We interrupt this daily life for an important announcement

I recently happened into a little money, so I did the only logical thing I could: I blew it on yarn.

Originally I wanted only to buy a knitting pattern, but the pattern wasn’t downloadable, so I’d have to have paid shipping for it. That made no sense, right? So I did the only logical thing possible and also bought fifteen skeins of the soft wooly strandy stuff to fill out the order and make it worth the shipping. Anyone would have done the same thing. Really. I keep telling myself that. And because I only do this once a year, I was really looking forward to it arriving.

NOTE TO EVERYONE: the customer service at yarn.com is amazing. They’re very patient and deal well with the terminally nervous.

Anyhow, while coming back from errands on Saturday morning, as I turned onto our block (still a quarter mile from home) I felt a distinct sense: your yarn is here.

I enjoy when this happens, when I get notified in advance of something I’m about to be told anyhow. They’re usually good things: so-and-so has emailed you; your friend is pregnant…heck, with Kiddo#4, it was “You are pregnant!” and later “You’re about to be in labor.” (Really.) I think it’s my guardian, knowing I like getting good news (who doesn’t?) and wanting to give it himself.

Back when I was a neophyte philangelus, I came home from school one day in March of my senior year. I’d been doing the college gamut for months, and I’d been finding it incredibly stressful. As I put my key in the door, I felt a very strong sense: my first college acceptance was here.

I thought, “That’s ridiculous. They’re not supposed to send letters for another three weeks.”

(Believe me: at that point, as with every other stat of the colleges I’d applied to, I knew the response dates by heart.)

I slogged upstairs with my bookbag and then instead of going into the kitchen to check the mail, I went into my bedroom and started unpacking.

Again that sense: will you go get the mail?

I thought, There’s no way it’s arrived yet.

Finally, with this sense of pressure (will you just go into the kitchen already?), I went into the kitchen and found a fat envelope from Alfred University: my first college acceptance.

That’s the first time I remember thinking an angel had pre-empted me with some good news, and it was sweet because I’d been so stressed about college applications. There was finally relief: I was going to go to college. (I didn’t go to that one, but that’s beside the point.)

Anyhow, this Saturday, I pulled into the driveway to find a box waiting for me on the steps. My yarn. I’ve already begun swatching some of it to make a hat or something. It’s soft and squishy and it feels good to touch and to imagine what it can become, and I knew it was coming.