It's Winds-day

"What I like doing best is me going to visit you and you saying 'Pooh, how about a smack-a-rel of honey.'" Winnie the Pooh to Christopher Robin, from the film "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" (The books are still packed away, hoping, one day, for shelves they might call home.)

It's a rainy, drizzly kind of day here in NC. A soft rain, a nice, not-frightening-dogs kind of rain, and we even have the kitchen window open (where Barkley and I are right now) to let in a cool breeze.

What I love about the yarn-store: I forgot what it's like to spend hours away from home a few times a week so when you return, home seems like a highly coveted place to be. The experience is groovy (more later) and the days there are well spent, but hearing the alarm go off this morning and knowing I didn't need to start sprinting around the house, releasing dogs from bedrooms, crates, and other forms of confinement to let them out into the backyard then hustling them back into the house because it was raining and no one cares for Eau de Damp Mutt- well, staying right where I was, it was lovely. I hadn't realized this really, until now. What's that old pick-up line... "I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you walk away." That about sums it up, but in a non-pervy way.

The store is lovely. Highly political though. Highly. You snicker, but, Oh BOY, (as my dear friend Nolan would say), it is a landmine in there. I've realized I need to get my steely game-face on- UT v. Florida kind of game face. Ha! Can't imagine I'll ever be able to see those baby-blanket-crocheting women as the Patriots to my Patron Saints of the AFC. Oh BOY.

In the past I've decided I'm not cut out for retail. Two stints (each lasting upwards of one to two weeks) at The Gap and Pier 1 Imports proved this to me. I decided, while still in school, there were two types, the restaurant type and the retail type. I fell, with a thud, into the first. Hustle, bustle, constant change, a fifty-percent discount on food, and a gambler's highs and lows regarding money all suited me fine. At Pier 1, after my bazillionith time, in the same day, of moving candles I realized I couldn't cut it. I was Sisyphus, only my punishment involved eucalyptus scented bags of potpourri.

This is so much better. As its not a chain store, there's lots that can be done and improved without appealing to the Holy Trinity for bath salt-moving approval, the people who come in are chatty and friendly and don't send you off with "I'm JUST looking" in the same tone they might use if you tried to sell their children crack, and when the yarn gets changed around its fun to move and coordinate with different parts of the store. And, as its not exactly a happening place all the time, it helps I enjoy the company of me, myself, and I as much as I enjoy that of others. Maybe more. Hmm...