the quacking fiber addict

"Men tracht und Gott lacht."
Men plan, and G-d laughs
Yiddish proverb

Oy.

I don't have any pictures for tonight's post. Mostly because when Dad dragged me out of bed at around 9:30 this morning (you can see how late I was up last night from the last post...) to handle an "emergency", I wasn't thinking clearly enough to grab my digicam. To my regret, since there were some amazing photo opportunities as Dad and I drove up to Portland like madmen and tried to navigate Portland's chaotic traffic.

Why?

My brother left at 4:30 am this morning to take a train up to Seattle. The tracks were officially washed out at 6 am, and the train was stopped in Portland. Emm was supposed to make a bus transfer (3 hours later) but fell asleep on his luggage and woke up in Union Station, discovering he had missed the last bus for another 12 hours. To compound this, we found out at around 9:30 am that the friends Emm was supposed to visit in Seattle were now completely without electricity or water. (Have you heard about The Storm?)

So, Dad immediately pulled me out of bed and the two of us set off to pick up my brother. You might be asking why, as he's an 18-year-old college student and had the money to buy a return ticket. Dad made the executive decision that Emm would likely fall asleep again (we were up late last night) and he was right, because it took me awhile to find Emm in the station this afternoon when we arrived. And, there's also the fact that my brother is just this side of autistic and doesn't handle stress well (which is an understatement - much like signifying lava as "hot").

Anyway. On less than 6 hours of sleep I helped Dad get up to and around Portland, found my brother in the station, and helped Dad get the h3ll out of Portland (as the road work going on there right now was enough to make us both scream). We arrived home at 4 pm, just before we were due for the Channukah potluck. Dad and I looked at each other and went, "No."

Apparently, Mum was feeling the same when we came in. She had made soup to bring but didn't want to go, either. So, we called everyone at the Shul we could think of to warn, ate some of the cookies Mum had made last night for the potluck tonight, and all collapsed to wake up at around 8 pm.

Now I'm even worse off schedule than before.

Anyway. Being stuck in a car for 6 hours has it's benefits, as I am nearly done with my clapotis. I've decided to add on some extra straight rows, to make it longer (about the same width and length of two of my favourite shawls) and am nearly done with said straight rows. It's looking gorgeous, and I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures.

While watching The English Patient, another good knitting movie btw (thank you, Y, for the reference!), I made emergency Christmas gifts for St M and TheBon. I still can't find the supplies for the gift I wanted to make for Bon, but what I made will have to do. I'm sure she'll love 'em anyway.

All of which means that I can stop panicking about the gifts that are due on Sunday, and start panicking about the prizes for the Wacky Ducky Contest. You might have guessed that I didn't get a chance to ship out Tamara's or Maura's skeins of yarn and needles, or dye Crimson's yarn or make several other things I wanted to include. I'm hoping to accomplish said deeds tomorrow. Well, today, actually.

Oy, again.

I need to check my email. I also need to start going through all the spinners who signed up for the Winter Handspun Swap and assign partners. I want to say "oy" again, but won't. Whining won't get me anywhere.

Alas.

To make this post a little more interesting, I'm leaving a fresco of Clotho as a parting gift: