Musings on Football and Cables

I shocked myself this weekend with my intense desire for the Steelers to win against the Ravens. Though I've tried to in the past, I can't seem to get into football. Rob's a Fantasy Football fanatic, and I've expected part of that to rub off on me since I listen to his hyped-up accounts of the games with an open mind on a regular basis. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough, but I can't say that I fully get it. With the exception of Duke basketball, I've never been a sports nut, and all I've from the football that I've seen is that helmeted, brutish men hustle from end to end of the field when they're not entangled in piles of limbs on the ground. Touchdowns are scored. They're worth six points. And most importantly, when there are three minutes left on the clock, there are actually no fewer than forty-five.

Pittsburgh, needless to say, is a football-lover's paradise. I've never seen a place so enamored with any one thing. People actually paint their houses black and gold - perfectly acceptable colors for a football team and the memorabilia that comes with it - but not on a house. It just doesn't translate. On Saturday I was working at the market and didn't get the memo to wear my Polamalu jersey. If I'd seen a woman wearing a football jersey anywhere else I might think,Huh. But here that type of attire on woman is just as common as it is on men. Women also enjoy their Steeler earrings, necklaces, turtlenecks, tights. I wouldn't know either way, but I'm sure many of them also wear Steelers lingerie under their clothing. There was an older woman prancing around the market dressed as - I'm guessing - the Steelers Fairy - a black and gold feathered mask, a black and gold frilly jumpsuit, and wielding a gold-trimmed black parasol. Another phenomenon that I don't understand in the least: The Terrible Towel. A businessman-type was strolling through wearing a black wool duffel coat, as they are wont to do, but as he passed a saw that he had a gold Terrible Towel safety-pinned to his back. The Steelers played the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday, and I don't know if it was the overwhelming degree of spirit in my work environment, but I got swept up in it. If someone had tossed me a Hines Ward Jersey I think I would've thrown it on. Folks were out gathering eats for their parties, as if it were the Super Bowl n'at! It wasn't the plan, but the market closed an hour early because shopping traffic ground to a screeching halt at around 3:30, shortly before the game began. Larry and Kim, my bosses, popped in unexpectedly, just back from a trip to Florida. They said that nearly the all of the passengers were Floridian Steelers fan flying up for the game. Nuts. But really kind of fun, admittedly. We just have to win one more game next week against the Jets and then it's off to the Super Bowl.

Enough of that silliness. Moving on to craftier and more domestic things. Knitting cables. I think I've mastered it.

Another dish cloth for Rob. My guy - and impeccable dishwasher - deserves to have a cable-knit dish cloth, wouldn't you agree?

I'm getting so excited about starting in on this sweater for Olive I can hardly stand it. Just LOOK at this yarn. Breaks your heart, doesn't it? It's from Pamela Bryan at Pucker Brush Farm in Shelocta, PA, northeast of the city. She sometimes brings her spinning wheel and sets up shop at the market, and her yarns are all breathtakingly splendid. What an eye for color the woman has. I just want to dump a basketful of her yarns onto my mattress and wallow in it all day. Who's with me?

These photographs don't begin to do it justice. The colors are far more sumptuous in real life.