An Embarrassing Moment

But not my Most embarrassing moment. That would be the time the new young doctor at Patients First walked into the exam room without knocking. I was naked. That was merely annoying. Then he looked up from the chart and screamed.

That seems funny now. The story of the green sock yarn still makes me cringe.

A Londoner, on an online knitting group, wanted moss green Lang Jawoll to make the zigzag socks I'd also been wanting to start on. The only source didn't ship to the UK. I was getting ready to go to England on vacation. I offered to get an extra skein when I made my order, and bring it to her. We agreed to meet outside the Victoria and Albert Museum and have lunch at the cafe.

I don't remember if I was under an unusual amount of personal stress during that time, or if it was just jet lag, which always affects me profoundly, no matter what remedy or prevention I attempt.

I started to cry into my tomato soup in the busy but relatively quiet museum cafe. Between choked sobs, I tried to apologize, but I just could not stop crying. The yarn recipient, being English, murmured soothing things, and acted like she always lunched with folks who kept handfuls of paper napkins pressed to their faces. The people around us took no notice, except for the discreet, momentary flicker of eyes our way.

There is a vague memory of being in the gift shop, and then I was striding down the street, taking deep breaths. I don't remember the lady's name, but she did pay me for the yarn, and gave me some of her handmade soap. Of course, I never heard from her again.

That was at least five years ago. I've finally started those socks.

Thanks for Asking, Ande

Ande of Knit and the City went out of her way to express interest in the current condition of Sven, my Volvo, and my front porch. Sven has a new ignition coil, which was my mechanic's next guess after the fuel relay. If Sven has a relapse, we'll try something else. Eek. I drive with eyes peeled for likely places to pull out of traffic on short notice. Keeps one alert.

Porchwise, I'm more than halfway finished painting the white, vertical stuff : railings and lattice, it takes forever, it makes you crazy, these little bits, all corners, all edges. Then I can do the floor in an hour or two. The effort resumes this weekend, when the temps are no longer expected to be near 100.

The shawl progresses. No one is more surprised than I. There's also a sock in the works, because I get to change one color every four rows. Quite takes my breath away. The pattern is the Zigzag Socks from Vogue Knitting Socks. I'm using Jawoll instead of the Wildfoote called for. I've wanted to start these for years, but an embarrassing incident, to be chronicled in the next post, has held me back.

Janet Evanovich has a new Stephanie Plum novel out. There's always one passage in each book that makes me quite helpless with laughter. I thought I had found it while sitting at dinner - I had to push my plate away and put my head down on the table. But yesterday, at work, as I walked from the lunchroom to the timeclock, a sentence caught me offguard and I nearly fell to my knees. It takes all my self-control not to tell you what it was.

Ande! Congratulations on the promotion!

( I don't know why Blogger won't let me title this post. )
A most unusual week. Wood for the porch floor was purchased and primed; this morning Handy Phil said he'd be here between 8 and 9 - he arrived at 8:15, despite the international contractors' motto that says We Never Show Up. ( I did not make this up. It's a Dave Barry-ism. ) There is now a complete floor on the porch. With all the scraping, cleaning, and priming of the rest of it, all I have to do now is the actual painting. This may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but to me it is. Painting is the easy part. The fun part. It's all downhill from here... famous last words...

As for Sven, he is in the shop again, after cutting off in traffic again. It's too traumatic; I can't talk about it. The only amusing part is the view from the waiting area at the car rental place on Broad Street.