Still here

You're probably wondering where I've been and have been peeking here. I know you have. You want to know the Mystery. Can't tell you yet. It's April. Two months to go. My birthday's June 15th and that's when I'll reveal the Rubbah Slippah Mystery.

In the meantime, I've been dealing with fatigue. I don't think it's depression because my mood's been really good. It's more along the lines of my hormones being out of whack. But I won't bore you with those things. I'm plugging away.

Half of the Rubbah Slippah Mystery was finished this week. I took it to Knit Purl after seeing the dentist yesterday, unveiling it only after indulging in a hank of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in a lovely dark olive green. I wanted to see if the rumors of the customer service there were true. The initial greeting was "If you have any questions, be sure to ask." The atmosphere is reminiscent of a boutique, not a place where you could just sit and knit and talk. The staff warmed up when I showed the Rubbah Slippah Mystery. It was kind of like my showing the secret sign to an exclusive society. They wanted me to come back when I had finished the RSM, but it would have to be while I was down there for another dentist appointment because they're located in downtown Portland where you have to pay for parking if you can find it. There have been a number of yarn stores opening in Portland in the last couple of years and only one has garnered my interest in being a regular customer (besides Unraveled and Yarn Garden).

So I'm working on the other half of the RSM, digging through my stash for the right kind of yarn for it. Fortunately I have plenty of specialty yarn to choose from; otherwise I would have had to go buy more (horrors!!). This weekend will be spent working on RSM between bouts with the choir library whose filing has fallen WAY behind (blush).

I've been watching the immigration politics going on these last couple of weeks with some interest. My father was an immigrant, coming to this country when he was 9 years old with his mother. I don't know who sponsored them; I do know they would have come legally, but at the time they emigrated the laws were not as stringent as they are now (he arrived in the early '20's). But I can imagine that if he had come from down south instead of from up north, he would have been very frustrated. He grew up poor, worked very hard to feed his mother and stepfather during the Depression, and worked just as hard to feed his family. He understood what it meant to be so poor that you had to really struggle to live. He believed in the American Dream and achieved it for his family.

My experience has been seeing families who want that same dream for their children coming here because the land of their birth has nothing for them. They have chosen to break the law because they feel they cannot wait for the bureaucracy to let them in. They are willing to take jobs that our own children refuse to do. Ask your son or daughter to go spend 40 or more hours a week picking strawberries. Kids my age did that to get extra money for buying the things they wanted until the labor laws were changed. They work in slaughterhouses, farms, hotels, nurseries, and restaurants so that they can feed their families.

Yet there is also the fundamental question of where do you draw the line in condoning breaking the law. There are many who are trying to follow the law in coming in the country legally. They want the same things. They also work very hard. What do we say to those people when we allow the undocumented amnesty because our economy would suffer if we shut the door?

I hope a solution is found because if too harsh or too gentle a measure is taken, the consequences can be detrimental to our economy and society.