Field Trips and Tranquilizers

There has been a cloud hanging over my head this whole week that I've done my best to ignore. Fortunately, it's been a tumultuous week, with multiple hormonal imbalances and stuff. (I refer you to last post re: water tampering.)

The Big School is going on  a field trip today. It sounds like fun, right up my alley, as they are going to a farm.  Awwww, sheep and stuff! and it has a museum...where they've catalogued old-time/historic tools used on Maine farms. How cool is that!?!

But I have nobody to babysit the post office.

So  I can't go.

And my 7 year old is.

I've been trying not to think about it, but it's been lurking there in the back of my mind, all week.

I am the Queen of Denial. Really I am. I once had myself totally convinced that I wasn't at a funeral, but a reunion of sorts. I completely and totally believed it. I even had a good t....well, best not to say.

Maybe that's why I wasn't able to pick up my needles all week.

This trip involves a boat ride (not the big ferry, but Kim Strauss , my most favoritest and trusted Captain is driving), a 2 hour drive (with a driver that is NOT me, but Rachel who I've known for 11 years), a lunch, the farm, and then all of that in reverse.

I'll be home (and at the PO) with the 5 yr old, who is BEYOND PISSED that he can't go.

How many tranquilizers will it take to get through this day?

On a positive note (because when you can't find one, and you make jokes about tranquilizers...it's time to be concerned), I got to spend yesterday afternoon playing cards...kid-free, no less...with a friend. ( I kicked butt)

Toldya, Dawn. 

Karma. 

I knew something good would happen to me yesterday to make up for the day before!

No package,though. I thought for sure it was in the mail bag...there was a flat rate priority box, and I was soo excited. I sorted all the mail, stacked all the other boxes, and was just about to tear into that priority box...and I happened to look at the name just before I sliced it open.

Darn! Not mine! (yeah, that's so not what I said.)

Thank God I happened to glance at the name...imagine If I'd opened somebody's box!!

I don't know if the post office Powers That Be would understand the insane excitement of a yarn swap. 

Then, yesterday evening, we went to Open House at the Big School. It was nice, saw all the kids' work, some of the art they've done with Anne Claude Cotty (our art teacher, we all LOVE her!), and watched Brody and Elijah shoot off some rockets as part of their science projects. Very cool.

Well.

I've made it through the morning, off to the Post Office. Let's see what kind of trouble I can get into there!

fingers crossed for Dawn's package!!!

Derailed

    I am filled with resentment tonight.

 Some days I am resentful of my kids, when they take an inordinate amount of my time, and I feel invisible. Then they do something cute and it goes away, and I remember that I'm the Mom and that's what I do. Even if I didn't get to knit one single stitch, or read a single page, or finish answering a single email...

    Sometimes I am resentful of The Big Guy, because he is a man and therefore (thinks he) has the ability to do what he wants, when he wants. For example, he can decide, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, that he should run to the mainland to buy a screw for the boat... just because. He steps onto any boat, hands free and unencumbered, and goes.

My trips to the mainland involve 2 kids, luggage, a snack cooler, carseats, lifevests, a babysitter for the post office, and a minimum of three days notice. (to obsessively check the weather.It sometimes also requires medication. That's a story for another day.)

     Today's resentment, though, comes in the form of PEOPLE WHO IMPOSE ON MY TIME WHEN I'M WORKING AGAINST A DEADLINE AND HAVE PLANNED AN ENTIRE UNINTERRUPTED AFTERNOON OF KNITTING.

 yeah, in caps, just like that.

And my whole day was derailed.

I didn't knit a single stitch.

Many forces are conspiring to work against me, my friends. 

There is the fact that sleeves suck, in general.

There is the fact that I am at a point in the pattern of said sleeve which is not just mindless stockinette, which I'm craving right about now.

There is the fact that I'm supposed to hand it over tomorrow afternoon, along with 3 other unfinished projects.

And there is the fact that it's June.

 June is fog season. Bet you didn't know there was such a season. There is, and we have it.

 Ever read Stephen King's "The Fog'? He's very perceptive, that Stephen. He may have spent some time on an island. Our fog is like nothing I had ever previously experienced. It's thick, and wraps around you like a blanket. A thick wet, salty blanket engulfing you, not with dainty tendrils, but fists. Obliterating the sun. Doom and gloom.

I've met fog before, of course. It mists around you, but sort of off in the distance. You walk, and it retreats a bit. You know that if someone is looking at you through the fog, you'd be a shape in a shadow.

Not this crap. It rolls down the street, like smoke, soaking everything in it's wake.

That's how thick it is. You step into it and your hair is as wet as if you sprayed it thoroughly with a spray bottle. Hosed.

You literally can't see your hand in front of your face sometimes.

And on the water, you see ...nothing. A wall of white. The guys drive by instruments, but they don't much like it. Could you drive your car by instruments, and trust them?!?

The fishermen can't see from buoy to buoy in the thick stuff, and it keeps them landlocked.

And that doesn't work for anybody involved!

And it's right on our horizon.

And people are getting a little....unstable.

At least, I hope it's the impending fog.

 Because my other theory involves a government conspiracy that involves Prozac in our water supply, or more specifically, the removal of Prozac from our water supply during the months of May and June, wreaking havoc on our inter-personal relationships.

I haven't worked out all the details yet. But judging from the last few days on this rock, this scenario is looking more and more plausible.

Switching gears

I know, I know.

I have a deadline, and I'm all but ignoring it.

I'm usually not a procrastinator, OCD sort of cures that, but I can't seem to make myself pick up that wave sweater. And it's getting close...I'm supposed to have it done by Thursday. (Ain't gonna happen).

I got a whole sleeve done, and am ready to start the wave on the 2nd arm. That's the holdup, I need to concentrate to do the colorwork. Maybe tomorrow.

For the record, although I was at work, at the post office, it was after hours. Me and my wave sweater were hiding out from the kids. The caveat is that other people find me...even when I've been closed for almost 2 hours. Hey, sometimes it's the only knitting time I can get! The Big Guy can't figure out why I can't ever get out of work on time...I keep telling him, we're just soooo busy down there!!

So, here's the switching gears part....

I don't know what possessed me to cast on these mitts. I think it was a fleeting thought of possibly starting some socks.....

and in the back of my mind is that yen for lace....

at least these are quick...

and there was this:

hmmm, lovely shot of the 10 cent button, but not so much with the stitch definition. Can't get a picture of that crocheted cord to save my life. And it's really cool!

I've done a dozen of these in one day. My kind of project! I feel like Tiennie!!

(Yeah right! I wish!  Sorry for the insulting comparison, T!)

I've been wearing one for 2 days, and all kinds of people have noticed it.

Okay, well, not so much today. Small town politics dictate that I can't say much about today's hubub...but I will just say that this Town Meeting is going to be a doozy.

Seems everybody is cutting corners in their homes, the school budget is stripped to the bones, but the Town Selectboard has other ideas. Weeeee'lllllll seeeeeeeee........