Today’s a quiet day here, and in between work and writing I sat down and plied up the BFL I’ve been spinning for ages. 

When I’d started this, I’d taken the two big bumps of roving, and using my handy dandy scale, divided it into three equal piles.  Each of those was spun up into singles, with the hopes of ending up with a beautifully bouncy 3-ply.

It remains to be seen if it’s beautifully bouncy, but it is a three ply, and if my measurements are okay, it should be about 270 metres – which is enough for… well.  I don’t know what it’s enough for.  I actually have no idea at all what I might use it for. 

This happens all the time to me.  When I started spinning, I thought that I would mostly use handspun – which has clearly not turned out to be true, even though I produce more than enough.  I thought I would buy fleece or fibre, imagine what it would be, spin it, then knit it – all with a specific "thing" in mind, but it’s turned out to be nothing like that.  It happens, sure.  That time that I got the Jacob fleece I knew exactly what I was going to make.  I got the fleece knowing I would make a graduated shawl, and that went from start to finish just the way I always expected.  (More or less.  I’m not a good enough spinner that what’s in my head is always what my hands can pull off.  Bit of a crapshoot some days.)
Those times seem to be a little rare though, and mostly I find myself spinning the way I knit… for the experience of the thing.

I don’t always even want the yarn that I make – I’ve given away pounds of handspun over the years, and the knitters I give it to always seem shocked that I’d let something so dear go – but the truth is that by the time it’s spun, it’s done its thing.  The fibre’s gone from one state to another, from fleece to yarn, or roving to yarn, and I’ve sucked all the satisfaction out of it that I need to.  Sure, if I knit with my own handspun there’s another layer of satisfaction – there’s almost nothing that feels as good as starting with a sheep and ending with a hat, having only your own two hands to thank for it – but for me that must be like some kind of bonus round, since I regularly buy and spin fibre that can’t possibly become yarn I like. 

This yarn, I really do love.  It’s plain and traditional and those two skeins are totally something I would use, and as I took them off the heater where they were drying, I realized I have no plan for them.  None. Zip.  I don’t think I’ll give them away – but I realized that as I lifted them up and hugged them (they are pretty bouncy) that what I was thinking was "Good. Finished" instead of what I always thought I would think – which is "Good, next step?"

This yarn doesn’t seem to want to be anything, except for yarn, and I need inspiration.  You know the way there’s product knitters (knitters who knit to get the stuff) and process knitters (knitters who knit because they like knitting)?  I think I might be a process spinner, and now I need help figuring out what the product part should be.
It’s about 270m of what looks to be a light worsted. 
Can you tell what it wants to be?

(PS.  A few words about the wonderful comments on yesterday’s post.  I know there are a few exceptions, but by far and away the debate was civil, respectful and reassured me about people’s ability to treat each other decently, even when they disagree fundamentally.  Thank you for making it possible to have these conversations.) 

This morning I marked International Women’s Day in what is for me, a fairly traditional manner.  I got on the phone with my friend Jen, and we talked about the state of women’s rights.  It will surprise no-one who reads here regularly to learn that I am a political person – and by political, I simply mean that I care deeply about the politics happening in the world around me. I read, I think, I debate and discuss what I hear, and I vote.  

Whether it’s my own country, or my neighbours country, or a country halfway around the world, I am interested in who citizens elect to represent their views, and what laws those people then make – because it represents who they are as people, and how they think things should be done.  At least here in Canada, I don’t think of the Government as some overlord,  I think of it as a group of Canadians selected by other Canadians to represent our views, and I like to know how they’re doing that, especially when an election doesn’t go the way I would like, and the majority of Canadians choose something I wouldn’t.  I watch even closer then.  The rules and laws these Canadians make are things that will effect my life, or the lives of people I know – or the planet I live on, or the lives of people I don’t know far away, and I’ve never bought that it’s none of my business what’s happening in the politics of places where I’m not a citizen.  That’s how genocides happen. 

