You're A Very Important...Person

 

I discovered a new craft store this weekend out of town that I fell in love with until I got to the checkout lane. I did not realize that you in order to make a purchase anywhere in this part of town you have to either state your age or admit you are over 21. I'm not kidding!

I brought my armful of yarn, a set of bamboo double pointed needles and a couple of knitting magazines to the front and was promptly asked if I was 21. Not quite understanding the clerk, I looked at the screen where because of the direction of their register monitors, my purchase was perfectly displayed for everyone in line behind me to see that I had purchased five skeins of hunter green speckled Lion Brand yard, one skein of black speckled yarn, four skeins of Lily dishcloth cotton, my dpn's, and two magazines all totaling up to over fifty dollars.

So when he said something about twenty-one I looked up incredulous. Wow, that was some kind of sale I got all that being that amount? I asked him, "My purchase is $21?"

He laughed and shook his head, "No, are you twenty-one?"

I looked at my husband who snorted, but he's not 21 either, and I said, "Uh, no...kinda over that, why?"

"I'm just trying to give you a discount."

"For what?"

Now he was getting embarrassed and began shoving my purchase into bags, "For being over 21. Did you put in your payment?"

I stared hard at him, "It's already finished, I pulled my card out already."

He dropped a skein of yarn on the floor and quickly picked it up putting it in yet another bag, "Okay then, here you go."

"You mean I got a discount for being over 21? Why?" I stood there not moving.

"It's you know, the senior discount."

"Why did you think I was a senior?" Now I was baiting him because everyone who knows me or even sees me knows I have a head full of long silver hair that most likely makes it easy to guess I'm not twenty-one, but I'm also not over sixty either, the usual senior discount age and I have never been asked this question in our hometown or for that matter been given a senior discount. And I sure wasn't going to start now.

By this time my husband is almost doubled over in laughter as were the people standing in line behind us. "No, you just have that mature, wise look to you."

Oh brother, mister you are getting yourself in deep now. "You mean my gray hair gave my age away?"

Panic was welling up in his eyes as he tried to laugh it off, "People dye their hair to get it to look like yours."

That was it, I grabbed my bags, shoved my receipt into my purse and walked out of the store. So much for that fun time. We hurried to the car because now it was raining and headed to a nearby fast food restaurant to grab some food.

"Seriously?" I squawked to my husband? I cannot believe that!"

He just laughed, "He was just trying to be nice and give you a discount."

"But I don't want a discount! I can pay for this, I'm not retired yet!"

We drove to the restaurant and ran through the rain. They were not busy so we had time to stand and figure out what we wanted. Walking up to the cashier, I put in my order as did my husband. He pulled out his wallet only to find he was two dollars short. "Can you spare me a couple of dollars?" he asked me. We do this all the time, we split our cash when going out of town and he had already spent most of his.

"Sure," I grabbed my wallet and began to pull out some cash when the cashier who had heard my husband ask me for extra cash, interrupted, "No you guys are fine, I gave you a discount."

"A discount? For what?" I asked my eyebrows which are not as gray as my hair is raised.

"A VIP discount. Here is the new total." The machine read exactly two dollars less than it had just a minute ago.

"I don't understand, what discount..." My husband quickly grabbed our drink cups and number and pushed me along to the drink dispenser before I could start fuming.

"Again? What is the deal with everyone thinking I'm a senior citizen up here? I'm not even sixty yet! I'm going to pull out my license and show that young man!"

"No you're not, let's find a place to sit down, Granny!"

I'd Rather Be Knitting!

 

I was reading one of my favorite knitting authors' blog today about her ski trip. Her humorous post reminded me of the ski trip my husband and I took just a couple months after we had gotten married. We were poor...I had a full time job that wasn't even paying minimum wage yet, and of course back then did not have benefits either. My husband was a full time college student with a part time job. But we had friends who skied often in the usual places; Colorado and the Virginias. But they had heard of a place to go snow skiing just one hundred miles away from our home town in Southeast Missouri for those on a budget. It was a golf course during warm months turned snow skiing in cold months, which in Missouri means only January/February IF there is snow.

