Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Sun Is Shining ...
... or at least it was earlier today. The birds were singing, too.
The alpacas were humming, the goats were eating everything in sight, the sheep were fighting (well, only two of them), everything except the bunnies was bellowing and Franklin was knitting.
Day one of OFFF was very successful. I came away with three small bags of fibre (and only two nasty emails from my husband).
All in all an excellent day. Off to sleep to prepare for more sheep-patting tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
I Am A Bad, Bad, Blogger
And likely a reprehensible human being. I think we all know that, yes?
But before I continue the saga (which I truly will try to finish in the next two days before I leave for OFFF -- at which I am not vending but at which I shall most assuredly be spending) I would like to bring to your attention a little fundraiser my good friend Mel is running over on his blog.
Mosey on over and take a peek and send a dollar or two if you can, mmkay?
And then I'll tell you all about how I lost my virginity at Denny's in Portland. (no really, I did.)
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Let's Start At The Very Beginning
It's a very good place to start (or so the story goes).
(My apologies for my disappearance. Apparently 6 days and ten hours are one and the same to me, which may explain why I have not been allowed to chair meetings for several years now. I started my "ten hours" by doing the same thing I do every fall -- I go to bed for a nap and sleep for about 24 hours.
I have done this when the weather turns pretty much every fall that I can remember; I think perhaps I have the urge to hibernate or something.
And yet, every time it happens I think I have mono again or maybe I'm dying. I don't seem to learn particularly quickly -- every spring I think I'm getting a cold until I realize it's allergy season again.
Anyhow, I went to sleep, stayed passed out more-or-less for about 24 hours or a little more, and I've been scrambling to catch up with everything ever since. So far I have failed to do so.
But I digress.)
Yes, let's start at the very beginning. I know you perverts were hoping that we'd jump straight into the juicy details of The Happenings At The No-Tell Motel, however you're going to have to put up with me making a long story even longer. We haven't even gotten to the border yet.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was rabbiting about the landscape, hoping against hope that I could make 3 skeins turn into enough yarn to fill half a booth.
Despite the wobbliness of my confidence (and occasionally my knees) I thought I should book myself into the fibre fest in Victoria first to get my feet wet again. (Alas, I got my feet very, very wet as it was slightly rainy, as per usual, and the festival is held atop a windy bluff.)
I spent the next couple of weeks dyeing everything in sight and skeining madly while working graveyard shifts (fortunately I can skein stuff at work). As I mentioned before, the sales in Victoria were very disappointing, however reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances was most rewarding. At the end of the Fest, I gave all of my unsold yarn to the nice folks at Knotty by Nature to sell, and merrily returned to Vancouver.
Only to realize that a) I had almost no stock left and b) I really couldn't afford to place an order with my supplier.
(Um, yes. This whole "planning ahead" thing takes a little getting used to. Shut up.)
The long and the short of it is that I ended up getting the bulk of my stock in-house about ten days before we were due to leave for Portland. A couple of days before it was time to leave, I packed and shipped everything and decided enough was enough and I'd just deal with it, until the night before we were about to leave, when I looked at the list of items that I'd promised as door prizes and for the silent auction and realized that I hadn't dyed any -- not one skein -- of one of the promised colourways.
Words were said. Some were repeated, emphatically. Yarn was dyed.
And on the morning of August 5 I wended my dye-splattered way, with a suitcase full of bags of moist yarn (and I emphatically agree with Joe when he names "moist" as the most unpleasant word in the English language) to Abbotsford, where Barb B, my father and I, in classic style (and stylish class) parked our cars in the McDonald's parking lot and then ambled over to Tim Horton's to have coffee before starting on our journey.
I'm now at work, trying to finish my meal (I no longer have a name for the thing I eat in the middle of the night) and finish my paperwork (for which I have many names) and make a list of things that I would do today if I weren't going to be comatose; therefore, this saga is, once again ...
to be continued ...
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Rust Never Sleeps
But apparently I do, if only occasionally and usually briefly.
