Xena, Warrior Princess!

Good things and not so good things and great things in the last couple of days.

One excellent thing was the arrival of my share of a celebration swap emanating (posh word, note that) from Ravelry, the huge and wonderful site full of talented and friendly people.



This is from a friend in Oklahoma, thank you so much Carol, and boasts pecans, coffee, chocolate, fruit butter, from there, local items, wonderful to have. And beautiful little stitch markers, tiny artworks in themselves and the case they come in. I have to ditch my cut up drinking straws now! and English tea, for afternoon tea taking purposes. AND a wonderful headband about which more anon.


I threw vanity to the winds and took a pic of me, using the mirror to see my camera screen, disregarding the distortion that was the inevitable result, because I wanted to model the beautiful beaded headband that was part of the parcel.

One view of me cracking up laughing at the attempt



I'm easily amused


and one a better shot of the band itself,



and I hope you can see the beads. It's really an artwork, and the choices of the rest of the parcel were all Oklahome-centric and wonderful, great to share with HP. Note the chocolate map of OK!

So that was good. Then this morning frantic bellringing at the door, and my neighbor was there telling me I had a flat tire....oh-oh. Then he followed up by saying he'd searched for his own inflating device, realized it was in his truck in the city where his daughter had had it in a collision, so he ran to a neighbor and borrowed his, and had set up ready to inflate the tire before telling me I had a problem.

There is simply nothing as good as having a neighbor who sets the solution in motion before worrying you with the problem! aside from having a flat right in your own parking space, no stranding involved, we found there was a nail in the tread, and when the tire was up again, he promised to look in on HP, who can not be alone, while I nipped over to the gas station to get the tire plugged.

And the guys there asked me could I manage to wait ten minutes? please? and had the tire off, nail removed, hole plugged, tire back in less than that, chatting at me in a friendly way the whole time. Wonderful change from the olden days in gas stations....

I was only mildly jarred to see that their terracotta tiled floor was the same as the one I put down in my condo and was very proud of. Which means either I have the taste of a gas station decorator, or they have very good home decor instincts. No prize for deciding which solution I prefer.

Then, on the way home, only a five minute trip, I found myself behind a minivan with a vanity plate that read XENA WP. And I thought, yeah, that's me!!! very appropriate.

Well, I think so, anyway.