This was just too good, and too wrong, not to share. Stolen shamelessly from Ravelry, whose founders are actually in Austin at The Knitting Nest all day today. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.
The other day my husband called me. He was picking up lunch – some hot dogs from one of Austin’s ubiquitous trailer food stands.
“Lunch is going to be a little late,” he said. “I had to subdue a drunk and take away his keys. Just waiting for the police to get here.”
Apparently when he got to the counter, there was a guy just standing there, not saying anything. Everyone waited. Finally the cashier asked, “Hey buddy, can I get you anything?”
The drunk guy replied, “… Todd.”
At this point everyone knew something was wrong, and the guy started to wander to his car. He got in, proceeded to back up, and was backing towards the proprietor’s auto. Folks just watched him do it. Hub dashed over, reached in, grabbed the keys and made off with them. He said Drunk Guy got out and took a couple of bleary swings at him, but Hub led him over to one of the tables and sat him down, keeping him busy with conversation until the police could get there. Drunk Guy acquiesced easily enough, talking about his business, wife and family.
Eventually the cops came, took Hub’s statement, and the food establishment comped him one lousy order of fries. He came home with our hot dogs, none the worse for wear, thank God.
I wonder why that man was so plastered on a Monday noon.
I completed my Clapotis this afternoon. I cast on Christmas day with Ornaghi Filati Bamboo yarn in crimson. It only ended up taking about 4.75 skeins, a far cry from the 9 skeins I bought. I even did three extra straight section repeats for length, so it’s taller than I am – probably about 75″. I will probably end up blocking it, but for now I’m content to gaze adoringly at it and wonder where I’ll wear it first.
More pictures here and beyond.
This is a slide from my third grader’s Powerpoint presentation about what the pioneers ate.
Do you see anything a little weird about it? I mean, just slightly off?
Apparently my daughter is laboring under the misconception that the pioneers ate their own. And she claims she read about it in a book and that her teacher told her it was true.
Now perhaps there was a small blurb in there about the Donner Party, sure. And I imagine that it was probably a little more educational than the way I learned about it, which was from The Shining:
Wendy Torrance: Hey. Wasn’t it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?
Jack Torrance: I think that was farther west in the Sierras.
Wendy Torrance: Oh.
Danny Torrance: What was the Donner Party?
Jack Torrance: They were a party of settlers in covered-wagon times. They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
Danny Torrance: You mean they ate each other up?
Jack Torrance: They had to, in order to survive.
Wendy Torrance: Jack…
Danny Torrance: Don’t worry, Mom. I know all about cannibalism. I saw it on TV.
Jack Torrance: See, it’s OK. He saw it on the television.
But to list “dead friends” as a regular source of food set me into near-hysterical gales of sputtering laughter for so long that my younger daughter brought me paper towels and a drink of water out of concern. Then, of course, the family joke for the evening became cannibalism.
We are not a normal family.
At dinner, the little one decided she was too full for dessert(!). Hub and I proceeded to bicker over who would get her Worms in Dirt and pretend to be Bear Grylls. Just as the fight started to get heated, Jo said, “Wait, I know! Mommy can have the Worms in Dirt, and Daddy can have a Dead Friend!”
Daddy said, “Hmm. I don’t have a dead friend.”
Caroline said, “That’s okay! We can kill Mr. Baconator!”
Pretty sure my squawk of laughter upset the other dining patrons.
Today I got tested for the National Marrow Donor Program. Other than fill out a lot of paperwork, all I had to do was swab the insides of my cheeks with some Q-Tips. Easy peasy, lemon squeazy. I recommend you all do it.
I also gave blood for the first time. Not half bad. It was sort of like a reverse IV. I may have to do that again sometime.
It was one of those flip clocks that made the tiny little “click” when the minutes changed. It was white. I got it for Christmas, I think.
The alarm would go off.
He would stand in the door and softly call me to the kitchen.
Every morning he would make me a cup of cocoa and a small something. Usually an English muffin with peanut butter and jelly; sometimes cinnamon toast.
I’d scowl at the fluorescent light and bury my head in my arms and pine for the warm covers. The hot water heater would pound out a rhythm from its home in the hallway behind the kitchen door.
He was always patient. He always had English Breakfast tea and WOAI on the radio. In February and March we would always listen to “Thirteen Days of Glory” and I would always be proud to be Texan.
On cold mornings he would go run the car in the driveway for 15 or 20 minutes before it was time to leave, and when he came back inside, his fingers would be blue.
He would tell me “I lub you” when it was time to go.
I still eat English muffins with peanut butter and jelly.
Haven’t been sleeping well for the past couple of nights. Too much to fret about.
Sunday night: Dreamt that my cat was barfing little Mardi Gras-colored piles all over the house. Purple, gold, and green. Every day is like survival?
Monday night: Probably shouldn’t watch Space Cowboys before bed. Bizarre plot-driven tale about having to fly into space to eliminate a Threat. We were in a swanky bordello-decorated house in Los Angeles and somebody used their connections to hire Metallica to play us a couple of songs in the couple of hours before we had to take off. They played “Blackened,” which I felt was in poor taste for someone about to take off in a rocket because I thought it started off with “Blackened in the air.” (Hubby has since set me straight on the lyrics.)
The lead singer for M/A/R/R/S was there and kept talking to me like I should know him. I didn’t. But he did look like Toby from The Office.
The dream ended when someone gave me a going away present of a Minnie Mouse doll, decked out in a satin, powder blue party dress with “Ku Klux Klan” embroidered in the Laverne font down the side.
I’ve been waking up uneasy. Wonder why.
We have these cordless phones that have a rudimentary speech synthesizer and read the caller ID information out loud when we get telephone calls. This leads to some unintentional hilarity. For instance, when my uncle calls, the telephone hollers out that we have an incoming call from “Ballscar.” Earlier today a cousin called, and the phone dubbed him “Voiced Monkey.”
It’s the little things.
