Poll results are as follows:
A. Everybody who has not seen the Yarn Harlot’s work on non-frogging fixes told me to frog the sleeve, but I HAVE seen her talk about non-frogging fixes, so I just stitched the little hole closed. Nobody can tell–the thumb hole was on the fold. It’s fine. And because the Yarn Harlot said it was okay, I’m okay with that.
B. I’ve managed to knit for two nights running by just letting the offending animal slide to the side of me where it gets comfortably wedged. It’s like my thigh fat is a thunder shirt. Everybody’s happy.
C. Laundry with dog. It’s not like their hair doesn’t get everywhere anyway.
D. Gibby is NOT acclimating well, although I thought she was last night. I know this because today she disappeared, and we had a daylight edition of “WHERE THE HELL IS THE DOG???” complete with me running to the neighbors houses and knocking on their doors.
She was in the laundry.
Fucking dog.
E. Apparently every part of Con Air is completely ridiculous, which is, from what I understand, part of its charm.
If you all say so, who am I to disagree?
And as for the rest of the weekend?
Well,
A. I finished the sweater!
B. Squish started to crochet something of her own
C. Mate and I went to the protest for ICE.
And this was sort of a story.
For one thing, it was hot–everybody knows this, it was hot everywhere.
We had shade for a little while, and then I elbowed Mate.
“Hey–who’s that big kid with the sign over there?”
Mate and I were delighted–there was our son! Bless him– he has to take two buses to get downtown, but he was there to protest, and we were so proud!
His sign said “Children need their parents… Not concentration camps! Fuck Civility!” And you may notice that his block letter game was about on par with my own. (I.e. neither of us should be allowed near art supplies ever. That’s why I do yarn. There’s a certain mathematical precision there that keeps me from just fucking up outrageously.)
So I bailed from our shade (Mate was like, *flail* “Why didn’t you just let me go get him?” and I was like, “Because I was stupid!” Because we both knew we’d never get that shade back!) and went to… well, bother him.
First he kept letting go of the sign and it would flail about and hit his father in the ear, so there was nagging about that. Then I made him put on sun block, and then we asked him if he had water. After an hour and a half of listening to the speeches and cheering when we were supposed to, I started to feel lightheaded. 90 + degrees, right? It was either leave then or throw up and need the medical tent in about half-an-hour, so I opted out of the march and left it to my son. Before we left we gave him out satchel with some granola bars and the rest of the water.
As Mate and I were walking back to the car, I said, “You noticed his sign said ‘Children need their parents,’ right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, we showed up and gave him water, sunblock, granola bars, and a bag to put them in, and then nagged him about how to protest responsibly. I guess he was right.”
Mate high-fived me, because THAT folks, is an A+ in parenting right there.
On a more somber note, he’s 25, and I showed up and worried that he needed me. His sister is 23 and if we don’t see her, she still texts every day. I can’t leave my 12 and 14 YO kids alone for more than 2 hours without worrying–hey, did you guys eat? Are you bored? Have you exercised? Don’t forget to drink water? Did you want to do something today? I love you!
There are parents out there who had their children yanked screaming from their arms–their much younger children–and haven’t seen them for thirty days, and our government did that, and that is not okay.
Children really do belong with their families–the demonstration was great. I hope RAICES got a fuckton of money, and the same for the ACLU. I’m done thinking our government got the message–they’re ugly greedy vile men who do not care–but I’m hoping the REST of the country got the message to make them stop this policy, and to keep fighting until its fixed.
I know there’s a lot of other ugly things our ugly government has done–but we’re all fighting on the front we feel most passionate about. Guess this one is mine.
