Lara’s World

Blogland, you will love this. I swear to God.

Last summer, I grabbed myself a job doing the lunch shift at a little pizza place. I needed something part time, and I had just read a couple of Terry Saltz mysteries. He was a carpenter who also worked for a pizza place, and I loved the generosity of spirit of both Terry and all who worked there. They were a team, and contributed to the best of their abilities to get the job done. So I figured, why not? On Craigslist one day I found a job posting asking for someone to do the counter and phones, etc. at lunch 5 days a week. I emailed the poster and said I was interested, had some experience, and left my contact info. Simon called my cell and left a voicemail giving me the rough details and also left a phone number to call him. A phone number I could not understand, though I listened probably 6 times. Basically, I had the name “Simon,” the town, and the fact that they made pizza. Nothing else. What did I do? I googled “Simon,” the town, and the word “pizza.” And up came an article that had been written about the shop two years before.

Fast forward to when I’ve been there a couple of weeks. During a quiet moment I decide to mess with Simon a bit and tell him how I couldn’t understand his vm and only found the restaurant because I was psychic. (No connection to any of my earlier posts – I was just playing around). I figured I could at least make him wonder how I found the place. So I tell him I’m psychic, and what does my new boss say? “I know – I read your blog.”

Can you say “I Feel Naked?” He’d read my blog? Apparently, he’d googled me too when I came to work there. Sheesh. I did ultimately explain how I really found his shop. But sheesh. There’s no going back once your boss has read your blog. And it gets better; from time to time he’d mention to my coworkers that I had a really nice blog and that they should check it out. I think I managed to distract them from doing this, but who knows? Maybe they all tune in. I hadn’t updated it for sometime actually, and only started up again recently. So maybe Simon has stopped tuning in himself. I guess we won’t know until he leaves a comment. And he will, if he reads this. Believe you me. For example: one day I laughingly told him to give a customer extra ketchup because the customer was cute. Simon, without batting an eye, turned around and told the customer why he was getting extra ketchup. Yes, this is who I work for, people.

So anyway, fast forwarding again, a couple of weeks before Christmas, a guy with a cute handmade hat walked into the store one day and confessed that yes, his gf had knit the hat for him. Simon thought that was pretty nice, and when I asked him what he’d want if I made him something for Christmas, he picked a scarf. And a color. Do you know how hard it is to find purple yarn that a man could wear? Simon did inform me that he was secure enough in his masculinity to wear any purple yarn that I wanted to use (cough), but after perusing a bit, I found a gor-gee-yous Rowan tweed, Harris Tweed Aran, to be specific, in a color called “Thistle.” It’s a deep, rich violet flecked with purple and red, 100% virgin wool from the hills and dales of Scotland…ahem. I set to work a couple of weeks before Christmas, and gave him the finished product today:

I was a little verklemt to give it up, actually. I’d put in a lot of time and energy, in the best possible sense. You see, I consider Simon a heart friend. He’s generous in a big way, and always seems to try to be the best person he can be. I’m sure he wouldn’t put it that way, but there it is. He’s a thinking man, and likes to debate. (In fact, debating is a HUGE pastime for most who work at this shop.) I’m grateful for him in my life and as my boss, so I put a lot of love into this scarf. Have you ever made a healing shawl?? Well that’s exactly what I did. I created it with the intention and request of the universe that it be a healing scarf, and that it remind Simon that he is loved whenever he wears it. I knit it with the intention that he and his wife and kids experience great peace, happiness, and joy. I find that healing shawls have a lot of power, and you know it when you’ve just placed one around your shoulders. This is what I wanted for the Sime-ster.

Now Simon is also like a big brother to me…which means many good things, and also means that sometimes we drive each other apesh*t. The holiday season was a bit stressful, and as I knit I reminded myself of all the wonderful things he’s done for me, and chose that to focus on, instead of being irritated. Hehheh. It does help,though. Seriously, read up on the Law of Attraction. At the end of the day, anything I could complain about with regard to him, he could make an identical complaint about me. Which is why I didn’t complain when he asked for 1/2 inch fringe on the ends of his scarf. If you promise not to tell him, I will confess to you that the fringe is actually about 1 inch long:

For you knitters, the scarf is about 56 inches long, and about 6 inches wide…unless you stretch it out until it measures about 10 inches wide. Why is one able to do this, you ask? Because it was knit in an aran design called a speckled rib from the Encyclopedia of Knit and Crochet Stitches. If you like what you see, grab an aran weight yarn and cast on 27 stitches with size 8 straights. Knit the speckled rib until the scarf is as long as you want it to be. I have to tell you, knitting with Harris Tweed (I think it’s now produced as Rowan Scottish Tweed) was a super treat. It’s not the kind of yarn I go for for myself…I tend to be the bargain girl, but have broken that habit I hope. It makes sense to buy the best you can afford of what you like the most…a piece will have a whole different energy about it. That’s why I chose this yarn for Simon’s scarf. In addition to the piece, your experience of creating it will have a whole different energy too…higher, more loving, more special, more magical.

Aside from verklemtness, it was also nice to hand it over today. Since Christmas I’ve been having pangs of guilt that it wasn’t done yet. Sheesh. Now, I’d recently made some real progress, so it was well underway. This past weekend I brought my new nephew and his parents up to the shop to introduce them all and buy dinner. I quietly told Simon I was not there for a discount (after he jokingly offered me one if I prepped some of the food), but that I simply wanted to introduce my blood family to my Bravo family, and to get the former some great food for supper. When we went to leave, Simon wouldn’t let me pay him. As in, ignored me (i.e., pretended I wasn’t speaking) when I tried to argue. We went home and feasted, believe you me. My brother had chosen the shop’s famous grilled chicken dinner, and once he managed to steal a few of my (also famous) steak tips, vowed to go back up there whenever he came to visit. Please. My whole family had already had nominated Simon for sainthood for generosity alone. And Simon and my brother got to talk politics and trade jokes about what a pain in the ass I am; I think they may get engaged, to be honest. Regardless, after all this, I said to my mother, “I think I better hurry up and finish this man’s scarf.” And actually, it wasn’t out of guilt at all. I felt a sincere gratitude in my heart, and channeled that energy to finish a purple tweed scarf for a kind friend.

So I finished it, and danged if it didn’t feel pretty good around my neck. But I tied a bow around it and gave it to its intended. Who seemed to like it pretty much.