Beware of Falling Objects

Things I never Thought I'd See, part 786,048:


Yes, I'm wildly proud of her. No, I don't have the camera back. That picture was taken by another fencer's parent. The camera shop guy told me to call "tomorrow" when I called him last week. Then when my spouse called him the next day, he apparently got a little shirty and suggested that we were harassing him -- the part was on order, and they would call us when it was ready. Spouse said that we probably needed an auxillary backup camera. [Ed. note: I am well aware of the horrible misuse of the word "need" in this context. We have food, shelter, health, overly-active children. We are blessed in embarassing ways. However, I can't take pictures of my knitting. That's what he means by "need."]

Free of the silly distractions of documentation, I've been knitting. Perhaps it's in the air, thanks to the Mason-Dixon crew, but I tried a slip-stitch color pattern from Barbara Walker's first treasury for a little cell phone bag. Besides proving to myself that I can make mistakes on the easiest patterns in the world, I also discovered that I'm madly in love with that little tweed check and now want to make a snappy cotton jacket (with attached i-cord trim and a zipper) out of the same teeny cotton on size 3 needles for Thing 2 or 4. I also want to knit fast enough to complete the 20+ projects I jotted down during a less-than-riveting homily on Sunday.

The endless seduction of knitting is like a basso profundo behind the daily stuff I do. Read a book (think about knitting). Vacuum the house (think about knitting). Write a menu, grocery shop (think about knitting). Anyhow, knitting is just one more of those blessings that crowd in on me. It could be playing the bazouki or researching Civil-War era diaries, but for me it's the stranding and scooping, the hunting for the missing notions, the tug of war between acquiring more yarn than I technically need and using up what I have, making mistakes and swearing at them, frogging and reknitting. No wonder my project list keeps growing by leaps and bounds. During swim lessons today, one of the anniversary socks got four more rows on the heel flap and the ultimate watermelon hat gained an inch or so -- I may be up to the decreases. I have to capture Thing 4 and pop it on her head.

That's going to be a little harder now. She's pretty adept at stairs (the other day's fall down the last three or four outside notwithstanding) and so she can get upstairs. She's snuffling her nose. She's being funny on purpose. She's busy. A great favorite lately is finding small objects and putting them through an open window in the dining room. We have a fan which sits across the window, so she cannot become the small object going through it, but there's a two inch gap at the side. Retrieved items include credit cards, the DVD remote, felt-tip markers, the grinder wheel from the CD repairer, silverware, a plastic cup, and three tubes of lipstick and a pencil.

It's a good thing she's really cute.