Sock Channel

If there was a sock channel on T.V. I would so watch.  Is that weird?  Even though I have not finished the mate to the red duet sock, I have started another sock.  I know, shocking isn't it?

Hopefully this will grow into a pair of socks for my MIL by Mother's Day.  It is Opal Petticoat in an unknown colorway, because at this moment the ball band is lost somewhere in the chaos of my desk.  I would show you, but I love you and want to protect your delicate sensitivities.

It's allergy season.  I know I promised in my last post that my next post would be all about knitting, and medical free.  That was before it was allergy season.  Even my DOGS are affected this year!  All four have been sneezing, and snorting and generally wiping their runny noses somewhere on my person.  I was so alarmed by the houseful of sniveling canines, that I made DH rush them off to the vet.  I was sure they were dying of some unknown canine virus, or from rat-poisoned dog food even though what we were feeding did not appear on any tainted list...yet.

The Vet pronounced them all healthy although affected by allergies, gave them a round of yearly boosters (except for Sachi who is not due for hers yet), stocked us up on heart wormer and sent my DH on his way.  Winston was the first affected, and seems to be the one suffering the most.  This may be related to the fact he thinks he should jump in the peony bush every time he is outside.

This allergy season has been so bad that I spend most of my time gazing into a mirror at my red eyes and swollen red nose, that make me appear as though I have been on the world's largest bender.  Since I am a teetotaler, I am blaming every blooming thing.  That is all I am allergic to this time of year.  Every blooming thing.  When I am not staring at my face in the mirror, I am trying to make my teary, red allergy-infested eyes focus on my computer screen.  I also spend a fair amount of time staring into space like a slug, or snuggling with my allergy ridden dogs on the bed.  Did I mention that it is allergy season?

I have abandoned all my other knitting at the moment, although I did allow my lonely ball winder to have a fling with the above Opal yarn.  I wound it first into one yarn cake.  Then I placed said cake on my scale, and wound 1/2 into another ball.  I snipped the yarn and rewound the shrunken original cake, into a second cake matching the new 1/2 yarn ball. 

I intended to knit two socks at once, although on a separate set of needles.  I know how to knit two pairs of socks on one set of circular needles, but I find the constant unwinding of the dangling yarns, and the schlepping of the socks to and fro to be more time consuming that knitting the socks on separate sets of needles.  Do I win a prize for the biggest run on sentence?  I should have already cast on for the second sock.  I haven't, because I am easily bemused by the color changes of self-striping yarn and find myself going for one more repeat, and THEN I will start the second sock.  This syndrome may also be linked to the fact that it is ALLERGY SEASON and my brain is floating in snot.

I also owe you a book review, and the chance to win a free book.  I promise that will be forthcoming.  I am no longer being specific about WHEN it will be forthcoming because it is ALLERGY SEASON  and my brain is floating in snot.

On another note...one of my caregivers has had some medical issues of her own the past couple of months.  I was afraid her symptoms appeared just a little too familiar.  She has been spending the last two days being poked and prodded and MRIed by specialists.  They are 99% certain she has M.S.  Sigh.  Although I would not wish this disease on anyone, I also totally understood the relief in her voice when she called me from Nashville to tell me the news.  When you are going through an episode of symptoms, and you get passed around some of the lesser-intelligent among the medical community, and treated as though perhaps you are really mostly a psycho because they can't face their own shortcomings as doctors...it can be quite a relief to finally be in the hands of competent physicians.  Even though they are confirming a dreaded disease, at least it has a name and can now be treated.  You no longer feel like you are soon to be dispatched to the loony bin.  You want to line up those nincompoop nay-saying doctors, poke them in the chest and say, "See - I TOLD you I wasn't crazy."

I also had to have a root canal this week.  My dentist rocks.  There are small televisions in each room, fixed so they can be easily viewed as you recline.  He changed mine to the channel showing the St. Louis Cardinal's baseball game.  Woot! 

Apparently my facial expression would change when something exciting was happening in the game, because he kept stopping to say "Did that hurt?"  If I have to spend and hour and a half in the dental chair, the way to keep me soothed is baseball.  He chuckled when I said I was going to schedule all my appointments around Cardinal's baseball.

It is also that time of year...

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