Pardon me, my water needs lemonating

I have a very excellent story for all y'all, and I'm going to intersperse it with pictures from the sheep shearing (which was really more of a "farm-based colonial re-enactment" deal) that I attended last Saturday.

So! Three days last week I hauled over to my brother-and-very-pregnant-sister-in-law's house in the early early morning to let in their contractor who was fixing their drywall. As thanks they took me to a local hibachi restaurant named, conveniently, Hibachi.



As per usual in such places we shared our table with other groups, one of which consisted of three women. Our waiter came over to take our drink orders, and the first woman said she'd have "Water, with like six lemons." The waiter raised his eyebrow but kept going, which got the woman all flustered. The second woman ordered the same, and the first woman blurted out,



-- are you ready for this? --



"It's to dilute the poisons in the tap water."



My eyes slowly widened, and I turned to meet my brother and SIL's widened eyes looking back at me, as we suppressed guffaws of laughter. Don't get me wrong, I've said and believed more than one stupid thing in my life¹, but this is so many layers of absurd that it's just totally delicious².


(This rug had me covet all the necessary tools for rug-making. It was made by pulling loops of long, thin strips of recycled clothing up through woven cloth, instead of pieces of yarn through plastic mesh, like I did once upon a time).

We've gotten a LOT of humor mileage out of it ("I take my water lemonated, thanks").



Anyway! Yes. So. The chap on the left in this picture is Tank (the gentleman on the right is his father, who is interviewing the spinner for a local radio station), who alerted me to the sheep shearing opportunity. He was totally fascinated by the spinning process, and I have a (vague) plan in place to make him a spinner. It'll happen.

And no, I didn't come home with any wool. I know.

In other exciting news, I met up with Stacey and her fi-yon-cé while they were in Philly visiting his family.



We sat and barely drank our coffee and yammered for a long time about spinning, knitting, and everything else. I'd really only seen her two or three times before, and let me tell you, she kicks a substantial amount of ass. AND she gifted me some superwash roving, which I can't show you because I'm too busy spinning it.

I also (finally) finished some socks.



Final successful cast on: March something.

Finished weaving in the ends: April 19.

The originator: My own pattern.

The string: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Vera

The sticks: Size 1 dpns.

Pattern shmattern: Toe-up, garter ribbing, purl ridge near the top (à la Roza's Socks), 2-stitch increases to accommodate my Curvy Calves and this experimental heel:



I'm calling it a Y heel because I've never seen one like it (has anyone else? I know it's a little hard to see in this picture) and it's shaped like a Y. I'm nothing if not clever. It needs some tweaking, but could end up being a really good thing.


¹ Like that being an English major would be a wise career move. It's a lie, by the way.
² Especially because the news has recently been reporting that lemons tend to be the most germ-tacular thing in restaurants.

Fairly random

1. I have found an excellent use for car cup holders:



2. Reasons why it's good to have a friend with a wife who spins and who has just come into assloads of free wool:



That lovely person on the left is Marie, who also contra dances, spins, and knits. We get along really well, as you might imagine.