It was a snowy day a few weeks ago when I realized that Marge had no boots to wear. I looked everywhere, sure that I had packed them. I apologized to her for losing her boots. Many, many times over the next day or two I heard about how her boots were just inside the closet door. (I am not sure if it was the closet in her home, or the closet in the assisted living place.) She could picture them in her closet. Also in the closet were some Christmas decorations. Did we bring those? Um, sorry, no. That was a shame. There was a particularly nice Christmas decoration made by a friend of my mom's, purchased at a boutique and cared for all these years. I thought to myself, "How could you be so callous as to not bring along the Christmas decoration?" And, forget the *&*!@! boots?
I checked at Wal-Mart, the only place in Seward that would have women's boots since Kroger's Shoeland closed a few years ago. I bought a likely looking pair of Dr. Scholl's and brought them home. They didn't fit. Marge has "difficult" feet. I took them back.
I heard several times about the boots, now described as overshoes, left by some uncaring person in the closet. Or, maybe the boots were taken by someone who also took the Christmas decoration. Hmmm. . . . overshoes. I looked on line and found some overshoes, literally shoes that go over your regular shoes. I am old enough to have experienced overshoes. Everyone wore them when I was in grade school. They buckled or zipped, and you put them on over your shoes. The overshoes I found online were called "
Neos" and the description said they would fit over any shoes. I followed the instructions for figuring out what size to get and ordered them. They arrived 3 days later and they fit just great! Marge was kind of excited about them, even though in the mean time I found out that when she said overshoes she meant snow boots that you wear instead of shoes, not over them.
I thought I had done something right! Wrong. Two hours later she came marching out of her room with the offensive Neos in her hand and told me they were ugly and she absolutely could not wear them out of the house. After a lot more discussion we put the box back in her closet, just in case we might need some overshoes. No good. The next day she brought them out again and was extremely disgusted with them and me, so I took them. They fit over my shoes and I intend to wear them. We had a long discussion about cultural differences between Nebraska and Minnesota and how people in Minnesota would not wear these overshoes. She was sorry she was so negative, but she just wasn't used to life here in Nebraska where one might encounter overshoes. I explained several times that I had never seen anything like these Neos before, and that the whole thing was a misunderstanding about the word overshoes. I, however, like the Neos and I would keep them, and if she ever wants to wear them she may.
We will have to go shopping in Lincoln to find some overshoes, er, boots, I guess.
Zimmerman pattern, and is called a surprise because you can't really tell what it is when you are knitting it. Elizabeth Zimmerman was a genius at designing knitwear. The sweater is knit all in one piece and the only seams are at the top of the sleeve. I own four of EZ's books, and have just ordered a fifth. I also ordered yarn today for an Aran sweater that I plan to knit in January. One of my resolutions (more like a goal) is to read/knit my way through "Knitter's Almanac, Knitting Projects for each month of the year," and the Aran sweater is the pattern for January.
I wanted to knit something for each grandchild for Christmas and a few months ago my friend Christy posted a blog about a backpack she knit for her daughter. It was just the right thing, especially since the pattern included four variations, so I had a different backpack and finger puppet for each grandchild. No worries about lead painted imports from China!
