Color!

One of the perks of having a home-based business is that you occasionally get free goodies and coupons that you don't get just being an individual. Sometimes we get sample ballpoint pens imprinted with Bob's company name, and lately we've gotten a few coupons from office supply stores. I generally ask Bob if he needs anything for the office, and if he does, I get him some copier paper or something, but since he's out of town this week, I used the most current one for myself.

I stopped at Office Depot last night and picked out a bunch of pens and Post-It notes--my favorite things. Cool bright colored ballpoints (have you tried the Bic "Velocity" pens yet? They're pretty nice, and the thing I like best about them is they write right away, you don't have to "prime" them on scratch paper if you haven't used one for awhile) and several packs of Post-Its in neon colors--coral, lime green, stop-sign yellow.

I'm kind of "into" color lately. I think it's the clear knitting bag. I can see whatever yarn I'm knitting with through the bag, and, of course, everything else shows, too, so I've been picking things with color in mind. A lime-green plastic clip holds my pattern index cards together. One of those "Velocity" pens is in the bottom of the bag, a coral pink one. My row counter is red--they only come in red, or I'd have a different color--and my tape measure is ivory with a turquoise center. I have darning needles in an ivory and turquoise "Chibi," a little plastic bullet-shaped holder.

There's a pack of Post-Its in there, too, of course, these in a Winnie-the-Pooh cardboard cover, and a bright pink transparent Clinique coin purse that holds a tiny plastic bag full of (even more tiny) bright colored plastic hair bands that I use as knitting markers. They're tiny, tiny. I can't imagine ever using them on hair--you couldn't even get a finger through them. But they're beautiful--pink and lime green and purple and turquoise blue.

I used to think that those clear plastic purses that women carried were ridiculous, and I still don't think I'd enjoy having the contents of my purse on display for everyone to see, even though I don't carry a lot of junk in my purse like some women do, and I keep it fairly well cleaned out. But I do enjoy the clear knitting bag, and I think it's making me more open to color.

I tend to be drawn to neutral colors mostly, at least in clothing. Black, heather gray, ivory. Those are my staples. But while I was looking for something in my closet the other day, I ran across a butter yellow t-shirt that I bought a few years ago when I visited the San Diego Zoo with Barb, and I wore it, and felt very sunny. Today I'm wearing a rose pink shirt, and my red, white and blue plaid Keds. Maybe it's partly the fact that it's almost summer, and the sun is shining. But I think it's also partly because I've been so immersed in color as I knit, and as I choose the next yarn.

Every time I finish a pair of socks, I get to go to the yarn box and pick the next ball of yarn. I try to do it without thinking about it too much, just sit there and look in, and stir them around a little, and pick the one I'm drawn to.

Right now I'm working on a pair with a cream background and muted pink, green and blue stripes. With a neon pink rubberband for a marker.

Bob bought fresh asparagus one day last week to fix me for dinner, and he gave Dinah the rubber band that was holding the bunch together--a wide purple one. Rubber bands are her favorite toys. She picks it up in her mouth and tosses it up in the air, then jumps after it and tries to catch it mid-flight. She carries them around--this one has been going upstairs with her at bedtime, then back downstairs in the morning--and plays games like tucking them under a door and then trying desperately to retrieve them.

I misinterpreted this game the other night and ruined it for her. She was straining to reach something under the basement door, pulling the door and rattling it back and forth, and I went over and opened the door and retrieved the band for her. But once I did, she lost interest and simply walked away--it wasn't about the band itself, it was about the search. The journey, not the destination. The process, not the end result. I know that, it defines much of what I do. I just didn't realize that a cat knows it. But she certainly seems to.

She'll sit and look at something with her head cocked, and you can almost hear the gears turning as she tries to figure it out.

She's a very complex cat. She's been sleeping on the stool next to the bed that we put there so Doña wouldn't have to jump up to the bed when she got so frail. We put it in between the bed and the chair in the corner as kind of a bridge. Dinah usually sleeps in the chair, but for the past few days I've woken in the night to find her curled on the stool. I'm not sure what that's all about, but it seems to be so that she can be close to me, yet not make the full commitment to sleep on the bed itself, with all its attendant dangers, like someone rolling over on her.

Pye is a little simpler. Her most common facial expression is "What?"

She sleeps right in the middle between Bob and me, quite often on her back, little paws in the air. She doesn't worry about being rolled over on, she figures she'll just get out of the way if it happens, if it even occurs to her at all. I told Bob the other day that Pye just wants some loving and some food; Dinah wants intellectual stimulation.