Here’s the set up:
One day, eight years ago, we moved into our house. To save a bundle of money we gutted the interior of a tear down and started over. After numerous delays we moved in – no kitchen, no carpet, one usable bathroom. It was a day from hell, working for a challenging boss, and our kids’ school principal died. We were distracted. Those are the reasons we forgot to go to the Eric Clapton concert for which we had tickets for goodness knows how long.
After that sad story you can understand the importance of attending Clapton this past Friday night. I nearly mortgaged the house to buy tickets for Bryant and Chuck. It was their Christmas gift. So pardon my annoyance over the couple seated, oh maybe 18 inches, in front of us. He – 60ish, a beer guzzling, big bellied balding guy. She – late 50’s, unnaturally dyed jet black hair and fire engine red, nicely manicured, fingernails, with an oh-so-small chip on the left index finger. How did I know there was a chip? Because her hand spent the entire concert rubbing his balding bean like a puppy’s belly, not quite in time to the music, less than a foot and a half from my eyes. On the more lively pieces she vigorously scratched behind his ears. He leaned into her hand just like Gracee does, when in my imagination, her doggy voice is saying "more, more, more." Was it a figment of my disgust, or was there a drift of dandruff accumulating on my knees?
I must be turning into a crotchety old witch, I thought. I looked at Chuck. He reassuringly whispered to me, "The only thing more obnoxious than her rubbing his head like that is the fact that he’s letting her do it. Oh, I get it," surmised my groom, "I bet their dog died and he won’t let her get another one." Being polite half Canadians, we didn’t say a darned thing, so it’s our own fault. When, suffering from scratching fatigue, however, she rested her elbow on my knee, and I did abruptly move away.
For the most part Eric Clapton and particularly his pianist, Chris Stainton, were beyond amazing and distracted us from the Incredible Itchies. It was a pleasure attending a concert of historic proportions with a truly appreciative 16-year-old. Bryant makes fun of me when I take photos of my knitting and he fully expected me too pull out a project mid-performance. "Here is my knitting at an Eric Clapton concert," he would mock me, in a voice that’s supposedly mine, sounding like nails on a chalk board. No, I didn’t embarrass him that way and that’s why my knitting bag was ransacked, when during the course of the evening, someone broke into our car.
So excuse this witch, who had to drown her sorrows this weekend, with the purchase of some Schaefer Anne yarn. Heh, heh, heh (that would be witchy laughter).
Life's a Stitch 
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