a day out

 Even though it was hot, I needed to get out of town. Partly for a larger, better grocery than locally, partly because I just needed to get out of town.

I went to JoAnn's (the *fun* shopping) first

Fall is coming. Not fast enough, but it's coming

It begins. Those are halloween themed doormats and even though I have the fall gnomes-with-pumpkins one from last year, I couldn't resist the haunted house one

It's so CUTE

That's a little ghost there peeking out the front door. It almost has a storybook quality - like, a lonely little ghost who loves Halloween because that's the one time of the year he wouldn't totally freak people out.

And then there's stuff I didn't buy. All the "Skeletons of dubious anatomical correctness" which has become a thing but also which several biologists I know LOVE because they are so hilariously wrong. (I know someone with a small collection of these, especially the invertebrate creatures, which don't have internal skeletons like birds or mammals)

And yes, even pumpkin skeletons. I could not justify buying one of these but they did amuse me a lot

 Yes of course pumpkins have a rib cage.

And they probably stepped a bit appropriatively into Day of the Dead stuff with some skeletons-doing-things figurines, but this one really amused me:

"Every day I get e-mails."

Yes, that is a skeleton sitting on a toilet. I have several questions.

***

I also went to the natural foods store and the Kroger. Unfortunately the Kroger:

- was slammed, I guess it was the first post-payday shopping day for a lot of people

- was HOT. the checkout person admitted to me the AC was broken, it was probably over 80F in there. It was not pleasant

- the customer service people apparently had not shown up that day; the cashiers were having to stop and field customer service calls

- as always, it's understaffed: two checkstands open, they called for another person but no one came. 

So I waited. I felt my ire rising as the person ahead of me wanted their order split into two separate receipts and then the cashier had to talk to someone who apparently left behind a bag of the stuff they bought and were angry about it (and also, they either had a bad phone or were hard of hearing). I could feel myself getting angry (it was also well past noon and I'd had no lunch, and like I said, it was HOT in there) but then I looked at the cashier and realized: she didn't cause any of this. It's not her fault. She's already having a bad day, getting angry would only make her day worse and would not solve a single problem because none of the problems are ones she has the authority to solve.

So when she apologized, I shrugged, and said mildly, "It's okay; I can tell today is not a good day in this store" (That's when she mentioned the broken AC). But that part went okay then, once she started checking my stuff out it was pretty fast.

And then I got home.

And started thinking about new projects. I bought a Louise Tilbrook toe-up sock pattern for self striping yarn (it has small, open cables on it) but realized I also wanted to do another pair of "just plain" toe up socks FIRST - I have successfully made exactly one pair previously, and I remember struggling with the toe cast on.

I found the book it was in (a Janelle Laidman book - I modified a more complex pattern with cabled clocks to be just plain) and then dug around in my uncommitted yarn and found two 50 g skeins of a Felici.

KnitPicks usually gives "evocative" names to their colorway. (I am knitting on a pair of "John Boy" socks from another yarn line of theirs right now). This one is called "Good Guy" and I am unsure - at first I though maybe Superman (because of the red and blue) but now I look at it again I wonder if it's really meant to be like Ernie from Sesame Street (the orange of his "skin" and his striped pullover). Or maybe something else I'm not thinking of?

Anyway, my next simple socks will be toe-up and this.