I Am Still Here

It's been so long since I posted that I had to verify my username and password. That'll teach me.

You can probably assess the activity in my life by the activity on my blog, which is to say, when the blog is quiet, the life is zooming off into the far reaches of the galaxy. Well -- not really. It just feels that way.

After the phone call mentioned in my last post, nine days later, my husband hopped a train down to Philadelphia and helped Chris pack up his household -- what they were able to. He ended up leaving a lot of furniture behind, the worst of which was a futon sofa that we all really liked, and which he had used for a bed while living in Lansdale (suburb of Philly). They could have packed it into the truck with no trouble, but to get it into the elevator, they would have had to dismantle it, and lacked the necessary hex keys. Since they only discovered this on Saturday morning, and Chris was due in Vermont the following Monday, they ended up leaving the futon sofa behind, along with his computer desk, an entertainment center, and a large sectional sofa that he had intended to leave behind anyway. The new tenant of the apartment paid him $300 for all of this, items which cost him $1300 originally. Ouch.

He spent the following two weeks in classes to bring him up to speed on how things are run on a big-time freight line, graduated second in his class, came home last Friday for a semi-relaxing weekend -- we spent a good part of the time trying to track down an apartment near his base of operations -- and this morning, at 4:45 (shudder), he left home for the two-hour drive to the new job in Vermont. I told him to call if he got into trouble, so since he hasn't yet called, I guess he got there all right.

The rest of the time has been divided between trying to get my father-in-law's financial affairs regularized -- dealing with privacy laws has been enlightening, to put the best face on it -- and working on a replacement for an Aran sweater I knitted my husband, oh, about 15 or so years ago. That sweater has been gradually disintegrating over the past few years, and it finally dawned on me that I was going to have to knit a replacement. Two problems: (a) I really dislike working on Arans, and (b) it takes away from cross-stitching time. I finally finished the sweater (which was supposed to be his Christmas present) last night, only to find that the sleeves are about an inch too short. If you knit, you know what that means: Snip one thread where the cuff joins the body of the sleeve, unravel it, and knit a whole new cuff. If you notice any particularly blue air, it will be from all the cussing that has swirled forth into the world from this corner of it. If there's one knitting job more tedious than Arans, it's ribbing. Knit 2, purl whatever -- I prefer one -- for however many inches you can stand, or, as knitting guru Elizabeth Zimmermann put it, "To make a turtleneck sweater, cast on the required number of stitches and knit 2, purl 2, until you are sick of it." In my case, that would make a mighty short turtleneck. I hope to heaven this dratted sweater is done tonight.