can you see the air?

Late afternoon on a sunny frigid day spent mostly at table and desk. My bare feet were cold until I remembered the merino/silk socks I'd thrown into the basket by the desk. These Gull Wing lace socks have been favorites for a long time, but I have lots of favorites and forgot them for awhile.

I need to get out and walk but it's so cold! A short trip from the parking lot to the grocery store later will have to suffice. Mostly I'm trying to be grateful and at this hour as I put away the notebook and red-marked ms. sheets it's about yarn and related stuff. Like the wicker mannequin I found at the secondhand store last Friday. Isn't she great? 

She will be perfect for a spring/summer craft show if I do one. A friend keeps asking (we'll share space) but until Wickergirl came along I said no. Dark mannequins wearing wool are just too wintery for the season when everyone wants to lighten up and forget about wool for awhile (even though nights are always chilly up here) - but I'm tempted by a silk shawl tossed gently over WickerGirl's shapely shoulders and sweet breasts....

Segue to the Kokopelli UFO cardi to remind myself where I left off. It moves along fast when I actually work on it so maybe I'll have it in a couple of weeks - if I can just stay focused.

zoom to middle-America

I can focus on yarn, knitting, writing, but can't forget the two people on the line behind me at the prescription counter at Smiths. We waited so long on that queue that my mind drifted to the conversation happening behind me. I couldn't see the two people (deliberately didn't look) but overheard the words. They started out greeting each other with the usual how-are-yous? and great, greats, but before their conversation was done I'd learned that he'd lost his home to the bank, she'd given up her car "because it was either the house payment or the car payment", she was pregnant again with her third, had lost her job because everyone was let go except one, his oldest son left college because he couldn't afford the tuition and board anymore, and there were two other small children to support. I heard, as the conversation got deeper, "it's so hard," "we're just hanging in there" and this: "life is what we do, isn't it? we're here to live life the best we can". This message in a fortune cookie that night...

It seemed like those two besieged people were doing just that.