Try to be a good wife, and what do you get?

Historically, the answer would be “pregnant,” but in this case the answer would be “chiggers.” Sunday night Beloved asked me to help him gather almost the last of the tomatoes. I love Beloved more than I love air conditioning, so I went out into the garden, amongst the basil which threatens to take over the backyard, and feathery weeds up to my knees. I came in and washed off my legs, but apparently I missed somebody, because yesterday afternoon I started itching in the usual-suspect places and sure enough, Ms. Ravelled has cooties. I read online that Cool Mint Listerine does a number on chiggers, so last night he swabbed me down with mouthwash. [Yeah, makes me giggle a little, too.] And this morning I had him dab the bits I can’t see/reach with hydrocortisone cream.

Says he, “Too bad you have to go to work.”

Says I, “Too bad you’re wearing that chemo pump.”

In other news, I got my mammo-Gram (teehee!) this afternoon, and civic duty won out over family fun and Knit Night. I did not go hang out at Secondborn’s until time to knit with my friends. Instead I came home and voted in the runoff election. In the process, I figured out where downtown Garland is (the runoff is being held at City Hall, rather than the elementary school where I voted in the primary and will vote in the general election this fall) relative to our house and relative to the Italian restaurant where we ate with the Empty Nesters (not the same place where we got that fantabulous pizza last Saturday night).

There really is a downtown Garland. They have a proper City Hall, a police station, an arts center (!) and something called Garland Women’s Activities, which apparently is a private club? Maybe it’s where Junior League members go when they age out of the organization? Or maybe it’s a place to go when the monthly comes, and gorgeous but mute men serve dark chocolate and peeled grapes and Midol with no expectation of reward. Or maybe it’s a hangout for the League of Women Voters? I asked Beloved, but he says they’ve never invited him. “That’s discrimination,” says he.

Everything is out of the storage unit. He and his sons are all properly sweaty and exhausted. We have a new file cabinet (which is going right back out tomorrow) and a new bookcase, and maybe a new door for the back of the house.

I have wiped out the last of the goat’s milk and the low sodium Frito’s and am heading out to the living room to watch the Olympics and nosh on leftovers and knit swatches for the next project, which is the KnitPicks Classic Lines sweater, two strands of Gloss Lace held as one, and a strand of handpainted Shadow tossed in every sixth round. The teeninetsy four-inch DPs I bought last year are really coming in handy for the circular gauge swatch. I will have to slice and “swim” my swatch(es), as silk and silk-blend yarns grow when washed, and I will need to allow for that when I cast on for the actual sweater. This will be my first steeked project.