I won at knitting chicken!!

Remember how Friend L had challenged me to a knitting duel? She totally caved.  She groveled and bowed to my awesomeness, and withdrew her challenge.

No, what actually happened was that she looked at her personal WIP, crafting, and life and made decisions.  She decided that, while playing with me is fun, and the project and experience would be fun, the product wouldn’t be something she needed/wanted.  This isn’t to say that we won’t do something else in the future.  But this wasn’t the time nor project.

All I can say is “Thank the Baby Jesus”.  Past Me is a mouthy thing that doesn’t tend to back down (yes, yes, Present Me is like this, and Future Me will likely be the same).  We were in a class, I was high on excitement, my friend came up with a terribly hilarious idea (or I did…did I mention I wasn’t thinking straight?). We played a short round of chicken, and then agreed to make a traveling cap neither one of us was likely to ever wear.

The silence on the subject afterwards was welcome to me.  I took it to mean that it was forgotten like any drunken bet should be.  The fact that it was fiber, not alcohol that fed our drunkenness didn’t matter.  And then she just had to throw down the gauntlet.  I could say I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the internet, but we’d all know I’d be lying.  A: I have embarrassed many people on the internet (usually myself, but I’m people!!) and B: I’m not that nice.

I picked up the gauntlet.  I didn’t have drunkenness to blame for still thinking it was a hilariously awful idea.  As I have gotten older, I have found that an idiotic teenager still lives inside of me.  And sometimes, I hope she never dies.  But seriously, what was I going to do with a traveling cap??? *And* I couldn’t find a selection of colors I could knit into an ombre effect, so I was going to have dye the colors myself.  I mean, if I’m going to do something idiotic, I might as well do it right…right?

Did I act all mature and tell my friend that while the idea is great, this execution may not be the best one? Do you know me at all??? Of course I did no such thing.  I just kept playing chicken.  Now, in my defense, there are a lot of positives that still would have come out of that experiment. For one, I’ve never tried dying an ombre, so that would be interesting. I still haven’t done a Franklin Habit pattern, and I’m dying to try one.  His is not my usual style, so it would take something this ridiculous to try one out.  And if the downside is a traveling hat I won’t use, well, I could sell it, or give it away, or…worst case, unravel it, and do something else with it.  So, it wasn’t *hugely* idiotic.  I’m telling you, as I teen, I was pretty boring.

What really happened is this: My friend felt terrible about having to back out of something we had agreed to.  I did not, however, feel terrible.  Again, I was super grateful.  July, in our household, is the month of Never Ending Things To Do.  They are (mostly) enjoyable, but they are legion.  Since we have numerous birthdays, we also have out of state, and out of country visitors.  We need to be available whenever possible for hijinx.  What that means, though, is that now that July is over, I have to wade through the half assery that Past Me left.  As stressful as all that is, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this project at all. I still wouldn’t have backed down. I’d have stressed and fretted trying to figure timing out with this and mundane things like laundry.

I am so proud of my friend for honestly looking at things and making tough choices about what to cut out.  I need to be better about that myself.