So this morning, Jen and I were talking about the politics of lots of places, and how the politics and politicians of those places had an impact on women.  We talked about how only 1 in 5 land owners worldwide is a woman.  How even though this is the 101st International Women’s Day, which has to mean that we’ve cared about this problem for at least that long, despite that – only 12 of the worlds top 500 businesses are led by women. Despite that,  this week the Prime Minister of Afghanistan endorsed a statement that "Men are fundamental, and women are secondary." In Saudi Arabia,  a country that is considered a friend to Canada, the US and the EU, doesn’t even let women drive cars.  Half their population just doesn’t have that right.  Hell, after 101 years of worldwide political attention drawn to the problem, the Secretary General of the United Nations says that domestic violence worldwide is increasing, not decreasing, and that despite everybody agreeing it’s absolutely horrible, 2 million girls between the age of 5 and 15 are sold as prostitutes each year.  

It’s not just the Middle East and Africa either.  All over the world the politics of countries make laws and rules that tell women that they aren’t allowed to make their own choices.  Here in Canada,  The Prime Minister has been widely criticized as been no friend of women.  He’s closed 12 of the 16 Status of Women Offices, eliminated funding of legal voices for women, cut funding for women’s advocacy by 43%, and denied financial support to groups who support access to abortion, which makes it look a whole lot like he’s making it hard for women to speak up.  Thing is, he did a lot of that before he was re-elected and while he had a minority government. That means it’s no just him who holds these views, that means a lot of other Canadians agree with him.  In the US, all of the GOP candidates – not some, but ALL of them agree that a life should begin at conception – which would not just make abortion illegal, but it could effectively ban most contraceptives, which would mean that the only way for a woman to guarantee that she wouldn’t ever have more children than she could support, would be to only ever have sex when she was willing to have a baby. For me? That would have been three times.  (I don’t know how that’s an appealing idea to those men, but there you have it.)  98% of American women have used contraception at some point – and lots of them are GOP supporters.  It’s not like being a Republican (or a Conservative, if you’re Canadian) is wrong or horrible.  It’s a legal political position to hold, as valid as being a Democrat or a member of the NDP – it doesn’t surprise me that people could vote that way.  It does surprise me that if 98% of women use contraception, and 35-40% of them have had an abortion,  that so many of them are okay with voting for someone who’s going to make laws that won’t let them do that.

After we talked about all of that, I think that it’s safe to say that Jen and I were both a little hot.  There was lots of talk about how this is 2012, and how can women let these things happen, and that while worldwide, only 19% of politicians are women – but you know, women have the right to vote in Saudi Arabia – and they’re half of the population.  I get that in a country like Afghanistan, where there’s state sanctioned abuse of women – and men are regularly permitted to do things like light their wife on fire because she  got uppity, that women, even if they have the vote,  can’t create real change yet,  and that’s why their rights are underrepresented in politics, but here? In Canada? In the US?  Women have the right to vote.  Women do vote.  We’re mostly literate, with at least the minimum amount of education to be able to make our own decisions, and the amazing thing to me is that given the gift of choice, we would make a choice to vote to restrict women’s future choices. 

Then Jen and I got quiet.  Then we thought a bit.  Then Jen said something about how it’s like knitting something for someone.  You make it, you give it to them and then you’re done.  You don’t get to decide how someone treats or uses what you’ve given them.  That’s not the spirit of it.  If you knit your Aunt Mary a scarf and she balls it up in the bottom of the hall dresser and never, ever wears it because it’s itchy, there’s zip all you can do about it, because you gave it to her, and now it’s hers, and that’s how choice works.  You can then make another choice to never, ever knit her another one as long as you live – but it won’t change what she does with it.   I agreed with her, and I realized that this women’s day, as I wonder if things are really getting better for women (or if it’s just happening to slowly for my taste) and wonder at women’s support of policies that don’t seem to be good for them, I have got to stick with the real spirit of empowerment, and that’s respecting a woman’s right to choose what’s best for her, and the hardest part?

If you really believe in a woman’s right to make decisions about herself, her body and her politics, if you truly think that women can and must choose for themselves, then when women make choices you wouldn’t, you can’t call them stupid or regret giving them that choice.

