Dust Buffalo

The house is falling apart, the laundry is standing in mountains, and we have surpassed dust bunnies so long ago that “Dust Buffalo” now roam the floors. I may not have totally thought this Olympic knitting thing through. (Ha! There’s a candidate for the understatement of the year award) I keep thinking that I’m going to catch up, that things are going to improve…that today will be my day, and then real life happens and I’m sunk.

Last night my real life happened, as I gave a wee talk at The Flying Dragon Bookshop here in Toronto.

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Nice knitters and so much fun that for the 3 hours that I was there I almost totally forgot that I was not knitting for the Olympics. Absolutely fabulous bookstore (I can’t stress that enough. If you live in Toronto and need to buy a book, especially a kids book, you should go there and give them your money. Nice women running a beautiful business.) Unfortunately my total knitting amounted to….

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30 rounds on the second sleeve (this makes it really just an elaborate cuff.)

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and only 8 rounds on the body, executed before I realized I was knitting mostly while I was asleep on the chesterfield with my eyes closed and was no longer knitting the chart, but just plain green stitches. (I quit then.)

This means that there are 105 ever-increasing rounds left to go on the sleeve, and (it makes me woozy to write this) 31 (big) rounds left to go on the body. Then I need to block it, cut the steeks, knit in the placket, sew in the sleeves and the zipper (holy crap the zipper, I forgot about the stupid zipper, I need to go BUY the zipper.) sew up the hems, weave in the ends and go lie down in the road and I’m done. All before the Closing ceremonies party being held by Team Canada at my sisters restaurant on Sunday. (The fact that the party is at my sisters place only makes me more anxious. She’s my little sister. There is nothing she enjoys more than my humiliation. It’s natural, but unfortunate.)

I decided to write it down so that I would have a full grip on the gravity of the situation and could no longer dwell in my own private land of denial and sunshine. For the first time, I am ready to almost but not quite because it could still work out admit that I might not make it.

I am going to go marshall all the forces of the universe known to me, take the phone off the hook, make a huge pot of coffee (but not too big, ’cause, you know, a caffeine tremor can really slow you down) warp the time space continuum (that’s such a pain in the arse) and knit now. Hope springs eternal. Today is my day.

What was I thinking?