Monday, March 3, 2008

Coffee house knitting

Friday night, I was invited by Gretchen to go and see Prezent Tense (sorry, no link) at Mission City Coffee. I’m always looking to expand my horizons- especially if I can knit while I do it.

I packed Henry and the Manifesto, and headed over. Mission City has a little area that they curtain off for (I assume) events with a cover charge. Fine, cool.

Then they turned the lights down. For “ambiance”. We had exactly enough light to sort of see what we were doing- but Gretch was working on a lace shawl, and Henry, as I’ve mentioned before, is a little fussy to knit.

Couple the bad lighting with a little fatigue, and we have an episode of When Knitting Attacks.

I’ve been keeping a page of tick marks to keep track of what row I’m on. Somehow, during all this, 5 + 5 + 3 = 8. Which made the pattern seem… off. Four rows into knitting in the dark, I realize my folly. Couple that with aching hands (because I can’t throw in the dark), it was the time to put my knitting away.

The music was great, very groovy, and the band dealt beautifully with a crackhead fan sitting in the front row.

After the show, Gretch and I were chitchatting by my car, and got to witness the police try to convince the crackhead to get off of a counter at the dry cleaner’s next door. Two very young cops against a wizened crackhead. It was comedy at it’s finest.

So, to summarize, we’ve learned not to assume decent lighting at any sort of coffee house performance, and when in doubt, ask your knitting friends what 5 + 5 + 3 equals.

3 comments:

  1. Either ask a friend or count on your fingers and toes! Glad to know that I'm not the only one that sometimes can't do simple arithmetic.

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  2. This post makes me thing of the Oakland jazz club and French guy story. Have you posted that or maybe a repost would be appropriate?

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  3. Well, when I caught you trying to count stitches on a dark yarn, in a dark room, against dark jeans.....that's when I finally shoved your white notepad onto your leg so you actually had some CONTRAST to work with!

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