Life's a Stitch

I’m not going to disguise this as anything other than plain old complaining.

Complaint #1: Why is it, that I can’t wear an article of brand new
clothing without staining it? Picture it: last night, new pair of
khaki’s, artichokes for dinner, margarine spillage. Followed by
applications of: Folex instant spot remover, Spot Shot instant stain
remover, soap and water, ammonia cleaner and dishwasher detergent. Spot
still there.

Complaint #2: What possessed me to buy such a bad CD? Usually
careful of my music purchases, I was so in love with Pink Martini’s
Hang On Little Tomato, that I impulsively purchased their other two
CD’s AND booked tickets to their live performance at the upcoming
Vancouver Jazz festival. You might like it, but if by chance your music tastes
are similar to mine, and according to my husband, not many other’s are,
steer clear of their most recent release: Hey Eugene.

I am comforted by the fact that the weekend’s shopping wasn’t all bad. I think this is the yummiest yarn I’ve ever purchased and I’ve bought a lot. So soft, cotton candy and white clouds on a blue sky, a pink Hanami to be.

A reminder – good CD:

Bad CD:

Really bad. You’d think I’d have gotten the hint by the picture of a drunken woman squatting on the  bathroom floor. That’s just what the CD sounds like.

We hang out with knitters, but besides the projects we see on blogs and Ravelry, how many do you actually see in the wild, up close and personal? Of all the thousands of Baby Surprise Jackets, have you ever seen one on a real baby, one of which you haven’t knitted?

I’ve been thinking about this. In the past five years, not counting ones in captivity at knit shops or craft fairs, I can count identifiable works in the wild on one hand. There was a Vintage Velvet scarf in Seattle, an Anne Norling Strawberry Hat in Denmark, and a Fakeisle hat in Bellingham. Where are the others hiding?

Or the opposite, have you had anyone stop you, out of the blue, and ask if that’s a Charlotte’s Web you are wearing? I don’t know why these things intrigue me. I guess I have a fear of hitting my local Sally Ann and finding dozens of Baby Surprises after spending days knitting one myself. Or maybe only knitters appreciate knitting.

Seeing as though there’s plenty of knitting content here, I’ll give some not so equal time to the woodworker in my house. He turned this spalted birch vase as a special gift for Blogless Marsha’s blogless spouse.

Personally, I don’t get wood turning. We have many beautiful pieces in our house, but they each require hours and hours and hours (you get the point) of standing on hard concrete in a dirty dusty environment, and at the very last minute it’s conceivable that you can hit a rough patch and blow it all to smithereens.

Once I heard a loud whump from his garage workshop, followed by an expletive, naturally. Out he came, shaking his head, lamenting the fact that yet another one had gotten away. Poof! Sawdust. A couple of weeks later he looked up. There was a good part of the body of a bowl impaled in the garage’s roughly insulated ceiling.

Way too risky for me. I guess it’s the woodturner’s version of a knitted gift from the heart.

I went to the endocrinologist last week. During the late 60’s I had radiation treatments on my neck for severe childhood eczema, a therapy now related to a high incidence of thyroid cancer. Those of us formerly "irradiated children" need to go for regular ultrasounds to keep track of things.

He opens the chart and shows me the latest scan result. Time for another biopsy, he explains. I explain that I had two of those nasty things recently and he insists I only had one.The conversation continues with great detail about the tumor structure, trying to reassure me that something that fast growing was probably a cyst, Something wasn’t right. I glance down at the chart and see the two syllable last name, beginning with a B, ending with an N. Then the first name, five letters in length. Wait a minute, that’s not me! Jeez Luis, give me a heart attack on top of a glowing thyroid. The strange thing was, I know the person to whom the chart belonged.

The bottom line is, I’m still OK, and back into my six month ultrasound schedule. The point of this post is that there are many irradiated people out there who don’t realize their risk of thyroid cancer.  Not to be confused with ultraviolet ray treatment, this form of x-ray radiation was given for symptoms of eczema, acne, and tonsillitis, to name a few. They didn’t know that the thyroid soaks up radioactivity like a sponge.

