Is it too cliché (lovin' the accent mark) to say TGIF?
Well, with me, it'd probably be more like TTHFCIF,† 'cause I try to avoid dangerous religion, politics and vodka preference‡ issues in my non-confrontational blog.
Speaking of non-confrontation (like the segueway?), guess who called this morning?
...and it got really busy last weekend
...and then The Boy's sister had her baby seven weeks early and everybody's in a tizzy
...and then she was going to email yesterday but it got all hectic
And she apologised, so I thanked her for that. I also reminded her with the weird non-love/ex-love triangle with The Boy, I'm overly sensitive about the blow-off thing and will continue to be. I told her I see no reason she couldn't have taken a minute or two to shoot off an email, text message or (*gasp*) phone call just to say, "Sorry, so busy, miss you."
She said she might call this weekend if she has time. We'll see.
Enough of that.
[SUMMARY: Nobody cares about Kelley's transgressions and my abandonment issues but me, but I figure if you had to live through the whole shitstorm, you might as well get the updates. Just so's you can sleep at night.]
I promised you BoyCraft. And shopping. At the same time.
This may not be nearly as funny to you as it is to me (and my brother. And my sister-in-law. And possibly Tani and Annie... OK, so I at least have a small audience here), but I took my dad yarn shopping last night.
I may have already told this story, but I'll brief it here so everybody can catch up: My father is semi-actively looking for a girlfriend. I teasingly suggested (many times, until he was maybe a little sick of me beating the dead horse of that joke) he come to knitting group to either meet women or meet women who know women he might want to meet.
He decided to take ballroom dancing lessons instead. Because it's more manly (my interpretation, not his).
I continued to make the joke about him knitting.
Then my sister-in-law, who apparently *can* see the forest for the trees, and has two small boys, so she knows something about the psychology of the reluctant, suggested he would be the absolute cherry-on-the-sundae at the the family Christmas party (where about 35 of us exchange ornamental items -- mostly handmade -- in white elephant style) if he knitted something, just 'cause nobody would ever believe it. It somehow also came about that my brother will also knit his Christmas project this year, adding to the hilarity and family legend.
The two best things that have come out of this so far:
1) Mother's Day, as Dad and I were making arrangements to get his supplies, eBeth (the sister-in-law) said we should get a bunch of movies that we've already seen, so we don't have to pay that much attention, but so we have adjunct entertainment, and I will teach Dad and Brother to knit and help eBeth remember how.
It's like I have another knitting group in the making. One where I don't get to drink beer or say "fuck," but where I'm absolute top dog, and WAYYYYY better than my brother, so at least I have that going for me.
2) Walking my dad into Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack, introducing Sylvia to Dad,§ and introducing Dad to the world of fibre.
Things Dad learned:
-you don't want to knit the whole thing in cotton.
-Addi Turbos are pricey
-finding the right colour of green or red is often impossible and you have to tailor your project to the selection at hand
-yarns have different weights
-when you buy the yarn for your first sweater, Dad, you'll want to be sure to buy enough for the whole project at once so you get all the same dye lot so you don't get weird gradations in the middle of your sweater, but if you somehow use all the white yarn for your stocking up and need more, it won't make that much difference because the white bits aren't right next to each other anyway.
I got quite a look on that last one. Nobody tosses looks like my dad.
So he bought three balls of Mission 1824 Wool ("This is wool?" "Yep." "How do you know?" "Because it says 'Mission 1824 Wool' on the ball band." *cricketcricketcricket* "That thing is called a ball band." "Oh! I see!") and a set of Bryspun circs and probably wondered why a package the size of a mating pair of hamsters cost $23.¶
I shall keep you apprised.
[SUMMARY: All happy families are the same. Families who knit together are whacked in their own unique ways.]
Meanwhile, I wish you grown-up friends, humour of family and a really, really long weekend.
And Grey Goose. 'Cause I like you.
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Thank the holy fucking cats it's Friday.
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Who am I kidding? All about gettin' my Goose on.
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): As my pusher.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Welcome to my world, Dad. Can I have my allowance now?
This weekend... I flash my stash for SP10 Contest number 3
