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I saw this over at Male Librarian Centerfold (scroll down to April 22 and read his friends comment) and it's so disturbing. In a so sad but I'm laughing my butt off kind of way. Be sure to check out the Every Day Wear section.
did you hear that? That was the sound of 1.15 million people walking past your door. Apparently the President got the message because as of today the Justice Department has been told to back off their request for the medical records of women who have had abortions. But, that of course, is only part of the issue. The fight for women's rights and women's lives is far from over and will, regrettably, be one of those things that we must always be vigilant about. Regardless of your stance on abortion, women's rights should be of concern to you. Millions of women worldwide do not have access to healthcare for themselves or their children; are denied birth control or are forced to pay for birth control because their health insurance will not cover it --the same health insurance which covers Viagra; and many, many more issues facing women that the Bush administration has ended, cut funding to, changed, and screwed in every way possible. See this story about a report on the Bush administration done by the National Women's Law Center. As a sign at the March said "If you're not OUTRAGED, you're not paying attention". Having said that and moving off the soapbox - The March on Sunday was incredible and being able to be part of what is being called the largest march on Washington in history was awesome. I was really struck by the diversity of people who came to Washington - all ages, races, nationalities (over 60 countries!), sexual orientation, men, women, and children. And tons of celebrities - Whoopi, Lynda Carter, Susan Sarandon, Tyne Daly, Richard North Patterson, Kathleen Turner, and my 2 favorites - Hillary Clinton and Moby! Hillary Clinton rocks! Hillary for President! My sister and I can't wait for her to run for President and given the crowd reaction on Sunday, neither can a lot of other people. As for Moby - I just think he's hot. Well, I do. drool.
Not a whole lot of pics from the March - I couldn't get a shot of the crowd that would have done it justice. Here's Cathy, Julie & Sage before the March
and a crowd shot 
.
Cat, Julie, Sage, and I are headed to Washington DC for the March for Women this Sunday. It's going to be a whirlwind kind of trip. We leave tonight on the ACLU bus at 10pm and get back home at 7am Monday morning. The March is expecting about 1 million women and if that doesn't send a message to Mr. President nothing will. The four of us are planning on running around DC tomorrow trying to get in all the sights since none of us have been there before, and then it's early to bed. Cat and I are volunteering with the ACLU on Sunday morning and we have to be at the National Mall at 9am. I know that doesn't seem too early but we have to drop our luggage off at the bus and the only time we are allowed to do that is between 6 and 7am. Yikes! I'm tired just thinking about the lack of sleep but I'm really excited about the March. Info and huge pictures next week!
After 2 days in Valencia we headed east towards Toledo. In Spain the government has converted historic building into Paradores or hotels. On the way to Toledo we spent the night in a castle which was really awesome. This is the room, (I uploaded the wrong picture and now typepad has a problem and I can't fix it so, in the meantime, use your imagination) or at least the sitting area and that's my friend Linda opening the nightly bottle of wine. You may not be able to tell but she's actually attempting to get the cork out with a small knife. We kept forgetting to buy a bottle opener so we basically took turns hacking the cork to pieces. Sad really. And a pic of the bathroom, View image. The weird thing about the bathroom was that the shower was out next to the sinks with no privacy whatsoever but the toilet was in a room all its own. The castle was in a little town called Alarcon and after we checked in we decided to walk around town. So we're on our way back to the Castle when we hear that high pitched sound that cats make when they're fighting. We keep walking and we get a little further up the street where there is an alley and in the alley are what seemed like a hundred cats but was probably more like 20. I started running. I don't hate cats but I'm really allergic to them and cats always seem like they're plotting against you, so I can handle about 2 cats in one place before I start to get freaked. Ever since I read that they will eat you if you happen to die around them and if you watch CSI, ya know what I'm talking about, I've been a little nervous. Since I'm allergic, 1 cat makes me really miserable and I'd rather not take any chances around 20. Of course, most of my friends have cats and I love your cats - truly, I do. Please don't let them eat me.
Yeah, I know, I'm covering Spain very slowly. Let's just pretend we're on Spanish time here, which moves, if you don't know, very slowly. As an uptight, impatient Yank - I don't do slow very well. The Spaniards like to drag the day out by going to work until about 1ish, have a 3 hour lunch break, go back to work until 8ish and finish off with dinner at 10. Um, no. If I had a 3 hour break in the middle of my day I would have big problems going back to work after that - especially on 75 degree days like today.
After Barcelona, we drove south to Valencia. It was the middle of their big pre-Easter festival Las Fallas. The highlight is that each area of Valencia spend weeks creating paper mache scultptures that are burned on the last day of the festival. Not really sure what it's all about but the sculptures are cool and you can see some here: View image, View image, View image. Besides Las Fallas there was not a whole lot happening in Valencia. We went to a large produce and fish market that had tons of fruit (Valencia is known for their oranges for a reason) and lots of octupus, squid, and one of the few things I refuse to eat - eels. They sell them live. Yes, live! A big glass tank filled with eels for the choosing. I think I'll pass. Next stop - Alarcon. The city of cats. Aachoo!
