Ravens and Bookmarks

I hate losing things. It's especially frustrating when I've misplaced something myself. My brain isn't as young as it used to be, and I guess I just can't keep up with myself.

Sometimes someone, or worse, "nobody" loses something for me. Oy people - don't be touching my stuff! - and if you borrow it, put it back! There's a universal Mother's Mantra if there ever was one.

When I was a kid, if something went missing, especially if it was small and/or shiny, Junior probably stole it.... and you'd never see it again.

Junior was our "pet" raven. Yep. Dad came home one weekend from a hunting trip with a "surprise" for us kids. We were so excited. What could it be? Well, we sure weren't thinking "raven."

Now, Mom will probably be mad and disappointed when she reads this, because she liked Junior. But, me.... not so much.

Junior was a pain in the butt. Of course that was just my view - because that bird had it out for me. It's like they say - animals can sense fear.... well, I was afraid of that bird, and he knew it. He'd peck my toes, scare my friends, and steal my hopscotch markers. You could NOT play hopscotch around that bird.

He also stole a lot of my brothers Hot Wheel cars. We found a whole bunch of Junior's stash years later, hidden away under the back shop.

He loved my Mom and Dad. When Dad would get home Junior would jump up on his shoulder and rifle through the papers in his shirt pocket and eat the erasers off his pencils. He would sit on my Mom's shoulder and make cooing sounds in her ears. He would jump on my shoulder and pull my hair.

I was not a big fan of the bird... and, it didn't help that it was my brother's and my job to scrub the bird poop off the patio every Saturday. That was especially fun when Junior had found purple berries to eat or, even better, crayons.

Nope, not a fan of the bird. He was cool, I mean, not everyone has a raven for a pet..., and he never learned to make bird sounds, but barked like our dog, but the bird and I were not close. And.... he stole stuff. You didn't leave stuff lying around outside if you ever wanted to see it again.

So, I don't like to waste time looking for stuff. It's one of my major pet peeves. Looking for something that isn't where it's supposed to be. "Bookmarks" save me endless frustration in this regard. I have a bookmark for blogs, a bookmark for on-line knitting sources, and a bookmark for future possible projects.

I was browsing through my "To Knit" bookmarks, where I stick everything that catches my eye while I'm out in knitting blogland.... the "maybe knits," the "think abouts," stuff I find and might want to knit someday, when I came across Prosperous Plum. When I first came across this pattern I wasn't too taken with it, but later saw it here... and loved Heather's version.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to work on next, but this is the perfect project. I have the yarn, and I think it's gonna be a relatively quick knit, it looks like something I'd actually get a lot of wear out of, and I'm not in the mood to work on socks right now... So Prosperous Plum it is.

Yes, I know I was participating in UFO August and shouldn't be casting on for anything new but, actually, this is the yarn from one of my UFO's, Spring Fling, which just wasn't doing it for me.... so, I'm just kind of trading it in on a new model. That's not really cheating, right?