knitting frenzy

i have been trés busy the past couple of weeks, as i am sure you have guessed from my conspicuous absence. i am not even sure WHY it's been so busy, but i feel like i have had no time lately to sit still and breathe for a minute. this weekend, the hippie's friends were in for a game weekend, which is always cool. i spent most of saturday cooking--totally relaxing to me. then i took off and went out with my friend grant, who i never see now that he is immersed in grad school. the grant and jackie time--it was good. oh, but let's have an aside moment and talk about generation gaps.

i told my mother i was going out with grant on saturday, and she had a FIT! she was going on about how the hippie wouldn't like it if i was out with another man, yadda yadda yadda. which is kind of ridiculous if you know me and grant--we have been friends for years--he's 10 years younger than me--one of us would have killed the other years ago had we ever attempted to date. which we didn't. and i tried to explain this to the parental unit--she responded with, "well, what will you do whem jason wants to go out with some female friend without YOU???" and i had to go on to explain to her that the hippie was flying to boston on monday (yesterday) to go to a concert with the sam, and that he would be *gasp* spending the night at her house before flying home today. i really think this is some generational difference of opinion about what constitutes "dating" and what doesn't. anyway.

last night i had a whole evening to myself. there was a mountain of dishes, which i chose to utterly ignore. it was halloween, which i also pretty much ignored except for a brief interlude in which i had to check out my neighbor's niece, who was a FABULOUS little 3-year-old raggedy ann. so cute. she gazed longling through the window at the cats till i brought fergus outside so she could pet him. fergus, of course, was complete freaked out by being OUTSIDE. but i digress...

i left work early (early = 5:20pm) so i could go get a new class schedule from my LYS to post on my knitting group's website. the people at the LYS declared me to be family, which was kind of cool, although also somewhat telling about how often i go in there. meanwhile, there was a woman there looking for a skein of paton's melody in this variegated color (pastel clouds) which the LYS was out of. she needed enough to finish 4 rows of the very same baby blanket i have spoken of many times. i happened to have over half a skein of said yarn at home, so i spontaneously invited her to come and get it, which she did. kind of a strange knitting moment, but i really felt like i saved that woman's whole day. it's not like i was using the yarn, so no loss to me. :)

when the knitting lady was gone, i had some leftover shrimp and grits for dinner, threw in a movie, and casted on a new project (still knitting christmas presents, which are super-secret, so no details are available at this time). i knitted through batman begins and through part one of the extended version of the fellowship of the ring. i knitted till i could not hold the needles anymore. i knitted till my hands ached. and IT WAS GREAT!!! i was depressed when i had to stop. i need about 6 more nights like that, and i might actually be relaxed again.