People Are Strange

People are strange when you're a stranger... 

I was sitting in a swimming pool in Las Vegas recently, a girl’s trip. It was scorching, around 111 degrees, and the only available shade cost $15.00 an hour. Drinks were available for the mere sum of $14.00 but my friend and I decided it was easiest to just float around in the pool to try to stay cool. There were other people around, some splashing in the water, some soaking up the sun and some shelling out the $15.00 an hour to read a book or nap in the shaded lounge chair.

Cool blue water...

An elderly gentleman was water walking around the pool, stopping at different groups to converse. He meandered over to where my friend and I were reclining and asked if we minded if he stayed to talk a bit. We didn’t and he went into stories about what he had done for a living, what hiols interests were and so on. He asked questions of each of us and we answered to the extent we were comfortable. He had some interesting anecdotes and shared extensively.

View from the top...out our window

Eventually, both of us were losing interest but he continued the now one sided conversation. She exited the pool to sit on the edge and I inched toward the stairs. He stuck to us like glue. It took a while but he finally acknowledged he had lost both our attention and said he was going to lay out in the sun. I happened to glance down about that time and noticed that his toenails were polished black. To each their own, but I thought it was strange.

One of those high dollar umbrellas nobody can afford to use!

There was a family who lived behind us when I was growing up. It was a single parent household and the two kids living there were strange. I’ve said before how my mother made us be nice to the underdog kids, so, because these two, a brother and sister, fit the mold, my sister and I, more so me, because they were closer to my age, were nice. I spoke when they were outside and even walked to school with them occasionally.

Their mother passed away and an older brother and his family moved into their home and they lived together. The boy of the original kids who lived there, whom I thought was the odder of the two, would sometimes leave me little presents. It creeped me out but in the style of my mother, I thanked him and went on.

I proceeded to college in another town and he went into the Navy. I got a letter at school one day. How he obtained my address, I have no idea. He wrote about him being the mouse king of the world of cheese and I could be his queen and rule the kingdom. There were pictures of his ship, his bunk, the bathroom, the ceiling, you know, all the interesting places. I received a few more letters but I blew it off until one day he was lying in the bushes beneath the windows of my dorm, howling. He came inside the lobby to look for me but one of the more athletic in the girl’s dorm stopped him from climbing the stairs.

The campus police were called and the only thing they could do was to tell me to be careful, not to go out alone and watch out for him. Reassuring, to say the least. If he tried to hurt me (and I lived) then they could step in. He eventually went back home and all returned to normal. That is until he thought he was Superman and jumped out of the21st floor of a local hotel. Turns out he couldn’t fly. It was really sad and overall a very strange experience.

I was talking to a close friend recently and asked him if he had any strange people stories to share. He said, “Every one that I know is strange in some special way”. He is so right. I was reminded that it’s the strangeness that makes us each unique. And what is strange to me may be perfectly ordinary to you. There are extreme cases, like my poor neighbor, where it’s an illness instead of just an abnormality. What about the man with the pedicured piggies? Who knows? That might be perfectly acceptable where he comes from. Who am I to judge? Nobody.

When you're strange 

No one remembers your name... 

I wore my vest again this past week and got more compliments so it must not be too strange looking! In fact, I’m contemplating making another. Could I finish before fall? That’s the big question.

I started another project, my first ever top down sweater. It’s called Sassymetrical and I’m using some yarn my good friend Brenda spun. The yarn is beautiful but I’m really scared there won’t be enough. According to the pattern there is but I’m not a little girl and the lady who wrote the pattern is. But since I seem to gravitate towards the same colorways I think I can wing it enough so nobody will notice. Maybe. If not, I’ll chalk it up to experience and try again.

Top down Sassymetrical

Yarn my friend Brenda spun.

 

Wrapping up a great week, well, despite some airline adventure, but it would be strange if that didn’t happen to me, right? Hopefully it’s the start to another good week as well. I got some Chewy Sweet Tarts and some yarn to add to the bottom of my sweater so all is good. And I’ll eat all of the colors of candy except the green cause they are my favorite. Then I can eat them all at once. Is that strange?

