How cool is that? October 15, 2006

Yesterday when I was walking Freia at Chrissy Field I saw a woman wearing the Bailey Hat in wool. I was so excited I had to tell her it was my design! She said she loved the hat – it looked cute on her. The first time this happened was earlier this summer when someone came into a knitting store that I was visiting and she had made the Elyse Purse. She had downloaded the pattern and picked her own colors, very different from my taste, but it still looked pretty good.

Now that I have a dog and I’m not at home working every minute of every day I see more people with my stuff. It’s always a thrill!

Here’s a little related story:

Years ago, when I was in college I had this horrific yarn, slubby and scratchy and the ugliest colors imaginable. I tried in vain to make something useful out of it, which in the end became a striped vest. It was still ugly. So, I gave it to Goodwill. A few months go by and lo and behold, one of my schoolmates (not really someone I knew, though I remember he was cute and I did have a little crush on him) came into the school cafe wearing the vest. My jaw dropped. I told him that I’d made it and given it away. He couldn’t believe that I could just give to charity “something so cool”. He said he wore it all the time and it was one of his favorite pieces of clothing. Oh well, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

Keywords October 15, 2006

Is that your buddy? This is what I now say when Freia meets anyone new (or old) and it works!! She goes from unsure and unpredictable to waggly-tailed and goofy.  It works every time, it’s weird and uncanny but I’m very relieved to have found what seems to be a reliable solution to rid her of was becoming a bad trait. She seems grateful for it too, now she waits for me to tell her that someone is her friend, and trusts what I tell her. It’s worked at the vet, with the cats, with strangers around my house (and elsewhere), even with people coming in the house (which is usually a big threat to her). This week we’ve also been practicing “finishing” which is when I call her to me, she comes immediately (in theory) swings herself around to face the same direction as me, sits and lies down.  This is good for any emergency type situation such as horses or bike riders  on a trail, children or even another dog that may not be so friendly. It has been working like a charm.

One major current hurdle left. Getting her in the car without me having to lift her in. One misty morning about 2 weeks ago she got the fright of her life when I turned the rear window wiper on. Since then the car has not been her favorite place, and even though I’ve tried treats, cajoling, luring and anything else, most of the time I end up having to lift her into the car.

That is until last night.

My back went out.

So I have extra motivation for her to get back into jumping in the car without my help. In the meantime, I’m on an icepack for 15 mins every hour and pain pills. This is no fun, especially as my old standby, Bextra, got pulled off the market along with Vioxx. Bextra was the only reason I’m alive today as my back was so bad at one point that suicide would have been the kindest thing to do to myself. Fortunately this time I’ve not developed a full blown case of sciatica, but I’m a bit hunched and certainly look like I have scoliosis and have developed my weird sideways walk to compensate for the muscular lock-up in my back.

So now back to the ice. And some knitting, and this time I mean it. I don’t know where the time goes, it just never seems to go to knitting.