Close-Knit

I'm back!

OK, you may not have even known I was gone, but a quick bout with strep throat† took me out of the office Thursday and Friday, but I'm back now!

Miss me?

[SUMMARY: Tell me you missed me.]

First, because I was sadly remiss in not addressing the situation, let me alight on the Rockies: they are my home team. I still love them. I am still very, very proud of them. Even though they lost... lost their batting, lost their pitching and -- for that first miserable game -- lost all ability to field anything. They couldn't field a mouse‡ in that first game.

But they're still my boys.

And they still had an awe-inspiring last couple of months.

And they still haven't pissed anyone off enough to hate them.

And they're still 100% steroid rumour-free.

[SUMMARY: Go Rockies!]

Let's not talk about the Broncos.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't talk about the Broncos if I wanted to since the only two guys I can name on the (fielded) team I can name because one of them used to play for the Redskins and the other looked good in preseason.§

[SUMMARY: Take the Broncos with you!]

This weekend I knitted with my father.

He has finished the toe on his stocking and has changed colours and is doing swimmingly.¶

Which leads us to a cute story I must share:

When I was five, my grandmother sent me the entire Little House series, all boxed up and ready to read.

I was still at a stage where my parents were reading to me every night, though they didn't really need to. It was more bonding and ritual than "Marin can't read for herself."# My parents were so interested in the story†† that I could often talk them into more than the prescribed chapter-a-night.

In fact, we were all so enthralled I devised a brilliant scheme to stay up and read.^

Well, my first brilliant scheme was to turn my light on and read after I was supposed to be in bed. I then discovered the parents could see the light was on. I may be smart, but I'm not always that bright,% if you get my drift.

So I told my mom I had a stomachache and needed the heating pad. I then used the tiny orange light on the heating pad controller to read.

Now, the rule was that I couldn't read ahead on my own.‡‡

When I started giggling at Nellie Oleson's tangle with the leeches and when I cried over Jack's (the brindle bulldog) death two pages before the reading parent reached that point in the story, they were kinda on to my scam.

Eventually, it became a free-for-all. I checked the books out of the school library§§ so when two of us were reading the same book, we wouldn't be fighting over it.

Before we had extra copies, it got a little cutthroat around the old homestead. I'd be off, playing with my Lincoln Logs, when I'd get a yen for a little light reading. I'd mosey out to the living room where the Little House books lived and there would be Dad, reading MY BOOK.

"Let me just finish this chapter,"$ he'd say, so I'd grab the nearest reading material to occupy myself until he was done.

That's how Mom got the picture of Dad and me on the couch, dad reading, "On the Banks of Plum Creek" while I pored over that week's Time Magazine.

[SUMMARY: Cute, no? Has a point, really.]

Flash to 2007. Dad and Marin, TiVi on to fucking miserable Bronco debacle, me knitting Lizard Ridge,¶¶ Dad knitting his Christmas stocking, a sort of beer commercial it-don't-get-any-better-'n-this vibe in the air.

"Ah, you, me, football, knitting..." I said.

"Who'd've thunk it would come to this?" Dad replied.

"This would be a great follow-up picture to that one of you and me reading on the couch," I said.

We had a good laugh.

[SUMMARY: PSA: READ TO YOUR KIDS.]

Oh, and Brother? It's your turn. Your father is shaming you mercilessly with his chipper attitude and all-American stick-to-itiveness.## And mad knitta skillz.

[SUMMARY: Competitive knitting among the menfolk. Is there anything hotter? I mean if this wasn't my dad and brother?]

Ever notice how sometimes the summaries are longer than the bits they're summarising?

Me too.

[SUMMARY: Stating the obvious.]

I have to thank Cheryl Oberle. In other knitting news, I made my first successful spit-and-felt join this weekend@ in the midst of the Lizard Ridge. I'd tried and tried and then Cheryl demonstrated it for me during a break in the Annie Modesitt class and -- voilá! -- it all became clear.*

[SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!]

OK, now I have to do that "I'm back!" thing at werk. I'm guessing they missed me more than you guys did.

I hope nobody turns up with strep or I'm in trouble.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Woke up at 3:00 Thursday morning with a hellacious sore throat. The worst part of strep for me is the part where I can't swallow because I couldn't talk a doctor into talking my tonsils out so they swell to the size of golf balls and have you ever tried to swallow with two golf balls in your throat? and don't answer that I just realised how dirty that sounds. Heh. I'm twelve.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I know, I know, but it's evocative enough of what I'm saying I feel y'all can get it even if I' m making no sense at all.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Ramsey and Graham, for those of you scoring at home.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Other than knitting very tight and occasionally forgetting to knit the first stitch on the new needle -- he just slips it to the right needle somehow, then starts saying, "Huh." Then says, "Daughter, something doesn't look right here. I think I really screwed this up." Then I magically put the loop back on the left needle and he can magically knit again. Magic!

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I'm not bragging. OK, maybe a little. Not *just* bragging. It's actually germaine to the story.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Despite the fact that when the story opened in the woods in Wisconsin, Mom's home state, I asked (very sincerely), "Mom, did you play with Laura Ingalls Wilder when you were a little girl?"

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Early adventures in Book Problem.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Ha! Pun! Y'know... 'cause we're talking about light? And stuff? And pun? Hahahahaha!

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I don't think it was ever spoken. Or written. It just seems the polite thing was not to read ahead when we were all enjoying the story so much.

§§FOOTNOTE (brick. house.): Which actually was against the rules. I had to get special dispensation from the librarian, my teacher and the principal of the school under Mom's request (read: demand) because the Little House books were on the second grade shelf and I was a lowly kindergartner. This was the kindergarten I eventually got kicked out of, which led me to many happy months in construction paper, glitter and rosaries at the Catholic kindergarten. But that's another story for another day.

$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): A precursor to "just one more row"?

¶¶FOOTNOTE (they kinda look like meerkats, don't they?): I finished the second strip and am nearly halfway through the third. Thanks for asking.

##FOOTNOTE (pounded like a two-penny nail -- you know you wanted the whore line): How would you spell it?

@FOOTNOTE (atted): Immediately preceeded by the weird unplied fragility that is Noro Kureyon.

*FOOTNOTE (asterisked): And the simple trick brings to mind that old joke that ends, "frayed knot." You probably already knew about the fraying part, didn't you?