Random Things Thursday:

Well, they caught the alleged murderer. I was wrong about him being in another country; he was two towns over hiding out in the house of a family friend. He's now in the state pen (because he's classed as a "flight risk." No fake.) His mom helped him - so she's in jail now too.

I like to think that if a relative of mine was accused of a crime, in jail, and escaped and came to me, I'd tell them (even if I thought they were innocent; especially if I thought they were innocent) that they needed to turn themselves in and get things cleared up. But I don't know.

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There's been a certain amount of talk on the knitblogs about stash-guilt, stash-reduction. I don't know. I will admit to feeling a small twinge when I realize I've spent my month's "entertainment budget" on yarn (it doesn't happen OFTEN but it has happened). But, the stash itself doesn't haunt me in the way that some people's seems to them. (Part of it may be lack of a SO/housemate commenting on the size of the stash; I don't really tell people how much I have). Sometimes I will open up one of the plastic storage buckets I have and look at it - run my hands through it, sometimes pick up a skein and smell it (non-knitters: different natural fibers have distinctive scents - some of which are pleasurable, or at least are pleasurable to people who've spent a lot of time working with the fibers). Kind of like Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vault of gold coins.

When I look at my stash, I get sort of the same feeling I did as a child when I'd go down to the basement and see the shelves of canned peaches and strawberry jam and dilly beans that my mom "put up" - the sense that even if something "bad" happened in the outside world, we'd be okay, because we had enough food stored up. (I feel that same way as an adult when I look at my little pantry: I always keep beans on hand, and canned corn, and tomatoes, and peanut butter, and other staples that will keep a long time on the shelf).

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After looking at my stash yesterday afternoon, I wound off a little bit of yarn to use soon: I'm going to use the Lisa Souza "Sock!" in Petroglyph to make the Jaywalker socks. (Yeah, as usual, a month or more late to jump on a trend.) But I'm not going to refer to them as "Jaywalkers" - instead, I'm going to call them "syncline/anticline" socks.

I also wound off some pink, yellow, and peach worsted-weight I bought back in October for socks. The yarn has no company listed on the tag, it's just called "Andes." It's one of those Chilean wool yarns. And I'll say - this is the second time with some kind of South American-spun wool I've had the same problem. The first skein was okay, but the second skein was actually two short skeins and one longer skein wound together. So I have two segments of probably 20-25 yards each, and then a longer segment. (And no, this was not bug-doing. I can tell bug-eaten yarn and this was not bug-eaten. It was just someone going "okay, well, we've got these bits and bobs, let's stick them in a skein - who's gonna complain?"). It irritates me because one of the things that is aesthetically pleasing to me about knitting simple socks is that you can do it with ONE CONTINUOUS STRAND OF YARN for the whole sock - no joins, no need to work in ends. But I'm probably going to need to on this sock.

I also had similar problems with the burgundy colored Araucania when I wound it off for the Fibonacci sweater. That wasn't as big a deal because the stripes meant you dealt with small lengths of color. But still.

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We are not going on the field trip next week for Youth Group. The kids were really disruptive again last night - the older ones are getting the idea that they can wander off, randomly, between dinner and the lesson. And it's like gathering up baby chicks to get them together again - you get a group in the room and when you're chasing down the rest, THEY wander off.

So we told them: since you're not listening to us here, how can we trust you to listen to us out in public, where you will be representative of the church? (We did leave the option open that we'd go at a later date if they showed us they could be more mature).

We also had considerable problems with one student - and I'm having considerable conflicted feelings about the outcome of the situation. We have one kid who sort of showed up and started coming but he always makes trouble. Last night was an example: it was raining, so we couldn't do the planned outdoor games. So we got out the board games and told the kids that we were going to play games indoors. All the other kids picked a game - dominoes, or checkers, or Scrabble, or Foosball - and settled in to play. This guy, he didn't like any of the choices - he didn't like board games. He didn't want to play air hockey or ping pong. He didn't want to play foosball.

Instead, he wandered around and disrupted the other kids. Threw ping pong balls at the kids playing air hockey. Upset the checkers board in the middle of a good game (I will say: the kids playing checkers - two younger kids - dealt with it pretty well. I could tell one of them was mad but he came up to me and said "Is it okay if R. and I go out in the hall and talk for a while?" And they did. And they just hung out.) But this guy was just difficult the whole evening - it was like he was trying to sabotage things. (And it's been like this before).

Well, my co-leader is responsible for driving this guy home, along with a few of the other kids. And she talked with him. (I will also add that I think he's the only kid of whom I have never met a parent or guardian - all the other kids, one of the parents either brings them down, or at least has come by to check up on them). The conclusion was, if he couldn't behave better, he had best not come any more, at least until he grew up a little.

And that's the crux of the conflict for me. I'm not sure I'm real happy about that outcome - I mean, part of me is, because this will probably be Problem (Largely) Solved, because the interpersonal difficulties seemed to flare worst when he was there egging people on. And it's frustrating to have someone you're trying to help seeming to sabotage your efforts. But - I don't want to have the reputation of being a Youth Group that turns people away. I don't want to seem closed or unwelcoming. And I especially don't want to get a call from a parent asking why their son is no longer welcome. But then again - what else do you do? I mean, there was a minor fight - with punches thrown - last night, and it was largely instigated by this guy. (I will say my co-leader told him the "door was still open" if he could change his attitude and be more mature.)

I don't know. With this, it often seems to be "two steps forward, two steps back." I'll feel like I'm doing some good for a while, and then stuff happens that makes me wonder if I shouldn't just ask for my Wednesday evenings back.

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To end on a happier note: sometimes, when I'm just waking up, I have ideas. Most of the time I forget them when I'm fully awake (and those are the ones that seem like "dang, if I could just remember that, I could make a million bucks"). When I do remember them, they're usually pretty stupid. But I had two this morning, one that's pretty good (and may already exist in one form or another) and a second one that's kind of dumb and a little bit You Knit What? inspired:

Good idea: SimQuarium. A computer program that allows you to establish and monitor a virtual fishtank. You have to keep the temperature and the ammonia levels and all that in correct balance. You have to have some way of controlling algae. All the physiological requirements of the different fish you could "choose" for your tank could be programmed in so you'd have to monitor that. And there could be "disaster scenarios" like in the other Sim games, like "your roommate dumps a piranha into the tank" or "the power goes off and you have to figure out how to keep the tank warm." The "reward" would be, if you can get a healthy thriving fishtank, is that it would be there on your computer, kind of like an animated screensaver, to watch.

I even dreamed up that the basepack would be a freshwater tank, but you could buy a saltwater tank "expansion pack."

but like I said, I'd not be surprised if that already existed.

And the dumb idea? Snarkyarns. A yarn company that uses rude, sarcastic names for its colorways. There was one I thought of for a red, white, and blue yarn having somethind to do with jingoism but there could be so many others: a mix of pink and green with some kind of snarky comment about preppies, a tie-dye yarn called Stoner, a purple yarn called "She thinks she's a goddess...do you want to be the one to tell her?" A line of sockyarn called "You're not going to wear these with sandals, are you?"

Like I said, sort of a dumb idea.

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And I wonder: at what point am I "officially" a Southerner, or at least no longer a "Yankee"?

Last night I was talking to one of the young moms at church - she has a 3 year old and a 1 year old. The 1 year old has had a lot of health issues (including what everyone thought was mono until the tests came back negative and he got better). I asked her if he had been tested for allergies.

And then I said: "sometimes, you know, when a kid is just kind of puny all the time, it's allergies."

I think my correct use of the term "puny" in that context wins me at least a few points towards my Southern Lady Merit Badge.