Come on Baby, Let’s [Un]do the Twist!

Turns out that I only had to undo a little over two rounds on the Flared Lace Smoke Ring, in order to get that nasty inadvertent skew out of it. Maybe half an hour of actual tinking, interspersed with catching up on my KnitPicks and Knitting Daily newsletters. I noshed all afternoon and drowsed at the keyboard between incoming calls from my nearest and dearest.

No more pub knitting for this teetotaling grandmother! [Or at least no lace knitting.]

I can’t sit on the couch and knit; the couch is all covered over with flattened boxes, which nearly flattened LittleBit as she went out the door to church yesterday morning. I heard a yelp from her, and when I went out into the living room [in my towel], she had boxes of fragile stuff balanced on one stilettoed thigh and was just barely containing the chaos with both hands. I tossed sheaves of boxes onto the couch until I could take the fragile stuff off her leg.

Her comment as she went out the door? “I just feel so frustrated!” That makes two of us. I think I have had maybe 15 minutes of face time in the past week, not counting the three hours I sat and watched that lovely face at Tuesday night’s concert, or the hour in sacrament meeting yesterday. She and the other graduating seniors each gave a brief talk, sharing their favorite story from the scriptures and why it was meaningful to them.

I miss my kid. And I’m getting a little ticked at the lack of communication. I had hoped that this senior year would be different from her sisters’. All of them were living with their father, or elsewhere, by this time. I had envisioned lots of Lorelai-and-Rory moments, and ever since she’s been driving, I see about as much of her in a given week as I saw of them. Some weeks, less.

It hurts, and I can feel myself pulling away so as not to get hurt further. And I don’t like it; some days it feels like the last few months of my marriage to her father, without the stony silences. I know that we will be living separate lives in less than a month, and I know that it will be a time of growth and change for both of us, and that part excites me. I would just like to have a little fun with her before we lock the doors on this apartment and hand in the keys. At this point, I don’t even know where she will be living, and I don’t know if she knows.

On the other hand, this picture shows that she is still so my child! This is what greeted me when I went to the fridge Saturday night after the fiesta.



Tango, sailor?

Fourthborn bought LittleBit some roses after Thursday’s concert. [I was supposed to pick them up after fetching Secondborn and before meeting Fourthborn at the auditorium. Secondborn and I were solving the problems of the world, and I drove right past the grocery store.]

I think it’s safe to assume that I will neither buy a new outfit, nor prepare an acceptance speech, for the Mother of the Year awards ceremony.

Back to the knitting for a moment. So, I have taken that glitch out, and I have the sinking feeling that I should just frog it and start again with a larger needle. I need to find my knitting bag and get out the tape measure to be sure. [I also need to get a bumper sticker made: Gauge swatches are for sissies. I wonder if there’s a shirt like that on CafePress?] Gauge isn’t all that important for a scarf or shawl, but for something that in theory should come down over your head? Priceless.

Putting on my turn signal for another change of subject. I followed this truck off the freeway into downtown Dallas on Friday morning. I was able to fish my camera out at a stoplight.



Thanks, Dad. Thinking of you and Uncle Bus on Memorial Day. ☺