A Thousand Times No

It’s been snowing here all day in Minnesota, very fitting for the day when I finally finished the longest scarf I have ever made. If you’re using a handspun yarn, it can take a surprising amount of time to select the right portions to make tassels, since many stretches of yarn are too thin and spindly. I had set aside a skein for creating the fringe at the end of the scarf, and felt very fortunate that I had. By the end of the tassel-making, dozens of straggling, discarded bits of yarn lay about me in small heaps.

I lay down for a short nap after trimming the scarf ends…and woke up six hours later.  Who knew that knitting could be so exhausting?

The blue yarn I was reunited with yesterday turns out to be even more interesting than I first thought. One skein was still completely intact, complete with the manufacturer’s label, the color code, and the dye lot number. The gossamer 100% wool yarn is something known as “SwaLaine,” which was manufactured by the Pre-Knit company. The name itself is a play on the word “swan,” with a black swan silhouette appearing on the label. One old-school knitter noted that SwaLaine has not been sold since the early 1990’s, making any available skeins extremely precious.

I’m thrilled to be working with a magnificent vintage yarn, and yet…

…this is sending the worst possible message to the recalcitrant, hoarding portion of my brain. “Hang on to this, it might turn out to be precious some day,” whispers the clutter magnet in my head. As I knit, I try to keep reminding myself that even a stopped clock still tells the right time twice a day, so I should ignore the little voice behind the curtain.  The ugly duckling may grow up to be a swan, but random detritus is not going to spin itself into SwaLaine.

Or so I tell myself, even if part of me still stubbornly refuses to believe it.

Part of the original purpose of my trip to Minnesota was to start clearing out a lot of stuff from my parents’ house. My parents have been gently reminding me for years that I need to sort through things myself, since they don’t want to pitch out anything that might turn out to be important to me. To keep down everyone’s stress levels, I decided to begin my visit while my parents were out of town on vacation.

Yesterday, I started unwinding from the last several weeks of intense activity by completing the knitting work on a scarf that I’ve been making for one of my friends. She had mentioned that she was partial to scarves of Dr. Who-vian proportions; by the time I was done knitting, the scarf ended up being the same height as your average NBA player. I still need to work in all the yarn ends, flatten any wayward stitches, add tassels to the ends, and block the scarf, but all the actual knitting work is done.

This morning, unable to put off the actual item sorting any longer, I started going through all the shelves, drawers, and closets in order to take inventory of just how many items I would need to begin sorting through. My first surprise was how little stuff there actually was. Somehow, I had imagined that there were going to be boxes and boxes of ancient things, but it’s not nearly as dire as I imagined. My next surprise was just how much space was being taken up by Not My Stuff. I would open old dresser drawers to discover that they contained paperwork or household items that didn’t belong to me.

My best surprise of the day so far when I opened one of the last drawers I was surveying. As I was casting off the scarf I was making for my friend yesterday evening, I was already thinking about the next scarf I wanted to work on. Years ago, I had planned to knit a scarf for one of my boyfriends, picking out a particular shade of blue yarn to bring out the color of his eyes. I never got around to making much headway on the scarf, and somehow, that’s the detail that stayed with me over the years.

A little over a year ago, that former beau was flying through Philadelphia from Paris, where he now lives, with his son and daughter. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade, but we had stayed in touch, so I went to the airport to greet him and meet his children. As he emerged down the long passageway to the waiting area, he appeared virtually unchanged since the last time I saw him, even though he had gotten married, become a father, gone through a near-death experience, and was in the midst of very delicate divorce proceedings. (”He looked like he was in his forties when he was twenty, so now he looks like he hasn’t aged a day since,” remarked a mutual friend.)

After we gave each other an enormous bear hug and I had a chance to say hello to the kids, who were tired but in good spirits after their long plane ride, we all sat together quietly during the short layover. That’s when my old sweetheart pointed to the scarf he was wearing. I looked at it for a moment, unsure of what he meant, and then I realized that I had made him the scarf eons ago. I was never keen on the neutral, cafe latte color of the yarn, and I was so fixated on the next scarf that I intended to make him, that I had completely forgotten about the scarf that I had already given him — the one he had kept over the years, and across the continents.

We’re finally going to have the chance to meet up and spend some time together at the end of this summer, when he’ll be in the States again. Ever since arriving back in Minnesota, I’ve been thinking about what sort of blue yarn to purchase to finally knit up the scarf that will show off his sky-blue peepers. So this morning, I opened a drawer, and there it was: the blue yarn I had bought half a lifetime ago, still furled up in skeins, ready to be worked. It was even more beautiful than I remembered, because it’s “chained,” the yarn itself made up by looping a very fine, soft strand over itself to form an airy, woolen tube.

I’m already several inches into a sample swatch. I can hardly wait to see everything take shape, at long last.

Since I’m the kind of person who would forget my own head if it weren’t attached to my shoulders, I find packing for trips an adventure unto itself. Actually, it’s not so much the packing, but the unpacking that becomes eventful. It’s sort of like playing the lottery in reverse: What did we forget this time? Which item will be the lucky winner? Will it be the camera? The swimsuit? The dress shoes? The phone charger? The plane ticket?