The green ones are the best!

When you're strange 

Faces come out of the rain... 

When you're strange...

Trick or Treat

Smell my feet!

Give me something good to eat!

Give me candy. Give me cake.

Give me something good to take.

Hey! It worked!
Happy Halloween!

It's Like A Hard Candy Christmas

I'm barely getting through tomorrow…
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down

It’s that time of year. My love/hate relationship with the Christmas season has begun. Actually it started, oh probably, right after Thanksgiving. But here it is, the middle of December and it’s quickly progressing into full steam panic.

I don’t hate Christmas. Not completely. On a positive note there are some things I really like. I listen to Christmas music as soon as some of the radio channels change over to carols full time. I love the lights. Watching the sappy Christmas movies, when I can get away with it, is a favorite pastime. And I love the classics. I’m fond of black and white movies anyway and the classics are something I look forward to.

But there are many things I don’t care for as well. I don’t like the rush. Weren’t the Christmas items out on the shelf by October? There were Christmas trees and lights up way before Thanksgiving. What is the hurry?

Another thing I don’t care for is the fakeness I perceive to be involved with the season. People I don’t like and that I know don’t like me suddenly find the ‘Christmas spirit’ and do an about face of their natural behavior. I don’t like the pretend goodwill towards men. As soon as Christmas is over so is the benevolence. Granted, some of the goodness is legitimate. But in my mind the majority is a façade. That’s because it doesn’t last. If it was truly genuine people would always be the way they act during the holiday season. But they aren’t.

Probably the worst thing about the season and why I feel the way I do, is what I tend to do to myself. I have a picture of how the ‘perfect’ holiday should be, in my mind. Regardless of how hard I try, it’s not going to happen. So I worry and fret and stress about it instead of enjoying it. And this year I have a sense of apathy and no ambition. I just don’t want to. But all that has got to change because it’s coming, whether I’m ready or not. So, I’m deciding right now, as I write this, that I’m not going to worry any more. If it gets done, it gets done. If it doesn’t then it will later. Or not. It doesn’t matter!

So, if I don’t get your present on time, it just means I didn’t start shopping in January. But remember that I have a warm heart and I meant well. And while I’m flipping you off behind my tinted window because you stole the parking place I was waiting for I’ll be smiling at you and you’ll never even know you irritated me because I’m practicing tolerance…every single day. I’ll have my Christmas music blaring and I’ll watch every movie I can and if the tree gets decorated…well, that will only make things better! I’ll put all my spare pennies in the Salvation Army bucket because they only make my purse heavy anyway. And if you happen to come over I’ll spread some Christmas cheer. Hand me your glass.

Maybe I'll sleep real late.
Maybe I'll lose some weight.
Maybe I'll clear my junk.
Maybe I'll just get drunk on apple wine...

I’m slowly catching up and keeping (mostly) with knitayear. I’m on day 254. It was December 10, Friday and the day off. My attitude improved dramatically! I chose white sparkly yarn because it seemed fresh and renewed. Day 255, December 11 is my day to work. I heard about an arts/crafts fair so I decide to go after I get off. I didn’t listen well and don’t know where it is…and neither does anyone else. I’m searching and never find it so I don’t go. But I did get a little Christmas stuff done. I picked red, green, and white twisted together for today. December 12 was day 256. I’m feeling really lazy today and with so much to be done I shouldn’t. I picked a thick green yarn with silver thread through it. It’s fat like me but with the silver lining I’m always looking for. Day 257 was a typical Monday. It’s December 13, and I’m supposed to teach classes with the doctors and staff I work with. I am uncomfortable with the software to begin with but when I get to the lab it’s not installed. I have to remote to someone’s computer and it becomes a show and tell. I thought it was awful. We were also supposed to meet for knitting that night and the yarn store lady forgot and closed. So, it was just a Monday all the way around. I picked yarn that is black with pink, blue, and white twisted through it. Kind of summed up the day. But tomorrow is another day. And I’ll be fine. Just fine. Really, I’ll be fine.

Me, I'll be just
Fine and Dandy…
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas…