If I'm dead, this isn't heaven...

I cannot shake this cold. It settled in my throat earlier this week and now I have no voice and a terrible dry cough. Vast tracts of blowing sands and acres of prickly cacti have sprouted in my throat. And I haven't been able to take sick time because it would short-staff us to the point of leaving one person on the Reference Desk for two days in a row. I can't do that to my coworkers.

For the past 2 nights I have awoken sometime around 2 or 3 in the morning in a fit of coughing that won't subside until I get up and make some tea with honey to sooth my vocal cords. I think it is entirely possible that I may have died in my sleep last night but if I did, I didn't go up. This afterlife that I am floating through like a jellyfish looks remarkably like a library with a Reference Desk I must staff and answer questions. And I know it must be hell because the questions seem stupider today. (More stupid? I'm stupid.)

I didn't go to my knitting group on Thursday...I stayed home. We didn't do anything last night....I laid on the couch. We're supposed to go to Sarah's tonight to write, but I have a feeling we'll bag that too. If I am, in fact, still alive, I will need to rest mightily before going back to work. Chicken soup, lots of fluids, blah, blah, blah.

Of course, no one tells you that when you are in the middle of an obsession and you get sick, that yearning for yarning doesn't go away. My husband calls my knitting "yarning" which I think is cute and endearing. But I was lying in bed like a good girl on Thursday night, resting my weary bones. I took a nap until about 8 when my Mom called. After that I lay there and thought about cabling. I knew the theory of how to do it, but I wanted to try. And I actually dragged my ass out of bed to knit. What is the matter with me? I did, by the way, my first swatch of cable. And everyone who told me about it is right - it is really easy.

So when I go home at 5 I am getting chicken soup. I am going to go home and have dinner. Then I am going to try to fight the urge to knit and actually get some rest.

I really hope I'm not dead. I thought heaven would be full of hand-dyed, hand-spun cashmere.

Frog of a different kind

The cold is better, but I have lost my voice. So instead of the usual "frog" of knitting (i.e. ripping out stitches) I am croaking. And that makes working with the public a special treat. No one can understand me. Especially on the phone.

Last night at we met with our writing partner to finish a script. While we worked, I knit. I finished the pumpkin hat! I learned how to do the vine on the top from Crazy Aunt Purl here. It was really freaking hard to increase two on every stitch because the work got super tight on my needle. But it worked on the first try! The secret is to cast on super loose so you have room to knit into the front, the back, and the front again of every stitch. When I finished it, Sarah and I squealed over the cuteness. Well, she squealed, I just sort of did a squeaky hiss. I can hardly wait to send them off. I just have to get the address again. I am notorious for losing addresses.

Here are the pair:

Can you stand it? I am so freaking proud of them. I just found out another friend of mine from college just had her third little girl, so maybe I'll whip up another apple hat. They go so fast! If I had the uninterrupted time, I could knock one off in an evening.

And I just might have some time tonight. I was going to go to Gabriella's tonight for weekly Stitch n' Bitch, but I think I may have to stay at home and rest instead. I have to work Saturday, and I am going to need some strength, as mine appears to be waning. Who are we kidding? I'm shot right now. Besides, I don't want to spread my lovely germs with my coughing tonight. It's bad enough I have to come to work and spread it around. I still can't believe Kosta hasn't gotten it yet. He is usually the one who gets everything that comes down the pike, while I stay well.

Well, time to suck it up, make some tea, and go face the world.