Sunday Afternoon in August

Okay, the sheets on our bed are changed, we have clean towels. The violet farm in the bathroom has been tended to and the extravagant window ledge they sit on cleaned. There's a load of clean dishes drying in the dishwasher, and I'll put them away once they're finished. The last time I made broccoli cheese casserole (one of Rich's favorites), I divided it in two and froze half. It's defrosted now, so all I have to do is stick it in the oven, make a salad (I've got a tomato that's right on the edge), stir up the homemade ranch, cook the Sister Schubert's, and I've got dinner ready. Not bad!

It occurred to me this afternoon that cold weather is coming. This last week has been an absolutely awesome reminder of that: There was one day when the high was in the 80s! In Texas! In August! Unbelievable! Anyway, cold weather will be here eventually, and I threw away most of my socks last spring.

I love Cool Max Gold Toe crew socks. I became acquainted with them, maybe, six or seven years ago, at which time I loved them so much I bought about ten pairs, in black and white. (Some pairs were black, some were white. They weren't pairs of black-and-white socks, 'cause that really wouldn't go all that well with anything.) A year or so later I bought another ten or fifteen pairs. Seriously, I wore these things every day.

But now, all these years later, they're worn out. Really, really worn out. Threadbare, in great big patches. And they don't make them any more.

Isn't that the pisser? You grow to love a product, depend on it, and the manufacturer decides they can do better. No Gold Toe Cool Max crew-length women's socks exist any more. Anywhere.

So I decided I better get busy and knit my own.

Yes, you heard me. I'm going to wear custom knit socks. That used to be the norm, you know. Time was that everybody knit his or her own socks, no matter what their station in life (as I understand it, Coolidge was the last president who knitted his own). Knitting your own, insuring a perfect fit, was the best—and sometimes the only—option. Part of a sailor's (and, BTW, a pirate's) expertise was, out of necessity, knitting and darning [repairing] their own socks.

If Long John Silver could do it, so can I. But I'd better get cracking.

I'm not the fastest knitter in the world. And socks are pretty quick, but they do take some time. In the last few weeks I've learned how to make two-at-a-time cuff-down socks (well, actually, I made mitts, but it's basically the same technique) and two-at-a-time toe-up socks. So I should be all set to zip through some socks. All I have to do is get started.

While we're waiting for the new Fall TV shows to start, we're catching up on the Sherlock episodes we haven't seen. So tonight I'll be watching Benedict Cumberbatch and knitting.

What could be better than that?