Women have to have the right to choose.  Even if you don’t like their choices.

Happy Women’s Day. 

(PS.  I edited a typo at 16:56pm that was possibly creating confusion. I said the legislation "would not make abortion illegal, but it could effectively ban most
contraceptives" Of course it would make abortion illegal.  My apologies. )

1.  I am seriously excited about knitting things that are not a baby blanket. 

2. Not that knitting the baby blanket wasn’t fun,  it was super fun.  It just wore on a little towards the end.  I blame the edging. The first few peaks were fun, but there’s 80 on that blanket. Towards the end it took a certain fortitude of spirit that I usually reserve for cleaning out closets.

3. Just about the minute I finished that blanket, I looked around for something to knit that was totally and completely different and not at all like a baby blanket.

4. That was easy.

Thrummed mittens.  Mine are a kit from Liberty Fibers, bought at the Squam Art Fair last year.  I’m a little helpless in the face of thrummed things. Natalie was here this morning and we were looking at the mitten and she was asking me why I was knitting thrummed mittens in March (when winter is almost over) who they were for…. and I had no answers for her.  None.  I have no intentions for these at all.  I’m just knitting these because they’re fun, fast – and because they’re not a white baby blanket.

I also knit them because even though I’ve been knitting thrummed stuff forever, turning them inside out to reveal their Muppetesque innards always cracks me up.

5.  I’m also knitting socks, but you probably guessed that.  Ken’s birthday was a few days ago, and he always gets Birthday Socks.  This year I was a little bogged down with the Great White, and so he didn’t get them.  As compensation, he got to pick any yarn from the stash, and any pattern he could find. 

6.  The yarn part was pretty easy for him. He picked Dream in Color Everlasting in Congo.  I love that sock yarn.  I think it’s fabulous. Strong, bouncy – super cushy. 

7. Ken choose Francie as his pattern, which I’ve knit for him before, but I made them out of Alpaca Sox, and as beautiful as they were, they got felted. (I got them back. My feet are smaller than his.) He said he misses them.

8.  Yesterday was Tuesday, and I spun.  I’m still trying to finish the cream  BFL (there’s a lot of it) and I admit that I’m feeling a loss of momentum on it.  Maybe  having finished a big white thing I can’t face another big white thing, but this morning found me with a big chunk of CVM that I got from Judith MacKenzie at Madrona – all spread out on the living room floor like a buffet.

9.  I’m trying to get it into my head that if I just finish the BFL, then I can have the CVM.

10.  I’m also trying to convince myself that washing up that fleece so that I’m ready when I finish the BFL doesn’t count.  I think I’m buying it.

11.  BFL is Blue Faced Leicester.  CVM is California Variegated Mutant.  They are kinds of sheep. 

12. I love the mutant part.

Dear Luis,

I know you’re too little to know it, but you’re sort of a big deal around here.  Not only are you one of the worlds most wanted and celebrated babies, you’re also going to go down in history as the only baby I’ve ever loved who got born before their blanket was finished.

Yesterday when I finally brought it to your mum and dad and they put it around you, I felt a profound sense of relief.  Your mum looked so pretty, and like she was finally feeling better, and she said that she hoped that the circus the two of you have been through for the last few weeks was over, and I said that I thought it was.  I told her that I thought she’d run out of trouble.  That there was just nothing else left for her to navigate,  and that I really believed now everything would be smooth sailing.

My small friend, the truth is that in my heart, I had started to believe that nothing could go right for the two of you until I’d handed over that talisman, and that on some level, the blanket was more essential than I had thought.  Those are probably the crazy thoughts of a superstitious auntie, but I just got it into my head that maybe the hours of love in these blankets are somehow protective. A shield of sorts.  A symbol of how loved and wanted and unique you are in our world, and how grateful we are to your parents for bringing you here, and how everyone in this family is here for you, and intends to stand between you and trouble for every day of the rest of your life… as much as we are able.

I started thinking, as I was rushing to finish, that maybe this whack of trouble was the result of that blanket not being in place.  That maybe once I had you wrapped in that thing, it would be a sign to the universe that you have an army of love around you, and that anything that wants to mess with you has to go through us first.  I hope that’s how it works, because that’s what that blanket means.

