While on the train

While on the train from Toronto to Kingston I…

1. Wondered what the lady one seat up and over was knitting. It was fine white yarn being knit on pretty little needles. I was too shy to plunk myself down near her and ask, especially since I have recently endured chatty seatmates while travelling and wouldn’t want to be the person who put her through that horrible thing where you wish the person would go away but are to polite to do anything effective enough to get them to leave or shut up. (Since I am sort of overly curious about knitting I don’t trust myself to take a “go away” hint.) I tried to see what she was knitting anyway, but couldn’t get close enough to tell without being close enough to freak her out.

2. Picked up my stitches for the lace cuff and unzipped the provisional cast on with absolutely no difficulty whatsoever. None.

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I pulled the tail of the waste yarn and zippo…the new stitches were sitting there on my needle perfectly acting for all the world like provisional cast-on’s always unzip without incident.

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It was so good it was almost creepy. (Probably shouldn’t have said that before I did the other one of the pair, but what the hell.)

3. I dug up the pictures from when I was in Granby Connecticut a couple of days ago so I could show them to you. This chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer foundation is pretty knitty…and they charged $25 per knitter to hear me speak (in exchange I tried not to suck) and had fabulous knitty door prizes and a gallery of funky knitted stuff and a reception and it was really neat. Really.

Here are some very blurry pictures of the knitters.

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I have a new theory about the blurriness. I think it may be related to my personal level of terror. Maybe when I’m really nervous I’m shaking? From now on I’m going to try and brace myself and see if that helps. I was very, very nervous when I took these, and they are very, very blurry. It’s obviously not a focus thing because nothing in that bottom one is in focus. Not even me.

This is Morgan. (Sadly, blogless)

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She brought not a gift for me, but a gift for my beloved Sir Washie.

(The magnets are fantastic by the way. It is an exquisite treat to go down to the washer after a cycle and see where they have gravitated to. Very keen.)

This is Lisa.

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See the socks she’s holding? She knit them and then she gave them to me. Designed them herself too. Very charming and clever knitter. Very clever. They fit freakishly well, even though, as far as I know Lisa has not had access to either my feet nor my sock drawer for research. I’m pretty impressed. (My picture does not adequately display the super good sweater she’s wearing either.)

Behold Olivia,

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The youngest knitter of the day, putting a little of her mojo on my sock.

Finally, Christine

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I’m putting this picture up for everyone who signed the cards for her while we were all at Rhinebeck. Christine has been having sort of a crappy time, since a bad string of headaches turned out to be (suddenly, out of the blue) a huge freaking tumour in her brain. They took it out and she’s well now, with the exception of the loss of her ability to knit. (I know. I gasped too. Don’t try to stand up.)

She’s destashing to buy a spinning wheel. Maybe see if she’s got something you want so she can get a great one and rejoin the fibre obsessed?

There were other knitters of course, Tamara comes to mind (she was wearing a really, really great sweater I’m a little obsessed with.) and a group of very nice women who claim not to be stalkers that I’m not going to encourage by naming names.

4. I ate two bags of sunchips.

5. I beaded. I love it.

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I can’t stop. I can’t wait for the train to Ottawa tomorrow so I can do more.

Who’s coming for a visit at the Kingston Chapters tonight?

PS (Added later)

I just took a bath and washed my hair and I used the shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom here at the hotel. I washed my hair and then I put in the conditioner, then rinsed. Just now, as my hair is drying I noticed that it’s ….well. Weird. I little oily and slippery and strange. I let it dry a bit more and decided things were very bad, hair wise, and went into the bathroom to take note of the sort of conditioner it was so that I could endeavor to never, ever use it again.

It’s lotion.

Firstly: I am an idiot. I have covered my head in lotion.

Secondly, what sort of a hotel puts shampoo and lotion together like that? Where’s the conditioner? Don’t they know I have my glasses off when I’m washing my hair?

Thirdly, there is no time to rewash before I have to go. Do you think anyone is going to notice?

PSS: It does smell very nice.