Carrie's amazing technicolor dream scarf -- (or how a trip to the auto body shop restored my faith in humanity)

Some knits are supposed to be multi-colored. Some are not. Fortunately, this one falls into the former category.



This is my amazing technicolor yada yada yada scarf, aka the shell and wave shawl pattern in Brooks Farm Yarn Harmony in the Xanadu colorway. It's so warm and soft and cozy but sheds like crazy. Small price to pay for rainbow-colored fabulousness, right?



Now I can finally allow myself to catch Zimmermania -- I'm knitting the February baby sweater from Knitter's Almanac for a co-worker's new baby girl. And I'm also gearing up for my very first-ever trip to Rhinebeck! I'm not sure what I'm shopping for, but I have this vision of a belted cardigan kind of like this in a fancy pants variegated yarn. Any pattern suggestions?

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Bad luck seems to come in waves with me, like this summer, when my identity was stolen, my bathroom ceiling collapsed and I had no electricity. Last week was a little like that.

First, of course, was the coffee disaster. Then on Friday, I took a crowded C train to work and had no choice but to reach for the overhead bar. Now, I'm *just* tall enough to reach the bar, but it hurts like crazy after about five minutes. So somewhere near Broadway/Lafayette, I lost my grip and completely wiped out. With nothing to grab onto, I fell with the full force of my body weight onto the guy next to me, who mercifully caught me. And, for reasons that I don't completely understand, I screamed, "Oh Christ!" I was so humiliated that I got off at the next stop and, of course, proceeded to board a train going in the wrong direction.

So I shouldn't have been surprised Saturday when I walked up to my car and found that some heartless jerk had knocked off its sideview mirror.



See, I've had this car for nearly 10 years, so to see it mauled is actually painful. And I was even more despondent because I'm driving some Spiders up to Rhinebeck this weekend. How could I do that with a dangling mirror? I'd probably need to go to a dealership, would probably have to spend my whole Sunday there. They might have to order parts. And that could take days or weeks.

But nothing was stopping me from getting an oil change, tune-up and desperately needed car wash. I thought I'd feel better if I accomplished something. So I drove to the Manhattan Bridge Car Wash, kind of teary eyed and frustrated, and agreed to have all sorts of things flushed and replaced. I was so ashamed that I had no power windows or doors, that my car was filthy, that my mirror was held up with duct tape. They promised to fix everything but simply didn't have the equipment to fix the mirror. I sighed, "Oh, my poor car." But one of the workers said, "Your car is not poor. Your car is fine."

For about a half hour, I sat in the waiting area drinking coffee and watching CNN, which was downright pleasant. Then the kindly worker came in and asked me to follow him, which is never good at the auto body shop. They might as well send in the Grim Reaper to deliver all the bad news. But I walked outside and the kindly worker was proudly standing next to my car -- and its reattached sideview mirror. For no reason other than to be kind, he had drilled a few screws into the mirror and wrapped the rest in electrical tape. Is it ghetto? A little. But it warmed my heart in a way that I can't describe. And my luck has been all good ever since.



(I treated myself to these autumnal flowers that night. The apartment will never be without fresh flowers again.)