The latest score: Rats: 0. TMK: 2. Or 2.5, if you count the mummified one Exterminator Guy found in the crawlspace. Euuuw. And thank you, everyone, for sharing your rat/bat/cat stories. Some of them made me bray out loud, some of them made me wanna hurl, and some of them made me want to conduct a violent commando raid on the places that manufacture that sticky paper. (A violent commando raid on, or a peaceful protest at; I can’t decide. I have Rambo on one shoulder and Gandhi on the other but Rambo is currently beating the crap out of Gandhi, the riot police have arrived, and the whole thing is turning messy.)
Since I have completely run out of things to write about, and don’t even have any photos, it’s time to trot out my Fallback Story And True Confession.
My house is an A-frame style with a loft bedroom above the living room. To get up to the loft, you climb a circular staircase and, once up there, you can look over a half-wall back down into the living room. (Sounds all grand and dramatic, I know but, trust me, this place is s-m-a-l-l. There’s barely room for both me and the staircase in the living room. And God forbid you should invite a guest over. When Very Tall Brother-in-Law visits, the whole place shrinks dramatically, à la Alice in Wonderland.)
I keep my stash in the loft, which means that every time I want to add some new acquisitions, I have to climb the spiral staircase. That is, until the day I realized I could just as easily stand down in the living room and lob the balls of yarn up and over the half-wall. What makes this extra fun is there are no consequences. If you miss and hit the wall (which I do about 99.9% of the time because the wall is 20’ tall and very wide and, besides, in the dictionary, next to the phrase “throws like a girl,” you’ll see a picture of me), the ultra-soft projectile merely bounces off the top of the TV, onto the coffee table and onto the floor, no harm, no foul. And if you do get the yarn over the wall, again, it doesn’t hurt anything on the other side, no matter how hard you throw it.
Okay, okay, there’s one consequence: The bed, the furniture and the floor in the loft are currently 6” deep in disorganized piles of yarn and finding yarns to combine for a project is a complete nightmare.
That and, oh, yeah, I threw my shoulder out once doing this. But, hey, other than that…
Doesn’t this beg to be turned into a competitive indoor sport, Dear Readers, something akin to basketball? What would the scoring system be? 2 points for getting the yarn over the wall?
Extra points for how far across the loft the yarn travels before it lands? Bull’s-eye points for hitting the loft window?
More points or fewer depending on the size and weight of the ball of yarn—more points for chunky, fewer points for lace? Or would it be the other way around because lace is lighter and harder to throw? Would the ultimate challenge be finding a way to throw a piece of roving over the wall?
Fewer points if the yarn is already wound into a ball, more points if it's still in the less-aerodynamic skein configuration?
Extra points if it goes over the wall and then lands in something, like a vase?
Would you lose points if you hit the wall, but then gain points depending on how many things the yarn hit on the way down?
How many points would you get if the yarn bounces off the wall but you catch it? What if you skewered it with a knitting needle mid-air? While standing on one foot?
Oooo, what about a scoring system similar to skating? One set of points for technical merit, and another for artistry?
Oh, the possibilities! This will definitely have to become the official sport of The Mossy Cottage Knitting and Fiber Commune.
And, now, off to compose my letter of petition to the Olympic Games Committee…
I've got visions of taped lines all over the loft floor, sort of like the circles or whatever that shotputters have. And you could assign points for throwing style.
Your tale brought back memories of living in the engineering frat house where, above the TV in the living room, hung a velvet Elvis painting (the Velvis). The challenge *there* was to bank your empty beer can off of the Velvis to fall behind the TV. No, not logical and much harder than you'd think, but pretty funny to watch, especially since your aim worsens the more you drink. Ahem. Not that I would condone overconsumption of alcohol. Nope. Not me.
Posted by: Melanie on December 9, 2005 12:42 PMThere definitely needs to be a 'blindfolded' or 'backwards over the shoulder' category. You know... you could have a freestyle version of the sport, like they do for skiing.
Posted by: Sue on December 9, 2005 01:22 PMWhat about throwing the ball of yarn OFF the end of a knitting needle?
Are there extra points if you get it over the wall, but it bounces back to you?
You could tape circles on the loft floor and if the skein actually lands inside the circle, you get so many extra points.
And yes, lace weight should be a bonus catagory all to itself.
Ya know, I still have my bags packed for the commune. I have money saved for my own yurt. My stash is organized and packed for loading. I now own a laptop for ease of travel and taking up less space. Just sayin'. :)
Posted by: Stalker Angie on December 9, 2005 02:02 PMAnd then there is the ball that comes unwound upon throwing. That should count for or against something.
Posted by: margene on December 9, 2005 02:21 PMI like the idea of scoring like skating. And Ryan gets a 9.5 for arc of her back while lovely lofting the ball of yarn of the wall. What will this great game be? Hope you have a good weekend!! :)
Posted by: Courtney on December 9, 2005 03:29 PMBaskets placed around the loft. You have to lob the yarn into the proper basket, either based on color or weight, however you prefer. Then you get a graduated score like darts, based on how close to the proper basket you get. You have red yarn and make the red basket? 50 points. Hit the orange basket instead? 35 points. Hit the floor? Zip.
The technical and artistic point system comes into play when you are standing in your loft, selecting balls of yarn to use for a project, and lobbing them DOWN over the wall, into your knitting spot. And javelin-ing your knitting needles down there too. Although you'd probably have to throw the circs like a bola or something.
And I'm really freaked out and how easily this caught fire in my brain, and how long I actually thought about it. Maybe I'll have DH build me a loft...
What about uniforms? Can we have uniforms???? Pleasssseeee?
Posted by: Janine on December 9, 2005 09:22 PMYou know all that yarn would make a fun place for the rat to live :) (Yes, I am pure evil!)
Actually I hate the rats and did you know that Seattle has a very large rat problem? Gross, I know!
Ughhh! I have to go and be grossed out by rats now.
Posted by: Rebecca on December 10, 2005 01:15 PMJanine--We'll knit our own uniforms, of course! We could even divide into teams (with different colored uniforms)and have intramurals.
Thanks for putting in the link for the Mossy Cottage Knitting & Fiber Commune, which I hadn't seen before. Put me on the list, Ryan! I can offer my services in bookkeeping-type stuff. As for raising $20,000 to buy the land-- I bet we've got $20,000 worth of yarn in our collective stashes. But would we be willing to part with it, even for such a worthy cause?
Posted by: Diana on December 12, 2005 12:16 PMI think there should be a category of extra points for getting multiple hanks of the same yarn to land together in something resembling a pile.
Posted by: CarolineF on December 13, 2005 11:45 AM