Kiss My Knits!

Everyone who knows her, be advised that today is ‘s birthday. Try not to wreck any more cars as you celebrate, sweetie!

My daughter seems to be on the mend, but now I am sick. It had been a week, I didn’t think she was contagious anymore. Now I have a fever of 101+ and feel like a hermit has taken up residence in my head and have a daughter who is cranky, and my husband HAS to go to work today, at least for a while.

This totally sucks.

My RL D&D stats. They overestimated me on the strength – and underestimated me on Dex! Also, not giving a hoot about trees falling in the forest does not make me unwise. It’s good for a lark, I suppose.

The physical stats

Yesterday, I was waiting two cars behind a lady at the drive-up ATM. She was taking freaking forever. I realized that she was older, and maybe was having some trouble with the transaction, so I bit my tongue and thought kind thoughts.

As she drove away, SUV in front of me pulled up to the ATM. The woman inside got out, grabbed the cash that the previous lady had left there, and chased down the car before it got too far away. Yeah, I laughed, and so did SUV lady as she took off running, but when the lady came back to the SUV, I shouted out of my window, “YOU’RE A VERY GOOD PERSON!” and she smiled and waved back.

We were getting the money to go to the Original Pancake House. It’s Spring Break, and I’ve decided that my autistic daughter could benefit from some real life experiences that really, she should have had more of by now. I figured that 10am on a Friday would be good, since the place wouldn’t be too crowded and we could probably get away with a little more “acting up” as I reinforced restaurant rules.

Fine idea in theory, except that it was Good Friday, and everybody was taking the day off and going to the OPH, apparently. We had to wait in the foyer. It was a big crowd, and we were stuffed in pretty tightly. My daughter was not happy. She also had a runny nose, and I felt very much like “that bad mom who is dragging her sick kid out to eat and now we’re all going to get sick too and what is she doing to that kid and BAD MOM!”

There was an older gentleman standing nearby who was also waiting. He gave us a clean tissue and a couple of peppermint candies, “for after she eats.”

It was a very kind gesture, and she did in fact calm down some, maybe because then I could go out of Terror Alert Red mode and calm down myself once I was able to wipe her nose and distract her.

SUV lady could have taken the cash back into the bank, and the older lady might not have realized she was missing it until she needed it.

The older man could have kept his hankie and candy to himself, and a six year old and her mom would have continued to have a bad morning.

I really enjoy moments of “we’re all in this together” which connect strangers. Life can be just that much better if we make the smallest effort. It’s a truth we need to remind ourselves of sometimes, but it’s well-worth remembering.

(Pollyanna mode off, all my cynical friends.)

knitting setback

So I’m wrestling a pair of jeans onto a mannequin that my husband has stored in the attic from his college days, and I’m thinking, “I should LJ this.” Things that are absurd are ripe for Livejournal. I continue to think this as her leg falls off, as I have to hoist her by her boobs to get the steel rod inserted into her calf, and… as I notice that my old college clothes are too big for her.

People. In college, I weighed 115 pounds, wore a size six or eight, lifted weights (like, actual iron, not those little tiny dumbbells), and was generally in very good shape. I once lifted a Volvo that was stuck in a stairwell off of its shocks. My point is, I had a good, healthy body and was average weight for my height, and my old clothes are just hanging on this mannequin. And the mannequin is taller than me.

It’s no wonder girls get so screwed up with body image.

Now if you’ll pardon me, I have to go glue a finger back onto a fiberglass hand and mutter to myself some more.

Mild Hitchhiker’s Guide spoilers

http://www.glarkware.com/securestore/c181844p16493760.2.html

Got up at 6 with the kiddo. She always wants to get up earlier than that, but we have a rule that we stay in our rooms until 6. I used the extra time to make buttermilk blueberry pancakes, link sausages, and also some boiled eggs as a snack later in the day. Helped my daughter to keep her poor tortured Sims alive for a while. She bought them parrots (not available in Sims 2) and the birds made so much noise that the poor Sims couldn’t even pass out on the lawn in peace.

I let the hubby sleep in, and he came into the kitchen at a hair after 7, clearly ticked off that we were running late. After he took a shower, he had woken up enough to come out of “hibernating bear” mode and gave me a hug and thanked me for the extra time and the food. He is going for a degree online and couldn’t concentrate enough to finish up his work last night. He’s been very tired, and really needed the extra 45 minutes or so of sleep.

We took our daughter to school (she was five minutes late) and the hubby dropped me off outside the house and went on to work eating sausages rolled up in blueberry pancakes.

I’m still exhausted and a touch depressed, as I perpetually am these days, but let’s hope that the good start to the day sets a nice tone.