… that I don’t love my child.

I have no pictures today. I have no pictures because I’ve been sick all week and I’m still sick. For one reason or another, I had to go to work every single day last week. By Friday, I felt like I’d been rode hard and put away wet. I came home early, crawled into bed, and stayed there.

Mostly.

Because a week ago, as you will remember, #1 Son came over to do laundry and cook dinner for me. He asked me to knit him a scarf. Now, I’m not really much of a scarf knitter. I find them sort of tedious, actually. But I agreed that I would. Because, after all, #1 Son rarely asks me to knit anything at all, and I can’t let my child walk around with a cold neck, now, can I? I didn’t have suitable yarn, but I figured I could pick something up at Thursday knit night at Tangle.

Except I was too sick to go to Thursday knit night.

So by Friday I was starting to panic, in a cold-drug-addled sort of way, about yarn and scarfs and children with cold necks. I called Tangle Friday morning and the phone was answered by the lovely Kay. I explained that I needed yarn and gave some vague requirements for colors and asked her to pick some out for me and I’d pick it up on my way home. Kay listened to my sad tale of woe and told me not to worry, it would be taken care of. And it was. Tangle didn’t have quite the colors that #1 Son was looking for, but I ended up with Louet Gems worsted weight in Black, Mustard and Marigold. The Marigold is actually plied strands of different colors — ecru, brown and burnt orange. Mustard looks more ecru to me than actually mustard, too. But, whatever… I digress…

Aside to Kay: You were so right. It was plenty of yarn. I didn’t need the extra skein. My only excuse is that my brain was not working well enough to add.

#1 Son had seen a scarf in a book that he liked. So I will show you a picture of the book, having no other visuals to offer.

I came home and actually swatched because #1 Son was very specific about the size he wanted. Then I cast on a mess of stitches and started a simple garter-stitch scarf worked lengthwise: K 4 rows, change colors, K 4 rows, change colors, lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over again until the thing was wide enough. It was mindless and soothing and exactly the sort of knitting I needed in my sicky state. Black, Marigold, Black, Mustard, Black, Marigold, Black, etc. When it was wide enough, I bound off and added fringe, thereby avoiding having to weave the ends in.

Last night I crawled out of bed for a PI Christmas tradition: Dinner out with #1 Son, Bro J, SIL L and niece Z, followed by the Christmas With The Trail Band concert. I blog about this concert every year. Really, if you are in the Portland area, this is a show that is well worth seeing. This was my and #1 Son’s 10th year of attending. J, L and Z have joined us for the last 4 or 5 years. They are marvelous musicians and always have wonderful guests.

#1 Son pronounced his scarf perfect and even really nice, Mom. The colors, while not exactly what he had asked for, are (in his words) nice neutrals that would go with everything.

I have no pictures of it at all, so you will have to imagine what it looks like.

I came home and crawled back into bed and here I stay. I will have to foray out eventually. But not yet.