Quilting on the plane
I was going to stay home this weekend and work on picking away at all the shambling mounds. But then The GG decided he wanted to go on a little field trip over to Lake Huron and back on Saturday (that would be tomorrow) and I jumped at the chance to take that trip. I know. It probably doesn’t sound exciting to most folks. Who the heck would want to drive around in mid-northern Michigan in March? Shades of brown punctuated by moldy heaps of snow in the woods. Well. Me! I love hanging out on the back roads when there aren’t a whole lot of other vee-hickles around. I can see the shapes of the trees for once. And it is actually a weekend when the weather will be non-snowy enough that we have driven the Ninja up here, which is so much fun to drive.
So here we are at Houghton Lake. I worked on my Unfinished Prodject (intentionally misspelled) all the way up and, you know, for the most part, I think quilting could keep me focused on an aeroplane and distracted from all of the teensy-tinesy little noises and changes in altitude that probably only my senses pick up. Because there were only a few times today when I freaked out about what the driver of the Ninja (you know who) was doing. For the most part, I was pretty calm and the hand-sewing helped pass the time. I wasn’t watching mile markers and odometers and calculating what fraction of the distance we had traveled and other obsessive mathematical exercises. And yes, I do that. In my head. Maybe quilting could help me out on airplanes? I mean, I am not really afraid of *flying*. I used to fly with Grandroobly on Sandy Sanderson’s Cessnas when I was a kid. It was always fun. It’s just that I don’t like feeling like I’m not in control. And so I can’t sleep or otherwise veg out. Maybe quilting is the answer? And yes, I am a *horrible* automotive passenger!
Turbulence? Hmmm. I can’t remember which publication I saw it in. It was an informal survey of truck drivers about the ten worst freeways in the country. I was expecting to see something in The Great Lake State right up at the top. Not. I kept reading through the list. Michigan? Nowhere. Until I got to the bottom. Every other item listed a state and a particular stretch of freeway. Number 10 was something like “All roads in Michigan”. Yup. That’s our state. Where you can encounter “Rough Road Ahead” signs on the freeway when there *isn’t* construction going on. Turbulence? Yeah. Turbulence in a Honda Civic. On a paved road rated for 70 mph. Sheesh!
March 14th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Quilting vs. knitting on an airplane/Ninja car? I’d probably rather knit, because it hurts less if you jab the needle into your finger when you hit turbulence. But if quilting puts you in the zone, and knitting doesn’t, then by all means, go for quilting. We put Dave on the plane this (way too early) morning. Bound for Rochester by way of Detwoit, courtesy of NWA. I doubt Dave will need anything to put him in the zone. “So what time did you get home, Dave?” “Hmm, I think it was about … 2:00.” We got up at 5:00, so he could make his 6:45 flight. We got home in time to hear Alarm2 telling us it was 6:00, and time to get up. We turned it off, and went back to bed!
March 14th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Our roads in WA probably made the list because of congestion. I have trouble sleeping on planes too, but I’m going to TRY on the way to Africa. Otherwise, I’ll spend too much of my time being tired.
March 15th, 2009 at 9:18 am
I had to pick myself off the floor from LOLing at the “ROUGH ROAD” signs … I swear that if they were to post “rough road” signs for every bad stretch of road in Michigan (ok, at least Genesee County), the shoulders would be FULL of them. Grand Blanc Road alone warrants one every foot outside the city limits…