Richard and I headed down to Los Gatos last night (after spending the day at the State Fair, so we were both pretty exhausted by then) to see a play put on by his parents’ community theater company. This being the Bay Area on a Friday night, we gave ourselves a few extra hours to make the trip (because what might usually take about 90 minutes to drive can end up taking 3 or 4 hours during rush hour). Naturally, however, this meant that we hit almost no traffic at all, and had lots of extra time. I brought my sockpal-2-za socks with me to work on, having guessed this would happen, so we tracked down a Starbucks close to the theater, got sandwiches and chai tea, and settled into some chairs to pass the next hour or so in air conditioned, quiet comfort.
Two young women with two little boys sat down near us, and I was working on the sock when I could feel that someone was staring at me. I looked up to see two pairs of wide eyes avidly watching me, and it was obvious they were trying to figure out just what the heck I was doing with all those weird pointy sticks. So I held up my completed sock, and showed it to them, then held up the sock-in-progress so they could see the comparison. There was a burst of grins and ‘oh!’s’ from both of them and then tugging on arms of mothers to point out what I was doing. I’m not sure what language they were speaking, but the gist of it was obvious, and it made me grin. For the entire time they were there, they kept sneaking peeks at what I was doing. It’s good to know that I can provide entertainment for little kids just by sitting and doing nothing more extraordinary than knitting a pair of socks.
The very same thing happened to me in a Starbucks! The little boy kept giving me wide eyed, furtive glances til I showed him a completed sock. The grin of recognition on his face was priceless!! He took great delight in telling his dad what I was doing too!!
knitting is so universal! that is such a great story.