After two long months the grapefruit monkeys are finally done. It felt quite nice to have a project off the needles and completely done (no sewing or dying, etc). Admittedly, these are of little use to me now as it is +20 and socks (let alone wool socks) are out of the question. But in six months, I will be damn happy to have these.
The knitting has been on a slowdown recently. My arms just aren’t what they used to be and I’ve been needing breaks like nobody’s business.
There is a completed boneyard shawl blocking on the bed right now. Somewhere around here there is a pair of monkeys that just needs one more toe.
Initially, the plan for today was to dye the boneyard shawl more blue (it’s currently my least favourite teal) but I realized when I dumped out the blue packages of kool-aid that I had grabbed ones that contained red powder. Colour me embarrassed (red, appropriate). I ended up dying the leftover skein of teal Louet Gems I had kicking around in the hopes that the purple that followed would be more appealing. Again, no pictures, but I swear it happened. Also it smells like fruit punch, which I couldn’t convey to you if I tried.
(Ignore the cat if you can manage it, she has a habit of napping on blocking items because they are damp and cool. Apparently I woke her up when I was taking pictures)
As none of you know, I just spent a week (more or less) in the fine city of Toronto. Since the fella moved out there some time ago I’ve been putting off the initial visit. Mostly because I assumed I would hate Toronto, with it’s big city sensibilities and all the snooty Torontonians (is that what you call them?).
As it turns out my terrible bias was based, likely mostly, on the opinion of others. I did assume that the people would be stuck up, they were not . . . . they just all seemed busy. My mom had tried to convince me of how unsafe it was, but it turns out their biggest type of crime is bike theft. A far cry more mundane than the weekly stabbings we have here in Edmonton, that’s for sure.
I actually lucked out. The fella is in grad school and, as such, he was in school most of the day which left me free to do what ever the hell I wanted. Turns out that I mostly wanted to drink fancy-pants coffees (cortados, seriously, try them), spend hours wandering around art galleries pretending to know how awesome Tom Thompson and a ton of boring early American still life paintings are (I still do not understand the appeal), and buying yarn (I’m sure you saw that coming).
I even managed to sneak out for a night of concert going (Punch Brothers, for the curious) while the fella prepped for some big deal meeting with his supervisor. The show was about as mind blowing as I assumed it would be. I mean, honestly, folks-in-this-band . . . . . did you ever think that you should even share a tiny bit of your talent with other people? No? Just figured you should hoard all the talent for yourselves, then? Yes? Okay, I suppose I’m in no position to argue. Much to my dismay, there appeared to be no amount of whiskey capable of giving me the momentary lapse in shyness I needed to thank the banjo player for putting out his last solo album. Ah well, presumably when a person is that talented they are well aware and don’t need some awkward gal from the prairies telling them something they already know. I did, however, discover that when I drink whiskey in Toronto it affords me an excellent sleep and a bright cheery demeanor the next morning – Magic!
I ended up meeting an awesome (read: hilarious and drunk) hedge-fund manager/saxophone player who explained that he was going to get the band we’d just seen on SNL due to his awesome music connections. Oh Toronto, even your vaguely creepy middle aged men are kind of charming in their own way. Please don’t ever change!
For those of you interested, there may be a yarn update later. I seriously found so much lovely Canadian made yarn and patterns and I will lovingly hug each skein once my dumb cat finishes her late morning nap. It’s like the little monster knows when I bring new yarn in and won’t let me do anything with it until it’s napping potential has been assessed. That’s how much she cares!
