It’s Furious Balancing

It’s Art Fair time and I’m on vacation.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair, it can only be described as a visit to the seventh circle of Hell. Imagine your average college town¹ with a population just over 100,000, block off four major streets in the downtown and campus area, and invite 500,000 oblivious tourists to come visit over a 4-day time period.

Good God. I hate the Art Fair. I can’t go on talking about it because it will just make me livid. Let’s just say that those 500,000 oblivious tourists have no idea that there are still Real People working and living in this city. Apparently, Ann Arbor is some Brigadoon or Shangri-la of Art that mystically appears for four days in July. Back when I wasn’t wise enough to take my vacation at this time, I would have the urge to stand at the intersection of Main and Liberty and yell “GET THE &^$%# OUT OF MY CITY.”

Deep breath. Moving on.

I did take advantage of the sale at Busy Hands, an LYS² a few blocks from my office. I was planning on braving the crowds on Thursday — a sale on Malabrigo being the only thing that would tempt me out of my quiet, air-conditioned cave to face the Invading Unwashed Hordes.

I picked up five worsted-weight skeins in fuchsia.

Malabrigo Worsted with Cat Foot

It’s just a little over 1,000 yards, so it’s not enough to make a sweater³. It is just too luscious to make into a humdrum hat or some other pedestrian object. I will have to live with the yarn for a little while before it reveals its Higher Purpose to me.

I took the yarn pr0n picture this morning when I was out with the cats. “George, that crazy neighbor lady is taking pictures of yarn again.” In order to look less ridiculous, I took some close-ups of my flower garden. Just to be on the safe side, you know.

Zinnias

 

Rudbeckia hirta, “Autumn Colors”

 

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1. Not that I consider my adopted home average. I have a future post planned on “Why I Love Ann Arbor,” and the non-average bits are well represented on that list. [↩]
2. The acronym for local yarn store. Yes, it is typed as an LYS, and not as a LYS. The a vs. an is determined by how a word is pronounced, not as it is written. You don’t say “a hour,” do you? Think it through, people. [↩]
3. Not a long-sleeved turtleneck, anyway. I could probably find a pattern for a sleeveless or short-sleeved item. [↩]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 11:42 am and is filed under Knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.