Hobbies

Susie Homemaker I am not.

It's not for lack of good intentions. I like clean surroundings. But sometimes I get involved in other things and forget to vacuum for longer than I should. I can and do live with a little dust now and then - OK, pretty much all the time. I own enough underwear to get through an extended period without doing laundry. And I can eat leftovers for several days to avoid cooking.

My mother-in-law asked me if I was going to hire in help while I was recovering from surgery. I gave this some serious consideration, but I do wonder if I will even care if the house is clean when I'm confined to a CPM machine and the couch. Why would I want the house to be cleaner than normal if I am going to be spending time sitting around? A few dust bunnies are not going to trip me up. And I certainly don't want someone cooking for me if I'm not going to be exercising. A starvation diet is probably the only way I will come out on the other side of all this with some hint of my girlish figure.

She also asked me if I had any hobbies, since I will be sitting around a lot and won't be able to do much. She qualified this by saying "sedentary" hobbies, but I know what she really meant. That's right, she meant "non-skating-related" hobbies. Because I do have hobbies as you all know. I skate. I judge. I sew costumes for skating. I cut music for skating. I do off-ice training for skating. I am on several committees for skating. Those are my hobbies.

I don't play cards and I don't do crafts, and we've already established that I don't cook except when absolutely necessary to avoid starvation. I don't really like to watch movies other than classics, and I've seen all of those. I do like to read, but I have a feeling in the early days post-PAO I might be on so many drugs that reading will be too taxing.

So I decided to find a sedentary, non-skating-related hobby that requires little thought. Something I can do to avoid boredom after surgery. Being practical, it had to be something with a tangible outcome. And I came up with ... knitting. On the Internet, it is touted as a "relaxing hobby that anyone can learn." It's inexpensive and has a tangible outcome. I love scarves, so why not knit a few? Perhaps I can even learn to make gloves and legwarmers, but then this becomes "skating related," so I guess I better stick to scarves.

I decided to learn now so that I'll be an expert in several months and will be able to knit successfully even while drugged. My mother-in-law happily gave me a bag full of "scrap" yarn in various colors not commonly found in nature, such as bright pink, neon orange and aqua. ("Hmmm, I thought, these colors are good for only one thing really -- skating costumes, particularly the Latin international dances." But I digress.)

I have learned a few things about knitting in the past couple of days. First, knitting and cats don't mix. My cat thought the ball of yarn was HERS, not MINE, and didn't understand that tangling the yarn was not helpful. Second, some left-handed people like me don't catch on to knitting very well. I finally had to come up with my own stitches, which are upside down and backwards, after watching the video several times and ending up with a knotted mess. The good news -- once I came up with my own backwardass technique, it started to work, and I'm now well on my way to owning a bright pink potholder/scarf/not sure what yet.

(Hmmmmmmm, my own backwardass technique. Sounds just a little too much like skating to me.)