Hooray, Hooray, the First of May...

Outdoor something starts today!  I know how Dad would have filled that in but this year I'd like to fill it with just being outdoors without wearing at least a fleece jacket.  *sigh*  I saw on the weather map last night that there's a huge swath of storms rotating across the country and guess who's at the pivot point?  You got it. We are.  It looks like Mother Nature decided to pin that system into place and she poked the pin in right here.  That means that while we don't have severe storms like other parts of the country (Arkansas and Mississippi, I'm looking at you [and praying for you]) we get rotating bands of rain, just rain, with patches of merely cloudy and yesterday one or two clear hours where the sun (yes, the actual solar orb) shone down upon the sorry, damp city.  One of the times the sun was out I even got it to shine on my skin.  Kind of made me giddy.  Now that I see the problem, that Ma Nature pinned this on us, I can use the force of my will to push that pin out and move that system along to the East and right off into the ocean where it belongs.  The farmers need a chance to plow and plant and it's just too wet.  If they can't plant, can you imagine what our grocery bill's gonna look like?  I don't even want to contemplate it.  Besides, if the farmers can't plant, what will there be to buy at the Farmer's Market (besides crab rangoons and eggrolls, I mean)?  Rag rugs and potholders?

I was knitting along on my cocoon yesterday at work, made the eyelet row, and then changed color (the orange) to make the ruffle top, and realized that I had inches too much bag/cocoon.  I'd fallen into the trap of knitting to see what color came next instead of making it the size I want, so-o-o-o-o the needles came out, frogging ensued, and stitches were picked up.  *face, palm*  It was a good thing I had some tiny DPNs in my bag because it's worlds easier to pick up stitches on tiny needles and then knit them onto the correct size needles once you've got them all corralled again.  Worlds, trust me on this, and don't ask me how I know.  It's cool looking though, don't you think?

The daffodils don't seem to mind the dreary and cool weather, they're shouting their message of Spring to the sky.  I especially like the frilly-trumpeted ones that cluster around the feet of the wire frog sculpture, but I love them all.  You should be glad that I have restraint, otherwise these words would be in a narrow column and the rest of the space would be taken up with ALL the pictures of flowers, and ALL isn't small today.

May 1--Pablo Picasso, The Dreamer.  It was so cold in the studio that Cecile was sure her skin was turning blue but every time she started to speak the damned painter shouted at her to shut up and hold still.  Cecile wasn't some meek little miss.  Her mother was a gypsy, a real one, not some pretender in bangles and a bandanna, so she knew how to fight, how to stand up for herself.  She narrowed her eyes and focused on sending bad thoughts his way.  Let him feel the cold on his flesh, let his manroot try to crawl back into his belly.  She might be willing to shed her clothes for him to paint her but he wasn't paying her enough to freeze for the privilege.

Ah, the trials of a nude model.  Not something I'll ever have to worry about.  So, I'm off to work again today.  Yesterday a Russian guy came in and I wanted to ask him all about diving in his country but I don't think his English would stretch that far.  We bumbled along fairly well, enunciating clearly and pointing a lot, and both of us ended up pleased.  At least I think he was pleased, he was polite anyway.  I love when people from other places come into the shop, makes me feel all cosmopolitan and worldly even in this quiet backwater of the Great Lakes.  Time for a shower and maybe yogurt... yeah, yogurt, granola, and fruit today.  Seeyabye.
--Barbara