This will be a bit short, as I have to leave in 15 minutes and am still in my pajamas with wet hair.  Now you can see where my true priorities lie.

Scene: 4:10 pm, 20 minutes before the Sock Summit show opens to students. The boxes that were supposed to have arrived days before have not yet made it to our hotel.  The six boxes contain lots of yarn, but also necessary supplies, like labels. At 4:13, the boxes have finally landed, we shove them into a taxi ourselves because the cab driver had just had a hernia operation, and drive the five blocks to the convention center.

Scene: 4:15 pm The boxes have been unceremoniously dumped onto the sidewalk outside the convention center.  Katie runs in to try and get a hand cart while I stand on busy Martin Luther King (St? Ave? Blvd?) with a giant pile of boxes. At 4:18, Katie comes back empty handed, grabs a box and bolts for the convention center. Inside, she must go up some stairs, then down some stairs, then all the way across the convention center floor, and back out the same to do it all again. She is wearing what are, in my estimation, red vegan platform elf shoes.

Scene: 4:22 pm. I am shuffling down MLK with cars whizzing past, carrying a 50lb box while simultaneously kicking another box with my foot, trying to get them closer to the convention center door. Just then, a FedEx truck pulls up. The driver sees me struggling with the boxes and notices that they have FedEx labels on them. He says, “Here, let me help you.” Realizing how heavy the boxes are, he grabs his hand cart, and we race inside the convention center, down the hall to the elevator, and down to the lower level. We discover that we cannot get into the convention center exhibit hall this way and go back up the elevator with some kind of alarm sounding (which we ignore), all the way across the hall and to another elevator, down, and out.

Scent: 4:28. The FedEx man and I zoom past what appears to be about 1,000 knitters lined up at the door. At the door is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, barring the entrance and leading the group in a rendition of “99 skeins of yarn on the wall” waiting for the clock to strike 4:30. I try the door to the convention center floor. It’s locked. I yell to Stephanie above the singing. “I’m a vendor,  I need to get in!” She replies brightly, “Go right ahead!” I try the door again, even though I know it’s still locked. I try another door, and another, with the 1,000 knitters and the FedEx man staring at me and singing and probably thinking to themselves, “What the heck kind of dolt is she?” Finally, someone on the other side of the door takes pity on me and pushes it open. The FedEx man and I practically run through the convention center floor while I call Katie on my cell phone yelling, “I’m not outside, I’m inside with the FedEx man!”

Then I hear the convention center doors open, and the sound of knitters on the prowl fills the air.

To be continued…

I should give some thought to NOT spilling coffee on one of only two shirts I brought with me. I’ll let you know what I decide.

Scene: Yarnista up at 4:00 after sleeping for three hours, drinking black coffee at her studio desk while yarn spins, papers print, and
R-E-S-P-E-C-T plays on the iPod docking station.  Adrenaline jolts through her veins as she realizes her months of preparation are about to come to fruition and simultaneously spin out of control. Her plane leaves in just a few hours, and she is nowhere near ready.

She has no time to celebrate now, although she does give herself a small pat on the back for winning four Dye for Glory categories.

One of her favorite babies — Sea Anemone — took second place. She murmurs in sweet tones to the skeins who didn’t win. She loves them unconditionally. 

The Yarnista collects her things — her vacuum sealed bags of yarn stuffed into a large duffel bag, her iPod that’s now playing We Didn’t Start the Fire, her printed labels and example socks, her thoughts. Soon, she will drive an hour to the airport and travel eight hours in a sealed metal tube at 27,000 feet up in the air to the opposite coast, hoping to take sock knitting just a little too far.