Never Never Land

I disappeared for a while there - Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool happened this past weekend and I didn't want to miss the fun. I managed to spend all day Saturday there, and meet up with friends, and mingle with, I don't know, a few thousand knitters - so yeah, that was what I would call a good day. And I wasn't even succumbing to the temptation to buy yarn until, well, I came across this:

Stonehedge Fiber's Crazy Yarn -
No 2 skeins alike!
Trade with your friends!

I grabbed only 6 skeins, which believe me shows a remarkable level of restraint. I also bought a lucet (yeah, until Saturday, I had never heard of it, either), an excellent fresh-baked pretzel, and - for some reason - a set of leather handles that are supposed to go on a large hand-knit felted bag that I have not created yet. A bag, in fact, that I was not even planning to create until I saw those handles...

I didn't buy this. But I wanted to.

Rhinebeck's weird that way - you end up buying things you suddenly HAVE to use. It's weird in other ways, too:

Now there's something you don't see every day

I drove to NJ next, to visit a friend's church. You see, I grew up with her and now she is an honest-to-God (pun fully intended) Presbyterian minister, which career neither of us - as young girls spending our summer days listening to Peter Frampton and Rod Stewart - would have predicted in a thousand years. Anyway, she's been ministering for a decade, yet I had never managed to see her in the pulpit until this past Sunday.  Life always got in the way.

Her parents drove with me to the church, where we seated ourselves in one of the front pews. Let me say here that I went there fully prepared to act like the 54-year-old adult that I am. But here's the problem: my friend and I haven't spent much time together as adults. So, as soon as we do see each other, some weird sort of age regression happens.

For example, when my mother passed away 7 years ago, my friend showed up at the house and paid a shiva call. She was dressed in her clerical garb and everything, so she looked very official and grown-up. I was dressed as the grieving daughter and also presented a passable imitation of a grown-up.

"So!" she said, after she expressed her condolences. "Did you ever figure out how your mom made her tunafish salad, or did she take that secret to the grave?" And there we were, 2 girls again, giggling our heads off and trying to hide it. I mean, I don't even know why that struck us as funny. You had to be there, as we used to say to each other, way back in the 1970s.

In retrospect, however, I thank God she couldn't make it to the graveside service. I mean, imagine...

So last Sunday there I was, in the front pew, looking forward to the service, when the processional began. And as my friend walked past our pew on her way to the pulpit, it occurred to me (and I think to her, also, simultaneously) that if we should make eye contact AT ALL during that service...well, let's just say that would result in a respectability problem. A solemnity problem. It didn't help that her parents were both there, sitting right next to me - obviously, their presence would only serve to amplify the age-regression syndrome.

I did the only thing I could do - I fastened my eyes on the hymnal and didn't dare look up. If I even thought about inadvertently catching my friend's eye, I felt giggles rising from wherever they start and fighting to reach the surface. Because, apparently, I haven't matured past the age of 12.

Although I do think I'm past the Rod Stewart phase, at least...