Socks and Narnia

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Abby's comment on yesterday's Asperger's post reminded me of Jenny Joseph's poem, Warning.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Perhaps around 50 we do finally start, at least, to give ourselves permission to quit following the rules everyone around us thinks we should follow.

I finished up Bones sock #1! It's just a little big for Youngest Son so I think once washed and blocked it'll be just perfect. I really am happy with the way the color pattern picked up again in the foot but find it so interesting it's got narrower bands of red and white stripes than the top! How weird is that. But it's find, it didn't pool and that's really what I was afraid of.

Second sock has been CO and about five of the seven leg inches finished. The patterning is similar which is very surprising since this skein has four breaks in the yarn. It's the damaged skein of Hill Country Yarns I bought from Discountyarnsale.com. I e-mailed both companies and Hill Country never responded and Discountyarnsale said they'd credit my account but never followed up to say they had. I emailed them with new pictures twice yesterday and got their canned response, but no human has contacted me yet.

The breaks in the yarn all occurred in the first inch and a half of the sock, before the pattern had really established itself, and they are all in the white yarn.

Youngest Daughter and granddaughters spent the night at a friend's house last night which gave me a nice quiet evening and morning. Eldest Son and I are going to the movies to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian today. I always enjoy going to the movies and I'm expecting this one will be as good as the first one.

Youngest Granddaughter's first speech therapy session will be this Wednesday morning. When the evaluator was here, she questioned whether we really wanted the "autistic label" on her. I've thought about it a lot since last June when my sister said the same thing. It really isn't a label to those on the spectrum, it's part of our identity. So we don't shy away from it anymore than we might shy away from using "Native American" or "Irish". I guess we still aren't past the day that these kinds of words are derogatory nouns rather than the adjectives they really should be.