Two-days the day’s
Monday May 05th 2008, 11:26 am
Filed under: "Wrapped in Comfort",Life,My Garden

Faster-version Julia in Casbah, eight hours to knitI just spent five minutes outside at 10:30 am, talking to the guy working on my roof, and my left eye sight was starting to get wonky. It’s a very good thing we didn’t try that walk to the Faire, however badly I wanted to.

This faster-version Julia shawl took about eight hours to do, and it’s a good pattern for when I only had a single skein of Casbah merino/cashmere/nylon 80/10/10, because it repeats every right-side row: so you can stop at whatever row you need to and still have it look right. Since it’s a superwash-treated yarn, I’m thinking of it as the Eight Hour Mom Surprise (I’m suddenly picturing Elizabeth Zimmerman fans pelting me with small leftover balls of yarn.) Celebrate the mom as well as the baby, with something that won’t get outgrown. I do feel every new human that enters the world ought to have something created just for them, but I also know how much it can lift a mom’s spirits to have something pretty but that doesn’t require babying–she’s got enough on her hands. Although I would put it in a pillowcase before throwing it in the wash, definitely, and no dryer.

Meantime, yonder elder son is flying home shortly, but the letter just beat him to it. I was shaking my head, going, how can they summon a kid at university in the middle of their studies, when they’re a thousand miles away? How can they require the kid fork over for the plane ticket? He told me the real reason he was flying home now was, he was coming home to play with his mom for the little time we could have together and to “drive you to your little yarn stores and take you to see your little knitting friends.” Kid. 6’9″ you may be, but, I used to be bigger than you…

The letter came. He had me open it and read it over the phone as he waited. Dear… You are hereby excused from jury duty.

yellow rose that fades to pink

I guess they agreed that sequestering him during his honeymoon was going to be a bad idea.


11 Comments so far
Leave a comment

the shawl is beautiful!!!

Comment by grace 05.05.08 @ 12:36 pm

Oh Jury Duty! It always comes at the weirdest times… glad to hear your son is off the hook this time. When my husband served, he had to shield me from even the basics of what was being argued–it was very upsetting stuff.

Regarding your missed trip to see Stephanie, you know, some things aren’t “meant to be.” It’s probably for the best, even if it was a disappointment. You’ll be healthier without the extra strain, and maybe next time, you’ll have the opportunity to visit Stephanie on your own?!
I do hope so. In the meanwhile, I sat outside and knit in the sunshine for a while today. I hope I absorbed enough to “pass it along” to you vicariously. 🙂

Comment by Joanne 05.05.08 @ 1:41 pm

That is a lovely color. Glad to hear that his honeymoon will not be interrupted.

Comment by Sonya 05.05.08 @ 5:19 pm

Glad that letter came!

Comment by Amanda 05.05.08 @ 5:21 pm

Ha! Ha! I’m glad to see that they do let people out of jury duty for honeymoons–that would make for some very hostile juries otherwise…..:)

Comment by Toni 05.05.08 @ 8:01 pm

What a beautiful shawl, such a glorious colour. Very thoughtful of you, as usual. I am pleased your son won’t be having his honeymoon interrupted. Might have made a good story in the future but much better that it was a close call instead.

Comment by Vicki 05.06.08 @ 3:13 am

Out of Jury Duty for Honeymoon, hmmmmmm, Yeah I can see that 🙂 Hope you have fun with your son in the last few days before his wedding!

Comment by Danielle from SW MO 05.06.08 @ 4:36 am

Beautiful shawl and rose, and enjoy your time with your son!

Comment by Channon 05.06.08 @ 6:54 am

I’m vaguely remembering a mysterious woman in “The Three Musketeers” who rode around Paris in an enclosed and curtained sedan chair. I wonder if you could borrow it for special occasions when you need to get somewhere. I’m sorry that you have to see through a glass darkly. But have fun with your son!!

Comment by Laura 05.06.08 @ 8:28 am

I was called 4 times while I was in college (because after the first, they just delayed it, didn’t excuse me). So the first time I was in college 3 hours away, and my mother told them I wasn’t home – they just delayed it. 2- was in the summer, but I had no car and there was no public transit of any sort- delayed. 3- again, I was away at school, and the judge was really snotty and wasn’t going to excuse me and I was panic-striken about missing school- there was no way I could recover from losing as much as 8 weeks out of the semester (and I’d have lost all my scholarships if I missed a semester or didn’t keep my grades up) – but they finally agreed to delay it again. So, that summer, in I went for round 4. And it was going to totally kill my budget, because I needed to work to go back to school but there wasn’t any choice- except this time the judge listed among the ‘allowable reasons for not serving’ that if your work didn’t reimburse you, you could ask to be excused. And he actually seemed like a reasonable human being. So I went up and explained the last three times, and said that if it was just going to be another delay I’d do it, and somehow deal with the loss of income, but if I could be excused, it would be a huge relief. And – he excused me. And I felt a badly about it, because, civic duty and all, and it would actually be rather interesting, but at the time, I just couldn’t afford not to work.

That was over twenty years ago, and for the last twenty years I’ve worked salaried jobs so I *could* do jury duty without losing my income, and so? I’ve never been called.

Nice that they were willing to be reasonable in your son’s case!

The shawl is lovely! Now all you have to watch out for is blog readers in disguise, wearing teal, and lurking conspicuously where you might happen to see them….

Comment by RobinH 05.06.08 @ 9:51 am

The shawl is beautiful!
There’s a time to jury & a time not to jury.
Glad they can still tell the difference. 😉

Comment by Toni Smoky-Mountains 05.06.08 @ 5:13 pm



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)