More stash enhancement

I can tell when I've been through a period of stress; the packages start arriving in the mail.

I had ordered some stuff from Jimmy Bean's Wool, that just came yesterday - a skein of Noro Taiyo and a lovely Lorna's Laces variegated called Wonderstone. The Taiyo will most likely become socks but the Lorna's may well become a small shawl....the colors in it are too pretty to relegate to my feet. (Even if I am one of those "awful" people who wears Birkenstock sandals with socks when it's cold out).

If it ever gets cold out. It's supposed to be close to 100 today. That is NOT RIGHT. And it hasn't rained more than a trace in FOREVER. I'm eyeing my pecan tree with worry; I don't want it to die because it shades the house but I'm not sure how much water it would take giving it to help keep it going.

They keep promising us cool weather and rain, and it never happens. (Supposedly one of the features of a changing climate is that it becomes harder to predict the weather accurately).

I want it to be cool and rainy. I want it to actually feel like fall, instead of some crazy summer-hanging-on-too-long-wrong-season. Also, the yellow jackets have started up. They always start up when it's hot late in the year, and I really don't like yellow jackets.

I ran down to Sherman yesterday. Got the newest issues of the Brit knitting mags I've been buying. I'm kind of hooked on these, now - they're almost twice the cover price of US mags, but...there are usually twice as many things in them that I would want to knit some day. And it's also just nice to see a peek at a different but related culture.

I also got a replacement rhinestone button (actually, a button plus a circular thingy that I can just stitch on) for the hat, whenever it gets done. And another skein of Cranberry colored wool-ease for My Little Dalarnahorse. (When I finish another thing or two, I will start that)

However, at the very tail end of the trip to JoAnn's, when I was in the checkout line, not too far over (I couldn't see because it was behind the "cattle chute" they have built to direct flow into the checkout stations), a little kid started SOBBING. And then their mom (or other female caregiver, I don't know) started SCREAMING at them and BERATING them for crying. And threatening to leave them behind in the store. (Not a parent, here, but even I know that's the wrong thing to say to an upset kid.)  I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to go over and just....I don't know, witness? Take out my phone and dial 9 and 1 and have another finger hovering over the other 1 in case the person started hitting the child? I kept hoping one of the attendants would go over and do something....but sometimes that's really dangerous in cases like that to try to intervene. It's hard to know what to do and it's awful to witness. I finally stuck my fingers in my ears (I had a headache at that point and that was making it worse) and prayed that it was just that the mom (or whoever) was having a really bad day and that they normally didn't treat the kid like that. I don't know. I'm sure it's hard being a parent but I remember when I'd get upset, or my brother would get upset, my mother would stop, and speak quietly to us, and try to find out what was wrong and if it was something fixable, and if not, try to finish up in the store as fast as possible and get us home.Or if we had just walked in the store, or the purchases were not absolutely necessary, just leave them and leave with us either until we calmed down, or went home altogether.

I don't know. I feel bad about not trying to intervene but those kinds of situations scare me; I've seen parents turn on the person trying to help, or even become meaner to the child because someone intervened.

I also saw a bad accident (after it happened, probably 5-10 minutes after it happened, if the timeline the local news gave was right) in the southbound lane of 69/75 as I was going north. There were still people running to help, and the police hadn't showed up yet. (I did hear sirens, though) They did come along as I drove farther, and at one point when I was northbound on a two-lane, there was an officer coming southbound. I pulled off to the shoulder (as I was taught to do for safety) but none of the other people he passed behind me really did. That surprised me. The rule still is, if you can safely pull over when an emergency vehicle is coming with its lights and siren on, you do, right? I was taught to do that both for safety reasons (they often travel at high rates of speed) and also, kind of, out of respect for the fact that this is a first responder going to do his or her job, and whatever that job is, it is more important than wherever I am going.

Sadly, three people (all residents of a nursing home in Denison) died in the accident, and there were some other people injured. I don't know all the details but apparently they were in one of those minibuses and it rolled over. Not clear what caused the accident at this point.