Faster----- Faster!!

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............. I'm knitting as fast as I can. Surrounded by innumerable interruptions (the nerve) and getting ready to go on a bride scouting expedition tomorrow (aka a bridal show)---- I'm knitting. The bridal show is thankfully only 4 hours long punctuated by packing up today, setting up tomorrow and the inevitable grab it down when the last bride has sauntered through. Dinner will be served this evening and I might even try to smile about it, but tomorrow? No, the evening meal will come after a well timed phone call is placed or something comes through the window.

As Melissa (author of Two at a Time Socks) and I keep bantering back and forth about, I am trying to get that last sock on the doubles done. She thinks I should just cast on and full steam ahead. At this point it is the principle of the thing, you know? I have about another inch and a half before starting the toe decreases so I do have every expectation that in spite of a full weekend of work they will get done. I do so love that feeling of a finished object, really when you think about it not many things feel better!

I've been thinking about love and relationships lately. I think it must be sparked by a comment at knit group last Sunday and the knowledge that I'll be toiling away while they knit bravely forward tomorrow. It could also be the fact that hearts and cupids are springing up everywhere from the cover of the Walgreen's Easy Saver Catalog to the delicious looking chocolate Valentine's Day treat on the Cover of the King Arthur's Bakers Catalog. In any case it is a well accepted fact that as you get older, you (hopefully) get wiser and with that comes a wealth of relationship experience. We've seen (and lived) love that works and love that doesn't.

Does love change to the point that it can't rebound? Is a resurrection of sorts possible when love has mutated to the place where it really doesn't have much resemblance to what it used to be? And perhaps the most important question of all is at what point do you have to see the symptoms to be able to schedule the fix? What are you willing to call love? How do you define it?

As a case in point, my ex best friend--- before she kicked me to the curb only to be run over by a bus--- had a marriage that was viewed by all as this perfect bastion of happiness. Only when you were on the inside track did you know that there was just a generally pleasant friendship there, two people that sort of respected each other living in the same house. There was not one ounce of passion, she was the worst housekeeper I've ever known and he was a bit of a blowhard who pretended he was far more successful than he was. They played hard at making things look great, that the love was to be envied. I mean, they probably slept together twice a year and for her it was duty bound. That love was, for her anyway, perfectly acceptable. I'm sure it drifted off many years ago, yet there was never any real effort to get it back on track. For her this new incarnation of love is perfectly fine, there is nothing to fix.

I have been one of those women who when faced with infidelity, the love is over. Done. And yet, there are plenty of women out there (and men) who are able to put the past behind them and move ahead to find love anew. Love for me needs to have a bit of the pitter patter, it should be as warm as a favorite sweater and yet still fresh and crisp with wow.

What do you think? Can you keep love as sharp and fresh as ever? It the fact that it mellows a bit something that happens in every case?

Enough of the sentiments of love------ in bits and pieces dibs and dabs, I knit.

Get knittin'!