Lint by any other name

Let me just state, fluff that gets up and walks away is a spider. And given my irrational fear of spiders, I'd like to make it clear that non-mobile fluff on the edge of the tub when I'm having a soak with a drink and candles is my preference. Always. You don't need to know everything that happened. Suffice it to say it was...not unexpected.

Yes, I know that spiders won't kill me kidnap my kids and ruin the laundry. But it's an irrational fear. If they could do all of that they it would be a totally rational fear. But they can't. YET!

The Rain of unfairness

Rudyard Kipling wrote:
The rain it falleth on the just and the unjust fella,
But mainly on the just because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella

Or as near as makes no difference. That is how my brain remembers it from elementary school, anyway. So don't go and tell me how wrong I've got it because that isn't the point.

The point is, I think I'm too old to still believe that the world somehow makes things come out fair. I find myself occasionally moderately surprised to find someone who is "unjust" doing really well and the just...just sucking, I guess. And then I am really surprised to find myself surprised by that. I mean, I'm not six. Not even sixteen, I know that the world isn't fair. And yet I still manage to hear myself saying in aggrieved tones "but that's not FAIR".

So where does this come from? Human nature or crazybarefeet nature?

Because you know what I can do

I'm getting used to all the ways people used to sign their letters: cordially yours, your humble servant, your obedient servant (as if), but the one that comes up occasionally (because I work with historical documents) is this:

Dear Mr. Doe;
Blah blah blah

Believe Me,

John McJohn

I love it. It sounds vaguely threatening. Like it really matters that you pay attention to what his letter is saying. I think I may adopt it as part of my email security signature. Yes I will. Believe me.

To laugh, to cry or to murder?

I am learning how to knit. I have, as all learners do, made scarves. Two only, which is pretty good in the view that I've heard of people that spend their lives making nothing but scarves.

I made a little blanket for my girl and months ago (maybe even a year?) I started something called a couch cuddler. Still really simple, as in all honesty in the picture in the book it looks like..well...a scarf. Six feet long and two feet wide but still. It's meant to go over the knees of people sitting on a couch watching a movie.

If you've read this blog for a while and remember things, you'll recall that I started and re-started a number of times. Then I came within one ball - so to speak - of finishing and decided that the mistakes would make me crazy so I undid it all and started again.

I almost finished during the Grey Cup game, but I was short having enough wool to cast off. When the kids came home, A. found one tiny little bit left over, almost exactly what I needed.

The kids left for a week at their dad's yesterday, so I got a movie from the library to watch while things cooked in the oven. (Two cakes, and they have long baking times), with the plan to finish off the scarf of great hugeness.

I got home yesterday to two very happy puppies. Two puppies who had been playing with the knitting. Which had caught on a corner of the board we put up to keep them out of half of the house. I would have paid good money for a camera at that point. There were lenghts of wool interspersed with bits of the scarf that were still together ...everywhere. Over the couch, over the bookcase in the hallway, under the coffee table, under and ON (?) the dining room table, over the dog cage and to go with it all small fluffy scraps of wool floating about.

The thing is, they looked so pleased with themselves. (The dogs, not the scraps of wool. The scraps of wool just mocked me in very typical wool-like tones). I've had them get into garbage and the don't come to the door when I get home and as soon as I'm through the door they both try to fit in the kennel. Don't tell me they don't know when they're in trouble! So clearly they know eating garbage=trouble. Too bad I didn't tell them that destroying knitting also equals trouble.

I gathered it all up and unravelled what I could but there is one entire ball missing from all the bits that were too useless to save. In all honesty I think I was as close to laughing as I was to crying. But hey, I guess I just start again, yes? Yes. Nil carborundum illegitimi.

Getting into my Pants

I was walking towards the elevator at work this morning (yes, stairs are the better choice but not when you're carrying a pot of tea and a precariously balanced plate of hot cinnamon buns) when I realized there was something pinching the back of my thigh. And not in a good way, I might add.

Not wanting to disrobe in the elevator...
OK, fine, not being allowed to disrobe in the elevator I continued on the journey put everything down on the first desk I came to and went to the womens washroom to see what the deal was.

Turns out there was a needle - a NEEDLE! - in my leggings. Leggings that I just bought, from a package that I opened, took leggins out of and put on. No stops, no resting in the sewing basket, nothing. The non-existent sewing basket that is. That line certainly implied that I sew, and do it in an organized manner whereas the truth is, M. is right: it's a pity I can't bake a dress, because then we'd be covered. Amazing that she things so highly of my baking skills, sad that she knows that I'll never be able to sew. Not even the hem of a towel. In my defence, my first sewing project in high school was a bathing suit, and the second - and most DEFINITELY FINAL - choice was a tartan skirt. Why the teacher let me start with something so demoralizing is beyond me. Unless she didn't like asking me for help once in the cooking half of home economics. Whatever the reason, that bathing suit made me anti-sewing forever. Except for buttons. If you held a gun to my head, threaded the needles and asked really nicely (despite the gun) I will sew a button back on to the garment it ran away from.