Yesterday my whole department at work volunteered at the Oregon Food Bank, helping to sort and box up some of the 670,000 lbs of food received during the recent Letter Carriers’ Food Drive. It was a fun and productive way to spend an afternoon.

Oregon Food Bank is the “hub” of a network of over 880 food banks in Oregon and Clark County, Washington, that range in size from very large to tiny operations in the basements of churches. Funded almost entirely by donation, the warehouse is a huge, state-of-the-art facility that was designed and built specifically as a food bank. And, let me tell you, it runs like clockwork.

Our group stood at long tables unpacking food from huge boxes and repacking it into smaller boxes that could be sent out to other agencies around the state. Cans and boxes that were opened or damaged or didn’t include ingredients labels were put in a big box to be picked up by a farmer who feeds it to his pigs. Very little was deemed unsuitable even for the pigs and so thrown out. Very little is wasted.

The big boxes were on these really cool tipper frames. Instead of leaning over the box trying to get to the bottom of it, you just tipped it up on the frame. You can see a couple of the big boxes tipped up over at the right. Made me wish I’d had one of those tipper things when unpacking after my last move. I might have actually finished my unpacking in something less than the three years it took.

My station was all the way in the back because I had volunteered to make boxes. Box Assembly as we pros 🙄 like to call it, is simply folding in the bottom flaps and slapping tape on them to keep the bottom of the box closed. Nothing to it. Except I was handed a defective tape dispenser (I am not making this up). I wrestled with it for a few boxes, then someone pointed out that there were a bunch more tape dispensers over on a shelf. A new dispenser made all the difference, and I was off taping boxes together like a mad woman. I think I taped about a bazillion boxes. OK… maybe it was closer to 150. But it was still a lot.

At the end of the day, the volunteer coordinator tells you how much you have helped. All together, we packed 11,667 pounds of food. That’s enough for 8,975 meals. Or, if you look at it another way, that’s enough to feed a family of 4 three meals a day for two years.

We like to think that we live in an affluent society. But last year 20% of Oregonians required hunger relief aid. They are often working families with parents forced to choose between paying rent and eating. They are children and the elderly and the disabled. They are your neighbors and mine. OFB can collect and distribute 6 lbs of food for every $1 in donations. Less than 5% of their revenue goes towards administrative costs. That’s outstanding for any charity.

If you are in the Portland area, I encourage you to spend an afternoon volunteering at Oregon Food Bank. There is always work to do there. If you are not in this area, I encourage you to find opportunities in your area to volunteer to fight hunger.

We had a blast yesterday. I can’t believe how much fun box assembly can be. I got home last night with hands too tired for knitting, so no further progress on the Spanish Lavender Basket Wave socks. But it was a really, really good tired.

Thank you, gentle readers, for your comments on my last post. Really, it was meant to be humorous. The whole trip was so absurd. And what could I do but go along for the ride? I was at the mercy of the weather and Continental Airlines.

One more self-indulgent travel-and-life post, and then we’ll go back to the knitting content. I promise. And there will be knitting content to show you, because what else can you do for 3 hours while sitting in a plane? But for now we will return to my little story. Skip if you’re not interested – I won’t be offended.

When we last saw this intrepid traveler, I had arrived in Miami a day late. I found the location of the forum I was supposed to be attending, but there was nobody there. I knew they were all eating lunch somewhere, but I couldn’t find them. Later I learned that a marvelous lunch was served outside on a patio overlooking Biscayne Bay. I was too tired to be very hungry anyway. I found a bagel and a banana left over from the forum’s collective breakfast, and poured myself a cup of coffee. (Really, gentle reader, this wasn’t gross at all. Piles of various foodstuffs were available at all times in case anyone felt a trifle peckish.) I have no idea what was discussed that afternoon. I was asleep on my feet. So I skipped the semi-obligatory Opening Night Reception in favor of room service and bed.

At midnight, my cell phone rang. Sleepily I answered…

#1 Son: Hi Mom. Were you asleep? How come? Can you move my car?

Me: Yes, I was asleep. I was asleep because it’s midnight and I’ve just had the plane trip from hell. I’m in Miami. It would be very difficult to move your car. What’s wrong with it? [ed. I will interject here to add that #1 Son lives in a neighborhood that requires permits to park on the street, where he parks sans the permit he’s never bothered to acquire. Currently he’s in Canada on a band tour, thus it would be difficult for him to move it himself.]

#1 Son: My roommate said I got a ticket or something. So I thought maybe you could drive over there and move my car so I don’t get another ticket.

Me: Can’t your roommate move it?

