It’s high August. Full moon over the corn fields. Tomato trucks bouncing down the highway on my left and right, on my way home from ballet class. It’s twilight at 8 p.m. and 85º. Pulling on to my little circle of a street, everybody’s outside. Folks are watering the plants out front and kids are zooming around on their bikes. Down the way, there’s music pouring out of a parked car and neatly paired up teens are practicing a dance in the street for what can only be a quinceañera.
I had an amazing day of surprising awesomeness. I cut out of work early, destined to spend the afternoon with a friend who had lately returned from far and away. We caught up, drank tea, skeined some yarn together, and knit while we watched Angel. That’s awesomeness right there.
And both my expected orders from ThinkGeek and KnitPicks arrived today. Awesome + awesome.
And did I mention I bought a spinning wheel?
Chance took me past the Explorit Center last week – that’s the science museum for kids in Davis, which I believe I’ve mentioned to you before– and I decided I’d pop in and check it out.
The museum was closed this particular day but a lady who happened to be inside saw me peeking in the window and poked her head out the door to see if she could help me. I explained that I had a little boy and I thought that he might be just about the right age now.
“How old is your little boy?”
“Almost four.”
Sometimes you just have to knit the next stitch.
Pay attention, now. This is applicable.
Even if you lost the pattern and you don't remember how to do a short row with a wrap and turn. Maybe you're in the digital woods and there is no wi-fi, you've got zero bars, and knitty.com cannot help you now. Maybe you're in the actual woods knitting on fir branches. Doesn't matter.
8:45 p.m. I’m in the parking lot waving my arms and jumping up and down to get the attention of the approaching tow truck. The driver sticks his head out the window.
“Stuck, huh?””
“Stuck.” Stuck indeed. Stuck with no dinner and no yarn. Stuck.
“Well you’re jumping all over the place and you’re smiling so it can’t be that serious.”
Several years ago, I found myself walking through what counts as the only department store in my hometown with my mom.
“I want to buy you a pair of shoes,” my mom announced. I looked down at my ratty once-white Keds.
“What’s wrong with these ones?”
“Nothing is wrong with them.” My mom is the queen of diplomacy. “But it doesn’t hurt a girl to have more than one pair of shoes.”
Picture two intelligent women holding, between the two of them, a skein of yarn, loosened from it twist. Each woman gingerly holds half the skein, the threads looped delicately over the back of fingers held wide apart, with swift and ball-winder at the ready. A half dozen threads join two women.
“This should totally work,” one says.
“You do the honors,” says the other, passing over a pair of scissors.
One snip.
“Jenny, get you ass out here.”
I’m standing in front of my neighbor’s house holding a black garment bag. I’m wearing a flaming red knee length chiffon dress with a black leather corset and there is a tree branch decked out in red and silver berries that appears to be eating my head.
“Why? I look more ridiculous than you do,” Jenny called through the crack in the door. I can see the flash and fluff of feathers as she’s shouldering her gear.
Checking in with the morning report. Except it’s not morning, but you get the drift.
This was a crazy busy week at work. Bundle that with a lack of ballet classes. I could have found alternative forms of exercise, but instead I sat at home nights and ate ice cream. Like my logic there? Dubliner Mudslide by Ben and Jerry’s has my stamp of approval, FYI.
I would like my reading audience to know that I fully accept all credit for the weather finally turning reasonably warm. I just made a pair of wool socks and I’m finishing up a sweater, you see.
I got an email forward last night taking a political stance on Arizona’s new illegal immigration policies. And now I write.
The email came from someone I love, and though I apparently disagree with her on this issue, I’ll not berate her for committing the heinous crime of having an opinion that’s different from mine, nor for spreading her opinion around. After all, that’s what I’m doing here, right?
But I won’t shy away from saying that the sentiment behind the email had me sad, discouraged, and angry all wrapped up together with a bow.
