Petunia rambles on and on….

Yes, I firmly spoke the words out loud,”I will not buy any more craft shit.” I was prompted to do that by someone else who shall remain nameless here, someone who thinks that getting into the same bed with me each night from the other side gives him the authority to say this. I tend to look at statements like this as “Red Flags” waved in front of the Taurus. (I remember the last husband saying, “You can’t just up and go visit your girlfirend in Florida” and I was there in short order. Of course, if I’d have listened, I could have missed all the devastation that was Hurricane Andrew. Perhaps that was a great decision but rather poor timing?? We had a great time, though, Patsy, and you still haven’t sent me the pictures from that night we went to the bar with all the male strippers  prayer meeting at the local church.

Uh, on to craft stuff and road trips.  Last week, while winding about 400 yards of lace-weight 2-ply superwash Merino in color Amethyst (Bull shit. I ordered that thinking it was a royal purple; it is a deep flag blue, still beautiful, but damn sure not purple.) off my jumbo bobbin on the Traddy onto my niddy noddy for skeining, the noddy broke – one of the little arms snapped in two! With 800+ yards of finely spun singles at stake, I froze, and shrieked, and Pop came running, thinking that there was an accident, an emergency. There clearly was, but not one he recognized. Afraid to move either hand, knowing that I am too old already to have enough time left in my life to untangle 400 yards of lace-weight if it got into a snarl, I had to calmly give Paul directions on how to carefully tie everything up without letting go of anything – fortunately I always have the tie-strings cut and ready to go. Fortunately, he was a Boy Scout 200 years ago, and the Army taught him to suture, so he was able to save the skein and I was able to breathe again.

Yesterday, I get a message from my friend Wendy that the wonderful Vulcan’s Rest restocked their supply of Ladybug bobbins. I really could use a couple extras, and that replacement niddy noddy, too.  Warm and sunny day, beautiful day for a ride, grabbed some CDs and the little radio and off I go – got 10 miles up the road when I saw some neat looking sawgrass stuff – and realized that I had grabbed a camera with dead batteries. ARGH! With 4 different camera outfits and probably 10 sets of batteries, it’s hard to believe I’m that stupid but go ask Pop and he’ll confirm that I am. All I had was the one in my phone!

An hour later I’m there at the shop and they have lovely bobbins and a 60″-skein noddy.

And then I saw the sign  (and it was a sign from Heaven, I’ve sure) that said “Noro – 30% off.”  (who in their right mind would walk past that, I ask ya??)

Clearly, I am not in my right mind – 12 balls of Kureyon, 4 each of 3 different colorways.

And there was fiber, merino/silk blend from Louet.  And a copy of an old Spin Off magazine that I must have missed.

When Pop saw it all, he looked out the window, figured I also had a couple of alpacas in the back of the Jeep Escape. (I keep forgetting that I don’t have that Cherokee anymore – and I still miss her. My green “toad.”)  Oh, here’s something.  Spent a lot of time driving my vehicle with Paul as a passenger when we went up to the mountains for a week mid-October and then down to Kate’s last week and Pop notices things, being very bored. He says that I keep my right hand on the floor shift until I get up to about 35-40mph, then 2 hands on the wheel, and that I often attempt to put in a non-existant clutch when cornering or coming to a stop. This makes me feel foolish, because I really hadn’t noticed it.  Somewhere in my weak mind, I’m still trying to drive a stick-shift vehicle that I don’t own! I haven’t driven a standard transmission on a regular basis since I traded in that blue Grand Am GT (the one with the hot blue wheels!) to buy a black ’97 one. Pop’s truck has a 5-speed manual, and I’ve driven it often, but it’s probably been a year or so – mine was in the shop or something. Now before that, I drove only stick-shifts for 20+ years, as both cars were that way.

Anyway, never mind. I just thought it was odd, is all.  My mind apparently takes these little mini-vacations, and leaves without telling me.

Noro Kureyon 253A

Noro 263D

 

I need a babysitter when I go out by myself.

Husband gets a lot of mail.  Nothing important, though.

Most of the bills come in my name, the utilities and such, because the companies make you show a photo ID to open the billing accounts for electric, phone, cable, whatever, and I was the one that went to all those folks and got everything started – at the time, I was working 3-11p at the hospital and it was just easier for me to do it and put it in my name. So I get most all the bills, and I hand over the flyers, the junk mail, to him.  He actually reads all that shit, cover to cover, looks at all the ads, tells me how cheap stuff is that I don’t want. (Brussel Sprouts are on sale at the Acme! Gag!) He looks through the L.L. Bean catalog ’cause they have neat stuff, and he checks out the Victoria’s Secret catalogs that still arrive here, years after daughter has moved out. (I use the coupons, Kate; don’t worry that they’re being wasted) He must be looking for errors cause he studies every page. Once a year, he gets a letter from the local volunteer fire company when they have their annual fund-raiser, and our local representative always sends him a birthday card.

There is nothing interesting about the mail he gets except the arguements we have over it. When he’s done reading/studying it all, he puts it neatly in a stack. Tomorrow, he’ll go through another batch and put in a neat little stack, somewhere else. On and on. After several weeks days of this, I start hopping up and down over the clutter. Little stacks of mail on the kitchen table, on the coffee table, on the desk, on the kitchen counter. Little stacks that I have to round up, sort through to make sure it’s all junk and then toss.

My gripe is that when he has in his hands a letter offering us 50% off on the total cost of having our basement waterproofed and he knows damn well we don’t have a basement, why doesn’t it click with him that this is JUNK MAIL and it should go directly into the garbage. Right away! We don’t need to debate this, the U.N. doesn’t need to convene.  Throw the shit out!! And by then, I’m going around here like a maniac, yelling and throwing stuff.

I seem to be going around the house like a maniac a lot lately, by my own admission. I think it may be age-related. Tomorrow, I think I shall start getting younger. Getting older isn’t working anymore.

So we’ve established that Pop’s mail isn’t very exciting – and I do give him all those “Enroll Now” letters from the AARP, even.

The other day he got one, though, and he just looked at it at first, then started mumbling, and ended up yelling, “He better not want me to go back to Viet Nam!”

 

 

“Driving” is a skill that almost all of us learn – and after the fact, we tend to forget how much thought and concentration went into the learning part. 

Today, I drive all over, think nothing of getting in my car and driving to Florida, or upstate NY or Maine or Indiana (except for the damn bridges!) I relax, kick back, put the satellite radio on Sixties music, crank the volume up to where the windows start to vibrate a bit, and I’m good for hours.

And we forget the intense learning part!