Thank You, Mr. Franklin

Another post, hopefully my last, without any pictures. The new computer, which was supposed to be ready yesterday or today, should now be ready by Thursday or Friday. Here's hoping. I wanted to write about the beauty of the city (that's San Francisco to you East Coasters,) my walk into downtown Mill Valley and my first drive into the city, but I'll save that until I can post the pics. I got a beauty of the bridge when we were at the Bay Area Discovery Museum last week and from my Grandma's balcony. She LOVED her Midwest Moonlight scarf, BTW.

Instead I'd like to tell you about an amazing discovery I made today. You can call it official reason #4, if you will. (See my June 3 post 10 Reasons to Look Forward to the Move for reasons 1 -3.) As someone astutely pointed out, I may look like an American and I may talk like an American but after 10 years abroad I'm not REALLY an American anymore. So the mind is a bit Swiss cheesed about certain things American. Which is a long winded way of getting to the point. Today I got my Marin County Public Library card! Now you may laugh, but in the last 10 years I haven't gotten to read a book for free, unless it was a hand off from my mom or from my aunt when they were visiting Israel. And I had to work for those books from AB, I had to go all the way down to Eilat to get them (of course AB and UM spoiled me while I was there, but that's beside the point!) Oh, and that one Jeeves book from my friend the Hi-Jinx junkie. And did you know that in Marin County the limit is 50 books. 50 BOOKS people. Insane! Oh ya, and I can get to the card catalog on-line! And if a book isn't in my local branch (I consider any of the 3 that aren't a hassle to drive to local) I can have it sent to the branch I want for just $.50. Man, America IS great! Of course, I will still buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because I don't have the patience to go on a wait list and I can give it Sammy when it's done.

So what did I get? Well, 3 novels which I would have bought and then given away to a friend or gotten a pittance for at the used book store: Philippa Gregory's Virgin Earth and her NEW book The Boleyn Inheritance as well as one of my favorite, laugh out loud, chick lit writers Sophie Kinsella's long awaited book Shopaholic and Baby. And even better, I got KNITTING BOOKS! Some I might never have bought, thus never have read, and some I have been thinking about buying and can now have a proper look-see before I plunk down my hard earned (trust me it was HARD earned) cash. Like Amy Singer's No Sheep for You (with Barbara Gregory's Bacardi as the main draw,) and Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature.

Even though I haven't even finished half of Arietta's back, I have already queued up Bacardi just from seeing the picture! And I really like Barbara; because she seems really nice, complimented my Arietta color scheme and asked me to be her Ravelry friend, oh, and she said I could use her picture! Now I know that sounds hokey, like I am star struck, and maybe I am.

As for Ravelry, aka My Newest Addiction, words cannot express how I feel for the place. I spend the day jonesing for a fix, I must check in every couple of hours. Don't ask me why. All I can say is my mom has forbidden me to use the *R* word in her presence and I am in total stealth mode every time I log in. If you haven't checked it out, DO. Join the waiting list if you can. IT IS WORTH IT! As I said to fellow Ravelry member and Israeli Knitting Buddy Ayelet: "Hello, my name is Jessica, and I am an addict." 'Nough said

Of course, the true highlight of the day was a little KIP out at Peet's in Greenbrae. Suckin' down the iced caffeine delights, soaking in the CA sunshine and working on Arietta. Does it get any better?