Knit Sisters

I’ve been in Vegas for a day and a half now and have been astonished to find that most people are not here for the knitting. Yes, I know. It is shocking.

Instead, they seem to have come for this:

I decided not to spoil the fun by reminding them that, in the end, the casino always wins.

But just to catch you up on my road adventures, I enjoyed my last day in Tucson with an early morning drive out to the desert in The Car:

Car like that won’t let you down.

The Car and I saw these wonderful scenes:

Hello, Saguaro!

Yes, I suppose there is a certain sameness about these shots of the Sonora Desert, but I’m still feeling the love.

I visited Lynn at Kiwi Knitting Company, a wonderful shop not far from the University of Arizona. Since I was mere hours away from flying out of Tucson, Lynn and I got to discussing the new restrictions on carry-on items and wondered whether or not I would now be allowed on the airplane with my Addis.

Me: Well, it’s not like I personally am inclined to violence, but you could garotte someone with those things. You know, if you had ninja training!

Lynn: To me, it would just be easier to take one with a longer cable, say a 60″, and strangle your victim.

See what knitters talk about when no one else is around? When I related this conversation to my dear sister, she thoughtfully added, “Hmm. If you were going to go the strangulation route, you could probably just use a length of cabled yarn. It has a lot of tensile strength.”

If knitters ever go over to the dark side, God alone can help us.

Since Lynn went a long way towards making me feel right at home in Tucson, I couldn’t in good conscience leave her shop without a little something to remember her by:

Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock makes such a nice souvenir, shown here in colourway “Tahoe.”

The air travel story had a happy ending, though. The TSA confiscated my toothpaste and sunscreen since those are items universally carried by “evildoers,” but they let me on with my garotte Addis.

Sock progress was therefore made.

Ever notice how “the evildoers” never seem to get sunburned? Yeah, well. Now we know why.

Now I’m here in Las Vegas where everything is 100% authentic:

Even in his wildest dreams, Ramses the Great never foresaw this.

Life inside the pyramid—everything, all the time!

Did anyone ever mention to the Luxor bigwigs that pyramids were burial structures? Doesn’t send the most positive message, guys. I’m just saying, is all.

The pharoahs prided themselves on their vast chlorinated swimming pools with poolside bars:

Now I hate to be a party-pooper, but I probably just better confess—however reluctantly—that I do not love being in Vegas. John Ruskin once pompously said, “When I am at Paddington, I feel I am in hell.” But for all Ruskin’s pomposity, if you substitute “the Strip” for “Paddington,” that sentence would pretty much describe my feelings about Las Vegas.

Of course, Oscar Wilde took the wind out of Ruskin’s sails when he responded, “Ah well, when you are in hell, you’ll think you are only at Paddington.”

Touché, Oscar. When I go to hell, perhaps I’ll think I’m just in Vegas.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 12th, 2006 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Wool gathering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.