It was still expensive by our way of thinking...we were living on love...newlyweds! But still it sounded like fun and my husband and I are always up for fun, especially when we don't know any better.

We drove up to a resort just south of St. Louis and spent Friday night in a very small hotel room. The next morning we followed our friends to the ski resort. It was, interestingly enough, not snowing, nor was there snow on the ground but our friends assured us there would be snow to ski on. This resort had snow blowers, machines that mixed water and fans that blew frozen pellets into your face and onto the ground. We saw one just inside the resort and watched how it kept the ski hills covered in snow. Genius.

We arrived at the lodge/restaurant/golf pro shop and waited in line to get our ski stuff. First we had to get tickets, everything connected with skiing means you need a ticket. Next it was time for the skis and the poles. The people behind the counter look at how tall you are and hand you skis and poles then point out the lockers to leave our shoes and excess baggage in and left us to figure out how you actually got your feet into the ski boots, lock them up and walk penguin style outside, down the wood steps to the ground, which was grassy with no snow outside the lodge. We waved our friends on outside as we were still trying to lock in the boots and stand up. My husband and I of course thought this was so very funny, waddling around in skis and very stiff boots helping each other out the door we watched everyone else navigate down the steps in skis.

It was very cold. Did I menti of "All you have to do," language which I have since learned doesn't mean anything when you are brand new at some activity.

We were practicing making V's with our skis when suddenly we heard a long drawn out yell coming from up the hill. The instructor kept talking until the yell got louder and louder. We all looked up the hill to see a man legs wobbling, poles flapping in the air screaming at the top of his lungs, "I can't stop!" He sailed down the snowy hill in-between our two lines of newbies. Our instructor quickly got out of his way as he flailed past, eyes bugging out in terror, hit the end of where the snow blower had stopped blowing snow. As soon as his skis hit the mud, they stopped, but he didn't. He executed a perfect front flip and face planted into the hay bales and the mud.

Not missing a beat our instructor turned to us and said, "Now it's time for you to head to the slopes!"

One by one we penguin-walked our way about face and no body said a word. We head over to the ski lift. At this place they actually had two different kinds of ways of getting to the top of the hill...hill, not mountain, we don't have mountains in Missouri. There was the usual ski life then lower down the hill there was a tow rope. We were instructed to head to the ski lift, show our passes and hop on while carrying our ski poles. My husband and I moved up the line and when instructed stood in front of an oncoming empty lift chair and hop when it hit us in the behind. That was fairly easy and the view was spectacular as we lifted higher and higher up the hill. The ride was fairly short since it was a hill, not a mountain, and as we got to the upper lift station we were supposed to hop off. Hop being an imperative verb because if you only leaned forward you fell on your face. What they neglected to tell me was if you aren't perched on the edge of your seat while you try to hop you also fall on your face. My husband hopped and landed gracefully on the landing area. I however remained on the lift, stuck because my legs were short and I was trying to scoot forward on the bench so I could hop. I got worried because the landing area wasn't very long and I could see that I that longer I took to get off the bench, the higher I was getting back in the air. I knew that I had to get off that lift because they told us not to ride it back down, whether they didn't want you riding it back down or because it was dangerous, so in a panic to get off I finally moved forward off the bench and face planted. Yup, hopped right off into a snow mound face down into the snow bank. At least it wasn't a mud pie.

Finally I joined my husband as we plodded our way over to our first trail. I don't know, it was a green or easy trail but it looked really steep to me. I began by tacking, left then right, something our instructor had said to do if we were afraid to go straight down. I don't care if we don't have mountains in Missouri, that hill was tall I tell you. I tacked all the way down, falling down on each side because I have absolutely no sense of grace when scared.

