Me being somewhat full of myself

Most of my work days seem to follow the pattern of “Feast or Famine.” There are very few days when I am just steadily busy. And today fell squarely in the famine category.  I performed a total of seven exams….the equivalent of two hours of work in a nine hour day. So on days like this I have to find ways to keep myself busy so I don’t end up drooling on my keyboard.

Since I work at a satellite branch of the clinic (and because of the advent of digital imaging and electronic medical records) there really isn’t any paperwork for me to do. And of the tasks there are; I can usually accomplish them in about a half an hour. So that still leaves me with six and half hours of nothing much going on…This is where having a strong post-apocalyptic skill set comes in handy. (A.K.A. “Knitting”)

I have achieved a status similar to that of an eccentric mascot among my coworkers since I moved to this location. I am now officially known as “The One Who Knits.” (Personally I think it sounds kind of mystical…like I could be sitting in a Buddhist-style temple dispensing eternal wisdom as I work the fabric of the universe on my needles of destiny…)  

As I worked on a variety of Christmas projects, and now as I am about halfway through a baby blanket, I have gathered a small “following” of nurses, MAs, and receptionists who stop by my desk on their way to check faxes in order to ooh and ahh over whatever I packed with me that day.

It’s definitely a big stroke to my ego every time I get a comment on how even the gauge is, or how intricate the pattern is turning out. I’ve even convinced one of the After Hours receptionists to let me teach her during the slow evenings. (She kept saying how much she would like to knit, but that she just didn’t have the patience for it. I just had an inner giggle thinking of all the Yarn Harlot quotes about how much patience doesn’t have anything to do with knitting…and how most knitters aren’t patient at all. Yours Truly included.) But today I reached a new level of greatness in one nurse’s eyes.

You see, despite my best intentions (and the arsenal of music and audio books I have on my kindle), I do sometimes get drowsy after the third straight hour or so of knitting. (Sometimes not even that long. Ask Chrissy—she has photographic proof.) And today I must have nodded off in the middle of a lace row on the blanket or something; because by the time I got to the end, I realized that I was way off on my stitch count…way off. 

Not realizing that the nurse was right behind me, I muttered a not-very-ladylike phrase and proceeded to rip back the offending stitches. I heard her startled gasp and I turned around to blush…I thought she must have heard me and been offended. But she just rushed over to the blanket and picked up the bottom as if it were made of glass. After a confused beat on my part, I asked her what was the matter. She just looked at me and stroking the blanket, said quietly, “You put in so much work...and now you’ll have to start all over.”

I was so surprised by her response that all I could muster up was the phrase, “Umm…no, actually.” I proceeded to explain that I was just pulling back a few rows in order to fix a mistake, and that I would put the stitches back on the needles in just a second. Apparently, that concept rocked her world. 

She told me that her mother-in-law had tried to teach her to knit when she was first married. But every time she made a mistake, her mother-in-law made her pull everything out and start over. After the third time, she decided she’d had enough and never tried again. She watched me put the blanket back on the needles and was even more amazed when I fixed the twisted stitches as I came to them…I have to admit, watching myself through her eyes, I felt pretty darn cool. And it seems I’ll have another pupil whenever the evenings get slow. Yay! 

So, to paraphrase the Yarn Harlot once more: there are plenty of other really scary things in life to be afraid of, don’t be scared of string and needles. Knit boldly on! (If nothing else, it can spare you six hours of mind-numbing boredom on a slow workday!)