London Part II

Found Yarn! and the 10.5 needle I needed! At a department store. Can you believe it? It would be like walking into Macy's and finding a yarn department. Definitely a little strange...but the yarn was lovely (if small in selection) and as most of London was having a 50% off sale, the yarn department at John Lewis was no exception. Found some nice stuff. Okay, we're in an internet cafe and I need to sign off, because my husband tells me that we can't go over the twenty minute limit or something bad will happen (like we'll have to pay another pound!)

Disappointed in London

I'm sitting in a London Internet cafe cursing because all the buttons are in the wrong places on the keyboard. Specifically, the left hand shift key is in the wrong place so \i keep typing "\" whenever \i want to capitalize a letter (witness where \i type "\i").

Also disappointed because there are no real yarn shops in London. Though its my own fault--if I had done any internet research at all prior to my travelling here, I would have discovered the lack of yarn shops. Everybody on the net knows except for me. There is one small yarn shop called Loop but it is CLOSED during the one week I happen to be in London.Turns out knitters in London buy their yarn over the internet from Scotland or the States. Oh, darn.

I suppose its all right, because after all, I am ostensibly on a yarn fast, meaning, I am not supposed to be buying yarn until the end of Lent in the upcoming year (my self-imposed fast, not at the instigation of any other person, like, say, my husband). Even though I allow myself to buy yarn for the knitting ladies at Interim House, and I also permit yarn buying for the Shawl Ministry at church. And every once in a while a bit of yarn I really, really need for a project to be finished. But other than that I really am on a yarn fast. So I suppose I should be grateful there are no yarn shops to be found. But still...I need a size 10.5 circular needle so I can finish that hat for Sarah, and even though I own several 10.5 circs in Philadelphia I don't have one here...what am I going to do? Trapped in a city with no yarn stores?

Too bad for me. I guess I'm going to have to finish the socks for Bill which I gave him, still on the needles, as a Christmas present. Wish I could post pictures but I haven't figured out how to do that here in this London Internet cafe. I'll try to figure it out and post later.

Christmas Spirit

Bill just came in from a long day of work looking like this:

Bill brought Bodhi with him to the church today. He had many things to do at church--calling people, doing paperwork, etc.--but the nicest thing he did was attend a Summit Children's Program event, with Bodhi on his shoulder. I was surprised when he told me this (those of you who know the terrifying story about our first motel visit with Bodhi will understand) and I asked whether he had allowed the children to pet her and he said no. With our last ferret, the dearly departed Jill, he could surrender her into the vulnerable hands of children and worry more about her safety than theirs. But Bodhi, who is formerly known as "Rabid Biter," is a different animal altogether. She looks cute. But she's quite unpredicable, and occasionally dangerous. But she's cute anyway. Bill and she were doing their best to spread the Xmas spirit:

I just thought they both looked so dear in their red neckties.

Those Prolific Knitting Ladies

Since I havn't been knitting much myself, still slaving away on a solitary sad Xmas sock, I will do as the Harlot does and distract you, this time with another website: the brand new blog for the Interim House knitting ladies, which is put up by the Social Worker there, Kathy. Not too many pictures of the knitters themselves, but plenty of pictures of their things. Those of you who sent fun fur will recognize its prominence in the knitted pieces. Enjoy here!

I am the laziest blogger in the world, or, What My Computer Sees, part II

I have no interesting knitting content. I haven't been knitting much at all--no time, what with the new job. So in order to have something new, I am posting a picture I took with my computer, which is sitting on my lap, of another item that is sitting on my lap:

This photo meets the criteria of the genre of gratuitous pet photos, a classic subterfuge technique for knitbloggers who have little or no knitting content to share. Thats my kitty Velvet. She's not really as grumpy as she looks, though she is curled up pretty tightly. She's only on my lap because, as my husband says, she's a heat-slut, and wants to be on me at all times in order to keep warm. This includes when I am trying to knit, when Velvet obliges me by chewing amiably on my yarn as it goes by.

In other news, Kathy from Interim House is putting together a blog for the knitting ladies there, so they can share pictures of their work and progress. But she says the blog is not suitable for general consumption yet. As soon as she gives me the okay, I will share the link with the rest of you, okay? Thanks again to all of you who sent yarn and needles for Interim House!

What my computer sees

I just recently acquired one of the smallest laptops ever made--a Sony Vaio. And it has this built in camera. This is what my Vaio is looking at: me, knitting. Its the intersection of old and new technologies.

This camera is pretty nifty. I can turn it around and take stealth pictures. So here is a picture of my favorite place to hang out and knit and drink coffee by myself: InFusion coffee shop in Mt. Airy:

y'all are welcome to join me here anytime.

