I didn't have to work at 6:00
Jameson slept until 7:30
I did try to go back to sleep but when that attempt failed I decided to brew up some coffee (thanks Alley Cats) and watch Letters to Juliet which I just got on Netflix. It was a nice hour of peace, joined by j a little later, but he was groggy and just sat and enjoyed Mama's movie without complaint. The shots of the Italian landscape reminded me of our trip there. The love story which unfolded reminded me of my childhood dream of Romeo and my knight on a white horse.
Although this was a pleasant reverie, why do we allow ourselves to be wrapped up in that romantic notion that life isn't about checkbook balances and student loans and diapers? Sorry to burst the bubble.
Big plans: Josh and I have decided to go on a little spring break to see his family. We'll be heading to Savannah for Easter with John, Zhenya, Pearl & Caroline. Its about a 22 hour drive; we're planning to take it easy and stop when we need to. We'll bring a DVD player and DVDs for j and I'll bring KNITTING.
Its kind of sad that instead of looking at it as quality family time I am instead making lists of what I can knit while trapped in a car for 44 hours! And yes, I have it all planned out. I have yarn and the pattern to make Jameson a Sleuthing Hoodie yarn for socks (I'll bring two sets with) and perhaps I'll also bring the stuff to make a Traveling Woman Shawl. It sounds like a lot, but it'll pack easily and I don't want to not have something to do... I also plan to bring two paperbacks.
Now for some discussion on shawls... wait, doesn't everyone write in their blog about the merits of shawls? OK, so anyone who is even remotely involved in the knitting or crocheting world will find that shawls are immensely popular. Problem is: WHY? in my research I have found that...
- shawls can be knit large or small, long or round, one size fits any/all
- shawls can be knit on anything from laceweight to worsted or probably even bulky (like for a prayer shawl)
- knitting a shawl is quite portable if its on a lighter weight yarn (lots of yardage per skein)
- shawls are multipurpose: they can be used as a blanket, sweater, nursing coverup, baby blanket, accessory
- And last but not least, in the following selection from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy please replace the word towel with SHAWL and there you have it: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
So really, how can I go on knitting without knitting myself a shawl? And the most fitting option seems to be the Traveling Woman... because where would a traveling woman be without her shawl?
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