August 21, 2006

Knitting and Kids Today

I have actually been knitting! I know, I know… shocking. I’m still plodding away at my pink (gasp!) shawl for myself. It is, in no way shape or form, going to be ready for Vegas (19 days!) but still, it’s nice to have some lace on the needles. I also have 2 abandoned socks on the needles, one at the heel and the other at the toe, and the Cabled Newsboy Cap from Stitch n Bitch Nation in beautiful Malabrigo in the Emerald Blue colorway:

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The cap, knit on 10.5 circulars, is WAS flying off the needles. Until I stopped and looked more closely at the pattern. Turns out I was doing the decreases incorrectly. Didn’t read carefully enough. So I debated for a moment. Learn to cope with my lopsided decreases or frog back to the first decrease and begin again?

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*sigh*

So I frogged and then picked up the stitches and started again. And let me tell you, it is a B!TCH to pick up 114 stitches in the round, especially with freshly crossed cables in the mix. I would have tinked, but it was 12 rows back and that’s a bit much.

I was practically finished with the entire hat but now I’m back to square one. I really want it for Vegas so I’m planning on working on it tonight and tomorrow and hopefully have a FO by Wednesday.

Good stuff over, time for a rant:

Yesterday, while at the Faire, I decided to watch the joust. I really like it, though it’s the same thing each time. It’s exciting and interesting and there’s a degree of danger that you don’t get anywhere else. Practice or not, script or no, you swing a sword at someone and they can get hurt.

But that’s beside the point. So I’m watching the joust and there’s this kid standing just behind me and he keeps screaming stuff at our knight. “Boo! I hate you! You’re so ugly! France sucks! Loser! Loser! Loser!” I mean, he wouldn’t shut up. If he didn’t want to cheer for the French knight he could have sat somewhere else. It was really distracting and his parents wouldn’t tell him to knock it off. So I turned around to give him a look. Not a mean look, just a ‘you’re annoying me so please be quiet’ look. His response?

“Ooo she’s looking at me! Why don’t you wash your face you freak? Ooo, I wear lipstick but I’m still ugly!”

His parents still didn’t say anything to him. He very nearly got a Renaissance style smackdown from me.

So when did parents just stop caring? When did people just decide that it’s ok to let your kids be little brats to people they don’t know? I mean, I could tell this kid probably has a hyperactivity problem but does that mean you just give up and let them do whatever they want and say whatever they like?

On a side note – The woman who plays Queen Elizabeth tore her Achilles’ Tendon during last week and is scheduled for surgery today. She was STILL at the Faire this weekend. In her dress which weighs upwards of 65 pounds, walking around and doing all the shows. That is real dedication.

7 comments:

mrspao said...

Sigh. Trouble is if you say anything to them then their parents tell you off.

Commiserations on the frogging - I just frogged a whole scarf because I decided it was too thin.

Chris said...

Sigh - it's part of decline of civility... :(

Hee hee - Chaos says "thank you" for the love letter... but you don't have to be coy and pretend to be "Miss Kitty." It's ok to love him from afar and send him virtual pats and tummy rubs. ;)

Peevish said...

I would be hideously embarrassed to even be in the vicinity of someone behaving that badly let alone it being a child of mine. How do some parents live with themselves??

P.S - When do we get a picture of the pink lace??

Deb said...

As I've said before, you need a license to drive a car or catch a fish, but any idiot can be a parent. It continues to amaze me how parents behave (through the actions of their children) in public.

Anonymous said...

It is pathetic how some parents are nowadays. I worked as a nanny for two weeks for two of the most horrible children I have ever met. I told their mom that they were spending all day literally telling me to shut up and running away every time I came near them. She told me I just needed to be more creative and fun. What? Have you met me? I quit. Gave them two weeks notice. They said that was fine because they had already hired someone else. Whatever. Just think, those parents (and the people I nannied for) will be bailing their kids out of prison by the time they are in high school because they will have learned that they can do whatever they want without consequences.
It's too bad I don't want kids. I think it would be interesting to raise one decent human being.

LaurieM said...

Next time you need to frog that many rows, take a much smaller gauge circular needle and put in a lifeline. Just be sure that you always enter and exit the stitch in the same direction each time. That way you can rip back to the circular needle and then just slip the stitches from one needle to the next.

As to the child problem, that boy was looking for attention. In a public situation I always ignore the bad behavior and reward the good. So if possible I try to engage the child in a positive way and re-direct the bad behavior. This has worked sucessfully for me many times, and I've never had a problem with the parents when I do this.

louise said...

Hey I got your snail mail address just waiting for Jodi's then both will go in the mail.

Sorry you had to frog it is never fun