Mad City Weekend

Friday afternoon, I rushed around like mad to get ready for our trip to Madison (aka Mad City). Porkchop picked me up after her work ended, and off we went.

The trip would have gone more smoothly if the following hadn't happened:

• Rain.


• Fog.


• Anxiety attacks caused by phlegm in my throat that made me feel like I was choking and unable to breathe. Porkchop was a good sport and drove 5 hours after I panicked 15 minutes into my shift.

We pulled into our friend Vivian's house around 12:30. We stayed up for a bit to chat and eat pizza.

Saturday
Our day didn't get started until after noon, when we tried to go to Café Soleil. After seeing the long wait for tables, we went next door to the Old Fashioned.

Here's Vivian with her liquid diet breakfast:



Coffee, bloody mary, PBR chaser, and water.

After eating, we hurried to Lakeside Fibers, my favorite yarn store ever. On the way, we saw lots of ice fishing.



See the dots on the lake in the photo? Those are ice fisher-people.

Lakeside has a mind-boggling selection, and they display their yarn in wood cabinets or glass cubbies...none of those horrible plastic or wire rack displays that lots of stores use. In one room, Lakeside even has an old water wheel with yarn displayed in it. I don't have a picture of that, but I do have one of Lakeside's wall o'Cascade. If you're into Cascade, you'll probably find just the right color here:



After I moved from Madison, Lakeside added a coffee bar to their store. Look at these people drinking coffee and eating and knitting and looking out over the lake towards Madison!



I am so envious!

But back to yarn. I picked up two skeins each of these:



The top one is Ruby River by Mountain Colors. I intend to make some Jaywalkers with this yarn. Yes! Socks!

The bottom one is Lipstick Lava by Dream in Color Yarn. I don't know what it will become just yet.

I am happy with this yarn and excited to finally try socks.

Okay, after the yarn shop, we stopped at a fun pet store down the block. After that, we went to Gail Ambrosius's chocolate shop. Yum! I enjoyed an espresso truffle and wished I could buy the whole shop.



Alas, we had to push on to another Chocolate Shoppe, where I picked up a scoop of Zanzibar Chocolate. Yum again!



You might think we concluded our day there, but no. That night, we went to one of the longest women's ice hockey games EVER! It went into the 7th period!!!

For those of you who don't know, ice hockey games have 3 periods. So, we saw 2+ hockey games, with full intermissions! Gah! The agony!



I was so glad to go home to Vivian's. Although, it was impressive to see the Harvard goalie stop 67 shots before letting one through.

Sunday
Sunday was supposed to start with breakfast somewhere, but we couldn't get up after our late night. We barely had enough time to grab a bagel on our way to Dodgeville, where Porkchop was playing with Vivian's team, the Wisconsin B club team (Porkchop used to play on the C team).

Technically, Porkchop shouldn't be playing hockey since she only has one kidney now. But, she rationalizes it away.

After 8 months of not playing, this is where Porkchop ended up:



The penalty box!

But, all in all, it was a good game, and the B team won 2-1.

After the game, we sped back to Missouri. Well, I sped as much as I could between having to make several pit stops for Porkchop, who had an icky stomach after the game.

Anyway, that's it!

Now I'm just sitting around and fondling my new yarn! Yay! Someday soon there will be knitting content here again!

Yikes!
Hello if you're here from the Isthmus Daily Page!

While I'm honored to have a link on such a fine website, I am also redfaced knowing that more than my usual dozen readers now know about my phlegm-induced anxiety attacks.

Cheers!