Best Quote I Heard All Day
Soul meets soul on lovers' lips--Percy Bysshe Shelley

I know, that quote is a week late. I had my Valentine's Day this past Monday night.

In life, you are lucky if you have even one great love. And love can sometimes wend its way in strange directions and hit barriers that seem impossible to overcome.

There are two of us who have finally broken through it all. Because he loves me. And I love him. Deeply.

So now I have peace and happiness, at last.

The Kindness of Strangers
If I were an actress, I think I would want to play Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Because that's one of my favorite lines.

So, today, I had one of the nicest mornings (and evenings, but I'm not going there) that I've had for quite a while.

Kristin Nicholas came over for coffee.

As you know, there aren't a lot of designers whose work I rave about. Kristin is one, and has been for many years. The funny thing is, Kristin found my blog because someone told her I had written that Classic Elite went down the toilet when she left. So she checked me out. And we've e-mailed back and forth.

Kristin was down from Massachusetts visiting her mother, who lives in the town next to mine. Two Jersey girls sitting in my Wharton living room, just having coffee and talking about knitting, our lives in the business back in the '80s, when I was editing knitting magazines and she got her start at CE, and just stuff in general. I wish she could have stayed longer.

This is no diva. She's funny, outgoing, and the minute I opened the door, it was like an old friend had come to visit. What's surprising is that we've never run into each other, although we know a lot of the same people. No pretension here.

I honored Kristin's plea not to take a picture of her. I can dig it. I hate having my picture taken too. But she gifted me with three balls of her Julia yarn from Nashua Handknits, named after her daughter. Wonderfully soft mix of 50% wool, 25% mohair and 25% alpaca. And the color range is comprised of the colors Kristin uses in her design work.



After whining here about not being motivated to knit and needing bright colors, I got an instant jolt when she handed these balls to me. They're the perfect antidote to a February day. I see a Fair Isle hat here. Have to remember to load Knit Visualizer on the work laptop so that when I go to Virginia on Sunday, I can keep myself occupied in the evenings. I don't know what else there is to do in a hotel in Herndon, but I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.

So Kristin, the coffeepot's always on whenever you get down to Dover. And if I did a good enough sales job on Rhinebeck, maybe you'll get off the farm and join us next October, eh?

The Tiny Diva ain't having coffee in my living room, that's for shit sure. But then, it's tough being her.

And easy being me. Usually.


Tasty Read
I read incessantly but don't often discuss the books on the blog. Carol and Joe do a much better job of that than I. But Ted, my brother-in-needles, sent me an early (very) birthday present the other week--Ruth Reichl's book, Garlic and Sapphires, her memoir of her days as a restaurant critic. Reichl wrote for the New York Times back in the '90s and I read her column religiously, as I did Craig Claiborne before her. She was and is a wonderful writer and her book is exceptional.

My problem? I love food too much. And it's almost sacrilegious to read this book while eating a cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwich, which I admit to doing. Hell, it was on whole wheat bread.

I'm no foodie. I love a good hot dog, especially those found at Hot Dog Johnny's on Rte. 46 in Buttsville, NJ, of all places. However, the book has wonderful recipes scattered throughout. Perhaps it's time to get back into the kitchen and get cooking. The hell with the weight. I'll exercise my fat ass off.

Boy, could I ever tell some tales about the knitting world. Someday I'll have to write about my short-lived tenure at McCall's Needlework & Crafts. The girl from Jersey thrown to the New York publishing wolves. I was out of my league, for sure.

But it did lead to more successful gigs.

Scenic I-95
Sunday I hit the road at 9:30 a.m. with an expected arrival in VA around 3 or so. In a way, I'm looking forward to meeting the people I work with. In another way, I hate to leave home. But it's only for five days and I will have the laptop with me, so I won't be out of touch, at least not in the evenings.

So I may or may not post on Sunday night. I will certainly try to do so during the week, if time allows. After all, having an indoor pool and Jacuzzi at my disposal is a rare and handy thing.

I wonder if yarn floats. I do. And I can swim underwater quite well.