Excited by THIS? Yes, I am Strange!

As a local union representative who will be attending the state delegate meeting from Friday night until Sunday afternoon, all I can think is:

"Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses." (Author Unknown)

or in other words,

"A weekend of being forced to sit through hours and hours and hours of meetings can only mean one thing - knitting heaven!"

I think my family now completely understands the depth of my knitting mania. It took me 20 minutes to pack my clothes and 45 minutes to pack my knitting bag. God forbid I get there to start a new pattern and I have the wrong sized needles. Now that I have packed three sets of straight needles and three corresponding sets of double points, with all of the yarn I may use (if I don't buy something new) and the pattern books I may use, I am set. I can travel in confidence. If, after I arrive, I unpack only to find that I forgot all of my precription medication and clean underwear, who cares? At least I have my knitting!

I leave tomorrow right after school for the four hour drive to LaCrosse, Wisconsin (Cold Mountain, the unabridged book on tape, is already in the car). I plan to check into my hotel (I was lucky to be the only person in a double room who didn't have to share), get my credentials for the weekend meetings, and bum around town or sit in silence watching my tv shows without any children bickering in the background. Saturday morning, breakfast will be provided for me. FOR ME! I will knit all day during the meetings, eat lunch that will be provided FOR ME, and I won't have to wash dishes! Saturday night I can go out with my coworkers for dinner, go back to the hotel and sit in the hot tub without being splashed by my children, and then I can retire to my own room with no children to knit! I know that I will be missing my family by this time. I won't get to see any of their soccer games. And even though I will enjoy the lack of fighting, bickering, whining, and hitting, I will want to call and hear my husband's voice, too.

Sunday the meetings will continue, and I can leisurely head for home afterwards. My knitting projects are:

1. Finish the second sock for my mother's Mother's Day gift.
2. Choose a baby sweater pattern (either the Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater or the Jacket with Seed Stitch Bands or V-Neck Cardigan with Contrast Ribs from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits for Beginners). This will be a gift for a friend who is expecting child number two in about 6 weeks.
3. Then, I will have to decide on materials. Do I have enough in my portable stash, or will I have to buy materials? Shucks. Visit a yarn shop in another city? What a hardship this weekend will be! Maybe I'll find an even nicer pattern there. Hmmm.. I just may have to think carefully about this! Maybe I should forget to pack my patterns so that I have to go to the yarn shop. Hmmmm.

So, should I be a little more concerned about the weekend meetings? Should I have read things over to prepare myself more for 16+ hours of union meetings and parliamentary procedure? Naa, I listen better when I knit anyway. I'm sure I won't be alone. Maybe I can form a separate knitting table for a knitter's alliance? Sounds like an agenda item to me!

I'll let you know about the issues raised within the union meeting about my knitting progress on Monday.