Thanksgiving part II

Only because I'm a backwater blogger can I get away with these weeks-old pictures. No big-name bloggers could get away with it. Why am I so late? Because I am so forgetful I never remember my own camera (again, big-name knit bloggers would never be without a camera to document their every little bit of knitting progress), so I am always relying on the kindness of strangers--or other friends and family members--to take pictures and send them to me, or post them on their own websites, as my delightful stepson Ryan does.

Let me just take this opportunity to say that I have the best stepkids in the world. If it were not so, would Kim, Bill's daughter, spend hours knitting with me over Thanksgiving weekend? Look at that. That thing there in her hands is a gauge swatch. *sniff* Its making me tear up just to think about it.

For the past year, whenever Bill gets fed up with my knitting, he says something about taking up whittling so that he has something manly to do while the ladies are engaged with the yarn. But so far he's not done any whittling. I hope Bill was good and ashamed when Ryan started whittling a wooden Santa Claus Christmas Tree ornament.

Ryan was really working hard at that whittling. So hard, in fact, that he developed blisters on his soft computer-programmer's hands. I was impressed by his diligence. And yet...whittling is a craft I just do not understand. He worked for hours to carve this bit at the end of his block of wood to the point where it looked like the foot of a table leg. It will be many more hours before he has his Santa ornament finished. And then he will have...a Santa ornament. Not anything as useful as a scarf or a pair of socks.

But who am I to talk? If somebody were to question the usefulness of my knitting, I'm sure he could make a valid argument for buying $1.99 socks at Kmart instead. Why bother with the dpns and the sock-weight yarn? I could certainly find more socially constructive ways to use my time. I could be volunteering at the food cupboard or teaching music to underprivileged youngsters. Why spend so much time knitting?

Well, I don't intend to write here about how knitting can change the world. I'm not sure it does, really, though many knitters have claimed otherwise. What I do know is that knitting is a fun thing to do with my family and friends. Calming for me, and a slow, meditative creative outlet. Maybe its selfish but I guess we're all selfish in our own particular ways. At least its a fairly benign selfishness.

In other picture news, I just wanted to share another that makes me laugh.

For those of you who don't know him, this is my wild husband Bill with Kim's ferret, whose name is Zoe.

Zoe is the dopiest (is that a word? I mean, she's waaaay dopy), silliest, round tribble of a ferret I ever met. So I love how fierce (to use Tyra Banks' favorite adjective) she looks in this photo. She's like, America's Next Top Ferret Model.

A sign the move is a positive one.

Today, at my new job as a "Spiritual Care Coordinator" (a funny word for chaplain) for VistaCare Hospice, my supervisor out of the blue told me I could start a knitting group, as part of my methods of providing pastoral care. She added, "you know, like at the nursing homes you visit." And she told me I should also be playing my violin--also as part of pastoral care.

I knew there were going to be positive aspects to the new job!

There are no other knitters, as far as I can tell, among those who work at this office, though there are many people I haven't met yet. They've all been somewhat impressed by the meagre knitting I have demonstrated so far (namely, the red-and-yellow scarf featured in my last post). I'm actually suprised by how few knitters I've encountered at this job. At my last job, I knew a whole bunch of knitters. Of course, that was a much larger facility, and there was much more insanity, and we all know that where there is insanity, there are knitters too.

Its been a bit of a tough transition. I don't think I like working 5 days in a row. And I don't particularly like orientation. From my second day there I started begging, shamelessly, for anybody to take me out of the office. Finally on day 4 they listened to me and sent me out with a nurse to visit some folks. (I think they got tired of listening to me whine.) The nurse did all the driving so I got lots of knitting done that day.

And then today I followed the other chaplain, Diane, for a few hours. She's pretty new, too, having only been with VistaCare for about two months, but she has an impressive command of the really confusing paperwork and a lovely way of relating to everyone she meets. I am looking forward to working with her more often. She plays the piano really well. When we arrived at the nursing home today she sat down at the piano in the day hall and led an impromptu sing-a-long, which endeared her to all the staff there immediately. It made me so happy to sing along with her.

This was much more fun than the other work I've been doing. This is mostly sitting in the conference room, filling out form after form, reading the "Spiritual Care Coordinator Guide to Orientation" handbook, looking for the answers to the multiple-choice exam based on said handbook, and watching training videos, which are mostly a product of the VistaCare propaganda machine and not very educational.

Well, tomorrow I have my first "Interdisciplinary Group" meeting--meaning, a meeting of the whole team, and I am excited to meet the rest of the folks. Wish me luck. I will be bringing donuts to create a good first impression.

Oh and I want to post more pictures of the weekend. I am hoping Ryan will send some from out trip to Kirkwood. So Ryan, if you read this, send pictures, 'k? Please?