Every once in a while it’s a good thing to try something completely outrageous, unheard of, and delightfully new. It quickens the senses, it makes you feel alive, it makes you question your fundamental philosophies.
I did not do this yesterday. I did, however, knit in a public bathroom stall in the medical research building while sitting on the toilet.
We had a long meeting/class yesterday on research ethics, about 3 hours. The first half was fine, exciting even, as we discussed public views on research and scientists, a general malaise in the public sector because of research gone amok, of cloning and stem cells and animal ethics, falsifying data, and financial trickeries. We drew no conclusions, which is the best way to go about discussions like these. Why don’t people trust scientists anymore? What has happened in the past 50 years that we are treated with wariness rather than respect? Are there religious overtones or undertones here? Good questions. I knit and thought about these for a long while. It was delightful.
The second man was the head of the IRB, and let me tell you, there is reason those people aren’t well liked or understood. It’s because no body can stay awake to listen to him speak. He turned off the lights, turned on a dark powerpoint, and we were out. Probably about 100 people or more, just out. Asleep. I mean, these are people who can stay awake through lectures about the tuberosities of the femur. More than half of the class was asleep, I among them. I just couldn’t make it. And you now that when I sacrifice knitting time for sleeping, there have got to be issues there.
Anyhow, I got a bunch of work done during the first half on the right front half of my lace cardigan. I’d so love to get this done in time for the Iowa State Fair, but I know it’s not going to happen. I really need to put it down and finish the other projects for the fair. It’s just so hard to accept. The fair items are due there on the 27th, and I still have 2 sleeves, half of a front, and finishing to do on a piece I’ve worked on (and off) for a year. (More off than on, yes, but still.) I’m entering embroidered stockings that don’t have the embroidery handspun handknit mittens that aren’t knit completely, Kris’s birthday gloves, and maybe the pair of baby Norwegian mittens? If I finish them? Nothing is completely done but Kris’s gloves. I really need to get working. Because there is shipping time as well!
Anyhow, the restroom knitting? I had ripped out two rows and was reinserting the needles in my work when the class ended. I thought it would look best if I ran out too, but my stitches were not on anything! So I ran into the restroom and put it all back on a did a row to get everything straightened out before I jostled through the hospital to catch my bus. At one point I think I was walking behind a convict/patient. At least, there was someone being pushed in a wheelchair, and there was a corrections officer traveling with them with handcuffs and chains hanging out of her hands. Truthfully, every day I wander through the hospital I see something new. It’s a wonderful change from the mundane of life elsewhere.
Anyway! To bad pictures of my knitting. I need to get a good digital camera back…these are from the web cam. One front half of my cardigan done.
One half of my cardigan to go!
One half of a pair of handspun and handknit mittens done.
One half to go!
Much knitting got done in D.C. And K? I don't think the spelling bee was actually occurring as you watched it. I think that was a few months earlier. It might have been a re-run, darling. Sorry to disappoint. I was not in town, however, for the bee. You know I'm afraid of bees. I was in town for the fireworks! And festivities! My mother was at a teachers conference the first half of the week with my father tagging along, and so I flew out the second half to meet them and run around to the museums and watch the fireworks and Little Richard.
Oh yeah, I said Little Richard. That man is awesome. Everyone loved him! I went to A Capital Fourth, in which everybody goes through security to watch a show and then the fireworks on the capitol lawn. There's something about Little Richard's music that makes you get up and dance. You realize this when no one gets crazy for any other song than his, but then the entire crowd gets up simultaneously and proves to the world that our national dance is not salsa, waltz, foxtrot, or even the macarena. No, it's shaking your booty. There was some other people, the barmaid from Cheers (she played Rita?) who sang show tunes, Tony Danza who tap danced, some country singer, Dierks Bentley, who had a wonderful voice if not wonderful music, Elliot Yamin, who apparently did not win American Idol, but had a great voice, loved him. Still needs to work on his stage performance a bit. Hayden Panettierra, the cheerleader from the TV show Heroes, who really should stick to acting, or else stop singing things flat, and Yolanda Adams, who just bewitched the audience with her amazing voice. And then there were fireworks! Lots of explosions! And the National Symphony Orchestra, who are very good (if not ill-motivated, since they had to play while the display went on). They actually played West Side Story, the same arrangement we played a few years back! I was about to run down and join them, but I didn't have my violin. Their version of Stars and Stripes wasn't the same as our Concert Band. I was definitely missing some cymbal crashes.
I'll tell you more about the weekend later when I get some pictures to go along with it, but let's just say it was fun, exciting, and about killed off my feet. It was great fun, I got a bit disillusioned, which I'll tell you more about later, and I'm back at work and sending out more mailing!
When do you start classes? I'm so glad you found a nice apartment! That's wonderful. Apartments aren't cheap in the rest of the world beyond Iowa, I think. You really have to pay to have a roof over your head. Do you have an orientation or anything? Is James moving with you right away, or does he have more work to do in New Mexico? I'm so excited!
Excited and knitting quickly,
A
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