Embracing Technology

I am, generally, pretty good at it. (Except when I’m not.) When I first started transcribing tapes for the attorneys, my friend in the neighboring cubicle gently informed me that my headphones were not plugged in all the way, and that she could hear every hem, haw, and hiccup on the tape.

Yesterday I got caught downright canoodling with technology. I had taken my iPod to work (yay for remembering to pick it up off my computer desk, where it has languished since I loaded it the other day) and thought that stuffing envelopes with vacation letters would be a suitably mindless task during which to try listening to my first podcast via the earbuds [which I don’t loathe as I feared I might, because they don’t actually go in my ear, they just lurk on the outskirts; my mother always said that I am part mule (mostly, if not entirely, because I don’t like to have my ears touched)].

Well, I am still learning the technology, because I was stapling and stuffing when I heard somebody ask, Is there a TV on somewhere?

Oops, that would be me. I pushed the earphones fully into the jack, and no more podcast for my co-workers. Also not for me, as some of them are rather loud while on the phone, and we are in cubicles, and I had not yet figured out how to amp up the volume. All of which got remedied at dinner.

The right earbud keeps leaping out of my ear, but thankfully it is joined at the hip to its partner, so it can’t fall far. I will eventually figure out the proper angle on that side. Either that, or I will get my resurrected body, and my favorite podcasters can just think at me.

The KnitPicks order arrived at the office yesterday: interlocking foam squares, two sets of them, to form a surface for blocking various things. Blocking wires; now I can block Lark’s shawl and get it to her, sometime before the next birthday. An aesthetically bland niddy noddy for skeining up my handspun preparatory to dunking it to set the twist. And six skeins of laceweight Merino, four of them heathered, two of them undyed, all of them gorgeous. I can’t decide which to knit up first. I am envisioning Aran [fisherman knit] sweaters for the dolls from the undyed yarn and maybe some kilt socks to go with. Maybe Aran legwarmers for Blessing, who is adamant about wearing her hooves rather than her human feet. Faith might be a little more flexible on the subject, especially if I stop knitting long enough to whip up those pants to go with the sweater I made for her several months ago.

My friend Kristen posted this on her blog. Blogger accused me of being a cookie-free zone, so I couldn’t respond there. Thank you, Kristen, and I agree. That is what I felt last week, when I was visiting Nita in the hospital.

Her memorial service is Saturday afternoon, and we have all been requested to wear bright colors. My pleasure. [My heart lit up inside when I read that.] The first wave of grief has broken over me and passed; no doubt there will be others, but for the moment what I feel is peace and calm. And a little hunger, notwithstanding my just having downed two slices of toast and half a mug of milk. But my eyelids are grumbling louder than my stomach is rumbling, so I am going back to bed now.

Happy Wednesday everybody. Take time to make some beauty today.