New Yarn! Wheee!

Well, I ended up drowning my sorrows in Chinese food, then ice-cream, then Mountain Dew, then... Yeah, I'll be getting back on my regular diet tomorrow. I need to lose my "thesis weight", after all. And now that finals are done, I don't have an excuse for over-consumption of caffeine...

I also drowned my sorrows in yarn, as it turned out. I went and visited the yarn store I mentioned a few days ago, Kiwi Knitting Company, and found it to be more than satisfactory. Lynn, the owner, has three big rooms full of many wonderful kinds of yarn, and another one of patterns and needles and so on. Also, she was very friendly and hospitable, and I met a couple other people while I was browsing who were also really friendly... It was a fun exercise in yarn-geekery.

I didn't buy much - just a couple skeins of this really nice hand-dyed cotton, which I'm making a purse out of - but I'll definitely be going back. And I recomend the place to anyone in the Tucson area who is looking for some really high-quality fibers. Good stuff.

In other news, for those of you who are waiting... The next Valmai Hammerhand story will hopefully be finished by the end of the weekend. I wanted to work on it tonight, but I'm just too exhausted. I'm going to do my best to get two out this week.

Save the Unbelievers Day

Jameson answered the door this morning to a pair of very polite Mormon missionaries. It was a bit startling to me, as usually when the Mormons come around, they're looking for my mother. I was also a bit startled because, under their cute missionary uniforms (short-sleeved white button-ups, dark slacks, sensible dress shoes, and plain black satchels... You can spot 'em a mile away), they were both rather dark-skinned. I'm so used to blond missionaries, it boggled me a bit to consider that this pair might actually be local.

Anyway, they talked to Jameson, not me. He engaged in polite handshaking and introductions with them, but said rather firmly that he wasn't interested in converting, and they went on their way.

It seems that today is Save the Unbelievers Day, however. I just ran next door to get my dobak before teaching my afternoon class, and when I came back there was a minivan full of Jehovah's Witnesses parked in front of my house. I used to have one in particular that visited me, Abby, I believe her name was, that I was quite friendly with. She brought me a copy of The Watchtower pretty much every month, and then I'd invite her in and we'd have a pleasant conversation about how I really am pretty content to be an agnostic. It turns out that my interest in biblical literature makes it really hard for me to say "no, I'm not interested in hearing your favorite passage from the Bible, actually," which means that I can never really be convincing enough to get the Jehovah's Witnesses to cross me off their list, or whatever. Abby has apparently moved on, but I've had two visits from a new woman, now, who conveniently enough keeps managing to come by when I'm about to leave to go somewhere else, which makes it a bit easier to turn her away.

I've got to start getting tougher with these well-intentioned religious folks, though. Perhaps I should adopt my friend Uri's protestation that I'm a -militant- agnostic: "I don't know whether or not God exists, and NEITHER DO YOU!"

I'm a bit worried about who might be on my porch waiting for me when I get home from class... Do the Catholics send people around?

Obnoxity

( This is me complaining about a really rude person I just met at a party. Feel free to ignore my venting. )