An Ode to the Knitting Needle

Oh, sweet DPN
Your sharp points dig out
The most recalcitrant stitches.
You bend without breaking
Under the most stressful cables.
Your black walnut body
Shines in the moonlight.
You are my companion, my friend,
My secret love.

Yeah, I suck at writing poetry (odes, at least), but it's a tribute, so never you mind.

And no... I didn't sit on it this time.

Emma has discovered that she can now jump onto the Monster and has taken a liking to shoving her big body (she weighs 35 pounds now) right next to mine, laying on her right side, bracing her stubby legs against my body, and shoving me as far against the side of the side of the chair as possible. Then she begins snoring. At least I can knit during these times, because if she were awake, she would be burying her little snout into the yarn. She has a yarn fetish just like her mama. In fact, she's on the chair right now, sound asleep and sprawled in a snowstorm of what used to be a paper towel which she captured and killed.

This is setting the scene for what happened last night.

So last night, I'm sitting at the computer with my back to the Monster merrily typing away when Hubster suddenly yells, "NO!!!". I look at him running to the Monster, see him pluck something from between her paws and out of her floppy jowls, and then I see my sock emerge. The sock which I've been laboring over for weeks. The sock which is on my precious Golding DPN's. The Golding DPN's which are no longer being made. He begins to moan, I start to ask, "What?", and he carries over the sock which has four DPN's sticking out of it. He then gently and lovingly lays it on the table next to me.

So what's the problem?

I'm knitting on three DPN's, not four.

Emma, with those jaws that can peel vinyl flooring right off the foundation, had snapped one of the DPN's in half like a toothpick and had begun to chew on it. Several stitches had dropped and were in the beginning stages of making a ladder down the sock.

I stared at it and began to mourn. My complete set of DPN's was no more. My stitches were running. At least she didn't damage the yarn itself. That would have REALLY sucked. So I went into my knitting bag and found my little sack of spare DPN's, the orphans from sets which I had sat on or otherwise broken one or two of. I replaced the broken needle, picked up the stitches, and inspected the sock. It was just fine. The needle went into the garbage, and I was back in business. Whew.

Later on that night, I tucked my knitting in the arm of the chair so I could go do something. When I came back, I found Emma on the Monster, sprawled on her belly with her legs sticking straight out and something fuzzy between her paws. Again. She had done it again. This time, I rescued it before she did any damage. Now I've learned that I have to put anything I don't want her to eat up out of her reach. That means just about everything.

We took the pot roast to the vet last week to check and see if those mites had been killed by that horrible medicine I had to give her. They took a scrape of the area, looked at it under the microscope, and came back with good news. All the mites are dead. That medicine was $300 a bottle, so that was indeed good news. The other terrific news is that Cheyenne has a bit of a reprieve. The vet said that as long as she's eating and walking a little, there's no reason to put her down yet. She's doing both, so we're not going to put her down until we absolutely have to. To all of you who left such lovely comments, thank you so much. They really meant a LOT to me (and Hubster).

I just now got a phone call from Mac, the man I recorded the CD with. I'll be going back to Idyllwild at the end of the month for five days to rerecord my tracks. They determined it would be easier to record it again with percussion and other effects already laid down and do it in multi-track instead of mastering what we had already done. I don't mind - it'll be nice to go back down and get away for a while.

So now Hubster is going to take pictures of some of the new stock so I can put them on the site tonight and tomorrow. Monday is prison day, the week is busy with other things, and I've got knitting to do.

As long as the pot roast doesn't need any more toothpicks.