The Raveled Sleave of Care,

 In my second year of university, I lived in a boarding house with four other female students. We became friends and one of the friendships survived graduation and Moving On and has been a life-long joy to me. I was paging through my yearbook from that year a few days ago, preparing to throw it away (downsizing it are us, in a small way) and I came across this photo.

I wish it were colour as my friend was an accomplished knitter and was in the process of making herself a plaid school scarf in the school’s colours of bright red, bright yellow and deep blue. We were going to go to a football game at another university, and scarves in school colours were ’de rigeur’. She finished it, as I recall, on the train on the way to the game, with my help in weaving in the ends where she had changed colours.

I was not (knot?) an accomplished knitter. I had, up until the time we became friends, only ever knitted one sad uneven square for a Brownie badge. But I decided, and at this remove of time I cannot remember why, to knit a vest for my boyfriend for Christmas. I bought boring brown yarn and a pattern of the simplest possible garment, and worked diligently away at this epic. I vaguely recall finishing it and blocking at home in the days before Christmas and mailing it to the bf. Who did not, to my recollection, acknowledge receipt of it.

I had a scarf. My mother had made it for me and she, while a long-time knitter, did not knit at tension well. The scarf was lovely, of good quality wool, but she had made it in bands in garter stitch and my goodness did it stretch. At a home football game in my third year, I recall my boyfriend (another one) and I both wearing it. At the same time. At some point my mother took two rectangles off the end, lined and sewed them into an envelope into which the rest of the scarf folded, making a pillow.

This scarf lived with us until our YD entered at our alma mater and was given the scarf. It survived four years with her and was passed on, again, to one of my husband’s nieces when she became a student there. I have no idea where it is now; it did not come back from that adventure. And I cannot imagine to what lengths it has gone.

I have become a not-bad knitter since those days. But since I made a scarf and, I think, a hat for the grandkid when she was a small girl, I have not done much. There are partly finished mittens in a knitting basket and a drawer full of patterns, needles and ends of wool. These, I think, can all go to the ‘Reuse Centre’ that runs at one of our waste disposal sites. Along with a lot of other craft items. But, first, green garbage bag time; there is a lot of junk in my sewing and laundry room drawers. A lot of junk.

I wonder what happened to my friend’s amazing technicolour scarf.

A Paddle in My Stream (of Consciousness)

 It has been a long time since I posted anything, I realize. Several reasons. One is that I have become addicted to an online game called ‘Magic Sort’. This is only the second time I have been so, I guess, silly as to play a game for many hours and multiple levels (about 2600 so far). The first time I became hooked was by a game called ‘Lemmings’ and I climbed every level to the very last one. At the time, I had bunged up a knee and was pretty well housebound; playing the game meant that I could forget about the knee throbbing for a while when I played. But really, it was stubbornness. I would solve a level and just have to see what was in the next one. This new addiction is probably even sillier (More silly? Hmm) because the levels are either really easy (solve in under a minute sometimes) or not easy at all and take multiple tries. I refuse to buy extras and so I have to sit through ads, over and over, to be allowed to get back to the start if I take more than one try. I practically have a couple of the ads memorized.

Anyway, it has been very quiet around here. We had a fine Thanksgiving dinner totally sourced and cooked by my wonderful daughters and the ED’s partner, who obsessed about the turkey but did a fine job. All I had to do was one pie ahead of time and it did not run over or burn or come out underdone, so I guess I scored. Oh, and I set the table. While all the chopping and mixing and timing was going on, I was relaxed in my fine new reclining chair, playing my game and having a couple of nice naps. I do love my family.

We were one short, however, as the grandkid is now in England, a few weeks into her Master’s program. She is getting out and about on hikes and runs, and tells her aunt, who was overseas and treated her to a weekend in London, that it is a bit puzzling that she is not having to work harder. My mother was the kind of student who had to have everything down perfectly in case she missed something. She did a second Master’s degree while I was a teenager and I vividly recall her obsessive (to me) revision and the worry that went with it. I think my daughter inherited the gene and she certainly passed it on to grandkid, who adds diligent work to a fine brain. It missed me, for sure.

In a strange sort of reversal, how well you did at formal schooling does not seem to matter, once you have graduated and are out of there. Your proud mother may remember that you won a medal, but the world does not care much, if at all, unlike competitive sports, where placement is everything. Second place should not be a loss of first place, but it frequently is. And if it is the Olympics or World Championships or the like, just getting to go ought to be a point of pride forever.

In the intervals of producing this deathless prose, I am checking the score of the Jays’ and Mariners’ seventh game. At present it is top of the ninth, Jays one run up. My parents would have been glued to the screen, or to the radio before we had a television set. They were both fanatic baseball fans – in their case, the Detroit Tigers since we lived in Windsor. They used to rent a television for a month in the fall and watch the playoffs, whether or not the Tigers made it. The first set we owned was only acquired in 1954 or 1955. I do not know why we didn’t have a set much earlier; we were affluent enough to afford one. But they listened to the games on the radio. I still remember my mother ironing with the radio babbling away. I also remember watching the last game of the Canada/Soviet hockey series on TV while trying to get the laundry done and ironing my hand at one crucial point. I kept the little girls home from school to watch that game, but they say they do not remember that.  It was 1972 (just checked that) and so they would have been six and five respectively.

By golly, the Jays did it. One of my daughter’s stepsons works for the Mariners and he is going to be some sad. By one run in the last game. Talk about squeaking by!

I used to write letters to my mother and father, once a week, regularly. Long, newsy screeds with reports of what their grandkids were doing, what I was doing, the weather, the political scene, the latest scandal, whatever. No spellcheck, a ballpoint pen and, mostly, plain white paper. Sometimes I typed, but I ‘thought’ better with the pen, as it was slower. Now I type everything and this post is not as carefully done as my letters were, but the content is somewhat the same. I do have a ‘review’ function, and so the spelling, at least will be American standard, zeds and all. And I do keep the text for a while and review it. For what that is worth.

And so, the other reason. Finally. This reason is that not much has been happening to write about. However, as you can tell if you have got this far, I do not need much to be happening. I can babble on, regardless. And I should stop this and do the review, already. Goodness. No mistakes.