The tale will recommence in about ten hours. Right now I'm going to go lie on my head for a bit.
Possess your soul in patience; you will see*
*quote from the play in which I played the lead in my senior year in high school. I still remember most of my 285 lines, although often I can't tell you my postal code. Clearly the mind is going.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Are We Sitting Comfortably?
Good; then we'll begin. Or rather, continue.
Please bear with me as I rummage around in my somewhat-selective memory (and can anyone tell me why there is such a disappointingly small quantity of rum involved in the rummaging?) and resume the tale of what came to be known as "The Great Southerly Trek of Aught Nine".
Now, I'm all about the Great White North. I'm as Canadian as hockey, mooses, Birkenstocks and recycled haggis, and I've always claimed that the Deep South starts somewhere near Portland. I've never been further south than Leavenworth, Washington.
I'm also somewhat reclusive, require large amounts of "alone" time to function and am a very light sleeper.
Despite all of this, I found myself cheerfully (albeit slightly dubiously) agreeing to get a passport, drive to The Deep South, and share a hotel room with Barb (who had helpfully informed me that she is reputed to snore like a truck).
Now don't get me wrong -- this wouldn't be the first time I'd shared a hotel room with a woman I barely knew. It would, however, be the first time we'd both signed in under our real names.
This would be the first of many new and exciting experiences -- but far from the last.
(tomorrow: in which we redefine directions)
Thursday, September 03, 2009
As I Sat Here, Cold and Lonely ...
... a voice came to me, out of the gloom. It said "update your blog, bitch!"
Oops. Even my voices are getting impatient with me these days.
As promised, it is finally time to speak of many things; of ships and shoes and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. And, of course, of The Sock Summit.
When I first received an email (from the wonderful Jen, who I got to hug in person at last) about "that sock thing the Harlot is doing" and was I going to go? I responded, intelligently, with "huh? What sock thing?" (Hey at least I didn't say "what Harlot?")
I really hadn't read anyone's blog (apart from Mel's, and that's only because he talked to me online and kept sending me links and making me go read stuff) for a really really long time. I had no clue what was going on.
I did a little research. I hemmed, I hawed, I said "yes, of course!" And then quickly recanted and ran back into my cave to sit about gnawing on the bones of small rodents and talking in tongues. I was clearly far too crazy to do anything of the sort, and I would just sit in the dark and filth for a while and be perfectly happy and everyone could just stay away thankyouverymuch.
And then somehow it started seeming like a good idea to pack up the three skeins of yarn that I, in my madness, would be able to have ready in time. I don't know how or why, but I suspect both Jen and her partner in crime, the Tsock Tsarina, had something to do with it.
They are morally reprehensible women and nothing but ill can come of associating with them and their ilk. (Or their elk, for that matter. Wicked bad elk, that one.)
I had been pretty much beaten into submission (which I quite like, in case you were wondering) when Barb B started asking much the same thing. This time I was able to sound a little less clueless, as I had at least figured out what a sock was and where Portland was by this time.
I was still on the fence about the whole thing. There was the matter of money (I'm still paying off the many thousands of dollars in repairs I had to fork out for my leaky condo -- the one I sold at a loss several years ago thanks to a dishonest realtor), the matter of time and childcare (Her Surreal Highness is nine; I can hardly just give her a six-pack and the remote and say "I'll be back in a week, honey", as I could with Mr. Assmuppet), the matter of a car (mine isn't quite dead yet, but it's sleeping. Very, very soundly. And after going almost 400,000 km, wouldn't you be?) and the matter of not having enough stock.
"Pish tush" she said, or something along those lines. (she's always talking about my tush, the pervert). "The booth is paid for, I have a car and can drive us, and bring whatever yarn you have; it'll be enough."
Somehow, in the face of her optimism (and her determined refusal to let me go back to those rodent bones in the cave) I found myself agreeing to all sorts of madness.
Just how mad, I had yet to learn.
(to be continued)
