Just a Happy Hooker

Crochet is a French term meaning 'small hook'. It is a process of creating cloth-like textiles with a hook interlocking loops of yarn, thread, or strands of other materials. The main difference between crochet and knitting, besides the obvious different tools used, is that each stitch in crochet is finished before the next one is begun, wherein knitting there are many stitches open at a time. The first known published instructions used to describe the craft, appeared in the Dutch magazine, 'Penelope', in 1823, but there is evidence of crochet as early as the eleventh century. To this day, crochet remains one of the only crafts that cannot be duplicated by a machine. So every stitch is handmade, with love, guaranteed.

I first discovered the artsy-craft of crochet at about age eleven and let me tell you, in 1973 North Dakota, felt more like 200 BC with the lack of available literature on it. It took me only a month to exhaust my local bookmobile's supply of crochet instruction books but an introduction to the craft was as far as those publications went. Some hands-on one on one tutoring was the next best idea on my list, so the search for my crochet guru was launched. In 1973, I knew of three search engines beginning with the yellow pages, the local library, and of course the classified ads, and I was on it like bees on honey. In no time at all, I had found my answer, but unfortunately, it was not my solution. I thought that maybe any and all documentation containing information on the craft had been filed under 'Classified' behind the walls of Area 51. It felt like I had spent an eternity searching only to find a lifetime of dead ends, broken trails, and disappointments. My spirits were hanging low and my frustrations were overloaded and there she was. She was right there the whole time, my great-grandmother, Amelia Holland. I used to fantasize that she was disguised along with having her name changed to hide her true identity of Miss Amelia Earhart, because she was my hero of the time.

Finally, the day had arrived for me to spend a couple of days with grandma to see what I could learn from her. I was so excited to do this at long last! The project I had picked at the time was a granny square pillow that I wanted to make for my folk's anniversary. So I learned the granny square and the all-important 'fasten off ' because if you don't know your fasten off, then your work could fully unravel like magic it almost looks as it unwinds into thin air, usually in a fast way.

Sunday already, I have to go home today, but I finished the pillow before I went to bed last night, so I only have to wrap it now. I was up late the night before, so I slept a little late in the morning, and of course, Dad is going to be two hours early to pick me up because, of course, he left two hours early because, of course, that's what Daddy does. He leaves way early so he's never ever late, I've never known him to be late for anything, ever. Even a full-blown North Dakota blizzard with zero visibility and killer windchills of more than seventy below could make him late and he always helped anybody along the way that would need it. Yipper skipper, that's my Dad! So now I'm anxiously trying to wrap this soft pillow in a fast way or Dad was going to walk right in and he'll see what it is and ruin the surprise, was going through my mind as I poked a hole in the paper each time I pressed the tape on and it was getting wrinkled because it just didn't want to fold right or tape right if only I had found a box it would fit in! The sternness in my grandmother's tone snapped me out of the wrapping frenzy I was in as her words echoed off the wall behind me, "Always do your best," she said. "Or just don't do it at all." Soberly I realized the disaster I had created in front of me. If I remember right, I took a bathroom break about here because I had to go cry a minute and I didn't want grandma to know. She wouldn't understand and she would tell on me. Don't like people to see my crybaby face. My anxiety had calmed down a couple notches so I cleared my dripping nose and I returned to the scene of the 'accident' and did the best I could with what I had left. It really looked terrible and I felt like everyone knew exactly how it got that way just by looking at it, I was so embarrassed because I was the second oldest, not supposed to be a crybaby like that. From that day on through the rest of my life, her words have ruled my world, to present day.

Grandfather Time kept me busy as my own family started to blossom. The internet revolution blasted in and took over the world, piece by piece, and look at us now. I tell you what, this bookworm used to read a book for every question I wanted answered and then some, I was and still am like a kid in a candy store with every whim of a question's answer at my magical little fingertips. It blew open the crochet world for me like an atom bomb, seriously exactly like that. Patterns for anything I can think of, some free, some not, and I copied and collected beautiful patterns, always always hooking on project after project. The pom-pom rug project was the one that instilled the absolute must have a quality and sharp scissors, because for some reason the science of trimming pom-poms have very quickly made every scissors I've tried so far, too dull to go on, so still haven't finished that one yet.

