There's No Place Like Home

Happy Halloween!

You Probably Knit Too Much If...

I dyed my hair to match my Clapotis.

Don't look at me like that. It wasn't all vanity. I was looking at all those gorgeous Noro Silk Garden colors today. Amethyst purples, cobalt blues and emerald greens melting into one another and realized that I had knit this for the old me. I was a redhead as a child and had a love-hate relationship with my hair. It got me quite a bit of attention, not all of it positive, but at least folks knew who I was. When random people talked about our meeting later they could say to each other, "You know, the redhead." or "I forgot the name of the redhead." or, more often than not "The cute blonde says she'll go out with me if I find a blind date for her friend, the redhead."

Well nature plays a cruel joke on us redheads. Red fades with age, which means that just as you reach an age where you can laugh in the face of other peoples' perceptions, "redheaded stepchild" jokes et al, it starts to vanish. Now, when I could finally stare down the bozo who asks, "You gotta temper to match that hair?" it starts to fade to a dishwater blonde.

So today as I looked at Clapotis I realized that my draw to those shades of violet and green stemmed from the fact that they used to be the only shades I could wear that wouldn't clash with my hair. Suddenly I got so homesick for myself, and I did it. I drove to the drugstore and bought some L'oreal Excellence Creme 6R and dyed my hair to match my Clapotis!

Now I once again have that hair that says, "I'm probably descended from Vikings, so while we're having a polite conversation now, you'd best stay on my good side lest my genetic predisposition for burning and pillaging kicks in."

For the first time in a long time I looked in the mirror and recognized myself. I could have used this hair yesterday. We were invited to a birthday party at Chuckie Cheese. For those of you unfamiliar with this establishment, Chuckie Cheese is like Mickey Mouse's out of control, nakedly exploitive and opportunistic younger sibling. Or for all you SAT lovers out there...

Chuckie is to Mickey
As Paris is to Nicky

The only good to come out of this experience is that I can now report with confidence that none of my children have previously undiagnosed epilepsy. Chuckie Cheese is Vegas for children. Bad dinner theater, tokens, gambling,smoke and mirrors. The only thing missing was free cocktails for high stakes gamblers. To which I say, "Ha! you lock me in this building with flashing lights and a 7 foot animatronic mouse, you better make it worth my while."

One interesting side note of the event was watching the interaction between parents. The crowd was made up of women clothed in full Burkas - face covering, the whole nine yards (of fabric) and women in painted on jeans and lingerie as outer wear who were there to spend some quality time with their "baby's daddy" which afforded my children the opportunity to witness the Madonna/Whore Complex in action. Still I felt the need to find some common ground and considered gathering all the women together to hold hands in a circle and sing the Whitney Houston hit I'm Every Woman, but by this point my two year old had gone into electronic overstimulation shock (EOS) and was staring at the mini-carousel screaming "Horsey, Help me! Horsey Help meeeeee!!!!!!!!!" I looked at my husband with that desperate "I know this is your family, but you have to get me out of here before my head implodes." look on my face. Fortunately he felt the same way and together we convinced the children that a three hour wait at the prize counter to redeem 120 points worth of tickets which would earn them a "Let's Go To Chuckie Cheese!" bumper sticker, really wasn't worth it.

And my childrens' only complaint after the fact? They didn't get to spend any quality time with their cousin, the birthday girl.

Rampant consumerism- 1
Human relations- 0

Swing Low Sweet Chariot...

There is progress on the Clapotis pictured above. It's wrapped around my lovely Irish dancing assistant. This same assistant has not had a very good day. I know this because she sang about it between sobs after she had locked herself in the bathroom. She sang an epic lament about the pain and torment of having me for a mother. I am REALLY looking forward to puberty.

She woke up sad. I know I've had days like that. After a fight with her older sister she came to me for breakfast. I gave her the list of options and nothing sounded good to her. She asked me for the menu twice more and I curtly told her that she had to select from what was available or go hungry. She ran to the bathroom and locked herself in. After a gut wrenching crying jag the (rather loud) pleas to heaven began. "Please God, help me. This is the meanest she's ever been to me. Why does it have to be this way? I do EVERYTHING around here!" This is what comes of watching Cinderella one too many times. And then the singing..." a very bad day, a very bad day, I remember good days so long ago."

This doesn't happen very often, but she has done it before, because it works. There's something about being bad-mouthed to The Almighty by a 6 year old that stops me in my frazzled tracks. I eventually coaxed her out and she later boasted to me "I took a bad day and turned it upside down!" But I secretly fear she's ready to interview new mothers.
I'd like to take this opportunity to beat her to the punch,

Dear Angelina,
If you're reading this, maybe looking for knitting info so you can knit something up for little Zahara? Please adopt me. I'm potty trained, I do dishes, and I have no qualms about calling Brad "Daddy" (insert Soon Yi joke here.) Heck you can even give me the same mohawk as Maddox and change my name to Tonya, but spell it Dhanja, thereby condemming me to a life of having to spell it for every underpaid, overworked office worker that comes my way. I won't write a tell all book and I don't require designer clothes. Just keep me in quality yarn and nobody gets hurt.

Sincerely,
Aimee

Friday Foolishness

I saw this over at Lickety Knit and a few other blogs. Google “[Your Name] needs” and see what kind of sentences come up.

Here are mine:

Aimee needs more cheese.
Aimee needs to spend a few months training in the ring!
Aimee needs a new t-shirt designer.
Aimee needs some retraining.
Aimee needs a caring family to cherish and pamper her for the rest of her life.
Aimee needs wet milling service in Europe.
Aimee needs to stand on a box the next time we take a photo.

pass it on.

The Constant Knitter

I have serious blogger's guilt. It's been too long since I've posted, but I have two settings right now. Full speed ahead and full stop! I wake up every morning with the frantic sense that I'm supposed to be somewhere and about 70% of the time I'm right. The other 30% is spent not wanting to do anything at all in protest.
Except knit of course.
I'm knitting like mad to shut out the noise. I have so many projects on the needles right now I've stopped trying to update my WIP bar, at least for the time being.

I have 2 current favorites though that occupy most of my time. First is the Marilyn's Not-So-Shrunken cardi from Wendy at Knit & Tonic which I'm knitting up in Merino Style from KnitPicks. I love this yarn with a passion that knows no depths. It's Dk weight, soft, spongy merino goodness for a little over $2. Plus I love this pattern. It's the first time I've knit a sweater from the top down and I love it. I'm not the biggest fan of finishing, so this project is just what I needed right now. I'm already day dreaming of all the ways I could adapt this pattern in myriad shapes and colors.

The other project is my, at long last, Clapotis. The Clapotis had taken on mythical proportions for me. I've been loathe to blog about this, but we're in the process of attempting to buy a house in a market that's not very accomodating. When we placed our first bid I had visions of myself knitting in front of the fireplace draped in a lovely Clapotis. I decided to cast on with some Noro Silk Garden in a desperate act of wishful knitting. Before I could even get it on the needles we were outbid. Now we've bid on another place and I've been knitting that Clapotis like I could knit the future together just the way I see it. I don't know what's coming or where we're going, but I know that I have to knit into the front and back of every stitch before the markers and I know that Silk Garden drapes lovely and I know that dropped stitches take some coaxing when you actually want them to drop for a change.

In reference to the title of the post, If you haven't been to see The Constant Gardner yet, do your self a favor and see it. Fantastic!