*Feeling the heat.*

“Charlotte Lucas has just accepted Mr. Collins,”:http://librivox.org/pride-and-prejudice-by-jane-austen-solo-project/ and I have just begun the foot of the sock (part two). The days are counting down to the completion of the union of the two (socks), and I am feeling the pressure, though I admit my own happy occasion must be one of more perfect joy than that insensible pair.

Guess what I’ve been listening to?

It’s Wednesday night, near midnight, the posting hour. I had wondered when I finished the first sock in lovely Plan-perfect time what I would do if I finished… um… _early_. HA HA HA. No fear. The last four days have afforded me less-than-ample knitting time paired with many a distraction. Chris was gone to San Jose; Ben was unhappy by his absence and then developed a fever and some flu symptoms, which meant that, poor dear, he sleeps badly and wants me with him nearly constantly. In the past few days, when finally sleep would claim him, I found that I could only crawl out from the bedroom and curl up in a ball on the sofa, absently reading old archives of “Baby Blues*”:http://www.babyblues.com/ comics and waiting for the boy to stagger out, half asleep and murmuring pitifully for my company, as he inevitably did, hour after hour, until I gave up and went to bed myself.

Ah, but we are all about the knitting content, right? What this comes down to is that it has taken me several days to finish the heel (four. Four days to finish what took me _one_ last week. This is why projects don’t get done in better time around here. _Life,_ drat it, that’s why). I am approximately half an inch past the heel into the foot.

Such tardy progress requires drastic revisioning of the Plan. I now have three days in which to finish the sock. I must finish the foot and the toe by Saturday night in order to wash and block them that evening in order to have them dry and wearable by Sunday. ARRRRRGGHHHHH! Can it be done? _Can it be done?_

Certainly it can be done, and easily too, if this stupid _life_ business weren’t so, so, so persistent. (Remember that old _Twilight Zone_ episode, the one where the man stopped time and was so happy because now he could read all that he wanted all day long with no one to bother him, but then he broke his glasses and couldn’t see? Well, I can knit by _feel_.**)

So now you must be wondering, “Where is the photo?” Well, Chris may be home but the camera is MIA somewhere in the bowels of his belongings here or at work. And as I remarked upon the reliability of our Trusty Backup regarding photos taken after sunset, you will just have to imagine a long, wrinkled tube of lovely gold-yellow-orange merino with an awkward curve at the bottom. Remember the photo of Hershey monitoring the glory that was sock (part one) in its adolescence?

This, a photo of Hershey feigning disinterest (from the same photo shoot), is a pretty accurate idea of where I am now with sock (part two).

Besides, the tension is mounting, is it not? Three days. Five inches. Two repeats and a toe. Can she do it? With two sickie boys in the house?

Better question still: What about those blockers, anyway?

Hershey may yet have merino popsicles at his disposal.***

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*Don’t ask me why I’m reading archives of Baby Blues. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t read this particular comic strip in months, and when I found the site I began reading. I’ve had the page open for days now, and when I’m so tired that my brain won’t function I open it up and read a dozen strips, oddly consoled by the knowledge that the entire strip is about parenthood and a resulting lack of brain function.

**Can’t you just feel the knitting goddesses plotting a strike of punishment at my hubris? It’s coming. I know it. I may end up an insect or strangled by my own warping board. If this happens, you heard it here first, tell the police. They need to know the truth.

***I’m pretty sure that “merino popsicle” is not a phrase used much in Austen’s writing. If you know me to be wrong, please correct my inaccurate assumption.