Today #1 Son graduates from high school. Graduates. From high school. A year early. With a diploma and the whole cap-and-gown thing. Tonight we do the obligatory family-and-close-friend dinner gig. Personally, I can’t wait to see Grandma and Grandpa rub elbows with the boys from the band.

And I am so proud of #1 Son. So proud.

Tomorrow he’s moving out and into a house with a bunch of friends for the summer. The house isn’t too far from my office, so chances are good he’ll try to con a free lunch out of me now and then. He’ll move back in with me when school starts. He’ll be attending PCC in the fall while he weighs his future options.

Did I tell you how proud I am of him? Of the kind, caring, passionate, responsible, witty, fun human being he has grown up to be? He is no longer a child, but a young man with dreams, hopes and ambitions that will take him as far as he can see.

Our lives will never be the same again. My role as mother is changing from disciplinarian and rule enforcer to mentor and friend. Not that it’s a bad thing… just different.

In some ways my work is done. In others, it is just beginning.

Did I tell you how proud I am?

When I rolled my Noro Kochoran into center-pull balls, I started a new ball whenever I ran into a knot. So imagine my surprise last night as I knit along on my sweater and suddenly found a loose end in one of the balls.

Then I noticed that there was a matching end trailing out from my knitting tote. And both the tote end and the sweater end were… wet?

Then I saw a little furry white and brown tabby face peering out from under my chair.

Moo Cow, you see, has a string fetish. She will go to great lengths to gobble up any string left around the house. My “free kitten” has already cost me $500 in emergency vet bills after she snacked on the drawstring to #1 Son’s PJs. Since we don’t want a repeat performance, we are very careful about anything long and thin that’s not meant to be eaten. Presents in my house have no ribbons. Hoodies with drawstrings are hung up in a closed closet. Ditto my yarn stash. My UFOs are up high on a bookshelf where Moo can’t get and are in tote bags.

When knitting socks I’ve kept the yarn next to me in my chair. Moo hasn’t shown much interest in my sock knitting, even when she’s jumped up on my lap to demand hugs when I was in mid-knit. I was lulled into a false sense of safety. She was just biding her time…

Sweaters are bigger than socks, and my sweater project is in a bigger tote that doesn’t fit well next to me on the chair. Last night I had the tote resting down on the floor. And apparently the yarn was just slack enough for Moo to hook it from under the chair. I’ll keep an eye on her for a few days to make sure she’s OK, but from the length of the remaining yarn ends it appears she didn’t do more than slice through the strand. Now I’ll need to try new arrangements to keep my yarn safe. Once she finds some string, Moo is as single minded as a bloodhound on a fresh scent. And since she knows with all certainty that the entire world is present only to do her bidding, keeping what she wants away from her can be a challenge.

Today at lunch I ran over to Button Emporium and found some great buttons for my sweater. I’ll try to get some pics up this weekend, if I have time amidst the graduation madness.

While I was in the neighborhood I stopped in at Knit Purl and augmented my stash of Blue Moon soft rock. I’ve got this sock idea rattling around in my brain…

I am loving knitting with the Noro Kochoran! It’s knitting up into a wonderfully soft fabric that’s a little fuzzy, but not furry. I’ve had to tink out a few stitches here and there, and it’s not difficult to do as it would be with alpaca or mohair.

Since I’ve been concentrating lately mostly on socks, there’s one big difference I’ve noticed: US #10-1/2 feels like knitting with broomsticks! I’m so used to US #2 or #3. The big needles have slowed me down. I can’t seem to find my rhythm with them. But even so the sweater is knitting up quickly. I have about 3″ finished and I’m finding the pattern easy to remember and almost mindless to follow (i.e. good TV watching task).

In the lessons learned department: I’ve been knitting socks two at a time. I decided that could work for sweaters also. So, using three of my Noro balls, I cast on for both sides of the front and for the back all on one big circular needle. Now, it will be nice to have the cables on exactly the same rows on all three pieces, to know that the armholes match up and the V-neck starts at the same place on both sides, etc. But keeping three balls of yarn untangled is a talent that I don’t seem to possess. I have to stop every couple of rows and untangle everything. I should probably give up and to back to doing one piece at a time, but I’m too stubborn to admit defeat. Besides, I keep remembering how nice it is to finish both socks at the same time… and that never-worn sweater I knit when I was a kid that had a front 1″ shorter than the back because I got tired of the project long before it was finished and thought I could “fake it.”

With my short attention span, I think I’d better just keep untangling.

How do you keep your yarn straight when knitting with multiple balls?

It’s odd to think that nearly 1/2 of the people now living in the USA had not been born yet when the office of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex was burglarized. Makes me feel old.

Last night #1 Son asked me about Watergate. I was a freshman in college when the scandal broke, which also makes me feel old.

What I chiefly remember is how riveted the entire country was by what was happening. I sat for hours watching testimony during the Senate investigation, and wondering how the heck our country fell into the hands of such disreputable people. And wondering, of course, who Deep Throat was. Well… that mystery has at least been solved, since Mark Felt has admitted his involvement.

My mother and I had a duck dinner bet on whether Nixon would be impeached or not — I said yes, mama said no. The SOB resigned, thus ending our bet in a draw.

Nearly 1/2 of the people living in the USA had not yet been born when the Watergate scandal broke. Maybe that’s why our country is where it is today. Can’t we remember our history and stop repeating it?