You Want My Brother

For all y'all knitters who weren't mackin' on my brother prior to this,† direct your attention to the following story:

Brother went to Reykjavik last week.‡

Brother and Hans and I met§ at the Tilted Kilt¶ to watch the glory that is the first day of March Madness.#

Brother brought me a present:




Which contained this:




The story behind the Lopi: Brother says it seems itchy, that they probably joke in Iceland that it's itchy wool.% He said I may never want to knit it into anything, but he figures it'd be cool to have genuine Icelandic wool carted from Iceland in my stash.††

Take a moment for that to sink in.

[SUMMARY: *boggle*]

A man, a NON-KNITTING man, who has embraced the actuality, the conceptuality and the psychology of a knitter's stash.

I think this is a real lesson for us all: what we're really looking for is a man with an older sister who knits.

[SUMMARY: And my thermos... and this lamp...]





He also brought me this box full of bath products from Blue Lagoon, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Iceland.

[SUMMARY: Yes, that is a punchline.]

Apparently, it's a hot springs, a giant pool with mineral properties that will make you live forever if you bathe in it and drink it.

Only it's not natural.‡‡

It's the output of a geothermic power plant nearby. The mineral tailings form a sludge that sits at the bottom of the pool and in conveniently-placed sludge tubs all around the pool. People get in the water and scoop up the sludge and slather it all over themselves.

"So did you feel all glowy? Ten years younger?" I asked.

"No, you feel stupid. You look around at everybody else and you say, 'Yeah, you all did it too.' "

[SUMMARY: Stupidity in numbers.]

Are you jealous? If you didn't want my new stash enhancement, surely you wish you could get your hands on my sludge.§§

Or my brother.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Those of you who were might want to look away before you're blinded.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): They were going to go to Cuba, but then it got too dangerous.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): We call it "business lunch."

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Sort of like Hooters with more obvious boobs and more TiVis to give it a greater illusion of sports barness.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Trademark.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Has anyone out there in Blogland knit with this stuff? It doesn't seem *terribly* scratchy, but if you have firsthand knowledge, I'd love to hear about it.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Bonus points to brother for using the word "stash" correctly in casual conversation.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Not in the coming-out-of-the-rocks sense that we're used to in the Rocky Mountain West at least.

§§FOOTNOTE (ssludge!): That's what she said!