ANOTHER VICTIM GRATEFUL RECIPIENT

I've found another person willing to wear a pair of ankle-warmers -- probably the most unconventional of all my nieces and nephews.

Not only is this person willing to wear a pair of ankle-warmers, he declares he's willing for all the world to see, and may even wear them OUTSIDE his trouser legs.

There's more: He might even be willing to wear OUTSIDE his trouser legs a pair of ankle-warmers with the colors of the local football team -- red and white. So I've knit up some in both colors, AND a special pair with red-and-white stripes.

This nephew lives several hundred miles away, which means I may never know if he makes good on his word, but in the meantime, he's wrapped me around his little finger.

WAITING IN QUEUE LINES

That's when I get my knitting done -- well, some of it.

I'm not like that dedicated Canadian knitter who carries a sock project with her wherever she goes and once lost a ball of fine blue merino yarn down an elevator shaft, but whenever I'm faced with making a telephone call that is likely to put me in a queue line the first thing I do is pick up a current project.

It's a bit of a trick to tuck the telephone under a shoulder, but once settled it does very little to slow down my pace. Normally, I wouldn't even mention that I'm knitting while I'm talking -- or waiting -- but once I got so angry at the transaction I snapped back at the service representative by telling her that I had already spent so much time explaining my problem to so many people I had been able to knit fourteen rows on a rather complicated shawl.

The last part was a lie -- I don't knit complicated things. The fourteen rows might have been an exaggeration as well, but I heard a little gasp and I knew she had gotten my drift. I regretted later that I had not asked the service representative about her current knitting project.

Maybe even given her my blog address.