wideeyedfunk

Tag: knitting

  • Responsibility avoidance, Or, There are two kinds of spurs my friend.

    The grass in the back yard is long. Mowing has become critical.

    IMG_2093

    The new back stoop remains unfinished. The parts are in the garage, some assembly required. The new house colors, still undecided. Stripping the old paint, urgent.

    Stoop

    But it’s raining. 47 hundredths of an inch today so far in a long slow endless shower. Well now, that’s just too bad. All of the day’s chores were outside chores. Howsoever will I pass the time?

    RainGauge

    I’ll tell you how, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and a lace knitting project. 178 minutes of men of poor moral character. Italian made cotton Tahki yarn in a peaceable spring leaf green, bamboo needles, and a simple leaf lace scarf pattern. A match made in work avoidance heaven.

    knitting

    I knit three, and watched Blondie shoot Tuco down from the gallows for the second time… “I’ll keep the money and you can have the rope”. Slipped one purlwise, knit two and passed slip stitch over while Tuco caught Blondie in his hotel room… “There are two kinds of spurs my friend. Those that come in by the door, and those that come in by the window.” Slip slip knit while Angel Eyes’ thug Wallace beat the name of the cemetery out of Tuco and the prison camp orchestra played.

    40 minutes of the movie to go, Tuco and Blondie are just about the blow the bridge, and I figure I can knit another 20 or 30 rows if I don’t get too caught up in the three way standoff over the grave.

  • Generational Transmogrification: I am turning into my Grandma.

    Earlier this week, I lounged on the sofa with a crackly plastic wrapped novel from the library, feet propped on the footstool, glass of iced tea to hand. My reading glasses were propped on the end of my nose. With my right hand I played the page turning game: flip flip flip past the corner of each page yet to be read – can I flip through all of the pages before I finish reading the page I am on? It is an annoying, compulsive habit I’ve had as long as I remember.

    On my lap sat a bowl of popcorn. On the floor next to me a started but recently abandoned knitting project. The few completed rows of my new sweater looked good nestled next to the big ball of yarn in the bowl.

    Then I had déjà vu. Except it wasn’t déjà vu, it was memory, long-buried, unsought. I had been a part this scene before and not because I spend part of every day lounging and reading. I stopped my page flipping, my popcorn munching and held myself completely still while I waited for it to bubble up.

    It was Grandma Funk. The hairs on the back of my neck felt all tingly. I was Grandma Funk or at least acting an awful lot like her. I remember her letting me iron the sheets and her silk scarves while she lounged on the bed in her room, reading. I played on the rug on the floor near her while she sat reading on the loveseat in the TV room. I remember Grandma flip-flip-flipping the pages of her book with one finger, eating a snack, reading with a lumpy half-knitted thing abandoned nearby.

    Grandma Funk c. 1934. One year out of college, one year into marriage to an earlier WideEyedFunk.
    Grandma Funk c. 1934 with the 1932 Chevrolet Deluxe Roadster. She was one year out of college, one year into marriage to an earlier WideEyedFunk. As a side note, you might want to consider the long history of car fever in the WideEyedFamily.

    I realized I was wearing her jewelry, a solid silver cuff etched with wildflowers I haven’t taken off for 15 years or more. I was wearing one of her silk scarves. When the scarves came to me after she died, they still smelled of her Emeraude perfume. I didn’t wash them for years, left them in the box they were packed in so I could sniff my childhood every now and again.

    Grandma Funk died when I was a kid, maybe I was 10 years old. I didn’t know her really at all. Now that I am turning into her, now that I have worn her jewelry and scarves for decades, I sort of wonder if we would have been friends. We might have had things to talk about. We might have had adventures that were more exciting than trips to the park where she read while I chased and was chased by the giant geese. Although that did raise my kiddie heart rate a bit.

    I think I am turning into my Grandma Funk. I’m sort of ok with it.