My love for hats inspired my growing collection of so many styles, sizes and colors from wide-brimmed sunhats to fedoras to warm winter hats and accessories. A blast for me is spending the afternoon in a hat boutique trying on hats and playing the mood or attitude that we get from each different hat, such fun! My goal with this collection is to donate it to St. Judes Children's Hospital with hopes that they can have some fun trying on hats like I do and maybe each and every one will find a hat that says what they want it to say, one they can be proud to wear because they like how they feel when they wear it. Am I just a lone, silly goose here with this hat thing? Silly me.

My daughter-in-law sends me pictures of the silly side of the crochet world and has not failed yet to make me laugh, I love it when it leaves me with a reverberatory laugh, that's when I get to laugh again every time I think of the same thing. Like the crochet toilet paper roll pandemic special or the wedding dress?? With crocheted penises placed a few inches apart all the way around the skirt through to the length of the dress. The couple out in the pandemic public with everyone wearing their masks, but one man, (she said that would be my son doing this) this guy had his mask on alright, he was naked as a jaybird and his mask was on his .....divining rod. I've come to the absolute realization that if it can be, then it can be crocheted.

"So can you make Marvin the Martian with your 'insert hook and pull up a loop' prostituting?" was easily one of the more amusing questions I have been asked that is the perfect example of one of many exceptions to the rule add-ons to the laws and properties of our most insane English language. "It's pronounced 'insert hook and pull up a loop' "Hooking". I corrected the oddly clothed young stranger. That opened my amigurumi line that set off a landslide of busy with a tidalwave of reality check. One of my goals in life is to get rich making people happy with things that make me happy making them for people to make them.......happy. It's a vicious circle, I crochet pretty fast when my hands don't hurt so bad, but crocheting takes its own sweet time, and unless you found a target audience with too much money to spend and they want to spend it all on you, then I don't see any feasible possibilities of it making anyone rich. I don't think money should talk so loud anyway.

My second oldest and his girls stopped in for refreshments as they took a break from moving into their new apartment and I was finishing my favorite Disney dog, Pluto. While we conversed about the new place, his girls told me they were both scared to sleep in the new apartment . I tried to put their minds at ease but I saw in their eyes they were having none of grandma's logic on that day. Ta Da! Well would you look at this! I held up Pluto for them to see and told them I could send my watch dog home with them to watch over them and keep them from harm's way. Smiles melted away the worried look on their faces as they finished their drinks and geared up for another load. Even Dad had a big smile on his face as he carried Pluto out to the truck. He put a special shelf up smack in the middle of their new place and Pluto has been there watching over them ever since.

The whistling ringtone broke the silence of that peaceful afternoon as I put down the little elephant angel I was working on to answer the phone. "Hey, Mom?" The trembling voice of my daughter-in-law had my full attention. "What's up?" I said purposely keeping it short. She told me the Dr. thinks my son suffered a heart attack and was in ICU in a doctor induced coma. She said,"Mom, I've seen him through some serious asthma attacks, but this one is too real, his heart stopped Mom." She told me it happened as he was mixing up the do it yourself spider control product that I gave him awhile back. I thought to myself, how could I have been so stupid and not think about his asthma before I gave him that stuff?! If he dies I will never forgive myself! I hurried through the house getting ready to go to the hospital with a dark feeling of dread in my heart. For some reason the little elephant grabbed my attention in the middle of my frenzied rush to get to the hospital. I remembered someone tell me once that elephants have special healing powers, so with that thought and hopes for a miracle on my mind, the little elephant and I were off to the hospital.

"Ma'am, only two allowed in the room at a time," the orderly told me as I arrived. There was a bowling ball in my chest where my heart used to be as my eyes took in all the tubes and wires and monitors plugged into my son. His skin was pale almost grayish, it made him look like he was cold. I don't like that color, don't like it at all and if I go through life never to see that color again then I will die a happy woman indeed. I felt numb. I put the little elephant in his hand and closed his fingers around it. His hand tightened around it as I let go so he knew I was there. I whispered softly as I leaned closer to his ear,"Hey, I brought you this special little elephant, he has special powers, and he's here to make you better, ok? You rest now, I love you." I stared at my boy, not blinking, not crying, just numb. Maybe this is how you feel when the whole world dumps on you at once so in reality you are shredded and bloody with detachments here and there but it hurts so bad it's gone into tilt, overflow, like a vacuum, over the edge is nothing but empty space, no gravity or sound, just an overall numbness. I felt my eyes getting dry, I needed to blink.