#1 Son: I didn’t leave them my keys. So there’s only your set.

Me: Well… right now I’m going back to sleep. I can’t do anything about it until Friday. But I really don’t want to spend the next three weeks juggling your car, so I suggest you find someone who can come and get the keys from me and park it some non-permit-required location.

#1 Son: OK. I’ll get back to you.

The rest of the stay in Miami was uneventful. Part of it may have included drinks that should have had little umbrellas in them had the bar not been out of umbrellas, and a whole bunch of shrimp at Bubba Gump’s, and my ever expanding and contracting hair.

At the Miami airport, I changed my seats when I checked in. For some reason, I’d been booked at the back of the plane on all of the flights. I moved myself up to the front. My flight left the Miami airport almost on time. There were severe thunderstorms in Houston. We circled Houston for 90 minutes while the tower debated what to do with us. Eventually they gave in and let us land. Since I was at the front of the plane, I was off quickly — and with 8 minutes to make it all the way across the Houston airport to make my connection, I needed to be quick.

Right there at the gate was one of those cart things that they give people rides on. I hopped on and asked for a ride to gate E8. The driver started off. First we went to the C gates. Then we went to the D gates. Then we stopped to find out where someone needed to go who didn’t know where their flight was. Then we saw the high-numbered E gates. I started sweating into my ever expanding Houston hair. Can we hurry? I asked the driver. You’ll get there. he said.

I was off the seat and to the gate before he even came to a complete stop. Portland? The gate attendant asked. I handed over my boarding pass and was allowed on. I was the last person on the plane. The doors were closed and the plane was pushed back. The pilot moved the plane out towards the runway, then parked and turned the engines off.

We sat on the tarmac. For. 3. Hours.

I didn’t care. I was on a plane bound for Portland, and they were going to have to drag me off kicking and screaming if they tried to end the flight before arriving at my intended destination.

On Friday, #1 Son’s friend fetched the car keys from me and attempted to move #1 Son’s car. Except the car wasn’t there.

It had been towed.

So friend and I went to get the car out of hock instead, and then friend drove off to park the car in some non-permit-required location. He promised to treat it gently.

And now the story stops being amusing.

On Saturday morning my phone rang with the news that my former father-in-law, #1 Son’s grandpa, had passed away. He was a gentle man, active in his community and his church, who loved his family and his friends and his grandson very much. He will be sorely missed by many, including this reporter.

I called #1 Son in Toronto, his tour stop of the day, and we discussed logistics. I can’t figure out any way to get him home for the funeral. Get a passport was one of those things, along with moving his car, that #1 Son was supposed to accomplish before leaving on tour. The key words here are was supposed to. Like moving the car, the passport didn’t happen. And wasn’t needed since they drove across the boarder. But he can’t fly out. He will not be allowed through customs at an airport without a passport. I have extended his apologies to grandma. I think she understands.

But, you can understand, gentle reader, that I wasn’t too surprised when #1 Son called me later Saturday morning to tell me that his amp had blown while taping a show for a Toronto radio station. I wasn’t too surprised at all.

If I had read this series of event in a novel, I would have tossed it out as being way too unconvincing and way too much.

The amp, fortunately, was repairable. My sanity, unfortunately, is questionable.

We will now, hopefully, return to the mundane existence that is normal at chez PI, in which I have to search long and hard for interesting events to blog about and where knitting content is the rule rather than the exception.

Thank you for your patience.

I saw this on Kathy’s blog and just had to try it out. And look! The results are so fitting! Dream boxes, here I come, key in hand!

My Fortune Cookie told me: It is time to open your dream boxes. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

The sun made a brief appearance today and the light was just right to take this picture. The Downpour socks are posing on my wisteria, bare in the winter chill. The colors are perfect to set off the stripy gray and brown and taupe of the yarn. It’s fitting that these were knit during the wettest November on record in Portland.

And look! No pooling! It’s a miracle. The stripes do get thinner over the gussets, but it’s not unattractive. The stripes are much wider on the ankles than on the feet, even though there is the same number of stitches around and my gauge remained constant. The only difference is that the ankles are ribbed all the way around.

They are a little shorter than I usually like to make socks. But since I knit until I ran out, it’s as long as they can be.

