The perfect storm

Sometimes in life, events conspire in such a way that the combination of their effects vastly outweighs the individual events themselves. You don't really see it happening until you're left in the aftermath, dazed and wondering wtf just hit you. You stagger around blinking stupidly in the sunlight after the departing clouds, and the most coherent thought you can form is "Wha....?"

Such was my life for the past 18 months or so. Things that would have been smallish, inconveniences... a few largish tragedies, culminating in the death of my beloved husband, and shortly thereafter, the deaths of two young friends of my stepdaughters. Life, my friends, sucked ass. And then my friends and family started pouring in. And cards, and phone calls. Neighbors dropped by with dishes of food. Friends dropped in with hugs and sandwiches and reminiscences. Loved ones tidied the kitchen and did the laundry. A box appeared, with goodies for me and my boys. A week later, another. And another. (And I'm ashamed to say it took me almost 6 weeks to notice the pattern.) Someone Evil (in a good way) masterminded the delivery of boxes of love to me and to my boys. I think the postman was starting to wonder, and I was starting to wonder how it was possible that anything else wonderful would fit in my house. Maple candies, cookies, fiber, Halloween goodies, fabric, funny little voodoo dolls, cow-tipping equipment, liquor, sweet books about kissy raccoons, stickers, cowboy gear, all the turquoise stuff you could imagine. Things that were sweet on their own, but combining had a warming, hugging effect for me and the boys that each couldn't have achieved on its own. And then the perfect storm.



This, my darling friends, is a blanket, made of squares solicited by yet another Evil Mastermind (Lynn in Tucson), and presented to me for my birthday. Beautiful warm stitches in fabulous patterns, sweet on their own, combined into a huge expression of love and support that no words can convey. There are squares from Oregon, California, Maryland. Wisconsin, Tucson, Finland. Hawaii. Maine. Alabama. Philly. Sewn together by Lynn and my other three local knitter friends, Andrea, Lisa and Stefanie. (Kept secret from me for two whole months!)
People, the tide has turned. I have felt the weight lift, the clouds roll back, the sun shine. My dear friends sent away the perfect storm of shit, with not one, but two perfect storms of love. It sounds incredibly cheesy, especially coming from my sardonic self, but I am so blessed, there just isn't any other way to say it.

Splendor in the Grass

Okay, it's about time I introduce you to the new ladies in my life.

Meet Sage.



Meet Isolde. (Isolde is too much woman for me so I'm sharing her with Lynn in Tucson, who sent me with money to Taos and said DON'T BRING ME A FLEECE. So I only brought her half. So there.)



Sage is a moorit CVM from Windy Hill Farm (no site). When they shear, they shear down the middle, then down the sides, so her fleece was shorn in half. In the top picture, one half is tips up, one half (the taupe) is cut ends up. I was just going to take pics and blog, but she was so pretty lying there, I had to play with her some. Currently, she's soaking in a hot bath. She was a dirty girl (she was wearing a coat, but still) so she's changed a bit after her wash down. The brown is still deep and chocolatey, but her tips have washed out almost white, and her undersides are a beautiful silvery taupe, with some cinnamon bits. All in all, she's one sexy sheep.

Isolde is a silver Corriedale from Gleason's Fine Woolies. (No, I do not have another silver corriedale fleece at home. I do not know what you are talking about.) She has amazing crimp, and while she wasn't skirted as well as Sage, she's reasonably clean too. I expect she'll lighten a bit when we wash her. Lynn couldn't resist and took a bit of her home last week from knit night (why yes, I do bring 12 pounds of greasy wool out to the bookshop, why do you ask?) and washed, carded and spun her up. From Lynn's description, I'm going to get lots of pleasure from Isolde too.

Taos was wonderful - my stepdaughter met us there and took the boys so I could spend the whole day with Angie. We visited every booth, ogled the sexy cowboy spinning yarn with his boots off, ate cinnamon pecans and smoothies and kibbees and green chile and had more lemon drop martinis than this woman will admit to. (Angie stuck with the margaritas.) I got to meet Wilson, who seemed nice, although a little dazed by all the wool fumes in the air, and Bug got to see a shearing demonstration, and pet angora rabbits and pick out his very own yarn for a hat. (Pic of that later, I'm due back to rinse Sage in a bit.)