Home Again, Home Again

The trip is complete and I'm back on my couch with Duke snoring at my side. I'm fatigued (like that's different from usual) but it's a good fatigue - lack of sleep offset by lots of laughter and giggling. A pleasant time was had by all. I highly recommend Holland MI as a vacation spot - very walkable downtown, lots of interesting shops, good food, and live music on the streets in summer evenings. For wintertime visitors: the downtown sidewalks are heated. No kidding - 58 miles of underground piping pump warm water to keep the sidewalks clear. There are two bookstores downtown, Lake Macatawa and Lake Michigan to the west, and three yarn shops that we know of in town - what more can be asked? (And yes, Virginia, there are wooden shoe factories.)

I met Galina Khmeleva, the queen of Orenburg gossamer shawls, at the festival. I had started an Orenburg warm shawl last week, in part because the construction technique is so interesting and I needed the mental challenge, and in part because they are irresistibly beautiful - I had never dreamed I would find her in Allegan. She's charming and enthusiastic; her tenacity resurrected the art of Orenburg knitting from certain oblivion following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Could anyone ask for a better epitaph, than to have kept a folk tradition from dying out?

Once the initial apprehension was gone, my blood pressure settled down and was reasonable during the entire trip. I am retaining the increased dose of Hydralazine just to be sure that it stays reasonable. Might as well enjoy life, after all, or there's not much point to hanging around ...