A present filled day

Behold my Birthday Presents! The “Synecdoche” purse was a real surprise, made for me by Rebecca. At least ten years ago, she purchased a book on this particular South American style of crocheting, and promised to make me something from it. I admired this purse, and confidently expected it any day. She made herself a coin purse, and decided that this type of crocheting was very tough, and hard on the wrist as it is so tightly done, and she was sore after just that small project. The resulting material is quite dense, and perfect for purselike things. But there was no duck purse for me. I occasionally nagged her about it, as I really did want a duck purse like that, but to no avail. Then, recently, she made herself an ipod case in this sort of work, with ducks on it even! I asked if it was for me, and she patiently pointed out that I did not have an ipod, so of course not. So when I opened my present, I was totally surprised and quite happy. I wore my new purse with pride to the opera yesterday. I am sure it was the cynosure of all eyes.
I received a number of lovely and amusing presents from my friend Sabine in Berlin, and they were quite the success at the party. She sent some wonderful bamboo yarn from her hometown, and the aunties were incredulous at the idea of yarn made of bamboo. The thing that was most popular, I think was the Teewurst Tee (tea). Sabine tells me that there is a real sort of German wurst, similar to liverwurst, called Teewurst, so this packet of tea, done up to look just like the actual sausage, was a good joke. I am looking forward to drinking the tea, but that will have to wait a while so I can continue enjoying the packet. The blue and yellow thing in front is a Japanese egg mold. You boil the egg and then squash it into the requisite shape in the mold. Kawaii! The Japanese kitchenware section of Uwajimaya is often a rather mysterious place. Rachael got me a nice ricer from the American kitchenware store. Probably the most astonishing of all, however was Ana’s present, the lovely shawl which I showed you on an earlier post, never dreaming at the time, that it could be a present or me! I wore that to the opera too! So this time I was all warm and comfy.