First, apologies to Libby. I haven't been paying enough attention to the blog lately and totally missed your comment last week. Have you tried the absinthe yet? I didn't try any in Spain - I did see a bottle in a grocery store but I totally chickened out on buying it. I did try a strange combo over the weekend - a shot of spearmint schnapps and whiskey mixed together. I thought it was simply schnapps but my sister informed me the next day that it was the combo. Which goes along way to explain why after 2 shots of those I was really looped. Ok, it might have had something to do with the wine, beer, and tequila shot I had before that. Naah, I'm blaming it on the whiskey. My siblings are bad influences. But, I love them anyway - as I apparently told them repeatedly following the spearmint/whiskey shots. I don't drink that much anymore (no, really) and hate, hate, the hangover thing. I was feeling it 2 days later. Sooo, how would absinthe be worse then that? I'll check the comments more often and I've got to hop back over to Libby's and finish reading about Mexico. It sounds like she might know a little about the 2 day hangover thing. ;-) Dirty Monkey's!!!
I've got the picture thing worked out. I think. Scroll down to April 1 - Barcelona and check it out. Remember, they may seem like an April Fool's joke but they really aren't!
I haven't gotten around to fixing or attempting to fix the photo issue. After spending last week and what there has been of this week, dealing with computer issues at work I just can not deal with the photo thing. From a downed server (which went down for a week because our tech guy decided to put a new processer (have no idea what it is or what it's for) on our server but didn't bother to read the instructions on how to do so) to having lost all the files on said server, which took us down for another 2 days while they tried to retrieve the files, to the piece d'resistance - a major virus which apparently cannot be detected by Norton Antivirus. Yes, ain't technology great! Aaargh!
Ann Arbor, on the other hand, was great. The yarn shops we visited (Flying Sheep and I forget the name of the other one) were ok but I didn't buy anything. Neither had the double pointed needles I needed. Is everyone making the bucket hat? Is that why all the stores are out of #7's? Zingerman's was super busy and we waited in line for over an hour but it was worth it. Turns out that this weekend was Hash Bash in A2. For those of you who don't know what Hash Bash is - everyone spends the weekend smoking pot and shopping for paraphernalia as a protest to make drugs legal. Personally, I find it just plain annoying to deal with stoned college students. Anyway, as usual, the sandwiches were great at Zingerman's but they are huge and fill you up for about a day and a half. Which may be why all the stoners go there.
Movie recommendation - Pieces of April. Great cast - Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt, Jack from Will & Grace (very creepy), and Katie Holmes. Basically the story of a terminally ill mother who has a bad relationship with her daughter. The daughter invites the family for Thanksgiving and the mother expects all to go wrong. I know that sounds dreary but it's not.
Well, I've spent the past couple of days trying to get pictures to turn out right in a new post but no matter what I try I end up with giant pics in the middle of the post instead of a view image link. So until I figure that out there will be no Spain pics. Totally frustrating.
So let's talk about knitting - you may remember that I was going to work on a bucket hat while on vacation. That didn't work out. The day before I left on vacation I realized I didn't have the right size needles so I went to the yarn shop and they were out of that size. I also needed stitch markers but couldn't find those either. When I asked about stitch markers the employee gave me a blank look and said "Stitch markers?" She didn't know what I was talking about and this is someone who has worked at this store for quite a while. Very strange! So, instead of the bucket hat I started working on the Lily Bag using Cascade 220 yarn in color 9414 which you can't really tell from the picture, is a blue and grey varigated yarn. That was going along nicely until I realized that I had some how turned it inside out and that the stitches were now messed up. So I'm in the process of correcting that little situation. Tomorrow my friend Paige and I are going to Ann Arbor, about an hour from here, to hit yarn shops (one can never have too much yarn or too many projects - when is that next stash swap?) book stores (again no such thing as too much) and Zingerman's, which has the best sandwiches on the planet.Everyone have a great weekend and hopefully, I'll get pictures up soon.
While in Spain we visited Barcelona, Valencia, Alarcon, Toledo and Madrid. We started out in Barcelona which is this great, fairly small city with a interesting gothic quarter - Barri Gotic. We stayed at a bed & breakfast, which was really a 4 bedroom apartment, run by a lady named Natalia. The B&B was located in the Barri Gotic and really perfect for hitting all the tourist spots. It was super clean and very nice. Not so perfect was the lack of an elevator since the apt. was on the seventh floor. I've really got to learn to pack lighter! Barcelona or Barthelona as the locals pronounce it, is all about the architecture. Gaudi, Gaudi, and more Gaudi. Which is really cool because his stuff is so out there and interesting. The Gaudi stuff includes Parc Guell's famous Gaudi dragon (View image), Casa Botin(View image), Casa Mila (View image), which is probably the most famous of Gaudi's buildings, and La Sagrada Familia (View image), the church that they say won't be finished until 2050!
Hope the pictures look ok on your computers. If not, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll assume they're fine and inundate you with more from Spain soon!
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