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Pride goeth before a fall. Sure. Pass up yarn from two shops Tuesday? Easy. No problem. I’m not a yarn whore. Nope. Not on Tuesdays, anyway.

But on Wednesdays? Behold. THIS is what whoredom looks like.

Yep. Nine balls of Jo Sharp Tweed Silkroad (mmmm, merino wool, silk and cashmere). That’s some touchable goodness, right there. It’s most likely going to be a zip cardie for me. That was yesterday. I drove to San Rafael (an hour away) to look at buttons. At a shop I heard might carry some yarn.

Some yarn. That’s like saying Costco carries some food. Dharma Trading doesn’t even really carry buttons – I bought what they had, just so I could say I did. Okay. I went there for yarn. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step.

It’s stunning – the enabling I do for myself.

Our Pioneer asked yesterday:

I just came from another blog where BART was mentioned and now you did it too. What is Bart? Is it available over the counter? Is it contagious? Should I be afraid?

BART, darling one, stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit and it’s our sweet little commuter train. It’s definitely Mass-Transit-Lite: doesn’t run all night, doesn’t go too fast, is pretty dang expensive ($2.65 one way into the City). But what I love about it is that there’s a stop less than a mile from my house. And now it runs all the way to San Francisco Airport. This means, effectively, I can walk out my front (and come to think of it, only) door, walk down the street and go to Italy, without having to drive. I don’t know why I think that’s so cool. But it is.

I had another nice day. You know what? Sometimes I feel guilty about my nice days. Isn’t that silly? I feel trivial writing about gamboling in yarn shops and eating with friends: I don’t have kids, I’m done with school (at least for right now), I work full time but have three days off a week, I only support myself and two cats.

But when I get over feeling guilty (MAN, was I supposed to be Catholic), I enjoy days like today. After the shopping accident, I called my friend Monica. We had lunch. Not no restaurant lunch, neither, I’m talking about the best kind of lunch ever – McDonalds, eaten out of the bag on her lawn in the sun, watching 15-month-old Winter cover himself in ketchup and dirt. He likes sticks. At one point, he dumped his fries into the grass. Then he picked a couple up and gummed them. Monica laughed. I think that’s the ultimate proof she’s a good mother, don’tcha think?

Then home, over the Richmond bridge with the top down, playing Death Cab for Cutie and the Long Winters, wearing my sunglasses. (I swear, doll, I was).

Then dinner with a friend. An ex, actually, but I don’t think of her that way. That would lessen her, and that’s impossible. Always a wonderful time with her. You know those people that you just enjoy? That you can sit across the table from and think, “Day-um. This is fun. I want to hear more.” And you lean forward and listen intently and feel right.

A full, round, happy day. No knitting, but that’s on for today, baybee.

I can’t believe that y’all notice dates like I do. C’mon. I thought I was the only one who read things into the digital time (and I don’t mean just 4:20). Unfortunately, while I see lots of things in time, loving it when I catch 11:11, I also see penal codes. All day long.

2:45 – Assault with a deadly weapon
3:14 – Indecent exposure
4:17 – Brandishing
2:11 – Robbery
4:59 – Burglary

I could go on and on. I won’t. But I will say that most of the clocks in my house are analog.

Eleven Eleven was good. I took myself under the water on BART and had myself a little artist’s date. First to Art Fibers, where I fondled things. I KNEW there was a reason I hadn’t been there. Escaped without buying anything – not sure how that happened. I promised myself I’d go back when I had a pattern in mind – loved their Scottie #1, wool/angora blend, but not sheddy.

Then, on a suggestion from Indigirl Amy, I went to Urban Knitting Studio on Fell Street, where I fell in love with Rowan Calmer. Gotta get me some of that. Got out of THERE without buying anything, but that was ONLY because Brooke called, saying she’d meet me up the street for eats. I told myself I’d go back, hoping I wouldn’t.

I walked further into Hayes Valley, which is adorable, an area of the City I just don’t know at all. Amy had told me about Fritjz, a place for Belgian fries and beer on the back patio, so we ate, drank, and were happy in the late afternoon.

I had a crepe. She had a salad. But I swear, it was all about the fries and their dips of choice.

A good day. A got-little-done (but I did pay the bills) kind of day, but a good one. Got a pretty strong feeling today’s not going to be much different. REALLY need to buy kitty litter, though.

On my weekend. Can now officially relax.

So what am I doing? Today:

Morning pages
Blogging
Washing the Digit-hurl blanket
Going out for more kitty litter (hello, procrastination)
Paying bills
Cleaning the house
Writing
Wandering the City, looking for yarn, hopefully getting together with a friend.

