In Which We Find Success and a Trophy to Boot

Success!! The pair of socks for FJ -- the first of the randomly chosen sixth year students -- is finished. Kids have been asking, and asking, and asking since last Monday (when I started them) who the socks are for. I've made it a secret. Theories abound. FJ thinks they are for him, amusingly enough. Yet if you knew him you'd understand that he'll think the next pair is for him, too....and the pair after that, and the pair after that.... A few students think they are for my co-teacher. Tomorrow I think I'll tell them.

Reasons why these are perfect for FJ:
1. He likes these colors.
2. He ended up being the first one to receive socks, and this is the sort of thing that will please him.
3. They are perfectly symmetrical, since they were knit both simultaneously on the same needle, and therefore are exactly the same. (Although there is a half row's difference between the two right before the gusset, but if you don't tell, I won't.) FJ is very particular about exactitude and perfection. He will enjoy that aspect.
4. They are big! They would fit me. And he is a large sixth year.
5. I see him when I look at them. It's a function of knitting something for someone, regardless of whether you spend a few hours or a year knitting it. I start to see that person when I look at that pattern and those colors.

Look at the color pooling on these socks. The one on the left shows it perfectly -- it has a blotchy, lie-detector-test-showing-you're-lying type feel to it.


Tonight I went to see the Red Sox World Series trophies and to get a voucher to buy two tickets before they go on sale. I'm not sure if I will actually end up buying them or not, because I just don't have the money for it. But at least the option is there now. We got a picture taken of us with the trophies: my son, my daughter, my soon to be be ex-husband -- henceforth to be known as simply Matt, my niece Jocelyn, and me. The picture is very little indication of what had just happened: over an hour of "I'm so BOOORRREED!!!" and "Mommy, I wanna CUDDLE you." and "Will you get off that vibrating chair?" and "Put your boots back on!" and "Sweetie, the Green Monster is not going to hurt you." and "Can I buy two?" and "Should we just leave?". The picture is also no indication of what was to come: Pizzeria Uno, where I paid for a dinner that I could not afford while one child whined because I wouldn't allow him to try anchovies on half of his pizza. I outright overruled that decision -- hell, I have veto power as mom, as someone who has to smell and pay for the anchovies. While he whined about that and tried to pop his blue balloon all twisted up as a dog with floppy ears, my other child kept hitting her college-age cousin with her pink princess-wand balloon. "I was just petting her hair with the balloon!" "I'll never get to try anchovies!" Seriously. I just sat there and coughed. My niece made lots of jokes about swine flu. I coughed more.

Already cast on for the next ones, for SA. She is also a sixth year. This will be a much different pair--for a much different person. I am having fun this year teaching 11 and 12 year olds! You can start to see the people they are becoming and the ways they will touch the world. There will be less pooling in this pair....I'll show you why tomorrow.