"Kay sure is wasting a lot of time on this" - Kay's husband "Kay sure is wasting a lot of time on this" - Kay's husband
Dear People Who Are Still With Us,
We're tuckered out. So tired we can't even go find any goofy stuff on YouTube. (That's TARRED, my friends. That's zero-point-zero gumption. Tai Bo? Kung Fu? Did anybody else see Bronx Beat last night?)
This week's agenda is hinted at in this lovely photo (Thanks, Mary!). See that freight car? That's Ann's Suitcase of Love, which is packed with knitterly experiments and heading north tomorrow on a very cheap, very early flight. My Suitcase of Love is in the back of the Kay-ra-van, ready to pick up Ann and everybody else who is flying in. (Including a genuine Nashvillian makeup artiste --can you BULLEEVIT? Get OUT! Mary Elizabeth's business card says, "I can DO small hair. I just don't WANT to.") (Okay, it doesn't say that, but wouldn't it be great if it did?) Thence to points East, where the last of the great eccentric handknit photos will be hunted and gathered.
My 18-year-old nephew, one of the fly-inners, is under the impression that he is coming for vacation. (Um, Jonny? Your fabulous vacation includes a bonus: Handknits! Picking up lunch for middle-aged women who will NOT stop TALKING! Holding those light-bouncing frisbee thingies! It's gonna be great!)
So sick of knitting.
Can't wait to get back to knitting.
Love, Kay
Dear Ann,
Remember our delightful Portland friend, Angry Chicken (aka Amy Karol)? It feels like we've known her since she was just a little bitty thing, a merely Disgruntled Cornish Game Hen. Now she's all grown up and has a book coming out tomorrow.
As a new recruit to the age-old crafts of sewing, patchwork and ironing-stuff-onto-stuff, I am so excited about Amy's book that I have taken the drastic step of buying -- i.e., purchasing, i.e., laying out cash money for--my own copy, even though I also plan, pursuant to my Standard Operating Procedure, to beg a copy off our beloved, much begged-upon publisher. Sometimes, you don't have time for the begging, ya know? I need to bend the rules, and I need to bend them NOW. (What ARE the rules, anyway?)
(I am only hating Amy just a little bit for the odious DONE-ness of her book. The minimum possible amount of unavoidable hating. Really, nothing personal.)
Love, Kay
Dear Ann,
I had a fab time in Monteagle. You lucky duck, getting to spend time in an old-timey cottage community, Est. 1882. Monteagle out-Bloomsburies Bloomsbury. In Monteagle, the furniture has 12 coats of paint, and busted-out cane seats are cherished. (Friends Don't Re-Cane Friends.) The slipcovers have slipcovers, and the porches are hung with Sunday painter paintings and signs that say things like "Come Sit on My Porch." (Which we interpreted as, "Come Over With Four or Five Friends To Take Pictures On My Porch at 7 a.m. When The Light Is Just How You Like It And Please Feel Free to Move Everything Around.") You know how, when one is styling a picture, one has to scrounge around for "props" like gracefully rotted beadboard? In Monteagle, there is no scrounging. The beadboard flows, like Ro*Tel and white wine at Girls' Night Out. Monteagle is the place good screen doors go when they die. I'd like to end up there myself, when my last coat of paint wears through.
A snapshot from this idyll: yesterday morning, we lit a fire in the fireplace. (For reasons that cannot be gone into in any detail. Suffice it to say, we felt like having a fire this fine June morning. We'll do whatever the heck we wanna do! GOSH!) Five minutes into this experiment, the phone rang. I picked it up.
Mellow Gentlemanly Voice (Surely A Regular Ken Burns Narrator): "Why, hello, Ay-ann?"
Me: "No, this is Ann's houseguest, Kay. Hello."
MGV: "We noticed smoke coming out of Ann's chimney and were wondering if she was in distress."
Me: "No, no! No distress! We just lit a fire---long story. So sorry! We're fine! Thanks for calling!"
As you know, I'm a little harried, and have a touch of the iron-poor blood, but I couldn't resist signing up for DISH RAG TAG. Sign ups are limited! Rules are strict! Competition will be as tough as a Brillo pad!
I have until July 6 to take my Knitting Geritol, locate my lace mojo (I know it's around here somewhere), and sign up for Melanie's fabulous Mystery Stole Along for 2007. Be the first on your block to knit a brand-new Pink Lemon Twist pattern, and it's free. Fabbywabby!
Love, Kay
P.S. Back home, I am feeling insufficiently "ma'am"ed. Revel in the ma'aming.
Dear Ann,
Just because we have no demonstrable knitting right now doesn't mean we can't be helpful to people. We both have 8-year-old boys (happy birthday Clif! belated!). Not everybody has our knowledge of the natural history of the 8-year-old boy, his habits, his environment, his peculiar (oh yeah) identifying characteristics. They may suddenly find themselves in the presence of a boy approximately 7-9 years of age, and wonder, "How can I know if this boy is 8? Does anybody have any tips for me?"
We can help. Tonight I observed what I think is the hallmark of the true 8-year-old boy. If you find yourself with a boy, Dear Reader, perform the following test:
1. Put the boy to sleep in the car for approximately 90 minutes.
2. Wake him up in the dark. Don't give him a chance to think.
3. Watch carefully as he shuffles to the sidewalk, with slits for eyes and slobber on his cheek.
Now is the time: does he make a lightning-fast move of his hand under his shirt, and crack a THUNDERING armpit fart? Are you truly impressed with the decibel level? Do you find yourself laughing on the street, even though as a general rule you do not approve of this sort of thing?
