The High Street Underground Uranium Mine

So many questions! I realize that I'm bad about responding to previous comments, so I'll try to remedy that today.


But first, my SP Mandy sent me this lovely Noro Kureyon that I'm making into a bag for myself. I only wish my craptastic camera did the colors justice. It is overwhelmingly green, all different shades, with bits of peach and gold and some magenta and purples in there...just too pretty to describe. It's not done, so you only get a peekaloo until then. It still needs a lining.So, in the comments of previous posts, it's been queried as to how I get my spinning so thin, having come a long way from cat barf to be sure! The answer...I don't know. I'm sure it's a complete fluke. I should not be able to do this. And yet, I am. I think it's just this roving. It's a delight to work with, that's all I can say. I've never spun anything so easy to handle before. I am completely smitten. I am in deep smit. And thank you for your lovely complements!


As for the change purses, Jess wants to know if they'll be in my etsy shop. Well, maybe. I haven't listed anything new because I have two craft fairs coming up in the next three weeks. When they're all over, I'll list any unsold inventory then. I didn't see any point in paying the listing fees and then have unlist the item a week later if it sold. So, check back after August 11. I'll know better then what's going online. Bear in mind, yarn ho that I am, that if you see something here that catches your fancy, drop me a line. Make an offer. I'm easy. Unless it's earmarked as a gift, it's probably up for grabs. I knit as a compulsion. I sell the stuff for beer money. It's all good.


Dances in Garden had some good ideas for making the teapot cozy in the round, but alas, it won't work with this style. This has two openings, one for the handle and one for the spout. So in reality, you'd have to knit the sides separately and then join the bottom later, unless you did a couple of rounds, then divided and did the two sides. That would eliminate the need to seam at the very bottom, but then we're only talking about a few stitches.


I suppose I could steek the openings. If I knew how. It's my next great adventure in knitting.


And finally, thank you so much for your good thoughts and your sympathies as far as Fucking Cancer goes.


It is my least favorite disease. Not that I have a favorite or anything.


As far as I know, High Street was not built over a uranium mine or anything. We're on town water and get regular water quality reports, and all is well there. Before my house was built, I think this whole area was just farmland. And last I checked, cow poop doesn't cause cancer.


I have always found it curious that two residents that lived here for many years died of pancreatic cancer. And the dog. (But they're only guessing that it was pancreatic cancer. I didn't ask for a doggie autopsy or anything). However, the rest of the the street has been quite healthy. Well, except for a couple of bad gall bladders, a few knee replacements, some wonky blood sugar, one case of heart disease, and a few kidney stones. And Erly did die of cancer far too young, but hers started as breast cancer, though it went into remission and then came back absolutely everywhere. It was the brain cancer that done her in at the end. (Hers is the wheel on which I am learning to spin, God rest her sweet soul.) So perhaps it's mere coincidence. My mother's friend who died last week had never stepped foot here to my knowledge.

I have read that pancreatic cancer is common in diabetics, and my aunt was a diabetic. And she drank Tab by the gallon. All that saccharin might have done it too, who knows? And I also read that they think that heavy drinking can lead to pancreatitis, which can lead to cancer. The other two did like their beer, so that could have opened that door. But then again, it could just be random. Which is one of the things I hate about cancer. Among other things.


I hate cancer because it's indiscriminatory. It doesn't care if you are a baby or elderly. It doesn't care if you jog three miles a day and eat vegetarian. It doesn't want to be cured, is resistant to treatment, and can go away and come back at will. It doesn't want to show up on screenings, and laughs at the very idea of innoculations. It is cruel. It makes you sick and then the treatments make you sicker, which it considers a very funny joke indeed. And it can come for any of us, despite our diligence, our fundraising walks, our cute colored ribbons, and our fervent prayers.


And it is terrifying. It's name alone is enough to make your blood run cold, especially if you're hearing it in your doctor's office.


Cancer's death toll outstrips the worst despots in history by far. Nothing invented by man, no torture ever dreamed up in the darkest recesses of the diseased mind have ever been able to top what cancer can do.


I hate cancer, and yet I know it's here to stay. And if not, something else equally horrible will take it's place. Why? Because none of us will live forever. We are human, and frail, and temporary. Our lives can be blinked out in an instant because that is the very nature of being human.


I think cancer is here as a teacher. In its merciless way, it teaches us about the frailty of our existence. It guides some of us to a place of faith to where we acknowledge that our will doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this world. It teaches us on a very basic level that every life matters, and if we can do something--anything--to relieve another's suffering, that we should do it. Because we have been given each other to lean on, and knowing that together we can fight, we can win some victories, and we can be lights for each other when it is darkest.


Sometimes it takes the absolute worst to enable us to be our absolute best, you know?