I knit two rows this week…….no, I am not sick…..yes, I had plenty of airplane time.  How could this be…

Let’s first say it was an intense week for my real job. A business conference. If you don’t know the drill it goes like this; early morning breakfast meetings, general sessions, breakout sessions, special customer meetings, cocktail hour, dinner meetings, after dinner meetings, sleep for 3 hours then repeat…….Meetings like this for me are exciting, thought-provoking, and exhausting.

To begin with, I selected the wrong choice in carry-on knitting. Black, lace weight, charted lace pattern. What was I thinking!

Going to the conference, I had Mr. Hog the Arm Rest because he had the middle seat guy.  Even when I pulled out the Addi Turbo Lace needles he did not back off.  Then the window seat person closed the shade as did the window seat person in the aisle across from me. Can we say darker than normal on a plane and trying to knit black. Yup you get it. Did it stop me oh no…..just let me do two rows get off pattern and try then for the rest of the trip to back it up and not drop stitches!

Knitting was set aside as the conference began. I did have one early morning with no meetings and bright sunlight in my hotel room. I ticked back those two rows and fixed the pattern, it was a SSK and YO that were out of sync. Now I was ready to go for my airplane ride home!

Conference over…..mad dash to airport. What! flight delayed…..long lines everywhere…..no place to sit. I should be knitting, but chose to get caught up on email knowing I would have airplane time to knit. Emails complete…..time to board plane. Let the knitting begin!!!!

This time no Mr. Seat Hog….everyone left the shades up. Yarn out, chart out, headphones on, music up….let the knitting begin!!!

Nooooooooooooo! Mr. Middle Seat wants to chat with me! Does he not see my headphones…..my knitting! He wants to talk with me about my chart and my knitting.  Just somebody Shoot Me Now.

I failed to mention that while I was at a Business Conference the rest of the world was in the same city at the Google Conference. The plane I was on was filled with geeky boys and girls that were really wired up and excited about….well you know geeky stuff.

So Mr. Middle Seat was a geeky engineer that was fascinated by my knitting chart. And shouting so I could hear him over my music/headphones the “party” began. “I just figured out you are using the chart for what you are doing”  Me well “Duh, yes, it is called knitting….trying to work on this project that requires focus”

Mr. Middle Seat….”What do all the markings mean, why are part of the numbers on one side of the chart and part of the numbers on the other side of the chart…can you talk me thru what it all means?”

Me, ripping off my headphones…..”I will show you one row then I really have to put these back on and FOCUS on this project!”

I will never EVER be this polite again…….I am going to practice sneezing and coughing so I am left alone. The one row took two hours because Mr. Middle Seat was Mr. Man of four hundred questions. The two hours, was the full-time of the flight……Thank God only two hours.

The second row was completed on the rest of my journey home. A short ferry-boat ride. I had just pulled out my knitting when a woman plopped down in the seat next to me with the “Hope you don’t mind if I sit here” Doomed, I thought I was doomed. I told her I did not mind, but was on a difficult knitting row and had to stay focused. She immediately pulled out her bag of knitting…..her bag said it all “Shhhhhhhh, I am knitting!!”

I am finally among my people! Welcome Home!