Louisa Harding beguiled me

I noticed the "Sari Ribbon" the second time I dashed into The Shabby Sheep on my lunch hour. One of those moments when you lock eyes from across the room, and your heart is lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Thus, I had been yearning for a month, passionately in love and unable to tryst with my sweetheart because of the wrath of the Cruel Checkbook.

[As I recall, the Tenth Commandment says absolutely nothing about coveting your LYS's yarn! And it's not exactly coveting if I'm planning to buy it. Eventually. Right?]

A week ago yesterday, I dashed again in at lunchtime with Knitting Co-Worker#1, who has graduated on her current project [Blanket #2 for Incipient Granddaughter] from craft store yarn to yarn store yarn and cannot believe the difference. I remember that paradigm shift, which I made 20 years ago when I was doing sweater commissions. At the risk of making my church friends and my unmarried daughters blush, it's like the difference between good old fashioned bread-and-butter marital relations, and making love. The one is comfortable; the other, transcendant, and you think to yourself Oh, so this is what the songs are all about!

Good yarn and good needles are about as close to relaxed as I'm likely to get until Brother Right tangos into my life. Unless I can talk my best JustFriend into taking me back to that restaurant for more Steak Diane with the insufficiently-flambéed Cherries Jubilee for dessert. Oh my gracious! It has been a very long time since I was that relaxed. [Not even after the three-hour Swedish massage I had after one particularly brutal day at work last week.] I remember telling him that it was a very good thing that our friendship is chaste and platonic, because it is the sort of restaurant, and the sort of cuisine, with the strolling classical guitarist, that must be the setting for many a Grand Seduction Dinner. [Now my daughters know why I laughed so hard the last time I watched "Funny Girl" with them, and Fanny warbled "wonder who is gonna be dessert?"

Not me. No way, not till I'm married. And remarriage would mean that the French laundry basket which occupies a good chunk of the fallow side of the bed, would have to find another home. No more waking at 2:00am and grabbing a book or the current project until I'm drowsy again. Nope, remarriage is one of those things that is important, but not urgent. I like my quiet, peaceful life.

Where was I? Oh yeah, transfigured in the yarn shop, before I started with the metaphors and the woolgathering.

I picked up a second set of Crystal Palace jet-propelled bamboo DP's in size 0, so I could start on Sock the Second. My friend picked up jet-propelled needles of her own and a skein of Cherry Tree Hill for her first pair of socks.

And then I meandered, ever so casually, over to the bookcase where the Louisa Harding yarn was waiting for me. I plucked her from the shelf, and she hissed, "Needles, move the [colorful adjective] needles, they're poking me!"

I can see already that she's going to be an opinionated wench, so I only brought one of her home, for now. I don't want her nattering on all night and keeping the rest of the yarn awake.

What to put with her? Something softer, a lot quieter, less diva-licious. The "Impressions" said to me, "Take me home. I know how to deal with her." Big words. We shall see.