Like you, your blanket is one of a kind. 

There’s Madeira Lace on the border, because your dad Carlos is Spanish.  There’s snowflakes because your mum Katie is Canadian, and there’s the old tree of life motif there too, because those two things have come together to start a whole new family. (You’ll learn that I’m big on symbolism – it makes me killer help for high school English essays.  Remember that.)

The blanket is big, and I thought it was bigger than I wanted it to be, but now that I think about you and how you’ve arrived and the impact you’ve had – I don’t think that it could be one centimeter smaller to do you justice.

Like you, this blanket looks delicate, but is strong.

I was thinking that maybe a ginormous swath of white lace wasn’t really a baby boy thing, but I realized that it makes total sense, since somehow this blanket is as much for your mum as it is for you.  Your father loves you to distraction, and is entirely devoted to you – any fool can see that, but I think your dad would be the first person to stand up and say that what your mum has been through and done for your little family in that last few weeks was brave, and she’s bloody fierce, and your arrival has only made her more strong and beautiful. 
It almost seems silly that all I’m giving the three of you is a blanket.

Welcome.  Be safe. Be warm.

love,

Auntie Steph

(PS. When you’re ready, I’ll teach you to knit.)

This blanket might be the death of me. Yesterday I was so full of hope, I even imagined (briefly) knitting other things.  Maybe a sweater, finish some socks.  I bought the latest knitting magazines and the world of possibility stretched before me.  I might knit something red I thought.  Or blue.  Or Green – anything except for the eternal white that’s stretched out for so long.  I felt sure that it was all going to work out.  I’d have enough yarn, I’d apply myself, maybe stay up all night and just get it done.

I’m not done.  I knit the snot out of it and it’s still not done, and I think I can say with confidence now that there’s not going to be enough yarn.  I weighed the ball and it was 19g.  Then I worked one repeat, and weighed again.  16g – so that tells me that each repeat takes about 3 grams. Then I counted the repeats left – which was a rather heartbreaking 16.  If each repeat takes three grams, then I need 48 grams, not  16 – and that means it’s back to the store for me. 
Just to be sure, I actually weighed my swatches, thinking maybe I could ravel them and get the extra yardage there. No dice.

Even if I use the swatches, I still need 19 grams, and as I realized I was going to be going to the store for so little, I was suddenly demoralized.  I can’t go to the store today because I have to drive aways, and while I’m driving I won’t be knitting or yarn shopping, and so that means that even though tonight is prime knitting time and I could finish this bad boy? I won’t be able to. 

I was sitting here trying to fetch the yarn with the power of my mind when the phone rang.  It was the lovely and charming Rachel H, on her way to the yarn shop close to her work, and she asked me if I wanted her to score a ball, and maybe drop it in my mailbox so it would be there when I got home?

I almost fell over.  It was a miracle.  It was actually like I was sitting there just wishing the yarn would appear today, and there’s Rachel H solving the whole problem.  I gratefully accepted, and made a mental note get her a little present, or kiss her full on the mouth or something.  Relieved, I started packing up to leave, thinking about how happy I am, and about how great it is that that little problem evaporated totally, and about how tomorrow I’ll knit something that isn’t white while the blanket blocks.  Rachel H is totally the kind of person who texts you pictures of yarn from the store, so a minute later when my phone went off, I expected a picture of the yarn and a very Rachel-esque text message like "VICTORY IS MINE" or "SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES!!" Instead?

"They don’t have it."

This, clearly is a crushing defeat.  That store was my whole backup plan. That’s where I was going to go in the morning, and now they don’t have it and I’m going to have to start calling around, and I’m absolutely sure I’ll find some,  for the love of wool, I’m sure one of you has 19 grams of it, but whatever I do now, it’s going to take me a bit to get it, and that brings me to my next great idea.

We should be able to fax yarn. At least small quantities.  No reason humanity can’t work that out.

