two weeks

Last weekend, we went to my grandmothers house to meet my parents for my mom's SIXTY-THIRD birthday, and I completely forgot about the weekend update. So what's going on? Maple is right now telling me, "Mama, let your dreams come through!" This is a great improvement on the usual expression.

Last weekend at Libby's, Maple, Pat-Attack (aka grandma) and I went to Libby's LYS (Local Yarn Store), Needleworks, and we got yarn to make a simultaneous sweater. I'll write more about that when we actually start it. This yarn (and the idea of making two identical sweaters) was my birthday present to my mom -- as if she doesn't have enough stuff to do. We recently asked her to make us a quilt, so she has her hands full.

Today we drove to western MA to go to WEBS, which is the largest and most well-stocked yarn store I've ever seen. I ordered some stuff from them last week but they hadn't shipped it yet, so we canceled the order and drove out to get the needles I needed to make the sweater. Going into that store was a near-religious experience. I couldn't believe all the shit they had. It was like the Wal*Mart of knitting stores, with a horde of people you wouldn't believe.

WEBS is in Northampton, which is a really nice college town with lots of vegan food. We ate lunch at Evolution, which is an all vegan cafe -- really yummy -- and got vegan chocolates at a candy store on Main Street, where they had a vegan guide to the candy store taped to the wall just inside the door. Also in Northampton (bless those college kids), we saw the most moving public display I've ever seen. About 30 people clad in black with white expressionless masks paraded through the streets to recognize Iraqis and Afghanis who died. They held signs with the names of the dead, one per person, and some of them carried black, empty children's jumpsuits. I lasted about 4 seconds before I burst into tears. After that, everyone we saw on the street elicited a cry of "There's another parade!" from Maple. That provided some comic relief, but really, nothing seemed funny after that. Not even the frog-in-overalls statue with a slot in the stone pillar underneath him and a bronze sign that said, "FEED THE FROG, Feed the Hungry." Random.

I finally got my self-review done at work. Once a year, we have to write a review of our performance. I'm glad that's over, because it's a pain in the ass. I always have to psych myself up for that stuff, because I usually just focus on all the stuff I've done wrong. Sean helped me so much by going through the review with me before I turned it in and making great suggestions, all of which I took, and which cumulatively made the thing a lot crisper.

While I was waiting for my needles to arrive (before we canceled the order and went to the store to get them), I decided to start an entrelac scarf for Sean. I've got about 8" of it done so far, and it's very fun to knit. But now I have my sweater needles so I am going to enter the daring world of multiple WIPs (Works in Progress).

Now Maple is playing with some needles and yarn I gave her. She's giving an instructional knitting video performance, saying, "Stitch one, two, then go to the other side. Do one needle at a time, then stitch one." We watched a bunch of knitting videos last week on YouTube so that I could master a few new skills. Apparently they had quite an impact.

The other day, Maple told Sean, "Daddy you have a special light and you should follow it. And don't ever lose me." I've been telling him that ever since we met, but as usual, she said it better. :)