As part of my public awareness campaign about the joys of knitting, I want to make the following item crystal clear: when you see someone knitting in a public place or a large gathering, it doesn’t mean they are oblivious to you. In fact, they are probably able to focus just as well (if not better) on what you are saying. There’s a woman who knits and crochets through the Saturday evening service at our church. I like it. Knitting is the most theological of the fiber arts, after all.
Now I would never knit in a session meeting. I need to be able to see as well as hear what is going on. I also need to reflect non-verbally that I am present. I’m not the moderator of the meeting, but the moderator does rely on me to help keep her on track. Same with other small meetings. No knitting. And a one-on-one conversation? No way (unless there is an understanding up front AND I am not being pastor).
But a day-long presbytery meeting? You betcha. And, ahem, a week-long training with about 400 people, consisting mainly of lectures that don’t require the taking of notes? Damn straight.
Well, yesterday one of the presenters made a joking, yet snarky comment about people who knit while you’re talking to them.
Oh please. Are you telling me you expect active-listening in a huge hotel ballroom? I put my project down when it’s time for group discussion around tables. When there’s a visual aid to be studied, I do it. Otherwise, get off my back.
It all felt very passive-aggressive to me, but it also seems that this woman just likes to poke at people (given other comments she has made from the podium). I turned the whole thing into a joke during a Q&A session, which is a big step for me, O Frequently Humorless One. Thing is, the presenter is a Presbyterian clergywoman, and I actually think she’s doing an awesome job, but I also think she needs a little educatin’ on the matter.
So, when my mother-in-law picked me up this afternoon for a little down-time, we headed to the local yarn store, where I picked up some Eros and a pair of size 15’s and I’m going to knit this woman a nice scarf over the next two days. Kill ‘em with kindness, that’s what I say.
11 Responses to “tee hee…”
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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See, that’s why I’d make a lousy woman. I’d just knit her a noose.
i just went to the eros website and when i saw the wonderful color arrays i immediately wanted to start naming them. three that came immediately to mind were
#717 “sunset after volcano”
#3267 “skybluepink goes to sleep” and
#8008 “john singer sargent: white on white”
what color scarf are you knitting for the speaker?
and on the topic of humor. i don’t think of you as a joke-teller but i definitely see you as humorous in real life—where it actually matters! and i often laugh out loud as i read your blogs. (and sometimes i cry too.) your description of yourself as “Frequently Humorless One” inspired today’s blog at my site about going to humor school.
Great entry!!
I would never have characterized you as “Frequently Humorless” from your writing. You strike me as one of those people with a dry sense of humor. Someone who, if you listen closely, would knock your socks off with right-on-target-funny observation of the world around you.
I can’t find a name on the skein, but this is it:
Hey! I’ve never done that before! Woo-hoo!
Definitely a dry sense of humor. And I suck at telling jokes, mainly because I lack the confidence to really sell them. I admit full well that I frequently take myself WAY too seriously. But I recognize it, and that’s progress right?
Keith, I’d need double-pointed needles for that.
What’s the prob with knitting during presbytery? I read novels, study commentaries, write thank you notes, look at catalogs, re-do the sanctuary in my mind, stare at bad haircuts of my colleagues….Anything to avoid going to sleep during endless committee reports.
It makes a bigger point of that gal’s comment to you about knitting during the meeting. I think you should send the scarf to ME!
Once I took a sewing machine and finished a quilt while serving as an election judge for city and school board elections. It was a very slow day. If only sewing machines were as quiet as knitting needles, I’d take one to presbytery too!
You’re devious. I love it! I’ll be eager to hear of her response to the gift.
There’s a church in this area that asked some women from a MR group home not to come back because one of them knitted during the worship service instead of paying rapt attention to the egomaniacal pastor. I was livid for weeks and sent a letter to the pastor telling him exactly what I thought. I’ve never heard a peep from him. As mad as it made me, I’m glad it prompted the women to find a better church.
I knit during any meeting, and I have always found that I pay more attention to the meeting while knitting, (especially when I was on the standing committee of our diocese). It keeps my mind just occupied enough to keep my thoughts from travelling out of the room.
I sew between patients at my office, especially when I am trying to finish something by a deadline. My nurses love it because I am not hounding them to hurry, hurry, hurry.
Welcome Sherry!
If I couldn’t multi-task in meetings I’d go crazy…it’s in your DNA.
I don’t knit at all, but I do crochet. I took a project with me to our last presbytery meeting and timidly took it out to work. I decided that I wouldn’t crochet during worship or the examination of new ministers or candidates, but any other time was fair game. It was great! My question to someone who doesn’t like it is this: which is more distracting - a crochet needle and yarn or a really, really squirmy woman? And good for you for your “kill ‘em with kindness” plan. I never would have thought of that. (I would have been too busy trying to figure out how to strategically place a knitting needle in a certain speaker’s chair!)