We made it half way down the hill to a point where we could stop and take pictures. I had my husband strike a pose but by the time I extracted my camera from my jacket pocket, and focused, his skis had another idea and he began sliding down the hill. I yelled, "Stop!" but he yelled back, "I can't!" So we have several pictures of him getting smaller and further down the slope.

At the very bottom of the hill the only way to get back up the slope was a tow rope. In the words of our instructor, "All you have to do is sidle up to the moving rope, keep both your poles in your right hand and grab the rope with your left and let it glide you up the slope."

Guess what? It really doesn't work that way. First of all you are trying to 'sidle' up to something going uphill when your skis are really wanting to slide backwards, the rope whips along at waist height which means you also have to lean over a little and grab the swiftly moving rope with only one hand and hang on for dear life as it jerks you uphill. After falling off the lift I didn't really want to do that again, so we tried. It required several numerous attempts on my part, two more face plants and about half way up I was exhausted. The only other way was to penguin-walk up the rest of the slope which we did. By the end of the afternoon all we had to show for our exhaustion and work were three not so spectacular runs, or should I say run, fall, run, fall down the slopes. We were cold, wet, and my face hurt from all the ice pellets the snow machines kept blowing at me.

My husband and I went back to the lodge/restaurant/golf pro shop and got some hot chocolate and waited for our friends. What an adventure. On the way home in our wet jeans, and with frozen chapped hands we did have some stories to tell. We had survived snow skiing in Missouri! After thirty years we've never had the desire to go to any big skiing areas. This one satisfied our snow adventure!

String Theory

My husband has always been fascinated by my yarn works. "It is amazing how you can take a ball of yarn and out pops a hat, blanket or scarf!"  Makes me feel like a nuclear scientist or something!

There is something calming about the sound of the click-click of knitting needles. Both my husband and my son-in-law comment on how it puts them to sleep.   This is why moms always had knitting nearby when putting the kids to bed!

I've recently taken up watching videos of "Train Ride from the Cab" in winter in Switzerland on YouTube while I knit.  The clackety-clack of the train wheels totally blends with the clickety-click of my knitting needles!  Who would think watching videos of traveling in the cab of a train would be so fascinating? Well, I do.  It is my calm sitting down in my rocker picking up my knitting after getting off work, doing fifteen minutes on my treadmill, calling my ninety-one year old mother to check in on her and before I get up to make supper activity I try to do several times a week.  It is healthier than smoking, drinking or shopping!   And I am learning how to knit hats as well as a small version of the teddy bears I knit. The regular version is about 15 inches high. The small one is five or six inches. Last night I found some furry yarn in my small stash and began making a small bear with it.  It is a pain to see the stitches on the needles, but it is really turning out cute! If I can finish it I think it will be a very special bear and I am going to look for more furry yarn on sale after I finished work and going by mom's house.  I am hoping the predicted storms don't show up until later tonight.

Nonstop Knitting

 The worries never stop, so I just keep knitting. This infinity scarf which I began months and months ago,  I just ripped out because it kept curling up. Why?  I didn't bother to knit and purl several rows at the beginning to keep it from doing that.  

 

It seems to be indicative of my life right now. So many things I cannot control and when I think I should control them,  I screw them up and makes things worse.   Such is my life right now. It is very hard to figure out what to do and say.  

I work a full time job that doesn't always keep my mind constantly busy so I have too much time worry.  I wish I could pick up my knitting and let that calm me down. But sitting at my desk knitting in a job where knitting is not my job, is a little hard to excuse. I mean people get coffee and smoke breaks, I could call it my sanity break I guess?

 

Control...too much tension causes my knitting to be sweaty, tight and look stretched.  Too little tension and it has holes, puckers and falls off the needles. 

My life of how much control, how little control I have or can have causes my daily introspection.  I cannot control all aspects of my life but I can control my reaction to things or events in my life.  If I practice the middle of the road control, then my knitting as well as my life is easier, looks and feels more calm and gives me less stress.  I can do this.