Still Giant: The Bobsock Story

There is just no getting around this: the socks I'm making for Bob are enormous.

Also, they make my arm look really weird, unless you imagine that I am in the middle of a ballet pose with my arms encircling the air in front of me.


True Story

When I was little I wanted to learn tap dancing so badly, and mum said No, you will learn ballet, because

a/ Moira-Ann was signed up for ballet and it meant we could carpool and

b/ tap dancing is noisy and I was the youngest of five and really I don't think mum could take one more thing.

Then when it was time for the ballet recital I got out on stage and looked into the audience (big mistake number one) and spotted mum and remembered that she had put a KitKat chocolate bar into her purse to give me for doing a good job at the recital (big mistake number two, by mum - why on earth did she tell me about it ahead of time?) and I promptly forgot every step.

What I will never forget: the sight of our ballet teacher doing graceful little twirls in the wings, her face both frantic and terrible as she willed us all to remember the choreography.  Because naturally, I had to be the tallest in the group and therefore the kid all the other kids were taking the lead from.

(no idea whether I actually got the KitKat.)

End of True Story


Back to the Sock (mostly)

I'm very happy to be almost finished Bob's second sock and not just because it proves to me that I do have the stamina to knit elbow-length gloves; I'm seeing Bob tomorrow and will be able to make him put on the one that just needs the toe grafted shut.  If I could knit fast enough and Soak and dry the socks in time - supremely unlikely - I could also give them to him the next day, before he leaves town again, and be in time for his birthday which is somewhere in the week after that.  Wouldn't that be nice?

It would also be nice if I had a tidy, sparsely decorated house, but that's even more unlikely than having dry, finished socks in time for Saturday.  I know because I spent about 6 hours in the basement's Room of Doom yesterday and filled up 5 garbage bags plus 3 thrift store bags and you still can't see the whole floor.  On the upside: the stuff that's going out next has shifted to a more accessible position, and when it goes, I might...

should I say this?

will I jinx myself?

... have space for a sewing nook down there.

Man, I should so not have said that out loud.  And anyway it won't work because the 'desk' on which I was going to put my machine is too tall - great for standing at, but that's all, and I'm not certain a foot pedal is quite so comfy when you use it standing all the time.


Movie News

I am just back from seeing ParaNorman in a real live grownup theatre, an outing I kinda got out of the habit of which is too bad considering I live in Toronto, home of the Toronto International Film Festival, which I keep thinking I should really make a point of Doing some year.

At any rate, a movie about a bullied loner who sees and talks to ghosts and has to save his town from witch-cursed zombies is probably not the perkiest choice I could have made this week but I still liked it and recommend it (though possibly not for very small children because there is some super scary swirling of witchy clouds in parts.  The zombies on the other hand are mostly adorable.)

Here is the thing about these bullied loner movies: even though I myself experienced both bullying and comparative popularity in my youth, I always feel like bullied movie-heroes have it so great because they always seem to have a much more interesting home life than I did and also, super cool clothes or flexibility or something.

Norman for example has a fabulous running style and jeans that scrunch perfectly around his very cool (red!) running shoes.

So, I got out of the house and had a nice time and still managed to feel like I should buy new shoes.  How does that work??