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O'ahu born and Rockville bred, both Maryland and Hawai'i are home. Middle-aged knitter (believe me, my 40 is NOT the new 20) seeking the courage to live consciously, each and every moment. Now if I could just remember where I put my keys...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Chptr 31: In Which Our Narrator Gets Looped (and loves every minute of it)



Ahhhh.... yesterday's blues (see The List in last post) got soothed by two good visits in the afternoon. I am going to take them in NON-chronological order because the first visit is not so much knitting-related. And this is a knitting blog and not a kvetching blog. I think.

Visit the Second
So this is amazing.

I walked up to the shop from Dupont Circle - it's 2 or so blocks north on the west (left) side of Connecticut Avenue.  This alone is happy-making - the buildings around Dupont Circle are so varied - mostly old architectural styles with some modern ones sprinkled in.  I used to live there, and I never ever (and never ever will) get tired of looking at the rooflines around there.  Each time I'm there (and we're probably in the thousands of visits), I see something new and usually whimsical, and stimulating, and lovely.

I walk up the steps to the store (it's a 2nd level shop).  Off the street, quiet light-colored stairwell with soothing whitish walls and one large old picture of a row of knitters, one landing to pause and let the world be outside, and up a few more steps, through a door and... then... (pictures here are from the Looped Yarnworks Website - I didn't have a camera with me):

To the right


To the Left


And in the middle of it all, my enablers, Janie and Jessica!

Get ready for this... knitting celebrity moment...

So I walk in and Janie says "Hi, Jann - this is Tanis" about the woman sitting next to her at the meet/greet/decision/pay station.  I say, "Tanis Gray?" 'cuz I've been looking at the shawl on page 130 of Vogue Knitting Shawls & Wraps, the Lacy Leaves Shawl (confusingly also known as the #10 Beaded Shawl and I gotta link to this picture 'cuz it's MINDBLOWING BEAUTIFUL), and thinking, "Hmmmmmm...."  (but all but like 3 pages of this book makes me go "hmmmmm," I swear - if you were watching me page through this book, you'd probably see me vibrating).

(Backstory: bear with me here - it all comes together...) The narration about the shawl states, "the lovely colorway, Tanis Grays, is named for our yarn editor."  This registers with me (cuz I've fixated on this page, looked at it millions of times), so I was kind of joking when I said "Tanis Gray" - but get this - she says "yep" and I say "Tanis? Gray? Really?" and she says, "uh, yeah" and I am thinking, "wow, Janie got some good visiting knitting experts here" and then it turns out Tanis Gray WORKS there!  YIKES!  I got all giddy and stupid and it was likely quite pathetic but wow.  Just wow.  She WORKS there!

And then I visit with Janie who is absolutely the most fun person you could ever hope to meet and we talk yarn and life and connective tissue issues (see Visit the First below), and I show Janie and Tanis and Jessica (whose magic touch made my Visa work) all pictures of stuff on my iPad and how there are great apps for tracking time spent on projects (Timemaster app), and knitting rows (VogueKnitting app), and reading patterns (Goodreader app) and general yarn happiness, and I hem and haw over colors and fiber content (they have me solidly in the luxury yarn section - why? cuz I like it) and I decide on these things:


Deciding between the Autumn Vines (by Jess Savin) and Hearts (by Susan Pandorf) patterns for the Blue Heron Rayon Metallic.  Colorway is Celadon

ANNOUNCEMENT: I am officially cheating on the Alhambra I had started this week - I found a mistake below a lifeline and I need to put it down and decompress a little = simple pattern, constant esrrors, ARGH!

And so, a follow-up to yesterday's anxiety...

Visit The First
***Warning:  Health related and therefore boring if you don't know me (and maybe even if you do)***  My first visit yesterday was to a doc who was empathetic, and all that - I'm verklempt just thinking about it... short story - I probably don't have RA (further blood tests will reveal all), but what I have is a connective tissue disorder (I am not calling fibromyalgia - yet). Apparently, I'm ridiculously flexible and all the dance lessons of my youth and yoga of my later years, ok, and the party tricks where I touched my feet to my head in various exotic poses, exacerbated the looseness of the connective tissues holding my joints together and if you think of the connective tissue as rubber bands (thanks for the analogy, Janie) that have been stretched out so many times that they no longer have elasticity - well, there you have an image of what's going on with me. The doctor explained why this results in pain, but I was so high from hearing I most likely don't have arthritis (I can knit! I can keep on knitting!) that I can't remember what she said. Nerve endings, synapses, messages to the brain... somehow it all fits together, but I was thinking about lace.

I never thought I'd have anything in common with performers in Cirque du Soleil, but apparently, this is what happens to them as they age as well. Thank goodness I never took pole-dancing lessons!

Best of all, the doc has a non-medicative strategy for dealing with this... happiness!  Involves physical therapy.  And NO MORE YOGA.  Hmmmm....  not like I do much of it anyway lately cuz it hurts, but no more yoga?  Eeeeeesh...

Not quite like hearing "No more knitting", but wow. No more yoga.

("There must be a way to modify this instruction," I think. Dear Lord, I even THINK in knit-speak...)


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2 comments:

  1. Love your description of that shop, I think I will need to visit there next time I'm in DC. I do love the DuPont Circle area.

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  2. Jann- you are the greatest!! We love you and love your energy- and really- I wished I had a camera when you realized Tanis was Tanis!!
    I am glad you like the doc and I am finally giving in and going back to PT...in my spare time!! ( do you think they'll mind if I knit while I do physical therapy????)

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