Friends Don't Let Friends

Okay, so you hear it *everywhere* in the knitting world. A crafter's co-op (which does, I think, free-trade or something positive and similar) even makes a greeting card with a wee knitted swatch riddled with non-yo holes to illustrate the point: DON'T drink and knit.

Well, babies, it had been a loooong drive from New York to Chicago, and it had rained for most of it. I spent most of my time in Ohio either looking at skies like this



or hoping that I would be able to see out my windshield soon. Downpour city. However, it did allow me to get this picture during a lull--my shutter speed and the car speed turned a blurred picture into something almost impressionistic, and I was absurdly pleased with the result.



So it wasn't the storm that fostered the need for wine. I'm a Midwestern-raised girl--I can handle storms.

Nope, it was getting to downtown Chicago to drop off Thing One's stuff that did me in.

Call me simplistic, but I rather think that if I get off on an exit for Lakeshore Drive, then I should BE on Lakeshore Drive. I should not have had to scoot across 40-billion grid-locked lanes in an obscenely short amount of time so that I could get to Lakeshore, which the exit promised I would be on, rather than ending up in Chinatown, which I am sure is lovely but was not at all where I wanted to go.

By the time I got through that nifty maneuver, I was more than ready for a good red.

My host cautioned it was rather strong, but I insisted that lightweight me (who's also dropped a bit of actual weight, for which my doctor will yell at me but oh well) who had not eaten since about 11:30 a.m could handle it, even though it was now 9:30 p.m.

And bwa ha ha--to prove it, I nimbly began to knit the wrong side row of the shawl. I was smugly pointing out that look, all my little purl stitches were there, were even, were undropped, were indeed a thing of beauty, and then I looked more closely.

I had just turned the shawl into a cowl.

Thankfully, I at least had the sense not to frog it out right then. Instead, with as much dignity as a tipsy knitter could muster, I set my work down and stepped away from it.

I thought I had salvaged the situation quite well, but when I came downstairs in the morning I found this:



Methinks my friend is a cheeky git.