Knit Sisters

In spite of some lovely weather and the ongoing amazement of the fall leaves,

things have been a little—how shall we put this?—suboptimal Chez Mad Dog this past week.

I have a cold, which would be bad enough even if I weren’t the world’s worst and most impatient patient. But I am.

Let me offer you this bit of perspective on precisely how bad I am: last time I had a cold, we were in the midst of watching Bleak House on PBS. Alex thoughtfully pointed out that Esther Summerson was behaving more nobly and courageously about having smallpox than I was about weathering a minor respiratory virus.

That might seem like a mean thing to say, if it weren’t so true.

Shelley doesn’t care if I’m sick and still wants to be walked:

We are also experiencing major leakage in our basement due to a corroded pipe. I think. But how would I really know? Our landlord (who we shall call Mr. Lee), a personal favorite of mine as you know, took an entire week to send someone out to look at it.

Last night, this lovely Chinese handyman showed up around 8 p.m. He immediately won my heart by declaring Shelley “so beautiful,” in spite of the fact that she was trying to jump up and kiss him.

Unfortunately, despite the immediate bond we formed over the indisputable beauty of my dog, we proceeded to have some communication issues.

Alex and I don’t speak Chinese and Mr. Yu spoke limited English. But everyone involved was giving it the old college try. Alex took Mr. Yu down to the basement to see the accumulated water damage of the past week. Yu seemed a bit puzzled.

Alex said, pointing first upstairs, “I will turn on shower,” then at Mr. Yu, “so that you,” now pointing at eyes, “can see.”

Mr. Yu nodded, still a bit puzzled. Alex ran up the stairs with Yu in pursuit. Alex turned on the water in the shower. Alex and Yu ran back down the stairs to the basement.

“Ah!” Yu said. “Too much water!” He seemed delighted with the flood. Or maybe he was just pleased that we had finally clarified the problem.

Yu worked for a while then emerged from the basement.

Mr. Yu: Okay, you call Lee.

Alex, puzzled, pointing to self: We should call Lee?

Mr. Yu: You call Lee!

Alex, puzzled, again pointing to self: I call Lee?

Mr. Yu, pointing to himself: No, no, Yu call Lee.

Who’s on first?

I’m not sure when the basement leakage will be fixed, but I do feel a bit better now that Mr. Yu has been here.

Icarus has a few more feathers:

Please say that you can see the progress. Even if you have to lie to me.

And I’ve been making my first efforts at Fair Isle knitting, with the help of the marvelous Kat from Woolcott:

Yes, it is embarrassing that I’ve been knitting since I was about six or seven and I still do almost nothing with multiple colors. But as you know, I’m sick right now. We can discuss the full shame of this multiple-color avoidance in depth at another time…

And now I must sign off so that I can swig some more DayQuil and make another pot of tea and sniffle quietly in the corner.

And yes, I would like some cheese with that whine. Thanks for asking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 10:53 am and is filed under Icarian games, It's the process, Lace it up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.