Surprise!

The surprise about the Baby Surprise jacket is that it goes so quickly! It was fun to choose some colors from my vast stash of Shetland odds and ends, and I like how these turned out. I should finish it this morning.

It always seems to me, when I see a Baby Surprise Jacket, that it is holding its arms open wide saying "I love you this much!"

Now I've been having crazy thoughts like: why couldn't you knit a BSJ in the round, in stockinette? Which leads to: why can't you knit a fair isle BSJ? Which leads to all kinds of other "why can't you" questions that soon evolve, just the contemplation of future chess moves, to the point where I can't remember how I got there. I suck at chess.

More of Me:

Before we even moved to Spain, I met Margaret. Margaret was working for the temp agency at which my sister-in-law worked, and had come home to Mississippi for the summer. She was married to Jose Luis, a professional soccer player from Spain, and they lived in Madrid.

It was nice to have a point of contact in Madrid, and we got together every once in a while. After she showed me how to use the subway system, I was a free bird. I would go, with or without children or friends or husband, to concerts of the National Symphony on Sunday afternoons. I got bored by Brahms, charmed by Mendelssohn, and energized by Prokofieff. The latter was provoked by a pianist named Rosa Torres, who performed often with the symphony.

It just so happened that I got my piano tuned (I had traded my grand for an upright grand before we moved our furniture) shortly after I had heard Rosa Torres perform. The tuner was an Iranian who had been a dentist in Iran and, like many of his countrymen, had fled when the Shah was deposed. He was somehow related to Rosa Torres-- perhaps she was his sister-in-law? but no matter, he put me in touch with her and she agreed to teach me.

After two lessons (very expensive ones, I might add), I realized that her style and mine would never mesh. She was all about Prokofieff and percussive attacks on the keys; I was all about Schubert and storytelling with the melody. Still, it was a good experience and gave me a little understanding of trying to study music in a different language.

At the same time, I had started to give piano lessons in my home at Zulema. I had very few students, and I would only teach if Zachary, still too young to play unsupervised in a different part of the house, was in school or in bed.

One Friday night while I was relaxing at the Officer's Club, I met a young colonel named Clark Kent. I am not making this up. He was a good-looking man from Alabama, and when I mentioned that I taught piano lessons he asked if he could have my phone number because he would be interested in taking lessons. Of course I thought this was all a ruse, so imagine my surprise when he does call me, and does begin to take lessons.

Clark soon became a family friend. He was unmarried, and the kids referred to him as Superman. He would bring his guitar over and play and sing songs to them, take them sledding when it snowed, and go with us to Madrid or other places to see the sights, places I would never go alone with three kids.

A "stage" was set up at Torrejon for cargo aircraft to stop and refuel on their way to the Persian Gulf. Alex's best friend Michael, a reservist called back to active duty, was assigned to work the stage and so he, too, was around quite a bit (he had been the best man in our wedding). Art, another reservist and an older colonel, was in a high position in the same organization as Michael and we came to know him well. It seemed like every time I turned around I saw people I had known at former bases. I caught up on who married whom; who had divorced; how many children had been born; which pilots had died.

Posted by Sheila at March 9, 2005 08:21 AM Posted to Knitting | TrackBack