"....evading crazies..."

I decided to start today's entry with a snippet of my blog's tagline: "...evading crazies who always seem to find her..."; but, first, let me start with a little explanation. I really do attract strange people. It could be just walking down the street, shopping in any given store, or hanging out in a coffee shop, but there are times when I am either approached or something happens with just the oddest people. And these aren't folks that I know in any way, shape, or form. Those I can explain away as being eccentric or just a little tempermental. No, the grade-A crazy folks I tend to meet are always some random, out of the blue person.

A friend tried telling me that my problem was that I just look too friendly and inviting; but, hey, we all can't walk around with our bitch-faces on 24/7, right? Since I haven't really written anything about this aspect of my life yet, I decided that what I had experienced yesterday would be a good incident to introduce you to just the kind of thing I'm trying to describe (and am probably doing a poor job of it at that).

Yesterday afternoon, I did my weekly grocery shopping at Meijer. One thing about me is that I'm a complete creature of habit. For instance, I always park in the exact same part of the parking lot of the stores I go to often, and if I can, I always get a pull-thru parking spot. Don't really know why, but I just can't stand driving in reverse. At any rate, during this shopping trip, I happened to have parked next to the cart corral. As I approached my car, I noticed a fairly thin, late-30's/early-40's woman standing next to the corral with one of those mini-shopping carts packed with groceries. The fact that she was standing there wasn't really stange; at first, I thought she may have been lost in the parking lot. It was what she was busy doing: in her hand, she had an open pint container of grape tomatoes, which she was just scarfing down. And I mean, scarfing. I didn't mean to stare, but couldn't help do a double-take because of how fast she was popping them one by one into her mouth -- it's a surprise that she didn't choke!

I had never seen anyone do anything like that before. Sure, getting a quick chocolate fix is one thing. But, grape tomatoes? And not even making it to her car?!? So, I had to walk right next to this person to get to my car. I felt a little embarrassed for having stared at her while walking up, and was successful in avoiding further eye contact as I piled groceries into my trunk. But, as I edged up the side of my car to get in, I felt uneasy and again looked her way, just to notice that she was totally staring at me. And not just a "what? who are you to judge me?" kind of look. No, folks, this was a more menacing type of look that I'm having trouble even describing. I guess it's one of disdain. So, with a nervous smile back, I just got into my car, locked the doors, and drove away. In my rear-view mirror, I noticed that she was still standing there staring in my direction as I turned the corner. Yikes! And this was in broad daylight!

So, enough of that...The rest of my day was spent shopping for more patterns, having bought two of Sharon Winsauer's shawl patterns ("Heere be dragone" and "Flight of the honey bees"; sorry, no links to be found, but google this and check out the photos in her .pdf sale flyer -- if you haven't seen these already, you will be impressed!), Lucy Neatby's Poinsetta Shawl; and "Cool Crochet" by Melissa Leapman. I also picked up a kit of blocking wires, which are needed for the Feather and Fan shawl, and the rest of my Christmas shawls. Once the shopping was over, I spent the rest of the day and evening with Chuck scraping more paint off of the house. It better not rain, damn-it because we need to get this project back on track!

I completely frogged the Shell Crochet Shawl that I started the other day. The Interlacements yarn that was being used was the absolute wrong yarn for that pattern; the yarn's verigations were too short, and as you could tell from the photo, were coming out more like splotches. Also, the pattern was crap. I don't usually trash designers, but here I'm going to make an exception. I have serious doubts that this pattern went through any sort of editing process. The written words didn't match the chart. The chart just quit and got sloppier towards the end of the shawl, which gave me doubts that it was actual chart and not someone's kid's hand-drawn impression of their mommy's shawl. Yeah, this pattern sucks, and I wish I had never bought it.

Not being one to be hung up by a bad pattern, I decided to try out something else. After another pattern shopping trip, I decided to try out the yarn with the Clapotis pattern from Knitty and it can be either a shawl or a large scarf. I don't know if it was excitement over starting a new pattern, or over being disturbed about the crazy person in the Meijer parking lot, I just could not sleep last night. Eventually, I went to bed around 4:30 and was back up at 6:30 to take Sylvain and his friend over to Hunter's Safety class in Diamondale (about a 30-min. drive away). Today'll be a busy day with me being at the Jr. Chief Football concession stand (and I'll be super cute with my Caloimetry head-band on!), watching Sylvain's game, and visiting a friend who's in the hospital. We'll see how much my energy stream will last before I crash pretty hard. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to bed early tonight....