Life's a Stitch

The security guard at the park in Bellingham had quite the story to tell when he got home from work the other night. It was after dark, his shift about to end. Taking the guard dog out for one last pee for the night, he spotted a vehicle in the parking lot. The windows were steamy. They heard the faint pop of a beverage can from inside the car. They approached with caution, the man’s right hand covering his weapon, the beast’s fangs glowing in the parking lot lights. Closer to the car, actually a mini-van, the dog and the man could detect rhythmic motion within. Heh heh heh, I’m gonna nail those kids, he thought with darkened flashlight drawn, the thumb of his left hand rubbing the textured switch. Imagine, borrowing the ‘rents minivan to "park," like nobody on his watch has tried that before.

Two feet from the Dodge Caravan, German Shepard straining at the leash, the guard pops his light on to reveal the inside of the vehicle. In a split second his brain registers the scene. A bearded greying middle age man in the driver’s seat, wrists bound in multicoloured silk cord, a can of diet coke on the dashboard, the woman, slightly younger in years, rhythmically winding the yarn into a ball. "Hello," she says, "it’s hand painted silk chenille. Want to feel it?"

Disappointed, he walks away, dragging the eager beast still pulling toward the car, wanting ear scratches. It was only a harmless couple, killing time waiting for their restaurant reservation.

Truth is stranger than fiction. It’s up to you to tell the difference. The evidence:

Yes, that’s the three column version of my herringbone rib pattern (pattern available for the mere price of a comment). You’re probably tired of hearing about it, but I received an e-mail from blogless Marci with some feedback – "I finished the scarf on Monday, and have already given it as a gift.  The recipient loved it.  She’s not a knitter, but she noticed the ‘cool twisty things in the bumpy parts.’ " Anyone who notices those things is added to my list of possible convertees. Heh, heh, heh, more evil laughter.

It was a wonderful week with the prefect re-entry back into the noisy real world. When my kids returned from camp or a class trip I always asked them for the highlights – what was the best part and what was the worst. Often on the bus home they’d be preparing the answer to my predictable questions. Recently they’ve turned the questions on me, so I’ve joined the club and pondered the highlights:

The best part? New Year’s Eve in Seattle with Chuck, Blogless Marsha and her husband Dave, at their son’s apartment directly across from the Space Needle. The fireworks were spectacular:

A happy accident – I discovered fat free half and half, a heavenly oxymoron I had never seen in Canada. That’s not the accidental part. Planning on heart smart cream of broccoli soup for dinner, I placed a quart in Jeff’s fridge. Dave, preparing heart-not-so-smart but rationalizeable due to small portions, Creme Brulee, mistakenly grabbed the half and half instead of heavy cream. We discovered the substitution when all but 1/2 cup had been poured into the mixture. Without enough eggs or sugar to start over, we proceeded with the recipe to a successful outcome – reduced fat Creme Brulee!

The worst part? Driving home in the perpetual daytime darkness in sideways rain.

Knitting highlights – a category of its own:

The best part – finding Manos del Uruguay in colour 113 in a dyelot much lighter and prettier than a previous 113 purchase and having a full Marilyn’s punchcard to put toward it. Can you see the difference between the two dyelots? It’s hard to believe they’re the same colourway.

The worst part? Bellingham’s Hank and Bolt has discontinued their yarn department. The yarn selection in tiny B’Ham was just too good to be true. Not that it’s bad in any way, just one fewer interesting stop on the yarn crawl.

I’m "out of touch" for New Year holiday, somewhere without phones or computers. Somewhere where it is so quiet, all I heard last night was a pack of howling coyotes. Just me and my knitting.

To those who are waiting, thank you for your patience, I will send you a copy of my pattern when I return at the end of the the week.

My Fleece Artist Celtic Vest, awaiting a partial frogging:

Hapy New Year.

My husband’s family follows Danish tradition for special occasions. This means they drink that fire water also known as Akavit. That caraway flavoured stuff that burns all the way down and continues to smolder in your stomach, requiring the taste and soothing temperature of cold smoky fish to trick you into thinking you want some more. After a few you no longer care about anything, least of all an Akavit hangover, something his family insists doesn’t exist.

My father -in-law was a staunch Christian who would tell you he kept no alcohol in the house. I was amazed that first Thanksgiving dinner when an entire bottle of Akavit was consumed. I guess that doesn’t count. Oh, did I mention the tradition of chasing it with beer? It was Tuborg and I guess in Denmark that doesn’t count either. So, although he "didn’t drink" he put on quite the party.

Traditional Danish akavit has been produced by the Aalborg company for over 150 years. And like many North American companies, it was recently sold. And to a Swede! If there is such a thing as rolling in your grave, my father-in-law is doing it. In its corporate wisdom, this Swedish company has made the decision to discontinue exporting the stuff to North America, saying it’s too small a market.