I’m feeling good, but little Grace is under the weather, having had an eyelid growth snipped. Poor girl:

I don’t have to tell you that I’ve had plenty of waiting room knitting activity. Here’s a closeup of Clapotis, 60% finished:

The boy babe of my brood of three saw me taking an internet quiz "What kind of flower are you?"

" Poison ivy," he quips.

He is confident in his ability to make me laugh. Good thing, another time, another family, that response might elicit a swift smack across his currently valuable kisser.

His father, however, has other ways to brighten my day. In contrast to my purple thumedness, his creativity and need for springtime brightness benefits us all:

The hens and chicks were my contribution, foolproof as the are.

OK, this morning I found myself saying I’m going to buy yarn for three more projects and then I’m going to stop." Right. I’ve heard that kind of thinking before. Many moons ago I used to work in a Methadone clinic.  Classic addictive behaviour. No disrespect to those suffering from chemical addiction, but the thinking patterns are remarkably similar. I also have a sneaky suspicion that there’s a dual diagnosis happening here. That would be the ebay addiction.

I don’t need more yarn, but then I hear my brain thinking "buy it now, you won’t be able to afford it when you retire." Self deception at its best. Retirement is many years away. I’m twisting facts to serve my addiction. The only thing that’s not consistent is that I don’t deny my problem. I proudly wear it around my neck. Tell me you’d be able to resist this list:

1. Pink malabrigo laceweight for a Hanami stole.

2. Oh, just one more skein of Rayon Metallic yarn (pictured here in the Curry colourway). Two is not enough. Michele in NY told me that someone on the subway offered to buy her beautiful RM Clapotis right off her neck. Too late, I just clicked on the commit to buy button.

3. Who can resist this? Watermelon yarn. Wouldn’t it make cute baby hats? Good thing it’s out of stock.

4. And I just found this sock loom. Brilliant! My fingers can’t take knitting in the round with little tiny toothpick-like needles. And if I buy it I’d be able to use up some of my sock yarn stash.

Someone help me. I found this site. Do you think I should join? Maybe if I grind up some fibre and mix it with Tang…

It’s not the fact that I’m on Clapotis #3:


It’s that colour rut thing happening again:

I’m not complaining. Even though the colours are the same, the blending keeps it interesting.

Guess who smells looks good, but feels miserable about it? What price glory? I think it’s the dumb bow that’s bugging her. Too bad I don’t have a before shot:

A make out scene. My son, the 17 year old actor, is getting paid for up to three days, to utter two lines and make out with a girl. Up to three days at say, $555 a day. My friend’s husband has offered to do it for $500. Like a good mom I’ve checked with the agent to confirm that the film is not rated R. Nobody prepared me for this part of motherhood. I need a photo to punctuate the unlikeliness of this role to my motherly brain. How about this one from last summer?

I think I’ll go knit now.

OK, all you English/speech teacher types, you know who you are, whine zone ahead. Doesn’t matter if you’re retired or working I’m sure you’ve noticed the newest trend in the spoken word.

A number of years back it was up-talking that felt like nails on a chalkboard? Every sentence transformed into a question?

Then "like" came back into vogue. Like I was going to my teacher,"Like my dog ate my homework?"

Now it seems the word "basically" is the mot du jour. I listened to a radio interview last night on an intelligent topic. He was basically a biologist, basically talking about speech recognition in mammals. Every sentence started with the word basically.

Ok, I’m finished. Forgive me,  like it’s been basically a tough week at work? So now I’ll talk about another term I recently learned via the airwaves: simple elation. Simple elation as in the feeling you get from simple pleasures. For me it’s boxes. I know I’ve referred to this before, recollecting my first job at age15, as a gift wrapper at a suburban Lord and Taylor store. I loved the fact that I was paid to work with well crafted, pretty boxes. Many years later I’m still enamoured with boxes:

That’s my Neiman Marcus box, which once held Scottie salt and pepper shakers, and now contains my blocking pins.

