Winnipeg sunrise

Actually, pre-sunrise in Winnipeg…as I’m up at a shocking hour (5:00AM) to get ready for an early flight home, and I don’t even care. Sitting here, pouring coffee into my tour-done self, I would usually be thinking “Kill me”, but because this is what I have to do to see the lovely curly-haired man waiting on the other end, I’m totally fine with it.

Winnipeg is beautiful, and flat, being in a prairie province. “Prairie” comes from the french “pré” for meadow (I think, it’s really early) and much of Manitoba is just that. The flatness is so awesome and complete that it is impressive in exactly the same way that mountains are. The earth stretches away from you, and the sky is huge overhead. I wish I had been here longer.

I was convinced that because the rest of this yarn crawl book tour has gone so well, that Winnipeg would be where I got my lumps. They had me booked into a really big bookstore and I thought that the universe wouldn’t be able to resist. One woman can’t be this lucky, no, no…Winnipeg would be it. I would stand alone, talking to two people and an ocean of empty chairs and that would be the equality the planet is surely itching to deal me. The universe would be balanced. I was ready.

I got of the plane and into a cab, to go here:

Radio

Be still my beating heart fellow Canucks, it’s the CBC! (Ah! I thought. Of course it’s the CBC. It needs to be a well publicized crushing.) I met this dude:

Ron

Ron Robinson (holding the sock and tolerating my oddness) before an interview in which I believe I did make sense, and didn’t say arse, enter an expletive spiral, faint or die. From there I cabbed it to the hotel, flung myself through a bath and left for Robinson McNally, possibly breaking a land speed record for harlot-hair management.

On the way there I showed the sock the provincial legislature.

Provleg

When I got to the bookstore there were many, many chairs, the scary microphone and TWO knitters. “I knew it” I thought, and I went to get coffee. The bookstore scurried around me as I perused the knitting magazines (Hey, Karlie…I met your mum and dad. They’re very nice.) and I cracked myself up because they were bringing MORE CHAIRS. At 7:00 I walked over to the reading area to warmly greet the two knitters (and possibly invite them out for a beer, since the microphone seemed silly) and here is what I saw.

Ocean

An ocean of knitters. An ocean. A huge turnout, and every single one of them a nice person. (Near as I could tell. It got weird after that.) Here’s Penny

Plastic

Who, unbelievably was sitting in the front row, with her little swatch of knitting from plastic bags (How did she know?)

and Carol

Carol

The official Knitting Teacher for the city of Winnipeg. (How can you not love a city that hires an official knitting teacher?)

The sock was blown away by the hospitality, stunned by the kindness and exhausted by the happiness. The sock and I would like to thank Winnipeg for saving the public flogging for another day.

Now, I’m off into the Winnipeg dawn, out over the prairie and flying toward home, home…home, my Joe and the ladies.

(I can’t believe I survived. Thank you all.)