Feeding frenzy! The Danish-Canadian club in BC put out a call to all its members who bought up the remaining 718 bottles of Akavit in British Columbia. Unfortunately, by law, they can’t sell the bottles, only serve it. The rest of us, not quite Danish enough to join the club, have been left in the dust. It’s a good thing we had three bottles left from my daughter’s wedding to cover our Danish Christmas frokust for 22 last night.

This has an acceptable ending. The BC liquor board, realizing the crisis, has contracted with a (cover your ears, Dad) Norwegian company to supply Akavit in the future. If you have a link to the afterlife, don’t tell my father-in-law – I like the Norwegian stuff better. He’d blame it on my Poli-Rican taste buds. Skoal!

My Christmas gift from my three offspring plus two:

In my career and in parenting I’ve learned about picking my battles. You have to save your fighting inclinations for the things that are worth warring over. Now, I have a 16 year old and plenty of battles from which to choose. So, when he announced his intentions of sleeping on the sidewalk in front of Toys R Us, so he could be at the front of the line to buy a Nintendo, we had to seriously tap into our arsenal of reason. Never mind the fact that it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside and that we raised this boy without the benefit of electronic equipment such as TV, except for occasional videos, and still only have the first, most basic of Nintendos. As a little guy, other parents felt sorry and recorded Power Rangers for him, lest he miss out. Forget the constant battles over school work and the moral dilemma of conspicuous consumption, was this one really important enough to invest huge amounts of energy?

I packed him up in multiple layers, a thermos of peppermint tea, a foil space blanket and educated him as to the symptoms of hypothermia. I warned him it was so cold outside that the shelters were rounding up the homeless into a variety of warming stations. I tried to instill reason in him by equating the monetary outlay in terms of hours worked at his just above minimum wage job.

I secretly hoped that upon closing at 11:00 pm, Toys R Us management would see these kids, realize the liability issues and assign them a number, sending them home to return at dawn. Nuh uh, for them this was a priceless p.r. opportunity. Passersby where of two ilks. The "way to go" types and the proselytizers – there are kids starving and you waste your time and money hanging in front of a capitalistic pig toy store.

When I awoke at 6:30 a.m. I looked out the window to see an inch of snow on the ground. I tuned into the AM radio news station hoping not to hear of spoiled middle class kids sent to the hospital, victims of exposure. The telephone rang.

A jubilant Bryant proclaimed victory. He was #2 in a line of 50 waiting for Nintendo Wii’s and Tickle Me Elmo’s. Accompanying him in line were dads and kids (no moms, go figure) and at the front was a homeless guy, paid to wait it out, since he was in his element anyway. I’m too tired to figure out the moral implications of that one.

So my boy, for the first time in his life, is ahead of the pack in electronics anyhow.He’s created a memory to last a lifetime, he’s no worse for the wear and even mom survived unscathed.

That’s my story on this, the eve of Christmas, my third in blogland. Wishing you a Merry Christmas, full of the real meaning and blessings, and hope for a better year to come.

Can someone please tell me what Gracee is doing? Our pup can’t eat without extending her leg as in this picture. It takes her a fair bit of effort, circling the bowl, to get into this strange but apparently comfortable position. Chuck’s theory is that she suffers from some sort of cramp, necessitating her acrobatics. One of the daughters thought it was due to neck strain and raised her bowl to no avail. The vet thinks it’s some sort of neurotic behaviour.

Background: Ms Grace is our Scottie with special needs. She suffered a head injury at three weeks old, squeaking by after three days without nursing. She was rejected by her first owner who claimed she couldn’t be house trained and was vicious, especially when being tucked into bed at night. If you know Scotties you know that an expectation of bed tucking could compromise their Scottie dignity and you might be met with some growly resistance.

We adopted Gracee girl when she was six months old (photo on the left), scared to death of everything, and grossly underweight. Without any disgusting details about her symptoms,  she was ultimately diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease with severe intestinal scarring. She appeared to be a failure to thrive puppy.

Once again she narrowly escaped her final fate as the vet reluctantly tried a treatment, a cocktail of medications, that has included a daily dose of prednisone. We’ve been told that her odd behaviours might be linked to this medication. Besides eating with her leg sticking out, Gracee has a problem with chronic carpet licking. She’s an odd old girl, but we love her just the same.

Knitting update: Marina continues to languish on my dining room table. Without power, the mall in which my office is located, was closed for two and a half days, and I still have no sewing machine needles. This storm threw Vancouver into a state of havoc. No electricity and no heat for many.

With the mall closed for business, our annual gift wrap fund raiser has been a bust. We are a community based non profit agency without the benefit of a fund raising staff like the big guys. We depend upon our two small projects per year to help support our services, so this is pretty discouraging.

I can’t imagine how it will affect mall retailers at this, the busiest time of year. They are not just large obnoxious Mart kind of stores, but family businesses, needing the holiday season to keep them going.Yeesh. And I haven’t started my own shopping. Oh, I think I need to dive into my stash for some woolly comfort. I’m sorry, Marina, for shoving you aside for a fleece artist Celtic Vest. I’ve been told it can be done in a weekend and uses as much yarn as two scarves. Now I’m smiling.