The Particulars:

• Yarn: Socks That Rock ( 100% Superwash Merino/ 4.25 oz, 350yds per skein) in colorway Downpour — all of one skein.
• Needles: Knitpicks Classic circulars, US#1 (2.5mm).
• Pattern: My own toe-up ribbed guy’s socks.
• Techniques used:
  • I used the Magic Cast On.
  • I used heel stitch on the heel flap.
  • The top of the foot and the ankle are knit in K3P1 ribbing.
  • Not thinking what I was doing, I missed on the heel stitch and ended up with the ridges matching up to the purl stitches in the ribbing. I decided I liked how it looked – it made the ribbing stand out – and when I started the K1P1 ribbing at the top I offset it from the ribbing on the leg.
  • When I started the ribbing on the toe, I started with the purl stitches in the middle first and then each row I started a new purl rib at the next spot away from the center. So the start of the ribbing follows the curve of the toe, if that makes sense.

It’s not a good idea, it turns out, to pose socks or other knitted items amongst roses, even though the drying rose hips looks so cheery. Roses, it turns out, have thorns and thorns can snag yarn (and fingers) and lead to time spent carefully rearranging loops of yarn. Just saying.

I have started the next pair of socks. You may note from the progress meters that they are chartreuse. I am saving pics for later posts. I gotta have something left over for blog fodder!

hpny knits asks:

I LOVE your snow video. How did you do that (post it)? its great.

I took the film clip with my camera, which stores video as an .avi file. I converted the .avi to an .flv, reduced its size, and uploaded it. Then I used Joshua Eldridge’s Flash Video Player plugin for WordPress to display it in the little flash player.

It took me about 10000 times as long to figure out how to do it as it did to write it down in the above paragraph. You may have noticed a couple of days where there was a dearth of blogging? Picture me, seated at my desk, swearing…. I know I can get this blasted thing to work!

Finally, I saw this at ~Kristie’s blog, and I just had to post my results because they were so right on!

Christmas Elf Name My Christmas Elf Name is Get your Christmas Elf Name at JokesUnlimited.com

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I hope this day finds you warm and safe and surrounded by friends and family and those you love and are loved by.

I have so much to be thankful for this year!

Good friends. Wonderful family. Work I like. Lovely knitsters who have gathered me into their fold. Yarn to knit. (lots of yarn)

I am thankful that you, gentle reader, have chosen to join me in this little corner of the blogosphere.

Most of all, I am thankful that #1 Son will be home today. I have missed him very much.

Have a wonderful day, everyone.

Back to knitting content and comments responding tomorrow.

I’m going to take a short, non-knitting side trip here to remember that this is the 25th anniversary of Banned Book Week.

Banned Book Week celebrates our freedom to choose and to express our opinion, even if that opinion is unpopular; and emphasizes the importance of making each opinion available to those who want to read it. Our freedom of speech is one of our most precious rights. Without it, I wouldn’t be blogging here today and you wouldn’t be reading my words.

I grew up in a town that had a good library. It was housed in a big, imposing, two-story building. The adult section of the library was on the first two floors. The stacks seemed to go on for miles. The children’s section was in what was essentially the basement. It had its own entrance around the side of the library. There was a narrow flight of stairs from the depths of the children’s section up into the light of the adult section, but kids were not allowed to use the stairs. Kids under 16 were not allowed in the adult section at all, even if accompanied by adults. Even if they were quiet. Even if they only wanted to read.

Mama took Bro and I to the library at least weekly. She would go up to the rarefied heights of the adult section while Bro and I stayed down in the children’s section. We were all great readers. So by the time I was in 5th or 6th grade I’d read pretty much all of the books in the children’s section. I started reading the books that Mama brought home for herself. Then I started asking Mama for other books by authors I had liked, or other books on the same subjects or written in the same way. (I was really big on historical fiction, as I recall.) Then, with Mama’s collusion, I began to break the rules. When the Children’s Librarian was looking the other way, I’d sneak up the back stairs and into the back stacks in the adult section and pick out books that looked good. Mama and I would rendezvous in the back, and she’d check out the books for me so I could read them.

Mama believed that if you were old enough to be interested in a book, you were old enough to read it. She never censored what I read or what I watched or what opinions I was exposed to. Instead we discussed our books and she would explain to me why a particular book did or didn’t fit into her own value system. I was allowed to have my own opinion. I grew up in an environment of intellectual freedom that I still treasure, and I raised my own son the same way.

Years later when I was in town for a family gathering, I visited the Library with Bro and Mama. It’s a county museum now, with exhibits showing the founding and early history of the town. I believe that was the first time I’d entered the Library building through the front door.

Please see the web site of the American Library Association Banned Books Week for more information on banned and challenged books and on Banned Book Week activities. I have a permanent page here where I list the top 10 banned and challenged books of the previous year, plus other frequently banned and challenged books. Please take time to read at least one this year.

Next time we return to knitting…