I hope to get to that fun stuff at the bottom. But I have to do the others first. First three are done or in process, fourth is high on the list, and I suppose paying the bills and cleaning can go to hell if I don’t get to ‘em. Isn’t it Annie Lamott who talks about no one on their death bed wishing they had scrubbed more toilets? Something like that. (Sick secret: I love to scrub toilets. Floors, not so much.)

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Eleven eleven. Eleven is my favorite number and I always think you can’t go wrong on a day like today, although once I broke my foot while WALKING across the Golden Gate Bridge on this day. BUT it was offset by me being on a terrific first date that led to a terrific relationship – she came to the hospital with me and held my hand and made me laugh.

Two years ago to the day, my mother and I sat in the square in Siena (there’s only really one, and it ain’t square) and drank red wine. We felt happy, lucky, and blessed. She’d had colon cancer surgery two months prior on the same day that terrorists hit the WTC, and for these reasons we weren’t sure we would honor our plane tickets. But we did, and it was the most wonderful trip I’ve ever been on. I remember sitting in that square, as we watched the locals walk past in the lowering dusk, lifting our glasses until our cheeks were pink, toasting her health and our luck and our blessedness.

Mmmm. On that wonderful memory, I wish you a very happy Eleven Eleven!

Good lord, I’m tired. Migraine again last night. Tired all day. While training is interesting and makes the time pass quickly, it’s HARD.

Stepped out of my car tonight in front of my house and I smelled the most amazing smell. It’s unbelievable, and I can’t think how to describe it. Hmmmm. You know that autumn smell of wood-fires burning? It was that, in the crisp, cold air, with the full moon hanging bright, but it was married with the strongest smell of cinnamon! It was holiday paradise. I felt like I was walking through a Hallmark commercial. Surreal.

I thought, Damn, my life is good. I was happy to open the door and greet Adah, happy to go into the back yard and find Digit, who ran meowing to my feet, happy to feed both of them.

MUCH less happy when Digit projectile vomited all over the living room. All over the blanket I made for Beth years ago (and which I’m keeping for her while she’s on the roadtrip). All over the corduroy couch.

Deep breaths. Lots of 409. No more food tonight. For either of us.

But it’s fall! Isn’t it the best? I can’t wait for my weekend – I want to rent movies and sit on my couch and knit the Must Have and oh yes, did I mention I’m seeing the Indigo Girls on Thursday? And Dar Williams on Saturday? (and I’m broke, but it’s worth it.)

Hope your moon is bright.

https://rachaelherron.com/good_lord_im_ti/

I did it, I wrote. I’ve discovered (and what writer hasn’t, except me apparently?) that it’s GREAT to write at the coffeeshop. I always thought there would be too many distractions. And it’s true, there are a lot of ‘em. Weird-looking dogs. People who sing. People who talk on their cell phones WAY too loudly (common courtesy, folks, that’s all I’m sayin’).

But you kinda look up, you notice, you look back down and go on working. At home I have SO many more distractions, and there’s always the option of standing up and doing other things, all those other little things that absolutely must get taken care of right now. When you’re out of the house, those reminders are gone. It’s fun just to sit and write and drink chai and dream. Felt like playing.

I love that feeling.

It also felt like playing last night when I took BART into the City to meet the girls for knitting. It was raining and I got incredibly lost walking around looking for the bar where we were supposed to meet. I had Yahoo-mapped the directions, which is, let’s face it, not always the best way to go. I ended up about three-quarters of a mile down Delores in the wrong direction, in the rain. But it was awesome. Lost in the rain, on SF streets, it felt romantic and adventurous. If I had never found the bar, it would have turned into something quite irritating, but I called my friend Brooke who knew exactly where I was supposed to be and how to get there.

And so I ended up at Papa Tobey’s Revolution Art Bar Cafe. Yup. With the sliding walls opened all the way to the street and the rain, with its drunk cowboy who’s apparently a regular, with acoustic music sung by extremely sensitive women, with the back of the bar filled with eight or nine knitters, it was awesome.

Part of the group:

The cowboy, playing chess and drinking under the overhang, next to the rain:

But hey. Knitting cables by candlelight, two beers down, without a cable needle? Daring, to say the least. I swore quietly. A lot. But it was worth it.

Working fourteen hours Saturday, so I’ll see you Sunday?

A quick word to say Happy Friday (my Monday) and it’s off to work with me. Didn’t get up early today – had too much fun at the bar knitting last night. Will tell you about it later. In the meantime, Bethany’s settling in…..

https://rachaelherron.com/a_quick_word_to/