Note to Suzanne, who has requested my pattern, please comment with an e-mail address and I’ll gladly send you one.

I’m pulling out the old quote from 9th grade math teacher, Miss Lahrman,  the one she used when we gave excuses for not studying or doing homework. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.This one’s for you, Marina, it’s about your namesake. I made a vow not to start any major projects until I started again on Marina. I found four parts of the project in four different rooms – the pattern, the chart, the yarn and of course, Marina, herself.

Being at the steek cutting stage I hauled out my 30 year old sewing machine. They made them out of metal back then and they’re heavy. I wrangled the tangled mess of cords and plugged ‘er in. Positioned Marina into place and guess what? The needle was broken and no replacement on hand. Of course nobody in my house would fess up to breaking the needle, not after hearing my rant.

It gets worse, the next day I had all good intentions of buying some sewing machine needles, only to be foiled by a seven hour power outage. Now I’m into a three day spiral of evening activities – the school Christmas concert, a board meeting, and my Chicks With Sticks monthly meeting.

I hadn’t knit in four days, waiting to attack Marina. I swear I was going through physical withdrawal; all foggy feeling and irritable. Guess it’s time to start a scarf. Come on, it doesn’t count as major:

You learn something new everyday. My sister, a recent knitting recruit, attended a knit-in to make pink scarves for breast cancer. Here’s her story:

"I almost forgot to tell you about these two ladies who came to that knitting pink scarfs for cancer night my friend put on.  They were knitting with their hands and no needles!  Have you ever seen this?  I will have to take a picture of Ana doing it because it is really interesting but really rather strange!  I said to the other people after the two ladies left that I think they were from another planet and they actually knit with their toes and to fit into earth mode they switched it to their hands!  Must see it to believe it!"

I presume they were finger knitting. Before researching it I had this image of two pointer fingers acting as knitting needles. I think I could get desperate enough to do that if I found myself in needleless circumstances.

Herringbone rib scarf update: Since Sandy’s post of November 26th, I have sent out over 50 patterns. Someone so  kindly noted that she’s seen the scarf all over blogland. I proudly told this to my son and sighed, "That’s where I want to live someday – Blogland." He reminded me that I’m already there.

North Shore knitters, here’s an update on Urban Yarn’s Edgemont location. It’s on Highland Blvd. in the former equestrian shop and will open on December 13th.

1. Elann.com gives good customer service. Shop there. The story is: I bought six skeins of Bombolo, a polar weight yarn, for two scarves. The product description didn’t indicate that it was a yarn with graduated colours. It wouldn’t have mattered, I would have bought it anyway. However, when I knit it, this is how it turned out. The first skein was graduated, the rest monotone. What’s my definition of good service? When they give you a refund and pay for the return postage.

2. Do you know of someone who lives in the Vancouver area and wants to do Christmas volunteer work? The non-profit agency, that pays my salary, is desperate for volunteers to work three hour shifts in our charity gift wrap booth at Capilano Mall, where our office is located. Shop there. Part of the problem is caused by the fact that the kids don’t get off of school for Christmas break until the 22nd and traditionally we get quite a few older high school students who need community service hours. Isabelle’s Bridal shop is sending their entire staff to work two shifts on Dec. 17th, so shop there, too. Anybody else interested?

3.Thank you for your kind words on my previous post, they were appreciated.

It doesn’t happen to me often, but I’m having one of those life is out of control days. On the workfront, on the homefront, on the knitting front. Too many things happening at once. Can you imagine defective yarn from Elann, noticed halfway through the project, and finding out about some bad lab results I had six months ago, apparently lost and now found, something else to worry about?  Having a tendency toward positive thinking, I’m going to stop right there. Instead I’ll show you my blocking project, another one of my Herringbone Rib patterns, done in Malabrigo Velvet Grapes, with three pattern repeats instead of four. If you want it, the pattern is yours, free for the asking,  just leave a comment. It’s been a fun way to meet other knitters. I understand some will be going to the Red Scarf project.

Here are my thoughts on Malabrigo vs Manos del Uruguay – Malabrigo wins on the softness factor, Manos on the fabulous colours. Malabrigo feels soft as cottonballs, Manos feels more woolly. Malabrigo is more consistent in thickness, Manos has more thick and thin texture and knits up with more loft.The verdict on my Manos Malabrigo review? I prefer Manos, but they each have a place in my stash. I could use a Manos fix right about now.

Hey, I just realized it’s Chuck’s and my 24th anniversary today. Now there’s something to make me smile. For those of you who think it strange that it’s something that just occurred to me out of the blue –  being so close to Christmas and with so many other celebrations in life – our anniversary is something we choose to celebrate only on the big ones. Once my SIL called and talked to us for 45 minutes before wishing us a happy anniversary. There was silence on both extensions of our phone line as neither one of us had remembered. We still laugh about that. Like everyone else, we haven’t always had it easy, but it’s worked and we’re happy.