Since my skin seems to react to everything, I’m glad I know this now.

Dog: Venti
Yarn: Socks That Rock

As my post title indicates, I have been building up to something great which is taking about 99.99999% of my time lately. I’m hoping for a great unvieling in the next week or so. I’m sorry to be such a damned tease but, seriously, I’ve got to talk about it or I’ll explode.

Everyone has my permission to flog the first commenter who says, “I know what it iiii-iiisss!”

Something else great… M and I will be leaving for Black Sheep Gathering on Friday night. We’ll only really be there for Saturday and we might pop in for a bit on Sunday. We’re meeting Marie (Marie found a close hotel that will take the doggies) for much merriment. Really excited. Really, really excited.

For Fathers’ Day, Dad got a Garmin from his two kids and their spouses. (Mom pitched in too…) But more importantly, I bought him a pink t-shirt that said, “Dad: Tough enough to wear pink.” He wore it proudly all day yesterday. Two highlights to his day were when he spotted a guy wearing the same shirt on TV at the Astros/Mariners game and when some random lady walked up to him and said, “I think that shirt is pretty cool.”

On Friday and Saturday, I dragged my husband off to the local pub for some good food and fun music. We spent our little Fathers’ Day weekend snuggled up next to the out-door fire pits that line the music venue’s/pub’s patio. BTW, EXCELLENT food and drink.

What did you do with your dad? If your dad is gone, what was a funny memory that popped into your head yesterday?

Just like Marie who moved back home after a long stint in Los Angeles, I received a Jury Summons for my former county of residence. Hello? It’s almost been a year since the move. WTF, man!

I’m pretty sure I’d just turned 2 here.

I promised this one to you way back when. At least Dad had the good sense to hide the harbles in this pic.

The family circa 1979. I totally remember this dress. It had a little zipper pouch like a purse that tucked into the pocket you see there on my left sholder. It was attached with a string but I still managed to lose it somehow.

OMG, seriously hot Mom. Dad on the other hand… Wow. That’s a collar. You know, he was really proud of that suit. It had it custom made. My guess is that this is around 1977. Possibly 1978.

I’m sure there will be many, many old pics for you in the near future. Because, seriously… I was a cute kid.

A while back, a couple folks asked for pictures of me wearing a kimono. I don’t have any of those to share today but I spent some time digging through the family photos and thought it would be fun to share a few. Because, let’s face it… I was an extremely adorable child.

(Me at age 3-ish)

Shortly after this picture is pretty much when I stopped being adorable.

In any case, I sat on the floor and dug through pictures for hours. I’m not even close to done. But it had my mother and I laughing so hard we had tears streaming down our faces. Or maybe that was the bad clothes.

(Baby me and Mom, circa 1976)

One of the photos that had us on the floor and my father denying that it ever happened is below. Notice the fantabulous plaid-on-plaid look Dad is sporting. Note the very fisherman-like orange hat.

(Dad, circa 1979-ish)

Note that the fisherman-like orange hat says, “If you’re horni, wink”

The prognosis is good but still scary. I promise that there will be regular bloggy happiness again in the near future. Likely in the next 24 hours.

Seriously though… if you haven’t already had cancer, I’m starting to feel like it’s not such a good idea to be around me these days. Seems like I put the cancer whammy on folks lately.

I stood in the darkness, now punctuated by a golden bulb in the sky, I smelled. (Not me, dork. The air.) I sniffed quick sniffs and drew deep breaths to absorb the world around me. Have you ever smelled the scent of a pine tree growing?

What my nose detected the strongest of all was the smell of my ancestral home that lays I the valley below me. The faint scent of a running creek, flood plains and wild grasses on which our cattle were raised. The soil, once rocky, that I tilled with my own hands as a child and the crab apple tree from which I picked apples while standing on the back of my horse. He allowed it only because I fed the apples to him.

For just a moment, I smelled myself in pig-tails, wearing cut-off bib-overalls. I think that I was barefoot. I smelled myself smiling at a childhood friend, Jenny, as we raced our horses about the neighborhood. I was wearing cowboy hat. As I stood there on the back deck, looking down over my childhood home some 300 yards or so from where I now stood, I swear I could smell Jenny and I racing up the hill toward my current home. They couldn’t see me. To them, this was just an empty lot filled with scotch broom and adventure. We raced through the brush, zig-zagging as we went, and we flew over the jump we’d placed in the middle for ourselves.

And then, all at once, it was gone. We faded into the mist and I couldn’t smell us anymore. But there was my golden moon, high above my head. It smiled down on my as I shook clear of my waking dream.

My heart can rest here. Only on this land can my soul be still; the land that my grandfather and great-grandfather tamed, the land on which my father was born and that he tended with his own hands. For the first time in ages, my mind has slipped free of the sticky clouds and I can rest again.

I love it. I love this yarn, I love their colorways. I would like to knit up a sweater from one of their almost-solid colorways. I haven’t yet knitted with Koigu but I think I would still prefer STR over just about any of the other similar yarns. To be fair, I have only knitted socks from Socks That Rock, Cherry Tree Hill and Trekking.

I recently found a CD on which I had photos taken at a surprise party I threw for M’s 50th birthday. It was a very good day. Below is one of my favorite pictures. Our friend decided to open his beer with a crow bar.

Another friend giving Camus the poodle lovin’.