Of songs and travels

Holy cannoli. Has it really been two weeks? I feel like an inattentive lover–aghast at my disinterest, a bit defensive, but on the whole truly sorry and willing to bring flowers and explain if only my shallow, wheezy excuses didn’t overshadow the whole experience with a tired disregard for respect. So, no flowers. Instead, yarn. Kinda.

It started here:

Okay, I think it’s beautiful, but you may not. You may think, um, it’s kind of khaki and olive and white. But it’s not. It’s variegated with copper and yellow and ends up looking like the forest floor in fall. See?

Isn’t it pretty? So I have been spinning, I have! And it’s farther than that, really. Next time I’ll show you. I’ve decided that I’m going to ply it with a creamy white wool, because I just can’t ply it on itself. It would turn that forest floor to mud faster than you can say “humus.” Even Navajo plying, as much as I adore the idea of twisting my fingers backward on themselves in some kind of karma-revenge knuckle knotting thing, not so much. (It messes with the so-far, so-good seriously meditative aspect of spinning.) So, we’ll see how the white looks. I’m envisaging good things. LA LA LA LA. No I’m not! No bad spinning juju! The fiber goddess will not witness my hubris.

In other news, I’m drinking a tea called Unity. It has lemon balm and lemon grass in it, and it is soothing and warm and has honey. Ahhh. And yet I cannot relax, because I have a stupid song in my head. It’s the song “Pop! Goes My Heart,” from the movie Music and Lyrics, so it isn’t even a real stupid ’80s song, it’s a made-up one. It may be worse than the karma-revenge knuckle-knotting. I never thought I’d fall in love again/But then POP! goes my heart (pop goes my heart)… Chris and I watched the movie tonight as part of my Vegetative Birthday Celebration (why did it take me three tries to spell that word?). Truly vegetative. Hugh Grant takes Lack of Self Respect to new heights. He sings POP! goes my heart far more often in this film than is healthy. Unity, take me away.

We went on vacation, which explains a week of my absence anyway. Up to San Francisco and Petaluma, the former for the transit glory of cable cars, 1930s trolley cars and the Big Wah, the Golden Gate Bridge; and the latter for friends. Sweet B was allowed to ride Chance, the Horse of All-Horseness (yearned-for quite audibly for six months by a 3-year-old, egad, I’m surprised Chance’s head didn’t swell regardless of the distance).

Yes, I did in fact arrive in Petaluma 36 hours after the Harlot’s visit and there was nothing I could do about it. Sigh. I did go to Knitterly, however, and received the consolation prize:

Habu Textiles trunk show. Be still my heart. (pop!) I picked up, among other things, gorgeous gold F-7 curricula cocoon, 100% silk, in its natural gold. Yes, I should have taken a picture. I will next time. Really. Ooo, it is so very nice. And a shoulder bag kit, knit with two strands, one of viscose/paper/linen and one of silk. Nice and crunchy. Mmm. The problem with this trunk show is that it brings out my eclecticism. Is that a word? I want texture, odd colors, funky feel. Steel and silk knit together give me goosebumps. I tried on a sample edged in four or five strands of rayon held together and it felt so soft, nothing else was as good, or could be, ever. (My inner tiny person with large bankroll–a.k.a. Kharold–argued with me. No, I explained patiently, I do not have the economy nor the physical stamina to knit on size 2’s a kimono-style wrap.) I whittled my way down to a bag’s worth of stuff and then wandered the shop, which is beautiful and filled with the yarns I only hear about, and yet wool was (gasp) mundane, and only caught my eye when blended with silk and shot with silver. I was momentarily ruined for everything else. I took the opportunity to run out of the shop before I bruised my credit card further.

Sigh. Laud my sensibility, please. It is all that I have.

Oh! One last thing I did on my vacation–I visited Calistoga. Is there a song for that?

Calistoga, western town

Where I could just settle down

If the waitress at the bakery

Did not take my tea from me

Calistoga, peaceful place

Habitat of pleasant race

Did host the signing (I’m a fan)

Of my dear friend Kerrigan!

Or something like that.

Kerrigan’s first novel, Legacy, was published recently. It’s really good. I don’t just say that because she’s, well, my friend and keen and all that. I began reading it Tuesday afternoon and I could not put it down. I was cooking and functioning normally in most ways with the book in one hand two-thirds of the time. I am truly surprised I did not set myself on fire. I finished it late last night. I then emailed her and complained that her book kept me up so late. She was gracious in her reply.

I need to read something so that this music will go away. Legacy’s finished, Murakami’s Norwegian Wood is finished, hmm… Oo, a collection of lance-wielding and sorcery a la King Arthur sits before me in the library book stack. Good late-night read? Perhaps. The best it can do is get this song out. POP!