Socks and shepherds

Whenever I try to fix my own knitting mistakes, I make them worse instead of better. I can tink stocking stitch, but nothing fancier than that.

The first time I messed up the socks I’m knitting for GC, Grace fixed them for me. This time Carmen bailed me out. She came over to my house with a beautiful fabric roll. She opened the roll, revealing a stunning collection of quality knitting tools. Some of them were gorgeous wooden tools. Others looked like surgical implements.

And then she buckled down to work. She examined the patient, selected her tools, and began the operation. I was so impressed. Teeny tiny stitches, teeny tiny tools, and she didn’t even need glasses. Plus, she could operate while carrying on a conversation with me as Duncan explored her lap.

Before long, she’d fixed both socks. Not only that, but she offered to help me sew together my Central Park Hoodie, which is knit and blocked but unassembled. We’re going to get together another day and do that.

Knitters are the nicest people.

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In other news, GC and I went to the Shepherds of Good Hope volunteer appreciation dinner on Thursday night. We saw a great big photo of Jennifer there. And we saw a poster collage of photos of Shepherds clients from way back over the organization’s 26-year history.

I recognized one of my customers from when I worked at Bright’s Wines in the Market as a young woman. I even recognized that coat he’s wearing. Jimmy Leslie would come into the wine store multiple times each day to buy two bottles of our cheapest sherry. Bright’s 67. Lots of old street drinkers did that, but I never forgot Jimmy. One time he came in and he was so happy because it was his birthday and his mother had sent him $10. I was blown away that he still had a mother. He seemed as old as the hills to me.

Years later, I read in the Citizen that he had died and one of the local organizations held a service for him. It might have been Shepherds, which was still a young organization at that time. They said his age in the article, and it turned out Jimmy wasn’t anywhere near as old as he looked. Back when I had thought he was as old as the hills, he was only in his 40s.

You ever notice you don’t see a lot of middle-aged people on the streets? Everybody appears to be either young or old. But maybe most of those people who look old are only middle-aged.