A Suitable Hat

Whew! Now that Christmas is over, I finally have some time to relax and blog a bit. I spent the last two weeks working two different temp jobs, learning new things about my physical and mental limits, and even doing a little knitting.

Week One, I worked in a tile factory, sorting tiles and packing them in boxes. I loved the obsessive-compulsive side of it, but discovered that inhaling resin dust while trying to recover from a cold is a Bad Idea, and that what my doctor had thought was just Seasonal Affective features turns out to be the full-blown disorder, capable of landing me in the hospital if left unchecked. I managed to avoid the psych ward, but only just, which is why that job only lasted a week. It's okay, one of my coworkers decided that my car was "too blue," so I've saved her the trauma of having to see it every day.

Week Two, I was a driver's helper for UPS, running packages from the truck to houses all over Ludlow, which is a much bigger town than I thought. I had the best driver (friendly, funny, efficient, safe, and hard-working), met a lot of nice folks, and drooled over every styrofoam cooler with an Omaha Steaks invoice on the lid. Before I showed up for my first day, though, I needed to do some knitting.

The UPS dress code specifies that long hair must be pinned up so it doesn't touch the collar of the jacket, and that any hat must be a dark, netural color. I have turquoise hats, purple hats, baby-blue hats, but nothing in a dark, neutral color that's big enough to fit over a bun.

Thank goodness I'm a knitter, right?

So, naturally, I grabbed some dark brown yarn (Green Mountain Spinnery's Alpaca Elegance in Dark Roast) and cast on for a slightly-bigger-than-normal beanie. I picked Andrea Goutier's Hurricane Hat because it had visual interest without being complicated, I did some quick math to account for the fact that I was using DK instead of worsted, and I got the darned thing finished with about two hours to spare.



There it is on me (pardon the blur), and, so you can see the swirl, on my favorite stuffed animal (his name is Roger and he's an alligator):



We had a couple of nice days during the week, but a couple of icky ones, too (so the hat came in very handy), and I was reminded that I like snow much better than rain. Here are some shots from my last day on the job:



I only fell once, and it wasn't because of ice, it was just that I was exhausted on my last day and those concrete steps were a smidge taller than I thought they were.

Anywho, I survived, and I might even sign up to do it all again next year... but only if I can ride with the same driver. And next year, I'll already have the perfect hat!