Miss Me, Didja??

Sunday - We made it!

The worst part of the day was the fact that we'd allowed all kinds of time to get through the lines and there were no lines, so we had to entertain ourselves at the airport for an hour and a half. Next time I'll opt for a flight that's earlier in the day. They were wanting to leave at about 6am and our flight wasn't until 3. Ugh.

The flight was fine, Tito sat with me and Beebie and Pie sat together behind me. Meeting us at the airport were Nana, PopPop (my parents), Aunt Wee (my sister) and Uncle Bama (her hubbypoo). We all went to Red Robin for dinner and went to bed to rest up for the next day's adventure.

Monday - Pie hates Texas but I love Yarntopia

We got up bright and early to drive to Weimar where the kids would stay and play while Aunt Mary Ann and I continued on to Katy for my Yarntopia Splurge! Mom and Dad even gave me some spending money!

Amylovie's shop, YARNTOPIA, is absolutely fantastic. It's bright, colorful, spacious, organized logically and easy to navagate. She's got wonderful displays. I especially loved the little snowman hat and the nifty woven-looking scarf from the cover of Vogue Knitting.

When we arrived, she was teaching a sock-knitting class. I should have sat in and learned something, but I was busy shopping. Seriously, people, I am still glowing from this expedition. I wound up with a lot of awesome yarn and I actually have solid plans for most of it. I've even started two projects already. One is the City Shawl by GlampyreKnits and the other is a total of six little cotton washcloths that I'm going to put with shower gels for my sons' teachers for Christmas. I bought a lot of yarn, and I already need to order more.




The lovely Amylovie winding my lovely Malabrigo
















My haul





And get this, y'all - I GOT TO SIT DOWN IN A YARN SHOP. To my recollection, this phenomenon has never occurred before. I'm always in a hurry and trying to make sure the boys don't start unravelling and destroying things. I actually got to sit down and have a relaxing and yummy LUNCH while having grownup/knitting-related conversation with my aunt and cousin. It was Heaven.

I called to check in on my apes who had been having a good time themselves at my aunt and uncle's house. They had been on a walk and apparently Pie slipped when they were walking near the pond (into which they were throwing rocks and cow pies)and gotten his shoes muddy. My mom told me Pie had asked her for a piece of paper so he could make a sign that said "Dear Mom, please don't kill me when you see my shoes."

Then Tito wanted to talk to me, so Nana gave him the phone.

Tito: Hi Mommy!

Me: Hi sweetie, are you guys having fun?

Tito: Yes, and Ry got his shoes ALL MUDDY!


Way to sell out your brother.


Plus, I got to meet Sheryl, who is such a hoot! She was talking on the phone and I overheard her saying, "Now WHY won't you play dress-ups with your Grandaughter??!!?" I assume she was talking to her husband. Sheryl took this picture of us.





Yarntopia definitely made my yarn dreams come true. I've gone to sleep every night since with visions of Fleece Artist Yarn dancing in my head. That's it, I need to lay off the spicy foods.

Oh, afterwards, we met up with my mom and dad and uncle and the kiddos at the park and as we pulled in, I saw Mr. Pie sitting on a bench with Nana and PopPop. Right away I assumed he was either hurt or in trouble. Turned out, he was hurt. He got the sharp point of one of those evil Texas burrs stuck in his foot and PopPop had to take it out with tweezers. Pie was miserable. I asked him if he was okay, and he said, "Yes, but I HATE TEXAS!"


Tuesday - The Barrio and The Bezz

My dad doesn't have the standard issue, base model "This Might Not Be A Good Idea" filter in his head like most people have. My kids love it.

A "No Trespassing" sign, for example, means nothing to him. Observe:

Um, Dad? That sign we just passed said Trespassers Will Be SHOT.

Beh, it's ok. We're not going to be here very long.

Like if we don't get out of the car it doesn't count. Like if our intentions are honorable, they'll understand. Like of course they'll just naturally assume we're not going to hurt anything. Like they'll stop to ask questions before they open fire. Yeah.

Tuesday Mom had to work a half-day so he took the kids and me to go watch trains. Only one of us thought it was interesting. Personally, I was kinda terrified by the fact that we were driving along some marginally paved road which was probably technically not a road at all. The houses we drove by had plywood with spray-painted gang grafitti covering the windows, bars on the doors, and pit bulls guarding the primer-grey cars parked amidst waist-high weeds in the backyards.

