How to Screw Up Two Projects in One Day

...or, Do All Pilots Sound Like Robert Stack?...

Last week brought me a world of pain, and I don't think I'm going to be let off the hook any time soon.

Monday/Tuesday was spent at work - lots of stressful hours covering for someone on vacation and getting ready for a conference in the midwest. Worked 23 hours in 2 days, only to get up at 3am on Wednesday and catch a 6am flight to Missouri by way of Atlanta (huh?). Several days of meetings, presentations, and a wee bit o' fun (it's nice working for a beer company), and then I was set to return home Friday evening.

You see, I never really mind hanging out in airports. There is plenty of knitting to do, after all. The ipod was fully charged, and I was all set to go. The trip from NY was great - gots lots of sock-knitting done - even ran into a flight attendant who was familiar with the addiction that is knitting socks. A few nights in the hotel room I was able to take care of a row or two on my shawl, and Friday evening was to be a looooooong wait at the airport - we were done with our lunch meeting around 1pm, and my flight didn't leave until 6. Primo knitting time.

I headed over to the Schlafly's Tap Room on the concourse - a lovely, quiet bar, since no flights were leaving or arriving any time soon. Had a great couple of beers (they're not really competition - they do a lot of "Pro Beer" activities with my company) and a lovely conversation with a bored barkeep. Then I headed to the waiting area (where there were ROCKING CHAIRS!) and started to work on my shawl. I was just rollin' along, enjoying myself, when I realized (oh, about 90 minutes later) that I'd done something stupid and forgot a yarnover on a previous row, but somehow I screwed up on the following row and didn't realize I'd had the wrong number of stitches. Dangit. I'll have to rip back to my lifeline, but not at that moment - it was almost time to board, and this cute little girl kept talking to me about planes, so I just chilled out with her and her dad - who, I'm sure, was on alert from Possibly Crazy Knitting Lady - you never know about people in airports.

Being that I wasn't going to arrive until LATE that night, I sprang for the "Business Class" upgrade, which equated to about $25 per hour of airtime. Sold. Leg room, free drinks, and first off the plane at midnight? No question about it. So I chilled out in the front of the plane with some wine and a great conversation with a small college football coach. The college was small. The guy was huge. Behind us was an American pilot (who had the piloty voice, even without being over an intercom), who was talking plane malfunctions (oh joy) with someone, and I kept thinking about how I picked a bad time to stop sniffing glue. No real knitting got done - I was enjoying my buzz and some eye-resting time.

The connection in Atlanta found me connecting with a friend who'd recently moved down there, so that was a fun little side-track. Then I boarded my second leg of the journey next to some weasel from Las Vegas who was definitely coming down from some odd kind of high. I scooched closer to the window and started working on my socks.

And wouldn't you know it - I screwed up the first row. Only realized after I tackled the second row. As I was unknitting back, I dropped a stitch, and it fell a few rows before I caught it. Sigh. Put knitting away. Order another wine, and crank up the ipod.

The weekend was spent recovering from the travel, and last night was spent getting yelled at by community members who evidently don't read announcements about what topics are being discussed at certain meetings. I won't go into details, and I certainly understand their issues, but shouting at our Committee members about their concerns was like yelling at a knitter for the plight of underage factory workers in China.

Thank goodness Joe was good enough to make a delicious chili for dinner, and two beers later I was in bed.