Cuppa Nuthin'

If you happen to be driving around southern Maine and notice a certain Sheep standing on a bridge or overpass weeping and sucking on a used coffee filter, don't be surprised. I'll leave it to your own good judgement as to whether or not you want to stop. This Sheep is a bit on edge and no one will blame you if you decided to depress the accelerator a bit more and speed away. It would probably be for the best.

It seems my coffee maker has died. And it was a good coffee maker. I've had it for just over a year. I am beside myself.

I have tried everything to rectify this situation. I cleaned it. I spoke encouragingly to it. I poked at various orifices with a size 2 aluminum knitting needle. Coffee no come out. I hit it. I shook it. I threatened it. I then apologized for the hitting, poking, shaking and threatening. Still no coffee for Sheepie. There is no reasoning with this machine.

Sheepie is sad. Sheepie is also drinking instant. Sheepie no function so good with the instant coffee. Others suffer when Sheepie no get coffee...

It's not like I'm a coffee snob or anything. But I do require, at the very least, "reasonable coffee." And instant does not qualify. Hence, the bridge scenario...

I am convinced that this whole sad turn of events is directly related to a karmic disturbance caused by my having done a gauge swatch for a sweater I am thinking of knitting up. The universe is just not set up for my engaging in this type of behavior. I'm not much of a swatcher. I've set off a whole chain of events that will probably be the end of life as we know it.

And, apparently, I went about the whole thing in the most wrongest of possible ways. After posting of my swatchiness yesterday, I have now learned that there was really much more to this than I thought. It seems that I am to knit the swatch, wash the swatch, photograph the swatch, catalogue the swatch, make dinner for the swatch and pick out china patterns with the swatch. I have failed utterly. I knit up the recommended number of stitches and rows, measured it, then unraveled it. It was like a swatch break up or something. I'm not all that good at long term relationships. Just ask my coffee maker...

But, I can justify this a bit. The sweater I'm looking at is called "Boxy Jacket" and is not a particularly fitted garment. The yarn is from a Lincoln Longwool fleece that gave me the fits two summers ago when it simply refused to accommodate anything that I thought might be nice to have in a yarn. In fact, it really only decided to work when I simply let it spin the way it wanted to be spun. Thus, I have something of a thick 'n thin thing going on. The gauge was never going to be spot-on under the best of circumstances. But I was able to come quite close and that was good enough for me. And this was back during that halcyon time when I thought I had access to coffee whenever the urge to have some overtook me.

Now that I know better, there will be no further swatching any time soon. Sheep need caffeine in order to do the higher maths. Or count. Or function in society. I'll be on the bridge if you need me...

SA