If the answer is yes, you can be fairly confident--smug, even--that you are dealing with an 8-year-old boy. At 7, they are trying hard, but only the most precocious--a Mozart of underarm acoustics--can produce much sound when wide awake, let alone half asleep. By 9, they are mostly past caring, except to guide 7 and 8-year-olds on the path to enlightenment. At 8 they are every one a virtuoso.
Eight is a real sweet spot.
That's all I've got. See you tomorrow for supper. I have to drive to a mountaintop in Tennessee, the greenest state in the land of the free, with a couple of girls from Connecticut as my only companions. Here's the soundtrack:
Oh just KIDDING. Calm DOWN.
(But seriously, can we sing Rocky Top while we're there?)
(You can't argue with this version.)
I want to thank y'all for coming out tonight!
Love, Kay
P.S. One more thing I have to share. It is high group-tour season in New York City. There are gangs of grown men and women wearing matching yellow t-shirts wandering the streets with cameras. On Friday near Radio City I saw the BEST t-shirt I have seen in a long time (unfortunately not a multiple). It was worn by a teen-age boy, and it said: "I AM A LEGEND IN JAPAN."
Although no longer in office anywhere except in Kay's head, President Bill Clinton pardoned the sock. In a statement, the former chief executive said, "I did not have knitting with that sock."
(It may depend on the definition of the word "knitting". Or the word "not". In any event, the man is a private citizen. He can knit what he wants to knit and it's none of our business.)
Bye-bye sock! Take care now! Miss ya already!
On the fifth day of the sock's captivity, the person or persons holding the Sock released this photo, showing the sock apparently in reasonable health but missing its double-pointed needles. Needle and Notion Analyst Dexter Pointprotector stated, "Clearly, the sock is on 2 circular needles at this time. It's anybody's guess how long the sock has had these new needles, or by what means they were installed. The stitches look a little tight, so it could be that the socknappers and/or liberators didn't have size 1s to do the job, but nevertheless the sock seems....pretty comfortable. I don't want to put a value judgment on it, but to me, the sock looks relaxed. Cozy."
Close inspection of the photograph revealed more information.
(Those born after 1974 should consult The Crime Library. Gosh! Go tell your Grandma how young you are! Idiots!)
The sock will be heading North very soon, in good spirits. (She doesn't seem to want it--she's no fun AT ALL-- therefore we are sending it back. We refuse to negotiate with people who won't negotiate with terrorists.)
Peace out, power to the people, et cetera,
The Circularese Liberation Army
P.S. for Jodie in Fargo: Uffda! Anderson Cooper was so emotionally TRASHED by the sock's story that he couldn't report on it. The man just could not get through a taping.
Dear Stephanie,
Looking back on yesterday, everything was so normal. Too normal.
You were in New York, carrying me around Book Expo America, talking to people, knitting on me casually. We were having a good time. Like always. Sure, I'm not the sock everybody poses with. But I'm the sock you knit on. I'm the sock who gives you what you need. The sock you come home to. Not to get too Country & Western about it, but I'm the sock you think of, when you're with other socks.
There were other people there. It seemed so mellow and fun. I remember that you were talking about chairs, and how there need to be more chairs at bookstore knitting events. I was proud of you. I thought, that's my gal.
Then, the chair talk stopped. I heard some air-kissing and photo-snapping, and you said something about catching a plane. All of this, so far, was just like usual. Then, I felt myself being lifted up. But something didn't seem right. (For one thing, nobody was talking about chairs anymore. Whoever it was, he or she was totally unconcerned about chairs. Bizarre.)
The sickening realization dawned on me. Whoever had me, it wasn't you. It was someone evil.
Pure evil.
Perky evil.
I heard them telling your publicist, "Go away now. This is not the sock you are looking for."
Stephanie, I'm scared. So far, I've been treated humanely. There has been no unravelling. No redistribution of stitches. They haven't mitered me, thank God. But they won't turn the lights off. All night they were reading aloud from Cat Bordhi's book, Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. It's starting to get to me, Stephanie.
I've heard the crackle of Addi packages.
Give them whatever they want. I just want to come home.
Love,
The Sock You Left Behind
Dear Ann,
Today, if you were out walking around 8 a.m., you might have done a double take when you saw a newsboy in knickerbockers, or a girl with an improbably large bow on her head. It was Long Ago School Day for the second grade at our school, whose first pupils--long ago--were the children of pushcart peddlers and garment workers. As Joseph's teacher put it, Long Ago School Day is not a costume party; it's an attitude. Things were different in 1907. Last night, showers were not allowed. Just a wash in the kitchen sink.
In 1907, Joseph wore a clean, tucked-in shirt, suspenders and hair tonic. (Sadly, in 2007 we have to make do with gel.)
Girls wore pinafores to keep their dresses clean.
You called your teacher Mister.
Your desk faced front. You had a slate. (Your classroom did not have plastic bins, but whatever.)
"Harry, why are you late this morning?"
[Silence. Grinning silence.]
"Were you selling vegetables?"
[Silence.]
"Were you collecting eggs?"
[Silence. Eyeing ruler.]
"Did you wash? Let me see behind your ears!"
[Giggles.]
In real 1907, it probably wasn't this fun.
Sorry, no knitting. I'm too farklempt with the end-of-year bittersweetness around here. On Monday I have to face The Singing of the School Song. It nearly kills me, every time.
Love,
Kay