When Girlchild Leaves

When my daughter finds a job and gets some money together and finds a place to live and moves out, I'm really going to miss her the dog. Because while the dog does shed like crazy, the dog never does a huge load of small items he has been saving for about two months, puts them in the dryer, turns it on, and leaves them to dry, then sit. So when Mother comes home and has to do laundry so I have clean clothes to wear to a meeting tomorrow, Mother looks in the dryer and screams Bad Words. And then spends 20 minutes in the over 100 degree garage, folding about 60 small things so the machine is empty and I have something clean to wear to a meeting at City Hall. Okay, so it's a city hall in a really small town and khakis are the dress code, but they still should be clean.

I know we both leave clothes in the dryer at times, I am guilty too, and she is very courteous and hangs/folds mine appropriately, but my leavings usually consist of some yoga pants and t-shirts, maybe 8 items at the most. I do laundry regularly, she waits until she's desperate, so her loads are far, far larger than mine and take forever to fold. So I do not feel the slightest bit sorry that while I folded that mountain of clothes I was sweating like a ditch digger and probably dripped sweat on them.

I have called and left a couple of mildly pissy messages for her, and she hasn't picked up or called me back.

I am hooked on tiny hats in jellybean colors, and I am still cursing Lion Brand for doing away with Cotton-ease. It's so nice, really really nice. If Rowan had produced it the yarn snobs would have embraced it like manna from heaven, but it was Lion Brand so it bore a stigma. And Lion Brand stupidly produced it in jellybean colors plus black and white, which is why they are possibly the lamest yarn manufacturer on the planet. The texture is so soft, it's almost like suede. It has just enough acrylic with the cotton to make it easy on the hands. It would have been so incredibly versatile if they added neutrals and grownup colors. The more tiny hats I make the more I love this yarn, the stitch definition, the softness, it's so damn nice. But noooo, they opted for pastels and jellybean colors in a yarn weight that was heavier than many baby patterns, and colors too juvenile for older kids and adults, and then discontinued it entirely. Yes, I am holding a grudge.