"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

8/22/07

Surprise Visit from Cousins

I was not having a good day yesterday. It was one of those days where everything I did went wrong. Murphy's law was reigning supreme. I won't go into all the details cos I'd rather forget everything.

I was 45 minutes late to bead group-but I made it! That's something. I worked on something new. I saw a bracelet a few weeks or so ago that was done in Cellini spiral, but it had a definite color pattern in it--white diamond on a field of black. I've been wanting to figure out how that was done. Cindy helped me with it some, and we figured it out--I think. I still have to make one up to make sure, but I know I've got the basic concept. That made me feel pretty good-despite all the times I dropped the beads on the floor, put the needle through the wrong beads, thread on the wrong color or size of bead--arrrghh....it was kind of frustrating. But it was one of those kind of days where the only thing I could do was persevere. So I did-come hell or high water.

I got home after 3pm. And that was without any stops on the way home for groceries or whatnot. When I got home I ate a very late lunch, then puttered around doing bits of house work-like scooping the cat box, putting dishes away, picking up all of sweet hubbies dirty clothes and stuffing them in the hamper in preparation for Wednesdays official 'laundry day', gave the dogs some much needed lovin's, etc. Then I decided to tackle 'the mess'. When I'm beading, my dining room turns into a disaster area. I drag out boxes and take beads out I might use and stack them on the table, a chair, or the ironing board. Along with that will be little bags of beads I've purchased during that time too. Eventually, you need a tour guide to find your way to the ironing board. Once a month I make myself stop and put it all away where it should be. This usually results in a much worse mess before it starts looking clean.

I was right in the middle of the much worse mess part-sitting on the floor in the middle of bead piles segregated by color, when the phone rang. It was 6pm. I say "hello". Some guy on the other end asks if this is sweet hubby's house. I say yes. He says something about not selling anything, but he's from 'down south' (which to me could mean anything from the south end of town to the coast of Mississippi) and he's stayin' in a motel in Post Falls and he wants to get together with sweet hubby and on and on and I'm wondering 'who in the heck is this nut?' He must have figured out I didn't know that cos he then asked me if I was sweet hubby's wife. I said yes. He said we were cousins. He is the son of my father-in-laws sister. He gives me his name. I'm still clueless. Then he tells me he met me once--at the parent-in-laws 50th wedding anniversary party? Sheesh! That was 21 years ago and there were probably 50 relatives I met that day. There's no way I'm gonna remember any of them in particular ('cept Uncle Floyd. No one could forget him if they wanted to).

Eventually, though, we were able to communicate with each other and I figured out he and his wife were from southern Idaho. They were passing through just this one night and wanted to see their cousins who live here in Rathdrum. Could we meet at a restaurant--does Rathdrum have a restaurant? That one made me laugh. We do, but to be honest, none of them could handle a table big enough for this family. I got his phone number and said I'd call back. I needed to see if I could get a hold of everybody first. I'm starting to panic at this point. A stranger has called ME to get the family together and I'm the one person who is usually the last to know about anything, let alone what everyone is doing and/or where they are.

Then the real fun began. No one I needed to talk to was answering their cell phones. I called sweet hubby, in a panic. As usual, he knew just the right words to calm me down and set the ol' brain working again. He works at the same place as his twin, so he talked to sweet Dan and we made a plan. We'd all meet at Chet and Diane's (thankfully, Dan had Diane's new cell phone number). I called Diane to make sure it was okay. (We figured their house cos they are the only ones who actually knew these cousins) Then from there the word went out.

Doug came home right away cos he rode his bike to work and it takes almost an hour to get home when he does. I called back the mystery cousin and gave him directions to Chet's house. Then I tried to get some of the bead mess cleaned up before hubby got home. While he was taking a shower, I went to Nick N Willy's and got a boatload of take-n-bake pizza (best take-n-bake in the world). Then we headed over for the festivities. It all worked out great, and I got to meet some cousins from sweet hubby's family. I heard some really funny stories too. I love hearing funny stories about my in-laws.

I am 2 rows away from being done with the back of the baby aran sweater. I worked on it a bit after we got home last night. So the day may have started out badly, but it ended very nicely. Very nicely indeed.

Oh--no moose damage in 24 hours. How SWEET it IS!

Have a nice day--'cept for the moose who better have a big belly ache.

No comments:

Post a Comment