A few years ago, I began assembling a standard packing list for myself in an attempt to keep my suitcase chaos down to a dull roar. It’s been working pretty well — I stick to the list, and nobody gets hurt. Yesterday morning, I rolled out of bed and went around the house gathering up everything on the list in preparation for my afternoon flight. This was already an improvement over my habit of staying awake all night prior to flight day, so I was feeling pretty good. I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and I had everything in hand that I seemed to need. I began wondering whether it was possible that I had actually been organized enough to pack everything I needed for this trip.

That’s when I realized I was wearing my “house” glasses, the 12-year-old pair I keep around for doing chores and serving as an emergency backup in case I misplace every other pair of glasses I own. I had put them on in the bathroom when I stumbled out of bed, and simply left them on as I assiduously went down my precious checklist. My wallet, my keys, my cell phone, myopia…

Today was my first trip on Midwest Airlines, a regional carrier based in Milwaukee. Since I’m spending more than a week in Minnesota, I went for the lowest fare on Hotwire, which waits until you’ve committed to purchasing a ticket to reveal the name of the airline you will be flying for what is often an astonishingly low fare. After a very nice experience recently riding a small Embraer jet with US Airways Express, and after today’s Midwest Airlines trip on an Air Canada jet, I’ve decided that the regional-scale planes with the comfy leather seats are the way to go.

The flight crews for Midwest are very friendly and helpful — they’re Midwestern, after all. But, like many smaller airlines, they seem to be trying harder to build good customer relations. On that front, they do have a secret weapon: warm chocolate chip cookies are served on every single flight. Since I changed planes today, that meant that I got two cookies. How great is that?

I think that helps explain why I was not particularly phased when my flight from Milwaukee departed over an hour late. It was snowing something fierce when we were about to take off, and it took a while for our plane to be cleared for a rather spectacular de-icing and a reassuringly mundane takeoff. Frankly, if I had to fly in 20mph winds and low-visibility snow flurries, I was happy to do it with a regional carrier where they see that sort of thing all the time.

I guess something about melty chocolate chips makes everything copasetic.

Since I’m going to be out of the office for more than a week (yay!), I thought it might be a good time round up all the plastic trays I’ve been accumulating from weeks of heating up frozen entrees and finally take them to a recycling dropoff.

My tray count would have done well in Vegas: 21, on the nose.

I have measured out my life with luncheon ware…

I arrived home from work today to discover a flyer from Hillary Clinton waiting for me. The caption above a photo of Hillary and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell reads, “You Must Act Today to Vote for Hillary in the Democratic Primary.” In smaller print, immediately below, it reads “Fill out the attached form and mail it back by Monday, March 24.”

Guess nobody told them about the speed of the Postal Service here in Philly. As a former mayor of Philadelphia, you’d think Big Ed would know better.

Meanwhile, in the instructions, there’s no mention of the fact that one needs to attach a stamp in order for the form to be delivered. I wonder whether unstamped submissions are being returned to senders — if so, somebody really botched the usability on that mailing, big time. Then again, as we know, usability and elections go together like vegetarians and Rocky Mountain oysters, so that would be par for the course.

Four more weeks and counting…

Tonight after work I was struck with an intense craving for a grilled sandwich. I don’t know why, but I just really wanted something hot off a panini press. For the first time in months, I went to the Barnes and Noble just off Rittenhouse Square, keen on heading straight for their cafe.

I ordered a grilled chicken panini with asiago cheese, and a chocolate cupcake. They gave me the cupcake right away, and I walked to the table area in search of a seat. Most of the tables were either occupied or waiting to be wiped down, so I made my way over to a small table for two.

As I drew closer to the table, I noticed that a pair of twentysomething guys had spread out across the nearest set of tables and chairs, chatting away while sitting amid a pile of what appeared to be textbooks. I began walking around the one of their vacant seats, which was piled up with a book bag.

That’s when I nearly walked into the other unoccupied chair. It was pulled away from the table so that I could see its upholstered cover. And there, atop the chair, were a pair of feet. That’s right, dude had the bottoms of his gym socks propped up just inches away from the plate of food that I was carrying, yakking away with his buddy like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Now, I’m aware that I’m getting old and all, but…is it just me, or was this basically kind of skeevy? And why, oh why, didn’t any of the staff notice, even as this little dance went on and on and on? Up with the feet, down with the feet, up again, down again. I actually had to position myself with my back to that spare chair so that I stood a fighting chance of finishing my dinner without any additional footnoting.

So how was my meal? Let’s just say that I don’t think I’m going to be craving another bite there again any time soon.

With the arrival of Easter Sunday, I am finally at liberty to eat chocolate again. I’m nibbling on some Dark Raisinets, the final item I purchased at my neighborhood Wawa before they closed their doors for the last time.  The Raisinets have been sitting in my cupboard for nearly a month, just waiting for today.

They taste bittersweet.

I am so happy about the state of my upgraded laptop that I’m feeling completely blasé about the fact that I lost a pair of gloves today somewhere during my travels. Oh well, at least I managed to reach the official calendar onset of spring before it happened. That’s more than I can say for some years past. Well aware that this might happen, I already have a backup pair of gloves stashed in a drawer at home.

On the other hand, this afternoon I acquired a toaster oven that someone had left out for adoption on the stoop next door, sporting a sign that read “Free. Please take.” This appliance is going to be a perfect addition to our office kitchen, since it has two racks and is large enough to heat up a pair of frozen pizzas (or a full batch of sweets). I’m already thinking about refrigerated dough recipes — wouldn’t everyone’s workplace be enhanced by the introduction of fresh-baked cookies or brownies from time to time?