In which I say things that have been said before

It was to cry.

I had to go back to the doctor's yesterday for the physical that went with my bloodwork. I brought along Simurgh, which is totally addictive. I was feeling good about the doctor's appointment, because I knew I'd have to wait for ages (it was a doctor's appointment after all), and I was on the last repeat of the small feather pattern. I guessed I'd be able to get that done, and maybe even start on the quill motif before I was through. I was in it for the long haul.

I settled into the waiting room, feeling like a veritable ambassadress of Knitdom; people looked at me, but I didn't care. I was knitting, and knitting made me happy. How many other people were happy because they had to wait? I was called back to the window for my copay a few minutes later, and, feeling quite smart, carefully set everything down mid-row, checking to be sure the needles wouldn't fall out. I paid, I sat back down. I was on top of the world.

Pride goeth before a fall.

Another few minutes later, an older man came out of the offices, pushing a woman in a wheelchair. He moved a chair out of his way, and I realized that he had no one to help him. As he headed for the door, nobody got up to help him open it. No one. Not even the able-bodied, empty-handed teenager sitting with his mother right next to the door. She didn't say anything, either. They just sat and watched the man heading for the door. So I hopped up, set down my knitting quickly, and ran for the door. I had it open and was outside before I realized that I had caught my yarn on my leg and was dragging it with me. Before you ask, yes, I looked like an idiot. I unhooked my leg, and the woman who was right next to the door finally got up and retrieved my yarn, taking it back to my seat for me while I held the door.

I went back to my seat, thinking that I'd done nothing worse than to look stupid (not a new thing for me, I should mention), and prepared to perhaps be recalled from my ambassadorial duties as an embarrassment to the knitting world. That's when I saw my knitting. I hadn't just pulled yarn with me, I'd ripped stitched off the needles and then pulled the yarn. This is lace, people, and it had been ripped out. Not frogged (so much more gentle), not tinked. Flat out ripped. Second aphorism of the day: No good deed goes unpunished.

I picked up the stitches quickly, and I have to say, it looked horrible. I just about cried, but managed to hold it together. I sat there staring at it, trying to figure out exactly where the bad bits were and how I could fix them. And they called me back for my appointment. So, back it went into the bag, carefully, to ensure that I wouldn't lose more than I already had. I figured I'd have plenty of time, clad in paper in a cold office waiting for the doctor, to fix it. I changed, I had my blood pressure taken (a little higher than usual, I wonder why?), I settled down and hauled out my knitting, and who should walk in but the doctor.

It was a Twilight Zone moment. I mean, I thought it was accepted medical practice to make patients wait in their little paper gowns, in order to soften them up so they won't ask questions and take up valuable time. I actually told my doctor what had happened; it was killing me to keep the whole thing inside (I was already planning to come straight home and tell you all about it). To be honest, I love my doctor (she really does try to keep the waiting down and she always answer questions; I should have known that on the day that I most needed and wanted to wait, there would be no wait). In fact, she told me about a time that she was coming out of her doctor's office, with her then-new baby in a car seat on one arm, and the other arm full of things. She was (literally) standing on one foot trying to open the office door with her other foot, when a man sitting right there said, "These young mothers today -- they can do anything!" She said she would've hit him if her arms hadn't been full. I said it would have been worth putting the baby down to do it.

I made it through the appointment, and got the kids and came home, but the whole time I had that sick feeling in my stomach that I was going to have to rip back to some part where everything was OK, and I really don't like ripping lace, and I had so hoped to finish Simurgh this weekend (hence pride = fall).

Well, I sat down in very good light, told the girls that they needed to leave Mama alone for just a small period of time, and analyzed what was left. Turns out that, with some very careful reconstruction of the yarn-overs, and by paying strict attention to where the double decreases were to keep everything in line, it was possible to put it back together without ripping back any more -- it was my own little miracle. And I needed to share it with all of you. Badly. So I opened up the computer and tried to log on to write, and found out that my computer just couldn't find the internet. It tried for all it was worth, but no go. And I found myself contemplating a philosophical question for the ages: If something happens to a knitter and she can't blog about it, did it really happen? Because it sort of felt unfinished until I'd actually heard what you all think.

Well, not having to rip back put me back on schedule (but in a humbler, no-pride-here-oh-no sort of way). I forgot to mention that it poured and poured yesterday, and that Rick has been out of town, so when the girls and I got back from piano lessons and dinner at Souplantation, we lit a fire, and settled down for some serious crafty goodness. I knitted like a mad thing and made it halfway through the edging before the fire burned out and my back hurt too much to keep knitting.

This morning was very productive. I can now say (forgive me people, it has to be said), that the Raven has landed. It's drying on the blocking wires now, and as soon as it's dry (why oh why do the Santa Anas not blow when you want them?) I'll put pictures up so that you can be as thrilled as I am. All I have to say at this point is that Anne is an unmitigated designing genius. And that I love Simurgh. Truly, madly, deeply.