Wiggle room

This morning, it was cold. Not bone-chilling, but cold enough for my entire car to be coated frost. My son missed the 7:41 a.m. bus (again), so there I was scraping the windows while he fiddled inside with the radio dial. Forethought kept my fingers warm as I scraped — a couple days ago I pulled out my wool fingerless gloves made with Farmhouse Yarns’ Lumpy Bumpy wool in Rose Garden. My 11-year-old asked me for a pair.
“You want me to knit you some?” I asked.
“Yes. They’re cool,” B. said.
So today, I’m online looking for a suitable pattern for an adolescent boy, thus assuring that he’ll at least wear them once.

I found the following on Interweave Knits, perfect for the occasion.
http://www.interweaveknits.com/freepatterns/ pdf/Hands_Up_Instructions.pdf
There’s also another neat pattern here.
http://knitting.about.com/od/mittenpatterns/p/fingerless.htm
B. couldn’t believe that I’d possibly complete them by Sunday.
It’s really quick knitting in the round.

I’ll just let him believe I’m amazing — a regard he had for me perpetually years ago, but somehow lost toward the end of grammar school.

Holly Golightly is having breakfast

Recently, I checked out the film, “Capote (2005)” from the library.
I had seen “Infamous (2006)” several months prior and had become fascinated by the character of Truman Capote, even though my first exposure to him was as depicted by the actor Toby Jones. His Capote was wildly unappealing to me, although I loved the movie and watched it two or three times. Sandra Bullock stars as the school marmish Nell Harper Lee.
“Capote” stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Capote and Catherine Keener as Lee. Hoffman won an Oscar — Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role — an award a long time coming in my opinion, having seen him in countless character roles over the years. As after watching “Infamous,” I made a mental note to get the book, “In Cold Blood.”
Today, Vintage Trade Paperbacks send me the 50th anniversary reissue of Capote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the book that inspired the movie starring Audrey Hepburn, and includes three of his short stories.
I can’t wait to read it. The book hits stores Nov. 11.

Nutmeg Knitters

A couple of the ladies in my Russell Library Russell Knitters group have joined the Nutmeg Knitters Guild. It meets on the third Wednesday of each month except for July and August in the lower level of the Bethany Covenant Church, 785 Mill Street, Berlin, at 7 p.m. There are nominal membership dues, trips, yarn samples, coupons for locally owned yarn stores and many other perks of joining. I’ve yet to make a meeting, but perhaps you can.
Nutmeg Knitters brings together individuals with a mutual interest in knitting who gather in friendship to share knitting ideas, to build on knitting skills, to teach and inspire others and to knit for charity. All skill levels are welcome. For information, see www.NutmegKnitters.org.

The Wind’s blowing South

This weekend looks terrific for weather — daytime highs hovering around 70 degrees. What could be better than a yarn-inspired family trip? I’m eyeing the Southwind Farms Annual Fall Festival & Open Farm Days on Saturday and Sunday, with new alpaca products, yarns and events from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jim and Penny Mullen run the farm at 223 Morris Town Line Road, Watertown; (860) 274-9001; www.southwindfarms.com.

Mad mommy

My husband calls this portrait of me in blue marker by my 5-year-old son, “Mean Mommy.”
He delights in recalling this picture whenever I scold the little guy. Just to bug me.
“Mean Mommy’s at it again,” he’ll say. As if my son doesn’t deserve to have his mouth washed out with liquid Dawn (just a swipe on the gums, mind you) when he calls me, “UR@!&$%$#*”
Saturday’s kiddy terrorism sent mom to new heights of fury.
I had my organic cotton yarn skein set around the back of my rocking chair. I began to roll it into a ball. My cell phone rang, from the kitchen. Usually I am supremely careful of all my projects, each in a plastic zip-lock bag, then inside a shoulder bag at all times. If liquid, food, a child, snow or anything with a remote possibility of stain-ability is near, zip-locks are employed.
Go figure. The one time I innocuously answer a telephone call from my stepmother, certain my little man is occupied with his drumset, mid-conversation I sense an uncanny stillness from the living room.
I cut the call short.
Walk to the other room, to see my craft scissors strangely open on the couch. And my precious yarn cut through six times.
And, the ball I had begun is missing. I sense someone hiding in the other room (mom-dar).
Leading to my husband’s desk is a long string of red yarn, criss-crossing the desk legs like a spider web. I lunge for T and the ball. He scrambles out the front of the desk, with the yarn ball, tangling it around chairs, through the TV room, into the kitchen, lickety-split.
And, gasp! — into the bathroom, around the toilet base.
Well, if there is a silver lining it is that I am fanatical about cleaning the toilets in our house. With three “boys” at home, it’s not uncommon that one or another or ALL miss the toilet substantially.
God must have been smiling down at me that day. At the very least — laughing understandably, because I had just cleaned this one.
I retrieved my ball, SCREAMED at T, then rolled up the remainder of my yarn into six balls of varying size.
And cursed, most likely looking very much like Mean Mommy.