Mossy Cottage Knits

With Friends Like These...

(No posting Friday or Monday, Dear Readers. But come back Wednesday
for an announcement about the Dulaan 2007 CafePress store!)

Happy Valentine’s to my Dear Readers!

It’s the sock monkey’s tail, people, T-A-I-L. Oy. As if flashing my uterus around the Net weren’t bad enough, my readers are seeing things where there is nothing to see.

The part I left out: The whole uterine kit and caboodle—including the rhinestone zipper, which secretly appeals to the princess in me, even if it is attached to viscera—was made and assembled by my friend LindaK, who, during the party, insisted on delivering it to me slowly and majestically on a blue velvet pillow while everyone in the room hummed “Pomp and Circumstance.” I couldn’t make this up if I tried. (Rabbitch, as if you didn’t feel bad enough about not being able to make it to the party in the first place, this is what you missed. But we couldn’t have fit you in the living room anyway. You would have had to watch all of this from outside, through the picture window. In the rain. With blue-icing-stained teeth and lips. And your blue French-cut underwear on your head.)

As I hinted on Monday, the uterine high jinks were only the tip of the iceberg. I now present to you the gift I love to hate and hate to love, a unique gift among unique gifts, a knitting sock monkey, hereinafter known as “Clementine.” (MaryB, you just said I had to name her; you didn’t say it had to be a good name.)

Once I get past the horrendous sock-monkey-ness of her—the whorishly red lips, simpering monkey smirk, mottled “fur,” spiky eyebrows, and pasty white muzzle and extremities—what I love about her—and I truly do—is her sunny yellow knitting bag, complete with a mint-green UFO (which, because I see an unfinished edge but no sharp pointy sticks, I think she yanked off the needles in frustration after forgetting one yarnover too many) and miscellaneous balls of yarn. Since she’s not really using the red yarn for anything, I suspect it’s her equivalent of the Adirondack yarn I carry around with me simply because I love it almost to the point of perversion. If it were a celebrity, I would break into its house and steal its underwear.

I am also particularly fascinated by Clementine’s ability to knit with no fingers or thumbs. A true talent. Sort of like gumming your way through a knitting project.

So I, who loathe sock monkeys with an unspeakable passion, now own two. And carry one around with me wherever I go, on my keychain. And, yes, LindaK and MaryB knew exactly what they were doing. They were not offended in the least when I recoiled in horror from my birthday gifts and made a pinched, sucking-on-a-lemon face. That was exactly the reaction they’d been hoping for. You’re a coupla cards, you two, you really are.

Posted by Ryan at February 14, 2007 10:01 AM