But we saw trains. In fact, we could have rolled down the window and TOUCHED the aforementioned trains. Just a little scary. And then, the train blew his horn. I thought Tito was gonna crap his pants (and he's been doing so well!). After his inital reaction of terror, he was downright giddy.

We picked Mom up at her work and I reminded her that today was the day that we were going to meet my friend Bezzie and her son Chunky.

You have to keep in mind that in my mom's world, everything that has ever been featured in a Dateline Investigation is inevitably going to happen to YOU. You also have to keep in mind that she really doesn't get the whole concept of the Online Community.

She's not technologically savvy. At all. In fact, she confuses the terms "online" and e-mail", so she thinks I know Bezzie from something called "The E-line".

"How do you know that this Bessie person from The E-Line is who she says she is??"

Well, Mom, I guess I don't, but I know her name and her address and her cell phone number and where she works and... (trying to avoid the word BLOG lest she ask me about mine)

"She could be making all of that up, ya know! She could be one of those Internet Predators from Dateline!"

Yeah, Mom, knitters are notorious for that. Ok, we're going to be in a public place, and you and Dad and the kids are all going to come with me, and I really doubt she would kill and dismember all of us in front of everyone at Cici's. Keep your cell phone on, though, just in case.

Yes, folks, it's true. I MET BEZZIE. And lemme tell ya -

Sometimes my mom knows what she's talkin' about.

Here's what I have to say about the ordeal:

Bezz was every bit as charming and witty as one who knows her from the Knittyboard and her blog would expect her to be. But I'm here to testify to the fact that your beloved Bezzie has what I would call a Dark Side.

You know that cute little kid she takes all those pictures of? Chunky? I don't know how to tell you this, but I don't think Chunky's her son. Let me lay out the evidence and you can draw your own conclusion.





During dinner at Cici's Pizza, she managed to charm and beguile my family and me into a false sense of security. I thought it was a little odd that she was wearing black leather gloves when it was 80 degrees outside (note that her hands are under the table), but I invited Bezzie to follow us back to my parents' house to hang out and talk about our current WIPs.

Whips? She laughed nervously. Oh no, no... I don't have any whips. Looking back, this should have been Red Flag Number One.

No, Bezz, Works In Progress. W-I-P. WIPs. What are you working on?

Ummmm... I don't know. Chunky, what am I working on?

Chunky looked panicked and a little bit pale. It was chilling.

"Cat Poo Booga Bag?" Chunky whimpered.

NO, DAMMIT, YOU ALREADY FINISHED THAT ONE! She raised her hand like she was going to smack him but then apparently realized that she was at my house and ran her fingers through her hair instead. I couldn't believe it. Red Flag Numbero DOS.

She awkwardly excused herself and asked me where the restroom was. After directing her down the hall, I knelt down in front of Chunky and asked him if he was okay.

He nodded and said, "Sometimes she yells at us."

You mean you and your dad?

"No, me and the monkeys."

What monkeys?

"The monkeys who live there... in her closet."

This was odd. I mean, I call my kids The Apes but I'd only ever heard her mention Chunky on the blog. I had to ask again.

C'mon, Chunky - monkeys? Are you talking about brothers and sisters?

"Monkeys. There's maybe about a hundred of them. We're all her workers. We do her work for her. She's the boss of us. We call her THE MAN."

Shut the f*ck up... are you kidding me???

"We make things out of yarn and then she takes pictures of them and tells her friends that SHE made them."

So, lemme get this straight. You and a bunch of chimpazees live in a closet and knit stuff all day so she can post pictures and stories on her blog and tell the world how clever and creative she is?

"Actually, they're mostly Pygmy Marmosets. Cuz they're smaller and they eat bugs and ants and stuff. Plus they're really good knitters cuz they can use their hands and their feet at the same time. They can see in the dark and they have also prehensile tails."



WOW. This kid was pretty smart.

Like C3PO Smart.

Obviously adopted. Or perhaps abducted.

Or maybe she built him from a kit.


And come to think of it, Chunky had absolutely inhaled his dinner. Like a kid who'd survived on ants and pygmy marmoset droppings for a while.

Chunky, do you live in the closet too?

"Sometimes. THE MAN has a lot of Holiday Knitting to do. She won't let us sleep. She said she'll get us the Knit Lite needles but she's probably waiting for a coupon. When the monkeys are done with something I have to put mistakes in it so people will believe she made it herself."

Mother of God, this is SO EFFED UP.