Within a couple of days he was back home almost as if nothing happened. If it wasn't for the soreness in his chest and ribs from the compressions of the CPR that brought him back to us. I have since started the Marvin the Martian he asked me about and he is going to have earth magnets in his shoes so that he can walk upside down like he does, and also building an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator that I'm going to equip with a laser light that you need the key to turn on and came with a warning about pointing it in the sky and they WILL FIND AND PROSECUTE was written very clearly in red. Of course, I'll have to make my daughter-in-law an equalizer for those special times but I don't know if it'll be the Acme Integration Pistol, the A1 Disintegration Pistol, or the Ultimatum Dispatcher just yet. Which ever one I make, I'm going to equip it with either a water gun or a bubble-gun. So don't let him see this before his birthday!

It used to be when a person was diagnosed with cancer, you automatically roll out your coffin and ask how long? But nowadays the cancer survivor numbers continue to grow which is leaps and bounds from yesteryear. Those were the words I wish were forming on my lips, but unfortunately my heart was on my sleeve again and it doesn't let me lie even for the greater good. One of my therapists through the years told me that it was no wonder I was feeling the way I was with all the major arcana happenings throughout my life, so I feel like I'm well equipped to handle most anything with grace and dignity and strength and the wisdom to actually help. A respectable matriarch of the community I would be. But I felt the dark sadness that was radiating from her core and I knew she was thinking about her young children and then my crybaby face made an entrance and my good intentions flew out the window. Her parents had both took six months leave from their jobs to be with her and what I understood from her story was that her doctor didn't even have hope for her, and that made me mad. That's not a good way to think if you have a championship fight with cancer on your agenda. I retrieved both binders of my amigurumi pattern collection from the closet and set them in front of her. "Look in those and pick one," I told her." You need one."

With time in it's peek-a-boo zone, the now we have it and now we don't tick that messes up the tock with the end result being a stuck emotional hiccup that will make a body want to just scream with all your might just to relieve some of the ever building pressure inside. So my sweet girl chose from the elite group with over thirty pages of fine detail and my timeline is?

Upwards of three weeks Disney's beloved character they called Goofy took me to finish for my friend in need. Thinking that she needed this special magic three weeks ago, I wasted no time with the delivery. She was at one of her many appointments when I caught up with her. I had this sense of accomplishment smile on my face as I handed her the package. I gave thanks to the whole universe that day for allowing me the time that I needed for this. The tired looking young woman I saw when I first arrived there was now sitting up and smiling and I even saw a sparkle in her eyes as she introduced her new little friend to everyone. I told her to keep him with her as much as possible and she promised he would even go to all her appointments with her. Some of the heavy was lifted from my heart that day and I smiled all the way home.

I don't know how much time had gone by when I noticed I had a message from her number. I was afraid to look, if it was bad news I just didn't want to know, but maybe it's actually her and she needs a friend. For once in my life I was wrong both times there. She had the best unexpected news of my sad uneventful life! I wanted to broadcast on the radio for everyone to hear my friend beat that bad boy demon cancer! Let's party everybody and have a good time and make a toast to life and love and happiness. Fly like an eagle everybody, which is one of the best songs ever by the Steve Miller Band. You can locate it on their greatest hits 1974-78 album, that's my all time favorite. Give it a listen and you will see why because it is the absolute greatest kind of music. Oh I don't know but I been told if you keep on dancing you'll never grow old, so come on darlin put a pretty dress on we're gonna go out tonite and dance dance dance all night long. Elvis has left the building........

This story earned this footnote like no story I ever wrote before. Originally, this was meant for vocals Fiskar challenge Create Your Happiness, but when I hit the send button it sent it so far into cyber space that I couldn't find a word of it anywhere. And this one is for Members Only. Discouraged but not giving up, I started again. It was tough trying to make it as good as I felt my first one was but I was doing my best. My concluding paragraph awaited my return from the facilities but when I opened the page there was no page, starting to think this story is haunted. Seven hours left before submissions close. I tried really hard and failed. My crybaby face was on like Donkey Kong. I was thinking fate was trying to tell me something and I just wanted to quit. But I made myself try and little by little it came back together, bad, good, or better I can't know for sure but I can promise you this right here and now, if I hit send and it actually goes where submissions are to go, then I did it , I did it, I did it , literally that many times. Insert laugh here.