The Knitting Olympics

Well, I’ve done it now. I awoke at 5:15 am on my 44th birthday and started reading Knitting blogs while the coffee brewed. The February 5, 2010 blog from Yarn Harlot has her packing for Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics, where she will be participating in her own way: knitting. She originally issued the challenge the last time Canada hosted the Winter Olympics, and is at it again. I realize that I have only been training for this event since October, but I can choose my level of competition, and I’m not choosing Fair Isle or anything like that: I’m going to knit a baby afghan, a bunny slope of sorts, but given my casting on experience of a few days a go, a decent challenge for a beginning knitter. Besides, when I go to the doctor for my physical I can say I am participating in the Winter Olympics, and I won’t quite be lying. Also, I spent some time in Vancouver a couple of years ago and absolutely fell in love with that city. They were preparing for the games then, and I feel a part of their preparations. They should be a wonderful Winter Games host. The challenge is on. The torch is soon to be lit. It’s winter in Wisconsin. Let’s knit.

Cast On!

It’s been a challenging week. A tough one at work, not disastrous, we solved all our problems, and I found out I work with an incredible bunch of folks. A tough one at home too. My daughter is growing, rapidly, like dandelions in springtime, and she needs more sleep to fuel all that growth and all her play. Mornings have not been pleasant events around our house this week. So, we’re moving up bedtime. And, consequently, bedtime isn’t being much better received than “wake” time.

So I need good news, happy thoughts and relaxing activity.

My cousin is having a baby, and there is nothing happier than the thought of a baby being born into a family that will receive it an wrap it in all kinds of love, which is exactly what will happen in this case. This baby will have great parents. Two sets of excited grandparents to lavish all kinds of grandparently graces upon it and a really awesome “GG” (great grandmother) too. So there is my good news and my happy thoughts that make me smile.

And, there is my relaxing activity…I now have an excuse to sink my hands into supersoft baby yarn and knit a baby afghan,

Knitting Up A Nightmare

I had my first knitting nightmare Wednesday night. Since picking up my yarn addiction four months ago, knitting has found its way into almost every facet of my life: my writing (my blog now has a dedicated knitting page.); my closets (my yarn stash grows daily); and my bookshelves (what bibliophile could resist the beautifully illustrated collections of completed sweaters photographed against idyllic countryside backdrops?). My internet browser bookmarks are filled with pages about knitting: knitting blogs like Yarn Harlot and Keyboard Biologist, knitting communities like Ravelry.com; charity knitting sites; and free pattern pages. So I suppose it is inevitable that knitting has invaded my nighttime slumbers as well.

When I mentioned my knitting nightmare, one of my colleagues, who is herself a knitter and hails from Scotland where knitting is in the blood and the head, immediately guessed the theme of my nightmare.

“Did you have a ripping out dream?” she asked

Cooking Picadilly Over the Toilet Bowl

The afternoon smelled like a story to me, slightly sweet with a bitter tinge. Grandpa Arduengo sat back in the chair and smoked his cigar. The smoke floated in flat, lazy layers around us. Bees buzzed around the grapefruit trees in the yard. Utensils clattered in the kitchen. Cumin and paprika mixed with the cigar smoke. The fans turned gently, trying to generate some kind of breeze from the thick Florida air.

Grandpa was always old to me. Ever since I could remember his skin hung loose from the bottom of his neck, his face and hands were wrinkled. But he always had a twinkle in his eye, and he never smelled old like some people. He smelled fresh in his light cotton, button-down shirts that Grandmother Arduengo meticulously laundered.

“Well,” he finished chewing on the cigar and settled back, “We had a time at five-double-oh-nine Suwannee Ave. Folks from Georgia, you know. They were here.”

Appreciating the Ordinary

My infant daughter lay on her activity mat examining her hands, as if she wondered what they were and who they belonged to and what they did. Dad and I sat in the living room watching her play, allowing her to distract us from the awkwardness of my Mom’s absence. Occasionally my daughter’s arm would rise and accidentally bat the lime-green stuffed firefly hanging down from the rainbow arch above her. When it swung, the mirrors on its multicolored wings would catch the low winter sun that streamed in the window. My daughter would coo in delight at the movement then return to studying her hands.

“Did your mother ever tell you about our first kiss?” My dad sat forward on the sofa.