Last ones…
Three more pics from the ABC Knit In this morning. (I still can’t believe Fiona and Amy convinced me to get out of bed at 6:30 a.m. on my day off.) The first is a completed blanket sewn together by one of the ladies sitting in our group. Second is me modelling Marlene’s fabulous purple hat. (She thought it would look great with my red hair.) And last is the immense pile of squares and completed rugs in the atrium of the ABC. According to what’s-his-name who was broadcasting live on the radio the whole time, we had over 600 knitters show up and over 42,000 squares were donated (from country areas too). At the end they introduced the little lady who started the whole Wraps with Love program and she started crying as she thanked everybody for their generosity and support. It was a nice way to start the morning.

Making new friends
Me and my new friend Marlene, knitting away. I’m the first blogger she’s ever met! She’s making her internet debut here.

ABC Knit-In
I’m at the ABC Knit-In this morning. Hundreds of people are putting together blankets for the needy. And the Bananas in Pajamas just arrived!

I tracked down my uncle David’s obituary in the Fort Wayne paper. Not much there. He’s also listed on the Kendallville News-Sun page but the bastards require a subscription to read obits. Any Hoosiers with a login around?

Stop the presses! Last night at yoga, the instructor Hillary actually told me that she thought I should stop losing weight. She said she thought I was skinny enough. HOW INSANE IS THAT? I mean, no, I’m not gonna listen to her; I’m still a good ten kilos above my healthy BMI range. But it just floored me. Never in my entire life has anyone told me that I shouldn’t get any skinnier. It was an absolute first.

DietBlog: There’s nothing that takes your mind off bad shit as well as two hours of learning something new and difficult. I had my trainee session as the Weight Watcher recorder tonight and I think I did pretty well. It’s all a bit bewildering. (I’ve never done any accounting before, and most of the stuff at the shop is computerized.) What makes it harder is that we’re changing leaders at the same time, so next Tuesday it’ll be the rookie team of Kris and Chris trying to figure stuff out together. In terms of my personal progress, I climbed back on the wagon this week with a 1.4 kilo loss! I am now officially at my lowest weight in recent memory, equal to my lowest weight ever on Atkins. So that’s pretty good, huh?

My mom called me at work today. I’m starting to develop a complex about phone calls from my family. They only call international when someone has died. Mom told me that my uncle David was killed in an accident yesterday. I took the news pretty calmly. She was upset so I tried to cheer her up, and we talked for a while about the quilt shop she’s opening. Afterwards Albert asked whether I was close to David or not, and I actually stopped to think: “Well, I haven’t seen him in years, and I don’t think Rodd ever met him… but we used to be really close when we were kids.” And suddenly that set me off.

David was my dad’s half-brother and we were practically the same age. He and my grandparents lived on a farm and my sister and brother and I would always beg to stay the night. David had the coolest tree house that ever existed outside of the movies. (It was in the back of the horse paddock.) I remember him introducing me to “The Legend of Zelda” and me just being blown-away that a video game could actually remember your position. Once we stayed up all night crafting a Christmas wreath out of a coathanger and sliced green garbage bags. Another time we hauled a bunch of his old toys out on the front lawn and tried to flag down passing cars to stop at our “garage sale,” which we were convinced was going to make us rich. We tried to make bread from raw grain out in his shed. We’d catch lightning bugs in his backyard. Once we went for a “hike” while the grown-ups were away and we all had to jump a creek. Antny was little and fell in (of course), so we had to rush him back to the house and clean him up before they discovered us. I don’t think they ever knew about it.

We sorta grew apart once we got older, and I hadn’t seen him since I moved away five years ago. I can’t believe he’s gone just like that though, and I’ll never get to introduce him to my husband. It sucks being away from your family at times like this.

Update: I just got an e-mail from my dad. It sounds like my grandparents are going out of their minds with grief. I’m more upset than I thought I’d be. This is the first one of my relatives of my age that I’ve lost. It’s hard. And I just found this…

Are you a digital citizen? What a goofy name for a quiz. I got 8 out of 10 correct, and the only ones I missed were the ones that I couldn’t be expected to know anyway (i.e. the percent of broadband users in the UK and which BBC show airs online before broadcast).

Wow, the Snook’s thesis is available on the new Google Scholar! As he says in his best Cartman voice: “I’m a scientist. I’m so kewl.”

I can’t decide what’s funnier: the fact that Dulux actually have a red paint colour called “Redrum,” or that an oblivious Kathleen wanted to use it on their apartment walls! (Sidenote: Andrew’s anecdote reminded me of when Milhouse picked up Bart’s telepathic message “kcip pu trab” in The Simpsons, which in turn led me to this nifty page detailing all the Stanley Kubrick references on the show.)