Back in the Dark Ages when I used to be a middle school teacher, Sunday nights were the worst for me, especially if I’d had a really nice weekend.  I’d dread going back to work the next day, and I always slept poorly.  I called it having the Sunday night blues.

Now, with my current job at the prison, I always have Monday off, so I never get the Sunday night blues anymore.  Tonight, however, I think I am suffering a mild case of Monday night gloom.  I go back to work tomorrow after having been off these last five days.  With a little luck, the yard will be on lockdown and there won’t be any unexpected crises popping up to interrupt my catching-up with email and paperwork.

In the meantime, I started a new sock.  I purchased the yarn for half off at one of my favorite local independent yarn and fabric shops in Ventura.  The brand name of the yarn is Regia, and the label tells me that it is “made in Italy for Coats GmbH Germany,” which sort of puzzles me and raises all kinds of questions, but in the end, I think it would be best for all involved if I just keep knitting and not think about things too hard.

If you’ve been following this blog since last month, you’ll know that I already had to sit through two all-day trainings and one full day of jury duty.  Today was my third all-day seminar in the span of less than two months.

I got to the conference room forty-five minutes early so I could get a seat in the back near the restrooms and exit doors.  I was fortunate enough to snag the best remaining seat for that purpose, and then this guy came along and sat in front of me:

I am barely five foot three inches tall, and that is exactly my view of the screen.  It was a bummer.  I had to move my chair several inches over to the left and into the aisle just to get a better view.

I thought I would learn some new things today, but it was pretty much a refresher course on personality disorders and empirically validated treatments.  Luckily, I brought my knitting, and that helped pass the time… until an hour and a half into the presentation when I’d completed two-thirds of the foot and realized:  Shit, I couldn’t start the gusset because I left the instructions at home.  In Morro Bay.  And I was in Ventura.  Two and a half hours away, about a hundred and fifty miles apart.

You can imagine my dismay.

Remember the sock that I started knitting yesterday?

So this happened today:

Ack!!!

Yup.  The needle came off the cable on the circulars that I’d been using.  If you look closely, you can see that it’s beyond repair:  the thin end of the cable broke off, so even if I inserted it back into the hollow end of the needle and tried to glue it together, it would still come off.

(Plus, I already know from experience.  This happened before with a different set of circulars/same brand of needles, and I quickly learned that gluing doesn’t work.  It was a particularly unpleasant learning experience, too, when the needle and cable broke apart in the middle of a row.)

When I knit in the round, I use the Magic Loop method with one long circular needle.  I got rid of all my DPNs a few years ago, and I don’t have any more long circulars in that size.  So it looks like that sock will have to wait until the new needles arrive in the mail.

In the meantime, this just means that I’ll have to cast on a new sock with a different set of needles and a new color yarn.  So at least there’s that silver lining.

Anyone else have this happen to them before?  Or any other knitting/craft-related disasters?

Remember when I had to attend an in-service training just a few weeks ago?  We had another one today.  And even though I injured myself only two days ago and this morning I woke up with a sore left hand, I just couldn’t sit through seven hours of Powerpoint slides today without knitting.  I tried not to, but after the first fifteen minutes of the morning’s presentation, I was reaching for the needles and yarn and casting on stitches.

I knitted slowly and carefully and took breaks when my hand started to hurt.  I know it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but it was the only way I could stay awake through the training and not silently go out of my mind from the sheer tedium of those slides.  As you can see from the photo, I actually completed most of the foot portion, which is not a bad accomplishment for someone who was operating with the use of one good right hand and one bruised, swollen, and probably sprained left hand.

I guess that, friends, is the mark of a true knitter.

Or else someone who is just really stubborn.

P.S. I just read over this entry and it occurred to me how much Sean and I are cut from the very same cloth.  It explains so much.

The fat swollen hand of a stubborn knitter.