A journey of a thousand miles begins…

Not with a single step, as Lao Tzu said…but with me taking clothes out of my suitcase, washing them, and putting them right back in again, which is what I’m doing today. I feel like I’ve just been home for mere days (which is because I have) and my flight to California is late tonight. Tomorrow I’m at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, Friday is Powells (the main one) in Portland, Saturday, The James Bay Community Centre in Victoria BC, then a wee jaunt to Tidal Wave Books in Anchorage on Monday. (Details, as always are on the tour page where I keep all this stuff. Scroll down.) After this there is time off until the first week of August when I go to…..

I don’t know where I go, and frankly, I can tell I’m ready for a bit of a rest because I’m not at all curious.

I’m excited to see the knitters, thrilled about the Knit-Out in Victoria, deadly uncool with glee about seeing new places, but I can’t help but wish that someone had spent more time on that teleportation invention so that I could do all of this without airports, airplanes, busses, taxi’s, hotels, room service and hauling a suitcase. I get cramps thinking about the airports. I hate airports.

I have one good strategy though, I am planning some very exciting knitting, something that arrived in the mail a little while ago that I have stashed just as a reward for this sort of thing. It’s so good that it almost makes the prospect of hours and hours (and hours) of waiting around sitting in bad chairs with bad coffee seem like it might be fun. In a cruel move, I have decided to show it to you tomorrow, since today I am a paragon of virtue, and am finishing the Dream in Color cardigan I started a while ago. The one I intended to wear on just this trip.

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I pried it out from under the cat, and I’ve got just 1/3 of a sleeve to go, plus some edging and sixteen metres (not really, but it’s a lot) of I-cord for the tie to go. (It’s this pattern.) I wondered what I could do to motivate myself to finish it today and tonight on the flight, instead of starting the new and very exciting knitting, and it took a little thought, but I think I’ve got it.

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I’m not packing another sweater, or a jacket. If I don’t finish this, I will be missing an essential portion of my wardrobe for this trip. Since I loathe being cold, I think this shall be sufficient motivation. (Just to be sure, I think I will put all other knitting in my checked bag. Maybe.)

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Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to round up enough clean underwear to put this show on the road.

(PS. Does anyone remember who the hat collector for Petaluma California is? I seem to have lost track of that little detail. My sincerest apologies. Please stand up and shout if it’s you. If it counts for anything, I have also lost track of my brand new sandals, which I adore.)

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(PSS. I totally did spin yesterday. Don’t start.)