(PS. Because you’re all going to ask now, the yarn is Lanett superwash baby yarn, in colour 1001, lot number 713636, although I don’t think lot matters much. If you see a ball of it somewhere near Toronto, let me know. I’ll go get it until we have the fax thing worked out.)

This blanket can be finished.   I believe that now.  I’ve been knitting like a demon on it, and after putting in some solid work, I think the end is in sight. The problem now is that the end of the yarn is in sight as well.  It’s looming actually, the little half ball remaining to me sitting there and looking leaner with every repeat.  Last night at knit night someone looked at how much I had to go, and how much yarn I had left and gave me a worried glance.  "Do you have a plan for what you’ll do if you run out?" they asked tactfully. 

"Do you have a plan for what you’ll do if you run out" is knitterese for "You’re never going to make it – you see that don’t you?" and I’ve been friends with knitters for long enough to make the translation straight away.  I mumbled something about how I’d had two balls, and the first ball did half so the second ball should do the other half – but in the back of my mind, I wasn’t really worried.  I was convinced that somewhere in this house there was another ball of that yarn. When I got more, I’d put the old lot of yarn into one bag, and the new in the other, and set aside three balls to do the edging, because I wanted to use all one lot for that. I’ve used one, I’m knitting the second, so upstairs should by my ball remaining.

I just trotted myself upstairs to dive into the little paper bag sitting in the stash room that held the insurance ball, and it’s not there. Odd, I thought, but things have been a little hairy here, so I checked another couple of likely places.  Then I checked some unlikely places, and now I’ve been checking really super unlikely places and it’s stopped being "checking" and is now right on the edge of  just ripping the house up – and that ball isn’t here. It’s nowhere. I thought maybe I left it in the Dominican – but I know I didn’t.  I remember putting it really carefully in my suitcase, because the blanket was too important to screw up.  Same thing for when I was at Madrona, and besides it stands to reason that if I had it at Madrona, I couldn’t have left it in the Dominican.  I know it was here, I know it was. I’m absolutely positive – and now it’s just gone, which is making me a total crazy person.

It really isn’t that big a deal.  If I run out tonight, I know where to get more, and it’s not a big trip and it can be easily handled.  It won’t even put off finishing the blanket by much, it’s just that I feel like I need an explanation for where it has gone.  It can’t have disappeared.  It has to be here somewhere. I know that I haven’t had a lot of sleep since I got home, and I’ve been all over the place, but I’m just not the kind of person who misplaces something as important as this yarn – and that means it’s somewhere, or something happened, and try as I might to just sit down and knit, I keep thinking of another place it could be – or another thing that might have happened.  I’m so disturbed by it that a few minutes ago I checked the fridge and a suitcase I haven’t used in two years. I’ve spent more time looking for it than it would have taken to get on the streetcar and get more, and that means I have to let it go.

There’s one explanation that makes sense, and for the sake of my sanity, I’ve decided to accept it.  This blanket is now so big, and has so much yarn in it, and it’s been run in at such a great rate of speed over the last few days, that the blanket is now working like a yarn siphon, or a black hole.  It now has so much yarn mass squeezed into one spot that it has started generating its own gravity, and because like attracts like, out of all the balls of yarn in this house, the blanket has already reached out on a molecular level to the stash room, and sucked in the ball that I was going to feed it.

It’s that or I lost it, but in all seriousness I think the black hole is more likely.

When I finished Marlowe’s baby blanket, and it was rather surprisingly the breadth of a queen sized bed (which is rather inappropriately larger than a baby) I was happy, but decided that next time I went down the baby blanket road, I might practice a little more restraint. 

