over your head and you are supporting your body with your elbows on the ground and hand on your lower back. Whew! Okay when you weigh almost 190 pounds, this is just not possible. I had no strength in my abdomen (what is that? I couldn’t even find it!) or anywhere to even bring my legs over myself like that. I went home that night and had my boyfriend help me hold my legs as I practiced - but it was absolutely embarrassing. All these people twice my age were able to flip themselves over as I sat struggling in mid-air like a turtle stuck on its shell.

So today, not that I’ve lost that much weight since 6 months ago, but it *felt* different. Perhaps it was the new instructor, or that I’ve been away for so long, but all the poses felt good. All the stretches felt accentuated, and it seemed like my breaths were deeper and slower. Child’s pose? No problem. Shoulder stance? I could do all of the bells and whistles that accompanied it. It was one of the best feelings I’ve had in terms of the *W* issue in a long time.

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For those who don’t know me personally, I will soon put up details of my weight loss journey so you aren’t so totally confused, stay tuned! - Shiz

Home is where the heart is, or in my case, where my stuff is. I think many post-collegiate people are in the same boat as I am - you go away to college where you have your “home” address and your “school” address, then you move from apartment to apartment until you realize that your nomadic lifestyle has now become your way of life and new home. In the last 6.5 years I have moved 7 times, each time my mom swearing she will never help me move again.

Living all over the westside, I have become to know the hidden streets, shortcuts, when not to take certain routes and where the best restaurants are. This has, of course, made me feel as if I have embraced my community, the surroundings of where I live. I figure this is enhanced by the fact I walk my dog every morning and night, 365 days a year, pouring rain or brilliant SoCal sunshine - I can tell you which apartments have availabilities - 3, 2 or 1 bedroom(s), which corner dogs like to crap on, which buildings are newly renovated and that the people living on the first floor of that one corner apartment have Korean BBQ on Thursday nights.

Through all of these tid-bits, I have never embraced my neighborhood. Sure, I have walked to the Carniceria, the Liquor store, Palms Supermarket for the weekend taco stand and Cafe Brazil for rice and beans. But for the first time last night, I had a pondering thought about what my community really is about. I voted for the first time in my life - I took my yellow postcard, walked out the back of my complex, around the corner and into the auditorium of the elementary school which was filled with many other people from my neighborhood, all whom I don’t know. I realized that this yellow postcard put me in a certain “precinct” or area, and as we each individually walked up to the table, they would confirm their addresses - all street names and addresses so familiar to me because of my daily walks, but no faces were familiar to me. It struck me that if any of my neighbors from my complex were to have been there, that I wouldn’t even realize - because I don’t even know who my neighbors are.

I grew up in a time when all kids watched Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and the Mario Brothers were the guys down the street. We knew all of our neighbors, many of whom had lived there for most of their lives. Summers included lemonade stands, BBQ’s and pool parties - we knew all of the other family’s lives as well as they knew ours. As I get older, it makes me wonder if this feeling of detachment is because of my age, or where I live, or worse yet - a shift and change in society as a whole.

As I stood there in the voting booth (a flimsy standup thing with a plastic thing to give you privacy) exercising one of the most powerful privileges of being a citizen by making choices which will affect the future of Calif and my local community - that we each have a responsibility to what creates the dynamics of our neighborhood. To those voting next to me, I was another unknown face - or at best - the girl who walks her dog religiously. As I made my final selections on the ballot, I vowed that someday I will settle down in a place I call home, an address I can finally place on my checks and drivers license……. “won’t you be, my neighbor. Hello neighbor!”