Squirrels, dawgs, turtles, & possums - in that order

So I was driving my son to his job, very early this morning, and it was all foggy with some drizzling rain and not much daylight yet to speak of. Being so early on a Sunday, we pretty much had the roads to ourselves.

And you know, a crazed squirrel dashed across the road in front of us, and you know that all squirrels are crazed. They're the only animals that do that funny back and forth thing that we humans do when we block each others' path in an aisle or hall. You know, when you both try to move out of each others' way, but inadvertantly sidestep to the same side, blocking each other still. Squirrels always do that in front of cars, don't they? Other animals, after the 'oh-shit' moment of realizing that they're in traffic, will either turn back to the side of the road from which they came, or they'll hurry on across.

But not squirrels. They gotta stop. Look at ya. Dash this way and then that way until they're perfectly lined up with one of your tires, and then they scamper out from under just in time, but only after causing the driver a certain amount of anxiety.

I was, ahem, commenting on the critter's spastic road choices when my son replied, "Maybe it's like an initiation rite for squirrel gangs."

Well, that explains everything, and he's probably right.

Speaking of animals and humans, I bought Miss Belle another sweater, and ya know, from the way she acted when I put it on her yesterday, I do believe she likes wearing them. One of these days, I'll just have to knit for her.

So this morning, I swung by Party City on my way to the knitting group, but they weren't open yet. Sigh. So I just planned to swing back by after the knitting, 'cause I'm wanting one of those three-tier candy dishes for Christmas day when the family all comes here to eat.

And the world did not cease spinning when I arrived at the knitting before 11:00am!

And just lookee at what some folks brought to share!

Pam could only swing by for a moment, 'cause she had some shopping to do and housework waiting for her at home. I totally get that. Barb cast on a new project this morning - a baby cardigan. Carol finished that gift sweater she's been working on, and is already halfway through another. She declared, "I'm not going to bed tonight until this sleeve is done!" Alrighty then, knit on!

Check out her finished one! The gal getting this under her Yule tree is lucky indeed.

Mary Beth has both sleeves done on the FLS for her grandmother, and has begun work on the body of it.

This is Raeus' work, using that fantastic homespun from Lynda's hand - isn't it gorgeous? It was originally going to be a strap for a bag, but then Raeus got so inspired by the fabric that was forming on her needles, that she's feeling a free-forming spree coming on. Can't wait to see what this yarn wants to be.

Check out Pat's beaded capelet; I looked over and was a bit unnerved to see her with a needle and thread in hand, sewing. Actually honest-to-gosh hand sewing on it! Turns out, it calls for some ribbon to be added to the inside as an interfacing, to stabilize the edges.

Debra has a beaded crochet scarf in the works, and Angelika is making another dishcloth using that sunflower-colors cotton yarn that I use for my kitchen things. Speaking of kitchen things, Misty is doing those swiffer covers that have been on my mind.

I brought two things to knit on, 'cause I couldn't decide which one I wanted to work on. I first pulled the partially done hanging towel out of my bag, but then realized I had left one of the needles at home on the endtable.
Fine, so I pulled out this ornament to finish up. For the love of pete, I left its pattern at home to, on that same table.

So I just pulled the crochet slippers out of my purse, and did some crochet-ing my ownself.

And while we were all there stitching, Misty told us tales from the Mountain where she's been living. Specifically, this one story about her dog, Lady. Lady's outside food dish was ravaged by a possum one night, and Misty was initially glad that Lady didn't see that happen, 'cause ya know, Lady wouldn't like it much.

But it turns out, Lady and the possum were great friends, and Lady would sometimes be seen carrying that possum around like a puppy. For real!

But then one morning, when Lady wasn't around (again - ya know there's a pattern here), the possum was found dead and frozen out in the yard. Nevermind the details, but Misty couldn't get to the keys just then, that were needed to get to the shovel in the shed. But she did spy a mop with a big ol' handle, there on the porch. She thought she could use the end of the handle to pry the frozen corpse of her dog's friend up from the frosty ground, and just kinda flick it over the bank and into the ravine. Well, it was stuck to the ground pretty fierce, and she only managed to loosen it a bit and flick it about four inches. That's when she realized she had a real job on her hands, and wanted to hurry before Lady caught her flicking her friend's bits across the yard. On the next poke with the mop handle, it only flipped over . . . . and um, the underside wasn't as frozen as the top side was. It was cold, mushy, possum meat, that's what was underneath. She managed to hook it's curled tail onto the mop handle, and hurried across the yard with it. She hurried because the possum corpse on the end of her broom handle was slowly letting go of that handle. Reckon the frozen weight overcame the rigor mortis.

Happy ending; she got the thing safely flung over the bank, before anybody knew any different.

Hollywood can't make stuff up like this, I'm tellin' ya.

I left a bit early to go do that shopping for the tri-level candy dish, and doncha know they didn't carry any. I just knew they would in that catering aisle that they have. So I drove back across the street to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They had some, but only in one style and it was beyond fugly. Ya know, I have that bit of a Kohl's gift card, and they might have 'em. So I went there next. Nada. I even looked in Wal-mart, something I'm not proud of.

So I came home empty handed and a bit frustrated. As I stepped out of my car, in the garage, there on top of some old furniture waiting to be refinished, was a beautiful, huge, compartmentalized, candy dish on a lazy susan thing that I had forgotten we even had. It was a gift, one that at the time I couldn't imagine hosting anything in which I might use it. But as I stood up out of the car, there it was at eye level. Well I'll be dipped. It was another one of them God-winks that I couldn't find the candy dish I tried to buy at four different places.

Now that I'm home, it's laundry time, so we won't all have to go to work naked this week. Reckon I'll actually get to knit later tonight.