This time I really thought I’d done that, but here I am days late on this blanket, wondering more than a little absently why it’s taking so long, and while I can’t say yet for sure,  I think this might be another overshoot- size wise. Oh sure,  I could spread it out a little and assess it, but I feel like there’s no point in knowing exactly how much there is left to do when I have to do it anyway.  It might be demoralizing.  It makes more sense to me to just keep knitting and let it be a surprise, even to me – which it totally will be, because I get up every day and think "This will absolutely be finished today" and then by the time bedtime rolls around I’m looking at it and thinking that it seems to have no end.  None.  It’s perpetual, and worse than that?  I don’t think I’m even making a dent in it.  That means one of three things. 
Either it’s a really big blanket, I’ve become a really slow knitter, or I’ve been so busy that I’m not really knitting that much on it, I just think I am.  
This blanket needs to end, if not because I think it’s just about got me ready to weep at the sight of it, but because Luis really needs it.  (Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.  I think his actual position may be neutral.)  I’m going to bust a serious move in its direction today and tonight.  Surely I’m almost there.

PS: The fact that I bought lots of yarn for it and still ran out isn’t a good sign.

PPS: When I ran out I got four more balls and they’re almost gone too. That’s not good either. 

PPPS: Yesterday when I invited you to Sock Camp, I forgot to tell you one thing. There’s a contest.  Every year there’s a camp tee shirt, and this year we thought it would be fun to have a contest to design it.  The prize is a tee shirt, your design on all the camp shirts and $100 of yarn – and you don’t have to be going to camp to enter.  Anybody can.  Rules?  Not many.

1. It has to do with the theme.  The theme is pirates. It’s called Camp Cast Away.
2. It has to say "BMFA Sock Camp 2012" somewhere on it.
3. The design can go on the front or back.
4. Anyone can enter, even if they’re not a camper.

Besides those 4 rules, the shirt design can be anything you like. Just words, words and a picture, words and a drawing, just a drawing, whatever pleases you. Go nuts.

The winner gets glory (their design on all the camp shirts) a camp shirt (whether or not the winner is a camper) and a $100.00 gift certificate for Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  Please email us your entry as a jpeg (You can send a low resolution version, we’ll ask finalists for the high resolution ones so we can see if they’re okay for printing) before March 10th.  You can send it to registrationATknothysteriaDOTcom (Replace the AT and DOT with @ and .) We’ll choose some finalists, put them up on The Blue Moon Blog, everyone will vote before March 12th, and then the winner will be announced on March 14th.

Go!  I’ll be here knitting a blanket.

Yo Knitters! I’m back.  Thanks for your patience while we helped little Luis with his bumpy arrival. His mum had a very rough go getting him here, and needed several days of family help to get back on her feet – and despite his  otherwise perfection, little Luis seemed to lack some basic skills in the eating department. His fantastically committed and awesome mama deserved an effort equal to the heroic one she was putting in, so the Auntie squad was summoned, and we spent some time making everyone happy, welcome and healthy.  All seems well now, and his mama is doing a really great job, so it’s home for us – which is a really great thing, because it turns out that I may have gotten older, or otherwise lost my knack for staying up all night – because Kelly (the other auntie) and I, were bleary exhausted morons by the end of it.  How one tiny baby managed to engage a multi-person full-time staff is a wonder, but I suspect that it may be his devastating cuteness that enslaved us all.

What would you do for that face? 
I’ve tried to plug away on the blanket while taking my turns with Luis, and while we had moments where he slept on my lap and I could knit over him, I have to say that the newborn commitment to knitting remains much as I recall it, which is to say that there isn’t one. 

As soothing as I find knitting, Luis seems to be pretty against it, and as a matter of fact, after several days of being asked to wake up and nurse, nurse nicely and treat his mum well, Luis summed up his position around the demands being made on his time rather subtly, but succinctly.

In other news – now that I’m out of babyland and back to blogging and knitting and our whole world, I’ve got a quick announcement about sock stuff, and it’s going to seem like bad news/good news to you, but I assure you that it’s good news/good news to us.

Sock Summit grew naturally out of Sock Camp – it made total sense that if a little sock-ness was good, a LOT would be great, and it was. Totally great. So far both Sock Summits have been spaced two years apart, one year to plan, one year to recover – and it’s seemed like great spacing. Then Tina and I went to plan this next one and there was a glitch with the Convention Center, and then we realized that we might be too superstitious to hold a convention in 2013, and then it was all clear.  2014.  That’s when the next one will be. That’s the bad news, if you’re you (but it’s good news if you’re us) and the good news for everyone is that Sock Camp will still go this year, and it’s going to be a lot of fun, and there are spots for non sock club people open now and you can sign up if you want to.
All the information is here, and registration info is here, and we’d love it if you came.  There’s going to be Lucy Neatby, Carson Demers, whale watching, good food… sock madness, all at our beautiful Port Ludlow.
Think of it as mini-summit. That’s good news.