Those are empty containers that live in my knitting area. They don’t hold anything yet, but I’m not throwing them out.

Canadian readers might recognize the Roger’s Chocolate box. You eat the chocolate and I get the box. I bet it would be just right for six skeins of Koigu.

Not a drinker of hard liquor (except Danish Akvavit twice per year, but according to my Danish relatives that doesn’t count as liquor), I have no idea where the Johnnie box came from. Jack, however, was the perfect duty free purchase at the Seattle airport last week. It came with a bottle for Chuck, a lanyard for Bryant and a box for me. A box tall enough for knitting needles.

As I write this I realize, that somewhere in my basement, is stashed a blue box from Tiffany’s. It held a gift from over 30 years ago, from the Donna of my Florida trip. The box lasted way longer than the relationship for which the gift was intended to celebrate. Maybe that’s why I like boxes. They are dependable and useful.

My high school math teacher, Miss Lahrman, would say "Simple minds, simple pleasures." Fine with me.

Hope your Easter weekend is filled with simple elation.

Let’s all sing along – those of you of a certain age will remember the tune: It’s my birthday I can buy what I want to, buy what I want to, buy what I want to, you could buy too…. Those were our lyrics on Saturday, Blogless Marsha and I. I didn’t really buy too much, but it was fun giving myself permission. Actually, Marsha gave me permission. We were talking, that at 50 something, we still felt special on our birthday.

And special it was, including a yarn crawl of five shops in NW WA. Marsha took me out to lunch at Bellingham’s Mount Bakery, named after the local Mt. Baker. Here’s a hint: great food, but pass on the iced tea. We both agreed it was nastiness in a glass. We arrived home to dinner, cooked by Chuck, with what has become my traditional birthday cake – Boston Cream Pie with strawberries and vanilla sauce.

I received the most unique present so far – Marsha’s Dave gave me new dryer venting pipe. You might think this strange, but understand, I especially appreciate gifts that make my life easier. Our dryer has never worked properly due to too narrow a vent. I’m presuming this "some assembly required" gift comes with installation. That might be a way bigger present than he counted on. Evil female laughter.

Here’s the spoils du jour:

A very special Scottie gift from my FL trip from Rosie and her sister, Betsy, our hostess:

And now for the yarn: some Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in Curry for Calpotis #3 and two more skeins of Koigu for a wrap.

 

I can’t believe it’s over, the seven day slumber party. As a group, the four of us have 40 years of history.

The weather didn’t cooperate, but who cares? We spent a day at a flea market and one at St. Armand’s Circle in Sarasota. Donna forbade me to go home with the purse I’ve carried for seven years, so I bought one at each stop. Don’t worry the one from St Armand’s Circle had a store with a mission statement that included the words "inexpensive does not mean cheap." A step up from the flea market but way better than Brighton:

We had a day at Busch gardens where even the Ladies’ Room had a mission statement:

Betsy conversed with Beaker the flamingo and Rosie was introduced to her namesake elephant. We learned that another of their elephants, a pampered pachyderm, was 66 years old and had exceeded her life expectancy of 45 partly due to a diet where she lost 700 pounds in one year. What did they feed her – Purina Elephant Chow – Fit and Trim variety? Whatever it was, I want some of what she had.

I saw two alligators in the wild. I know that’s not a thrill for Floridians, but I guess we all have our pet predators. My neighbourhood bears don’t hold a candle to an alligator up close and personal. Can you spot her eye in Betsy’s pond?

How about now?

Donna met her dream car and dressed up to match, in hopes it liked her as much as she liked it. Betsy’s husband is babysitting it until its 90 something owner reclaims it after recently regaining her driver’s license.

Then there were the beach pictures. Meet the quintessential beach bum and a classic Tampa Bay sunset.

There was even a bit if knitting going on – Clapotis #2 – 70% finished:

Can you tell we had a good time?

Thanks to Betsy and her mostly hiding hubby for hosting us.