February 23, 2018
Dear Everyone:
A week or so ago, I took the turquoise Bunny and “RB”, the royal blue
Dragon, to the
Senior Center for donation.
“RB” made it into the closet with all the other donations.
But Mr. Bunny was snapped up, as soon as he appeared on the table, by
“Tabitha”. She also whipped
out her smartphone
to shows us all a video of her three-day-old grandson, who would be the
recipient of Mr. Bunny. They
are, coincidentally, just about the same size right now.
Of course, that will change quickly in the case of the grandson.
Let me see if I can described “Tabitha”:
Aging Biker
Chick. Grey hair,
tattooed arms, motorcycle-themed T-shirts,
jeans.
Of course, everyone wears jeans these days.
Back in the 1940s, actress
Katherine
Hepburn drove the
Hollywood
studio bosses crazy with her outrageously inappropriate penchant for
wearing “dungarees” whenever she could.
Frankly, my dear, it just wasn’t glamorous enough for them.
When I was in high school (just after the Stone Age), “girls” were
forbidden to wear pants of any kind on school grounds, even on weekends
and at after-school activities, like attending football games.
Of course, pants were more comfortable and more practical than
skirts. But that didn’t
matter. All that mattered
was that pants on “girls” was “inappropriate.”
When asked by a student for justification, one of our teachers
blithely stated that “fat girls don’t look good in pants”.
Well, she couldn’t exactly say, “The school is enforcing
gender-inequality because it’s ‘normal’.”
So she had to fall back on whatever nonsense she could dredge up
on the spur of the moment.
(OK, rant over.)
Getting back to the Senior Center.
While going through many, many plastic bins filled with donated
items, “Marni” and another volunteer were evaluating some yarn that had
been turned over by someone who didn’t need it anymore.
“Marni” is always after me to use some of the donated yarn instead of
buying my own. Not that the
cost of cheap acrylic yarn is really the issue.
She just wanted to find a use for the donations.
There was a partial skein, plus a large ball of a very light
orange/pink-colored
yarn in a worsted weight that caught my eye.
Having just finished the first Bunny, I thought I could probably get
another one out of the yarn that I privately called “orange
sherbet”.
So I “adopted” the yarn and took it home.
I decided to use a larger-size
hook as the
yarn was a heavier weight than what I had used before.
Consequently, the Bunny was significantly larger than the
previous one. Also, I ran
out of yarn and had to make the ears in white (to go with the tail).
I added an “Easter bonnet” of white and leftover orange yarn.
Back when we were kids, there was an ice cream preparation made with an
orange crust on the outside and vanilla ice cream on the inside, called
a “creamsicle”.
I dubbed my newest creation a “CreamSicle Bunny”.
This Bunny did make it into the donation closet simply because
“Tabitha” wasn’t in attendance last Tuesday.
In the meantime, someone came in with a bag full of unwanted yarn.
Which “Marni” dumped out onto the table.
There were what looked like two full skeins, plus a partial
third, in a variegated orange/yellow/green combination, which the
manufacturer chose to call “Citrus”.
I thought they would make a presentable
giraffe, so I took
them. I am currently working
on the second leg.
Never mind the half-finished baby blanket, which is what I work on
whenever another project is too difficult, or takes up too much room in
the bag I bring to Needle Arts gatherings; or the fact that my upstairs
neighbor is expecting in May.
A giraffe won’t take that much time; and will be the perfect size
for a toddler to drag around by the neck.
And it makes “Marni” happy when donated yarn does something more than
take up space in the closet.
I still have enough (I hope) of the various pastel yarns I used to make
a baby blanket last year in an alternating shells pattern that came out
very nicely. Especially
since the couple upstairs is planning on waiting until the “Blessed
Event” to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.
By the way, this year I’m keeping track of what items I donate and how
much the Center charges for them ($8.00 for Mr. Bunny; $18.00 for a
larger piece like “RB”, the Dragon, or the “Cream-Sicle Bunny”) so I can
claim them all as
charitable
donations on next year’s
tax
return. Assuming
charitable donations will, in fact, be
deductible by then.
In other news…
Winter came roaring back this week, just like Mr.
Groundhog said
it would. The overnight lows
are hovering near the freezing mark.
Highs in the low 50’s.
Brrr!!! On the Plus
Side: Just the right weather
for Mongolian
Beef at my favorite restaurant for lunch.
Love, as always,
Pete
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