Home again, Home again

I've actually been home since Monday night. I have a 5 pm train out of Philly. I take back what I said about it being a civilized way to travel. The train randomly stopped on the tracks out of Penn Station and south of New Rochelle. With no explanation offered. Well, after we'd been sitting there a while, a guy came on the loudspeaker and said something obscure about letting another train go east before we continued north. Anyway, we were supposed to get back to my desired station at 8:19 and didn't get in until 9, which made for a late night.
I took some time to read the plaque explaining the sculpture in the freaky big room at the convention center. (You probably can't read that.) It was all about how the rail shapes of the sculpture (it did remind me of a roller coaster) was meant to honor the original use of Reading Terminal as a train station. And there was stuff about glass forms that represented various constellations. So I found Orion, which is my favorite constellation because I can always find it in the sky. I actually think the dippers are a little tricky. So I suppose I developed more of an appreciation for what was going on. However, my mom and brother had the same reaction to the room and the stuff hanging from the ceiling that I did, so I'm glad to know I'm not alone in my "what the heck?" reaction.
Speaking of them, we had a nice visit. The food at the Hard Rock was fine. There was a bit of shocking moment when the music stopped and this guy started yelling for everyone's attention. But it turned out to just be the birthday for the 8 year old boy at the next table--so everyone in the restaurant yelled "happy birthday" and we got back to our meal.
Oh, and remember that wine the other night? Yeah, well, as I was carrying it back to my room I spilled some on my superhero sweater. Aaarrgh! I rinsed it with cold water as soon as I got in the room, so I think it survived. I think I'll wash it in the normal manner before I start busting out the Wine Out or other extreme measures.
As for knitting. I moved along on the Arrrgyle Socks much faster than I expected. What with how fiddly they are and on US1 needles and all. But I suppose this is the third time I've attempted them (kept calculating an incorrect number of stitches to cast on. Yeah, is was fun creating the chart in excel 3 times, why do you ask?) so I guess I've got the hand of it. When I hit the eyes I took a moment to count--17 bobbins in play. No wonder they kept getting tangled. It wasn't so bad. I actually made it passed the nose and was trying to figure out how to manipulate the yarn for the mouth when I stopped working on them.
I went to a number of sessions on the first floor of the convention center on Monday. As soon as I came down the escalator I was greeted by this:
Which got another "what in the world" reaction from me. Can you tell I'm not into the modern art so much? In case you can't make it out, I took a close up. Yeah, bowls and cups and little Chinese restaurant spoons. They are all stacked under an set of escalators and there are numerous "do not touch" signs around it. Which of course made me want to touch it, but I didn't.
At least the sessions made more sense than the art.
I finished the lettering for "ravelry" on my bag on the train ride home. So I can safely say it took about 7 hours. Wheeee. No picture because I haven't taken one, and don't you think this post has enough pictures as it is? I got the "a" in my ID done last night while I was watching "Enchanted". It's a Disney movie about a cartoon princess who is sent to NY City but retains her bubbly personality. It was so preposterous it was good. But then I looked down and realized I had managed to mess the "a" up. Rather than dealing with it, I went to bed. Tonight I yanked it out, and rather than redoing it, I came up to drop all my pictures into my posts.
Well, the bag was looking good.
I guess that's about it for now. I'm sure there was other stuff I was going to tell you about my trip, but it escapes me at the moment. Maybe I'll go work on that "a" now, maybe I'll clean the kitchen. Or maybe I'll just flop into bed.