Yay! I swear to God, I don’t know what my problem was in making a banner. I understand how to do so, I understand quite a bit of Photoshop, I get the pixel widths and what’s necessary to make a banner fit and for the LIFE of me, I’ve never been able to do it. I just get too frustrated and give up. But with Max’s patient help, I did it. And now it’s centered. (That was the hardest bit, actually. But Max kept encouraging me. Seriously, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep at night if it remained off center.)
Wasn’t I the luckiest girl to catch this shot? It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: I’d already been to (and held a PACE flag in) a peace march in the Lido (this was just days after Shrub declared the war in March), and that evening, as dusk was damply falling, I leaned over the side of the vaporetto to see THIS. Venetians, out for the purpose of peace. You don’t march in Venice, you row. I couldn’t scramble off the boat fast enough to stand and drink it in. I wore my PACE pin wherever I went.
And for the occasion of my new banner, a new Venice Lady! This is the woman who runs the only yarn shop I’ve ever stumbled into in Italy. She knew a kindred spirit when she saw one, and we spent a happy half-hour talking about yarn. Well, that’s pushing it, perhaps. I spoke my crappy barely intelligible wrong-tensed Italian, and she pretended to know what I meant. In yarn, though, you only really need one word: Seta. Silk. Oh, yes. After that, every time I tramped past her door, I grinned and did a little skip and she waved back wildly. At night, I sat in my rented flat (a lovely two weeks in Venice….) and knitted, watching Italian game shows and drinking hardy local red.
I wish I knew her name. I forgot to ask.
Had a lovely big breakfast with a friend this morning that has prepared me for the rest of my day: Ant killing. I’ve decided not to bomb the place. I hate poison. Makes me feel itchy and mean and like I’m a step away from growing a third ear. I’m just going to throw out all my dry goods (the ants are in everything), clean with 409, and start over. Everything in Tupperware this time. The only thing I’m dreading is that moment that the ants clamber up my arms. You know the moment. Moving the peanut butter jar, only touching it with two fingers, you still manage to get eighty-seven ants up to your elbow. I’ve already got the tricks lined up: cucumber rinds, orange oil, cinnamon…. My house’ll smell like a fancy organic restaurant.
Urgh. And then a nap, and then a ten hour midnight overtime shift tonight.
(And for those keeping track, Mom’s got a thyroid scan this afternoon (she’s taken that radioactive pill and no one can hug her for a day – SO much worse than Raid) and hopefully she’ll be on real meds soon. She’s feeling a wee bit better today, thanks in NO small part to our angel Mariko, who asked another angel doctor friend for advice. Mom’s just reassured to know that YES, she IS in the middle of a medical emergency, no WONDER she feels so horrid. Mariko can never know the depth of our gratitude. She gave us the key phrases, the words to use, the things to ask for, what to insist upon. I tear up a leetle just thinking about it. And the rest of you? Those prayers are good stuff, the real thing. We love and thank you.)
If I get rid of all the ants, can I knit a while? Please? And I will write, too. Okay, I think it’s now officially a Busy Day.