Back in the Saddle Again

Fred and I are back from Florida. We were there for nine days after Christmas. I'm also back at work. Teaching the youth of The Hague. Future leaders and convicts, I'm surer now more than ever.

Florida was very nice when we sunk into being there. When we got there, we were driving a bit too much from here to there. It was only after three days of being in the car (with no cruise control or power windows. Please! Is it 1907 or 2007?) we had a talk and realized that the point of the vacation was to lie on the beach until it was time to eat, not to see everything on the West coast of Florida. Naples was it. After that, it was very nice. Coffee, a beach walk, get our books, rent a chair and umbrella and head for the beach.

I have been listening to a lot of knitting podcasts lately. I don't know if I've written about my love for podcasts lately. I listened to a lot of political podcasts before the big election in the US, but after that, it became a little too much. At some point, I started listening to It's a Purl, Man (It's a podcast about a guy in Boston with "yarn issues.") and then I started listening to my new knitting hero, Brenda Dayne of the Cast-On podcast. Inspired by her, I took some double pointed knitting needles and some sock wool and began knitting a sock on the plane. They are short bamboo needles and no one even looked twice at me. It was a nice way to pass the time, although I messed up my count three times and had to start over a few times. Brenda, by the way, talks about knitting with such love and such respect. If you're into knitting at all, I recommend her. I've learned a lot. And, as I've said, I've been really inspired.

We found a fairly decent book store and I bought a few books. A few too many for Fred's taste, but to buy them all here would cost a lot more and they are great reference material. I sat on the beach and read Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. It was a great time.

On the flight back, I knitted for the entire eight hours. It was just a normal sock, so it was a lot of the same thing over and over. But then I screwed up the heel (and I knew exactly when I did it, but I kept going!) and I had to rip it out, so that was sort of a bitch. I've heard a lot about people (particularly men) being a little embarassed about knitting in public. I wasn't. I'm not even sure people were looking at me. I didn't feel looked at.

It's so nice to be home again. I feel like my Dutch is absolutely in the toilet, but class starts up again this week and I will start to build up my vocabulary. I'm one of those people ballsy enough to talk all the time, but my vocabulary is not very sophisticated.

So I begin my life back in the Netherlands again. It's a great place to live. I'm very much at home here. And I'll be posting more about my knitting in the future. So look for that.