Almost escape velocity

 I had PLANNED on sleeping in a bit this morning - no need to exercise, having gotten exercise several days in a row and doing the fairly-strenuous lawnmowing yesterday - but my cell phone rang at 5:30 am

NO ONE calls that early unless it's an emergency, and I didn't hear the first ring where the caller is announced (if the number is in my phone) so my heart sank, fearing some emergency.

 Well, it sort of was, but not for anyone I know. It was the city emergency system calling - three inmates escaped from the jail, and since I live about five blocks from there, that's good to know. (They later caught one, but they also apparently cancelled classes on campus today out of an excess of concern). So I was a bit nervous, but then - a few years back the jail here was downright porous, and nothing bad happened to me. But I did wait until it was well light to run the few in town errands I needed to do (fill up the car, take my field stuff back to campus, turn off my office computer on campus, drop off the pile of broken-down cardboard boxes for recycling). Asked the AA in my office if she knew anything (a son of hers is a sheriff deputy). No, no news other than that they caught the one guy but she did note that they were all in on misdemeanors (I guess it was 2 controlled substance distribution, and 1 on-a-warrant elsewhere) and so now they will face even worse penalties than they might have and yeah, I guess I don't always understand how other people's brains work; one of my Prime Directives is "if a situation is bad for you don't make it worse"

But I'm packed. As I said last night, I managed to achieve that without opening the gusset on the suitcase, and while my backpack is full, it's not overfull. And I did tuck in an extra two 50 g skeins of self patterning sockyarn dug out of the stash as either an extra "emergency" project or as a "meh, I'm working on cabled socks now but I'm too tired to cable" project. 

I have been digging in my stash more, and I've really slowed up on buying yarn. Oh, I miss buying yarn, but I look at what I have, and I think about how slowly I knit these days, and I think about how much life remains to me, and yeah: maybe better to craft-splurge on the occasional payhip or Etsy pattern, or an occasional book (I ordered one that is all "Michigan themed" patterns - based mostly on natural features of the state - from Nomadic Knits, and if I like this book I might order some of the others in the geography series they have)

Maybe also, doing this, working down what I have? Will help me break the little bit of the knitting funk I've been in, as I dig through and go "Oh, I forgot this yarn, and this is one I really like!"

(The other option is to really, really ruthlessly sort through and either donate, or post photos here and elsewhere with the offer of sending off yarn for the cost of postage to people. I don't know). 

I also smiled when I grabbed the self patterning yarn because I remembered when I bought it - on the 2019 trip (which seems forever ago, now) to visit Laura when we went to the yarn shop in her  city - it's a pink and gold Lane Cervinia yarn (Heh, I almost wrote "Cerevisia," but that's yeast, not sheep)

And that was something I used to do, especially when I could get to yarn shops (and there were more shops about to go to) - I could remember where I bought something, and a lot of the time there were happy memories tied up with it.  

And this morning, I tucked in the yarn, and also my makeup/hairbrush/toothbrush/mouthguard, and the comfort-animals (with Squishy Dog on top, in case I need a stand-in pillow). 

But now I need to quick eat some lunch - at this point, my train is virtually on time (15 minutes late) so I need to be leaving out of here in about an hour (to allow for the construction on the road, and hopefully to beat the rainstorm, or at least, be across the horrific bridge-under-construction before it hits - I don't want a repeat of last trip, that drive was stressful.)

I didn't get any embargoed posts written but I might be able to tap out a few on my phone, I don't know. Otherwise, I'll be back in a bit more than 2 weeks.