It's beginning to look a lot like....

Pink felted wool Christmas Stocking
Originally uploaded by Alta Marie

.... my 30th Birthday!

Under the current blogging system, I must include a picture with every post, hence the awkward transition between picture and entry. Just putting that out there. Also, I cannot wait to get these stockings out from the hall closet and hang them back on the fireplace where they belong. They maybe my favorite things that I've ever knit. (Also my first felted project!)

Well, there is much to be said about my approaching landmark birthday. I am excited and not anxious at its approach. 30, huh? that seems great to me. I've been thinking lately about writing out some of my favorite stories from childhood, and will try for the next few days (before the trip to Florida!) to do that. Here's one that came up a few times this weekend...

When I was young, I was constantly terrified that I would be abducted. I had no reason to be fearful of this. I think that I just really took the warnings of McGruff and of The Fonz to heart when I was watching Stranger-Danger-type infomercials in the early 80s. In any case one day, mom sent her friend Jean to pick me up from pre-school. This is someone who I saw at our house countless times, and who I knew by name. I greeted her when she pulled up in the car. I waved and I smiled! But when I found out I was supposed to get in the car I refused because she didn't have a password.

The teacher called my mother and told her the situation and when they put me on the phone with her mom asked me what the password was, since we had never talked about it. Of course I couldn't tell her on the phone since that would ruin the whole point. OBVIOUSLY.

I was also frequently convinced that there were thugs circling our building. One time my cousin Christine slept over after babysitting me and was quietly listening to my only tape Stevie Wonder's In Square Circle. The sound bled from the headphones, and not knowing that she was listening to it, I woke up my mother to make her look outside. I pictured a bunch of teenagers leaning up against the wall of our house smoking cigarettes with their boom-boxes turned down low so that we wouldn't hear them.

It's funny when I actually force myself to re-imagine the people that I was afraid of when I was little. For the most part, the mental image is of the bullies in Karate Kid. You know, the ones that chased Ralph Macchio out of the Halloween Party when he was dressed as a shower? Them and the evil creatures in The Dark Crystal that sucked the life blood out of the cute little fuzzy creatures. They were a big threat, and if you get into a car without a password, they will undoubtedly get you.