Well, she's warming up...

I know, I know, "It ain't over 'till the you know who does you know what" but I am so close to a completed Zigzag I just had to share. The body is still drying. I was sure it would be dry by now, as Ilsa tells me, "we wiv in a desert" every time she turns the water off from washing her hands, but I guess the evaporative cooler adds more moisture to the air than I realize, because it's still damp. Behold, done but for a few ends to weave and two sleeves to set! I may have pictures on a live body by tomorrow, but perhaps not. We'll see.

Something that really is done is Tater's Cotton Cardi for Zoe:I was so sure it was going to be huge I ended up making it a tad on the small side.
She loves it anyway. (Yes, I know the blues clash, but the kid wants to wear it with EVERYTHING!)And she knows how to "work it."

Ilsa is excited to get hers, which has been cast on for (one guess as to who chose the yarn)

I may be absent for a while, as the annual summer trek to Minnesota is upon us. The girls are excited to get going, as are we all. Mayhaps I'll have a few stories and photos to share upon our return. Most likely I will, as I will be hanging with Skippy as much as humanly possible. And, hey! I hear tell there's yarn in them thar hills! Eastward ho!

Just for "Funsies"

Stole this from Mamma, thought it might be fun...

Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me — it can only be one word long. Then copy and paste this in your journal so that I may leave a word about you.

Sweet, sweet FREEDOM!!!

The Unity socks are officially history! The last ends of the last socks were woven in in the last moments of last night! They. Are. Done. Also, I learned that the sample knitting I did for Chrissy arrived safe and sound, so that's another load off my mind.

So, what to do next? Do I...
A) Break in my new "spinny thingy" and ball up some of the hanks I have lying around?
(see how the yarn just throws itself at this thing? Not so with my old swift!)

The old swift was fully adjustable, mind you, just a little inconvenient at times.

B) Finish up Tater's Cotton Cardi for DD#1 so I can cast on for DD#2?

C) Knit up the last sleeve and the neck for Zigzag so I can give my mom the leftover yarn when I see her in 3 weeks?

D) Tell another totally non-knitting related story in the vein of the dead vulture?

Feel free to voice your opinion, but you're getting D) right now!

I did my student teaching at a city school in south Minneapolis. I was placed in a first grade classroom under the mentorship of a wonderful woman who I dearly miss. We had 19 students. Six of them spoke English as their first language. The rest of the kids were first generation immigrants from Mexico and South America with varying degrees of English fluency.

One day, while the kids were working at their tables, a commotion arose among several of the Latino kids. I went over to see what was going on. The exchange went as follows:

Me: What's wrong?
Child #1: Him say to her "Fire Hair!"
Me (puzzled): What?
Child #2(conspiratorially): Fire Hair...
Me: Is that a bad thing?
Child #2: You know fire?
Me: Yes...
Child #2: You know hair?
Me: Yes...
At this point, all the children present gave me the "so, you know what I'm talking about, this is really serious!" look and slowly nodded their heads.

I admit I was baffled. Fire hair? The child in question did not have red hair. What on Earth could that mean? I sternly told the offender never to say that again, though I had no idea what exactly that was, as none of the children would repeat the words in Spanish for me.

Time passed, and the incident remained a bit of a, "Hmmm... what could that have meant?" puzzler for me. Until one evening when the DH was watching RollerGirls on A&E (don't ask!) and I was taken aback by one of the team names "Las Putas del Fuego" I gasped, the angels sang for a brief moment and then I became horribly embarrassed. Puta del Fuego. Fire Whore! What must those poor children have thought of me.

"He called her a flaming whore."
"Is that a bad thing?"

Indeed, Lisa. It is a bad thing. But a funny story nonetheless.

The Dead Vulture Demasked

One of the days that Skippy and Barb were visiting, we took a little trip to the mall (home of 4 Footlockers! Okay, one was closing, but there were seriously FOUR WHOLE Footlocker stores in our dinky little mall. One Kids', one Lady, and two just regular old Footlockers. The mind boggles...) and on our way home, after introducing Skippy to the much touted Sonic Cherry-Limeade (yum!) we went driving through town and passed a lot of stuff I don't normally see (if it ain't the library or the grocery store, chances are I haven't been there in a while) one of which was a little barber shop, which solicited from Skippy a reaction of, "What's with the dead vulture?"

I wasn't looking, so I couldn't tell her. She elaborated, "It looked like a tidy enough barber shop, but then there's this ... thing ... hanging from the ceiling of the porch and it looks like a dead vulture! What's up with that?"

I passed the same way today, making sure to drive slowly by the barber shop and get a good look.

Chiles, Skippy. It's chiles strung up to dry. It is not some weird mafia warning to carrion birds to steer clear. It's just chiles. Not really as exciting as a dead vulture, I know, but that's what it is.