Update on... Well, A Lot of Things....

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Someday little girl,

you'll wonder what life's about,

what others have known,

few battles are won alone...

("True Grit", Glenn Campbell)

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I finally cast the Little Red Riding Hoodie's stiches off the knitting needles and it now awaits steeking up the front and down the armholes---and sleeves....and a hood...

(You can click on the picture to make it bigger, to see the details better. That's a big pink candle that's holding the top edge down.)

But I'm in the midst of a terrible quandary about a particular detail I want to add to the cardigan. I want to put some leaf trim up the front, over the hood, and down the other side. The problem is, the leaf pattern is knit in a manner so as to have the leaves facing only one direction.

I want to be able to knit half of the trim with the leaves facing the OTHER direction. Otherwise, the leaves will be in a downward direction on one of the cardigan's sides. I'd rather it to be symmetrical, with 2 rows of leaves facing each other and aiming upwards.

And so, I've been trying to re-write the leaf pattern in order to have the whole thing face the other direction--- an endeavor in which I've been successful......except for the last two dratted rows.

In fact, the last two dratted rows of this 18-row pattern are driving me NERTS, I tell you, plumb NERTS! In fact, trying to get the last 2 rows of this dratted pattern to work out correctly is proving as difficult to achieve as getting a cat to look at me when I'm talking to her...

LATE-BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN: Update on the Leaf Trim! I think I may have done it! After 2 dang days of fussing with this damn leaf trim, I think I just may have written the correct pattern for reversing the direction of the leaves, yeehah! Oh yeah, baby! Graph paper and stubbornness rocks! I now have 2 strands of leaves a-knitting---facing each other, aimed upwards. Hot diggity dog.... (I could go on and on but I won't...)

(Smart ass Blaine said something to the effect of: "It's not as if you solved a problem which plagued ancient man for a millenia---like when they finally invented the wheel..." )

(To which I quickly retorted: "And pray tell, just how do YOU know that ancient man wasn't in DEEP THOUGHT about how to solve the problem of The One-Directional Knitted Leaf Trim?")

Oh, yes--- (speaking of problems), here's an update on the day when I was supposed to meet the female therapist for a swim class at the gym:

That morning I had called her in a panic, stating that I had the last minute jitters and that I could go to the gym and meet her--- but that I knew that under no circumstances would I be able to don a bathing suit and appear half-nekkid in front of 20 or 30 other ladies in that dadblame water-exercise class.

I just knew I wouldn't be able to put myself into what I perceived to be a very vulnerable position.

She said okay and to just to meet her there anyway. She said that, if nothing else, we'd at least take a tour of the gym. So I agreed to meet her at 1:45 pm in the gym's front lobby. And she made me promise not to be late since her schedule is so tight.

I arrived 15 minutes early and perched myself upon a couch in the gym's front lobby.

And she never showed up.

I tried calling the therapist but only got her voice mail. I left 2 voice messages telling her I was in the gym's front lobby. Then, totally freaking out, I called Blaine at 2:25 pm and he told me to "just go home". I could tell he was irked.

Upon arriving home I called my case manager and told him the whole thing. He told me to relax and that "maybe it was just a big mistake".

A little while later, the female therapist called me. And then she actually had the unmitigated GALL to be stern in asking me if I were SURE that I had truly "been there at 1:45 pm". But I vigorously defended myself and insisted that I most certainly WAS there, dammit---15 minutes early, in fact.

After she realized I really had been there, she gave me the following ridiculous cover-her-ass excuse reason for the mishap:

She had gone there..... and had seen ANOTHER patient of hers on the OTHER side of the gym's lobby (maybe 20 feet) and that she had mistakenly thought that it was THAT lady who was me! And that, furthermore, she had taken THAT patient to the swim class!

And then she said that "sometime during the swim class" she realized that the other lady was NOT ME!

Then she began a litany of apologies to which I told her not to worry about it. In fact, she went on and on about it so much that I thought I'd never get her to shut up. In the end, we agreed to try the whole thing over again NEXT MONDAY, same time, same place, same Bat Channel...

Sigh....

The case manager called me later and I told him of the female therapist's bizarre excuse. He was satisfied that I was okay and that we were going to try the whole thing over again next Monday. But then yesterday, at my appointment with Fred, I told him the whole comedy of errors story. He seemed mildly annoyed and asked what the therapist's last name was, as there are two of the same name over at the mobile therapists' department. I don't know her last name.

I also told him that, in all truth, I was somewhat angry with the therapist because I had been an RN for 22 years and had NEVER mistaken one patient for another in my whole entire career. I told him that I always CHECKED their names FIRST OFF. Aren't the mobile therapists supposed to be as diligent? If so, how could this Dumb Dora have taken a completely different patient into the swim class? I don't care that she had never met me in person before---because didn't she even ASK the lady's name? (Because remember, according to her, she had NEVER MET this other patient in person either!)

And also, in keeping with her weird story, if I were a therapist in the middle of a swim class and I suddenly realized that I was missing the correct patient, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would have catapulted myself out of that water like a Kellogg's Pop-Tart and, totally dripping wet, slipped and slid my way to the lobby half-nekkid in my wet bathing suit... to FIND my damn patient!!

I mean, don't you guys think that her verbal phony balogney excuse is a little bizarre? Do you think she conjured the whole thing up out of thin air to cover her ass because she messed up? Or do you think she told the truth, however strange? Because even if she didn't make the story up and she really did take another patient to the swim class--- either way, I think it shows total negligence on her part.

I mean, good God, what a way to operate!

So anyhoo, despite this dodo bird of a therapist, I will keep plugging onwards with this program, hoping for the best. I did mention to her that Fred had told me that the mobile therapist department could hook me up into their other classes at the therapy center. I also told her that I wouldn't mind the treadmill room at the gym since one could put on their iPod and quietly keep to themselves, walking on the treadmill for some good physical exercise. So we'll see what happens.

I wonder if she's going to get in any trouble?

Oh hell, WHERE WAS I?

Oh yeah, back to my updates....

Here's where all my knitting "figuring" gets done---the little side table next to where I sit to knit. Everything I need is there--- pencil and paper to write patterns, cell phone, house phone, knitting supplies, iPod, digital camera and battery charger, you name it. And I was gratified this morning to find my favorite little tube of French hand lotion, some of Roger & Gallet's "Oat Milk".

(I have always been partial to things French....)

As for an update on the rest of things around Maison Bo, as you can see.....

Nothing much has changed in the kitchen....

She's either asleep.....

Or she's awake.....

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