I’m home. Made it back last night, a little late to greet my new nephew in person, but here finally. 

He’s beautiful, and his blanket’s not finished, but frankly, neither was he. Forces conspired against him, and he was born a little earlier than planned, and clearly (if you go by how annoyed he seems to be about it) more than a little against his will.  His name is Luis, and he’s a wee speck of a thing – but beautiful beyond all reason – and far better looking than this crappy iphone picture makes him out to be.

I’ll be spending a few days helping him and his parents settle in to being a family, and I hope you’ll forgive my absence (if there is one, we’ll see how much time I have) as I’ve decided to put him and his parents squarely first until they’re well sorted.  He’s the first baby ever born in this family before their blanket was finished, but I’m no match for the circumstances that dictated the timing of his birth – so I don’t feel bad about that. I’m knitting like the wind now, because there’s no doubt that a wee one born in Canada in February could use a blanket, and I want him to know how much I love him already.  As always, I know no way to say that without wool.

Isn’t he perfect? Congratulations to Katie and Carlos.  They’ve made something awfully nice.  This auntie is very proud of them.

This post is coming to you from my very own living room, where I’m drinking my very own coffee, and enjoying it as much as I can, since my other suitcase is now by the door, and I’m off to the airport again.  I’ve had about 10 hours at home, and there’s a little voice in my head that keeps saying "Is this smart?" but I can hardly hear it for the rest of me that can’t believe what we did on Monday, and that we would have missed it if I’d been the sort of person who thought a 10 hour layover at home wasn’t smart.  (Please note: I am not saying I’m smart to have done this, just that I am the sort of person who thinks it’s smart.) 

Monday morning, we’d planned to go to this place that somebody said was fun. Monkey Jungle Zipline. The fact that we’d even decided to go was sort of a surprise in a whole bunch of ways.  First, while Erin’s the sort of tourist who might do this sort of thing, Mum’s really not, and I’m definitely not.  I’m more interested in people and what they’re doing than I am going to some theme park but there was something about this that captured my imagination when Erin pointed it out, and I was suddenly keen.  I’ve never been to a jungle.  I’ve never ziplined, and monkey’s are cool.  I thought Hank would love it, and I had no idea if Mum would, but to ice the cake, 100% of the profits go to a clinic to provide health care who live around there, and the clinic’s statistics are pretty amazing.   Erin and I talked to the guy and he said he would take us whenever.  My Aunt Yvonne was arriving in a few days, so we emailed her to see if she wanted to go, and she did – so Monday became the only possible day to go.

Sunday night there was a terrific storm.  Wind like nothing I’ve ever seen, and then the rain started and then we woke up Monday and it was still raining.  There was brief talk about cancelling and going another day, but since I was leaving on Tuesday, it meant going without me, which I was trying to be big about, but would have been super disappointing.  The troops rallied somewhat, and after a lot of conversation we decided to go – rain or not.  The mini bus picked us up and took us up in to the mountains.  By then the rain had mostly tapered off to sprinkling and misting.

When we got there, the manager did his level best not to be stunned at the Canadians showing up in the "rain and cold" we were told several times (by a couple of different people – all wearing hoodies like 24C was frosty out) that this was "Dominican Snow", which is  a really funny joke under those exact circumstances.   He said that first we would visit the monkeys, and we washed our hands, and he told us that they can touch us, but we can’t touch them, and that he was going to give us a little cup of fruit and nuts, and that we could let the monkeys have it, but to be careful not to make sudden moves, or drop the cup, because you can scare or hurt a monkey.   Then he led us in to the massive enclosure where the monkey’s live (it’s not a cage, it’s a several kilometer fenced off piece of the jungle – the monkey’s are living very well) and within minutes, the monkey’s had seen us, and were making their way through the trees, sweeping, calling and leaping their way towards us.  I stood as still as I could, terrified that I’d make a sudden move and hurt a monkey, and suddenly, we were beset.  I stood perfectly still- or as still as one can stand while monkey’s walk on your cleavage.

I heard Erin say "Oh, no, oh no" and turned around to see a monkey on her head.

Hank’s monkey waved Hola! (Hank was, of course, perfectly calm)

Yvonne squealed like a little girl.

My Mum, on the other hand – was very much less delighted with the monkeys. 
(I won’t repeat what she said about them.  It’s less than graceful.)

When we left the monkey area (or escaped the monkey area, depending on your perspective) we were hiked along a path to the place where they get you all outfitted for the ziplining.  At this point, I realized that one of the reasons it had been so unexpectedly easy to get my mum to agree to zipline, was because she didn’t know what it was.  As she got kitted out in her harness, helmet, shoes and gloves, I started to wonder if she was really going to like it, but with every passing moment, she seemed more interested, not less.

They gave us a little class on braking and safety and then we hiked again, up to the first platform, and it was then that we started to grasp the idea of what we were doing. This place has 7 ziplines that total 1350m (4400ft) and are about 60m (200ft) off the ground.  The instant they strap you in at the top of this line you realize your mistake. At this point Erin and I both had a brief but neurotic conversation with our guides.  They explained (again) that we’re strapped in two ways, that if for some insane reason one of pieces of equipment failed, there were redundancies, that they were going first, that they check the equipment before every rider – that even if you do it wrong they’ll take care of you, that it’s safe.  It doesn’t look safe, but it is very safe.  Erin and I felt a little better.
Then we made the kid go first.

He whipped across the tree tops, smiling broadly the whole way, and braked expertly (although the "monkey guides" were waiting to ensure his gentle landing if he didn’t.)

Erin went, then me… then my mum and I admit that I was a little worried about her. Even the suggestion that she might not be able to do something fills her with rage though, so I didn’t say anything.  I hoped she’d be able to grin and bear it.  How long could thousands of feet of zipline take? (The answer is a couple of hours, but we didn’t know that then.)  Imagine my surprise when my mum came whipping though the trees with a huge smile on her face.

She loved it.  She loved every minute of it, and she was wicked good at it.  We laughed and did the next run – a steeper one with a ton of braking and mum rocked that too.  Hank zoomed, Erin screamed, I was neurotic – Yvonne was – well- Yvonne had some issues.  On the first steep run she was too scared to brake, and came in so fast that I yelled "You’re coming in pretty hot there Starbuck" while the guides ran around slacking the wire to slow her down and preparing to catch her, which they did adeptly.

(A quick aside to Yvonne’s kids, who aren’t going to believe anything about this: Mum, Erin, Hank and I are all willing to send you sworn affidavits indicating t
hat the person in the picture above is indeed Yvonne, and that she did complete a zipline course, and that she was indeed sober at the time, although we decline to comment on any behaviour at the bar post zip.)

After that she braked compulsively out of sheer terror, which meant that she didn’t make it all the way across one of them and they had to send out the "Monkey Taxi" to get her.  Still, it was impressive that somebody so scared finished the course at all.  I thought she was going to bail about sixteen times, but on she went, the brave little soldier.  It is possible, that beyond the sheer terror she experienced, the worst part was the dirt. Apparently the gears above you always stir off a little dirt and dust from the cables,  but  it was raining pretty good by the time we were done, and dirt+dust+water=MUD and that mud was spraying and dripping down onto us the whole time we were going.  For Yvonne, our lady of perpetual creams and accessories, this was a real barrier. By the time we were done, we were all dirty-

but Yvonne was particularly out of character.

It was, without a doubt, one of the craziest things we’ve ever done – and worth it just for the moment that night that Hank said, when I pointed out that the people who had loved it the best were the oldest person and the youngest person, and Hank said that it was because he and Gramy were both courageous.  It’s something they have in common, he feels.  He’s right of course. 

It was pretty amazing.