Saturday morning I take advantage of my chance to tower over someone and I go harass Julie on the air mattress in the living room. I try to get the dogs to eat her, but mostly they just want to snuffle her face and snuggle. Jerks.
I always think of my dogs as these ill-behaved jackasses, spawn of Cerberus himself sent to destroy me, but really, they’re pretty good. I hadn’t given much thought to it until Julie mentioned it, but they are pretty well trained and behaved. They will let you know they want some of your food by using the hypnotic Meaningful Stare but they don’t beg or climb on you or get pushy. They know good behavior and they know when they are being bad and sometimes they intentionally do something like get in my seat just for the goofiness of it all.
Right now they are passed out in bed with me, their faces angelic and sweet. Thinking of them as good dogs is really easy right now. Later, when they are scrabbling around the house and playing hippo stampede I might assess the situation differently.
Anyway! It’s all up and at it. Showers are taken, coffee and cupcakes are consumed, calls are made, plans are solidified!
We head off to the MOA and meet up with Dawn. What follows is an intense few hours of yarn related…standing in line! There are very long and orderly lines to take you from one booth to another. At one point it is suggested that maybe we should just skip the lines and cut in at each booth. I am adamantly opposed to this. I’m a jerk about rules. Systems only work if the rules are followed. I get us all fired up on the system and the rules and the constitution and we’re feeling quite patriotic (even Julie!). It is our duty to our country to stand in line in an orderly fashion!
It is also our duty to show much disdain for the people who do try to cut in line.
So, here’s the thing. We’re in line and we are patient and we are watching the people around us and we each independently come to the same realization. Some 90% of the line cutters are not young jerks with no respect for authority, no! Not at all! The line cutters are predominantly upper middle aged white women from the suburbs (presumably the suburbs, you can smell the Thomas Kinkade on them). The very same women who poopoo the current young generation as being disrespectful. Damned jackasses! They learned it from watching you! What do you expect! Your wash and go hair and perma-press slacks from Kohls are not an all access pass to the world!
Oh, right! We stood in line and received our freebies. Sadly, many people had promised that we would get much free yarn, but we only got one free ball of novelty yarn. Hmmm. But many patterns and whatnot. We even got light up knitting needles. I’ll be giving mine to my mom. As much as I would have loved to use them as light sabers, I just don’t need extra stuff lying around and we’d probably break them soon.
We stopped for lunch at Tucci Benucch, a sorta passable Italian restaurant in the mall. Definitely better than Olive Garden, but still one of those places that puts ‘balsamic’ vinegar in the dipping oil. Let me have a little tangent here… Let’s just stop with the balsamic vinegar thing. It’s had its run, none of the things called ‘balsamic’ vinegar were the real thing, putting caramel color and a bit of sugar in some vinegar does not make it balsamic vinegar. The condiment grade stuff that we see mass produced isn’t anything like what the real thing is. The real thing is thick and sweet and used sparingly. It’s used as much on desserts as on entrees.
Sorry. Anyway, I had the gnocchi with a pretty good bolognese sauce (a good bolognese sauce is one of the treats this world gives us to thank us for standing in line!). The funny thing is that I’d only ever been to the restaurant once before and I sat in the same exact booth.
After lunch we headed out again to stand in more lines and pick up more stuff. Many people come to ask why we are standing in line and it takes a supreme effort of will to keep my mouth shut and not answer “your mom”. People from Ravelry find me! It’s both fun and peculiar. I am one who for years made a concerted effort to not be found by anyone for any reason. All in good fun! people recognize me by my Ravelry bag, my tiny feet, my general aura of jackassitude (except that I’m standing in line and other people are being jackasses about the line!).
After the lines we are exhausted. We slip into Barnes and Noble to sit in the relative quiet of the Starbucks there and crochet and drink coffee. We discuss all manner of TMI subjects. Julie and I explain to Dawn how we met and what led to our friendship. I have been working on a scarf all day while standing in line, just a simple basketweave crochet stitch. As I am sitting at the table working on my scarf when a lady comes up to ask about it. That was fine, lots of people like to ask about the ongoing projects being worked on in public. it WOULD have been fine but she put her hand on my upper thigh and rubbed it!!! SHE RUBBED MY UPPER THIGH!! PERSONAL SPACE ISSUES!!!! HELLO!!!!!
Oh crap that was weird.
Dawn had to take off as she was going to pick up Kim Werker and I am insistent that the world will bow to me and I will meet her!
Julie and I head back to the house to collapse for a bit before dinner.
Coming up: I admit to getting it on with Kim Werkers grandmother in law, I eat delicious food and am generally inappropriate)