Homecoming

Phillip is sick.  And by that I mean that he has saved up about five winters' worth of head colds and minor irritations in order to experience them more fully, all at once.  Dude can be very efficient.  This would be the classic, wretched, late-winter flu and he has been on his face with it for no less than five days.  Which means that I am effectively a working single parent this week, with the added bonus of nursing duties.  In Sickness and in Health.  Whatever: This Blows.  Oh, and I really need to review and return about 100 pages of tech edits to my publisher.  Yesterday.  And the hacking cough of Certain People who are in the same room with me has kept me awake all night for about a week, so you can sprinkle sleep deprivation into the Gloom Stew we're cooking at our house, as well.

So I arrived home last night after an exceptionally long day at work,  struggled to divest myself of coat, purse, laptop, and keys.  An unusually loud racket coming from the living room should have motivated me to turn right around and leave again.  Instead I followed the din and surveyed the wreckage:

1.  Five children, only some of whom belonged to me, feasting on Cub Scout fund-raiser chocolate bars and pepperoni sticks in my living room.  The Universe has again spoken on my choice of white slipcovers.  Nice work, that.

2.  A sheepish-looking Scottish Terrier lurking near a suspicious puddle under my desk.  Evidently neither the Bed-Ridden nor the Chocolate-Besotted are functional dog walkers.  Brilliant.

3.  The 413th pile of tangled yarn this week: Unsupervised Kittens + Yarn = Carnage.

My instincts kicked in and I fled.  By which I mean that I sighed heavily and went to check the mail.

Then everything turned on a dime, because waiting for me at the mailbox was this:

And if that weren't enough, this:

Apparently, the Universe has not completely given up on me...

Unnecessary Roughness

Gruesome, isn't it?  I wasn't even reefing on it - honest.  I was minding my own business, lever knitting on my ubiquitous 1 x 1 scarf (note how much longer than last time it isn't), when all of a sudden the end of the needle was pointing to a totally different part of the room than the point of it.  I was Horrified.  Stunned.  Made a number of (presumeably) strange faces while I opened and closed my mouth, carp-like, in disbelief.  Imagine my chagrin when Phillip laughed his butt off and accused me of Full Contact Knitting.  He has taken to asking me how many needles I have left each day.  I don't know why it tickles him so, but he is delighted by my accidental display of brute force.  That's when I remembered:  Dude did NOT produce a Valentine this year.  Or even an apology.  Just plain blew it off.  Guess what he's giving me for a belated present:

Yep, they're Signatures, and they're on their way to my house Right Now.  I have been resistant to metal needles since about day one, but I think the problem is that I never liked the feel of "swinging" them as I throw all my stitches right-handed.  I also have had problems with the slipperiness of metals I've tried in the past.  But since my rosewood size three's clearly cannot take the heat required for me to learn lever knitting on this particular 1 x 1 rib scarf, it's time to bust out some heavy artillery.  Plus, they are dead sexy - even if I don't like knitting with them, I'm still gonna dig looking at them.  And Phillip got me a killer Valentine, even if he doesn't know it yet (yes; I DID give him a present - Brooks Brothers necktie, thank you very much).  I'm thinking that if my spouse Amnesias enough special occasions, I could have the whole set in no time.  While I'm waiting for the goods, I started to swatch a new confection for Black Water Abbey:

That's a beautiful swatch, right there; I don't care who you are.  I didn't do the color any favors with this shot, but believe me when I tell you that Old Purple Rocks.  This is gonna be just the thing to bring the Spring!
 

Unrequited, So Far

Last year at TKGA I fell in love with a book I cannot read.  
There are plenty of books in the world which I can read, but none of them contain this:

photo by Ishi, Ravelry.com

So naturally, the book that I cannot read was snapped up by someone more decisive (or perhaps more Japanese) than me before I went back to get it, and I have been haunted by this homage to the mighty oak ever since. 

And by "haunted", I mean more like "plagued", because not only did I fall deeply in love with this design, but I also am reminded every time I think of it that I let it get away.  There I was, perfectly ready to plunk down the grocery money on the book I cannot read, when the bitter and gloating Troll of Practicality (droning harbinger of all things mundane) landed on my shoulder and suggested that my children would appreciate milk and bread more than me showing them the pictures in the book I cannot read.  They are understanding of my yarn habit, but probably would draw the line at being asked to give up their Froot Loops for it.

Flash forward to Madrona this year, where I met the inimitable KT, and her dear pal Lisa, both of whom are planning to knit this sweater.  They found a teacher and everything.  We are having our own KAL, and my oak leaf dreams are going to come true!  I even found the book again here, and  happily forked over all my yen to procure it.  Now all I have to do is convince the children that Froot Loops are overrated.