"And I'm not allowed to talk about the one who didn't purl right, but she whipped him really hard. Not W-I-P. Whip. Whip with an H."

And it just got MORE EFFED UP. God, what a freak!!


So now the secret was out about Bezzie and her secret sweatshop of pygmy marmosets. And as I was debating whether I should call Child Services or Animal Services first, she came sprinting out of the bathroom, grabbed Chunky's hand and hissed, "We have to GO."

Here's her trying to tell me her ridiculous sob story about how she didn't have any friends and she thought if she could find a hobby she could join an online community of some sort and feel a sense of acceptance.

And you'll notice I'm saying "WHATEVER!"




Watch for her on Dateline.

Or The E-Line.



Wednesday - Belated Blogstalking

Remember the Blogstalking assignment about "Something you've had for a long time that you don't even know why you have" or something like that? I figured my parents' house would be the freakin' motherlode jackpot for crazy shit like that. I think the idea of the assignment was to find some trinket or some other item in your house that holds sentimental value, so maybe I'm employing some poetic license here, but I just had to show you all this.



My parents have all kinds of old spices in their baking cabinet. Last time I visited I found a little container of MSG, probably from back in the days before we knew MSG was bad. This time I found this can of dried parsley flakes hidden in the back. I can't remember a single dish that my mother has served in my entire life that utilzed Parsley Flakes.



I was worried that perhaps this was made back before they put expiration dates on stuff, but I looked and saw this on the bottom of the can.

That's September 6, 1981. To put this in perspective, that means that this can was already twelve years old when we packed it up from our house in Missouri and moved it 1000 miles to San Antonio, back in 1993. Classic.


Thanksgiving Thursday - Food and Family

We went back to Weimar for excellent food and great family fun. I even got to knit some more. I swear I spent more time knitting on this trip than I did sleeping.







Black Friday - Shopping and Tourist Stuff

We got up and went to Target (still early but after all the 5am lunatics were long gone) where I found exactly the two things I was looking for. Later, the entire family (my mom & dad, the apes, my sister and BIL, my aunt and uncle from Ohio and their 3 kids and my aunt and uncle from Texas) went to Rivercenter Mall and a Semi-Grand Tour of Downtown San Antonio which culminated in frozen margaritas at El Mercado and a yummy dinner at Taco Cabana (my favorite).














Saturday - La Cantera

I got to go shopping kid-free with my Ohio aunt and nose-stud cousin. I went to Bath and Body Works with my $10 off a $30 purchase coupon and spent exactly $30. I bought little shower gels which I'm going to pair with color-coordinated hand-knit cotton washcloths for the boys' teachers' Christmas gifts. It'll save me from having to buy gift bags.

I was also accosted by one of those kiosk people who buff one of your fingernails to a high-gloss shine and leave the other nine alone. Oh, I hate that. I'm such a sucker. I cave. I hate feeling anything less than symmetrical. So now all my nails are shiny and my cuticles aren't getting snagged on my knitting.

Later that evening, we got in the security line at the airport and Beeb cried the whole time because she didn't want to leave. I reminded her that today was Daddy's birthday and poor Daddy was home all by himself all week. This time we planned it so that there wasn't so much waiting time at the gate (MUCH better). Beeb and Pie got into it a couple of times on the plane and Tito fell asleep, and Daddy was waiting for us at the baggage claim. Remember the days when you could wait at the gate? Good times.

We made it. We survived.

Happy Birthday. Here's your present - Scarface for Xbox.
I'm goin' to bed.


Sunday - The Inlaws

Pop Quiz - Guess which panties I wore?

FIL never once asked me about our trip. And every time I tried to mention something that had to do with, um, ME, he steered the conversation back in his own direction. At one point he was talking about their multitude of cats (the same number of disciples that Jesus had - coincidence? I mean, the man thinks he's God, for cryin' out loud) and how impressed their vet was by what good health they're all in (since most people who have that freakin' many cats are those icky hoarder people), and to make conversation I said,

"Oh yeah, I forgot my parents have cats and I set my knitting down and one of the cats ate it... oh, did I mention that my cousin owns a yarn shop? I got to go there and hang out and get a bunch of great yarn..."

And without missing a beat, as though I hadn't said anything at all, he replied by continuing with alarming detail about how one of their cats poops and barfs simultaneously whenever they put him in the car for the vet.

During dinner. Serves me right for interrupting.

Yup, I guess we're home.