You know, gentle reader, #1 Son is so grown up and all that sometimes I forget that for another 8 months he is, officially, a teenager.

#1 Son has been working hard (and this is no joke) and saving his money for a band tour outside the country in January. I have told him in no uncertain terms that TBOM (The Bank Of Mom, a small and thrifty local financial concern) will not extend credit for this venture and is closed to further withdrawals for any business plan that does not result in actually making a living.

The other day, my phone rang and the conversation went something like this:

#1 Son: Hi, mom. I almost have enough saved up for the trip now.

Mom: That’s wonderful. Congratulations.

#1 Son: I need to buy my ticket and get my visa. So could I borrow $100 just until the next paycheck?

Mom: Is everyone else buying their tickets now?

#1 Son: I don’t know.

Mom: Don’t you think it would be a good thing to coordinate with them? Have you talked to them about it?

#1 Son: We had a practice a couple of weeks ago and we sort of talked about it.

Mom: And???

#1 Son: Nobody has enough money yet.

Mom: Don’t you think it would be a good idea to coordinate your ticket buying, so you all end up down there at the same time?

#1 Son: We’re not necessarily going at the same time. Colin is going first. And them Mike and Katie and I are going later.

Mom: Maybe you’d want to coordinate with Mike and Katie? When are they buying their tickets?

#1 Son: If we end up on different flights, we’ll just meet each other at the airport.

Mom: [keeping voice calm] When are Mike and Katie getting their visas?

#1 Son: [slowly, thinking through this new idea] Yeah. I suppose we could all buy our tickets at the same time and get our visas together. That might work.

Mom: That sounds like a really good idea!

#1 Son: OK. I’ll call you in a couple of days. Love you!

Mom: Love you, too!

I hung up the phone and started slowly banging my head against my desk.

My colleague in the next cube smiled and asked, Call from your son?

On the knitting front, I have become monogamous to The Great Green Glob. It turns out that the edging is mindless enough that I can knit it while teleconferencing, etc., and TGGG wads up into a small enough space that carrying it around isn’t an issue. I will finish it! I’m only two shells from the center corner.

I’m actually looking forward to the I-cord edge. And I’m not an I-cord lover, so that says a lot about how badly I want this project done.

Besides, the Raven has landed at Blue Moon and some of it will be shortly winging my way, as soon as the lovely ladies there get to my order in the avalanche that hit them when the Raven series went live.

Stay tuned. Film at 11 (or whenever the mailman delivers).