I'm weird.

Not a terribly huge insight, I know, but some days I believe it more than others, and today was a "Wow, I'm really weird" day.

This morning The Baby and I trundled down to the Charleston Children's Museum for Sip and Knit. The folks at the museum (who I would nominate for canonization, were I Catholic, but I'm not) open an hour early every Thrusday and people bring their kids and knit while the museum staff rides herd on the little ones. Nice place, great staff. There were only two knitters there today other than myself, but they were both very nice and we hung out and chatted while one woman's kid went off to play in the museum and my kid stayed (we were in the art room) and colored with crayons and played with magnets on the wall while we knit. (The other lady's grandkids were busy, so by golly she came by herself.) As I was sitting there knitting, I realized that while I could probably list at least half the regulars in the Canberra, Australia StitchNBitch group, these were the first knitters I'd met in Charleston. Where I've lived for a couple YEARS.

It was one of those moments where you kind of roll your eyes and shake your head at yourself. Nod, and think, "Yup, I'm weird." and then go on.

Anyway, The Baby and I both had fun and we'll go back next week.

A combination of not wanting to leave the art room and not wanting to hold my hand hit in the parking garage, and The Baby had one of those classic screaming, flop-like-a-landed-trout temper tantrums. This was her first and I knew however I responded would set the tone for the rest of our lives, so I said firmly "You WILL hold my hand anywhere there are cars. Period. NOT NEGOTIABLE." and hitched her under my arm like a sack of laundry and hauled her off, howling. Someone passing by who caught the performance said something like "Good job, Mom" so I guess it wasn't THAT massive a scene. Anyway, once The Baby realized I wasn't participating in performance art, she kind of wiggled to be put down. I did, and she walked to the Jeep nicely after that, letting me hold her hand. Still howling, just to make sure I knew she was unhappy, but otherwise behaving. So I ignored it.

Ah, the joys of motherhood.

So we come home to the Geek House (a geek house is any house that has more computers networked than there are people living in it), and I start going through mail and blogs to read, and I've come up with a few things to share.

First up, from Netter and entitled "Let's freak the muggles again" (which sums it up nicely): CNN is doing a poll about what we all do with our free time. Knitting is one of the choices. Bop on over, fill out the survey, and make sure knitting is first so it screws with the statistics.

Secondly, a 'support our geek troops' opportunity. (While we are all quite revolted by our current government, the troops are really just victims of the administration like the rest of us and deserve some support.) The troops stationed in Iraq are trying to hold a gamer convention June 9. They want to have tournaments, but they are lacking in everything: books, dice, graph paper, prizes, you name it. Things are so desperate right now that the guys are sharing dice (for hard core gamers, that's like letting another guy sleep with your girlfriend). If you happen to have any game gear laying around you'll never use, or have anything that would make a good prize and wish to donate it, details can be found here. I know a lot of guys who have deployed, myself, and for prizes, almost anything goes. Particularly appreciated would be novels or any other reading material (other than porn; that's banned by the UN), handheld games of any kind (new or used; GameBoy cartriges in particular - if the winner doesn't have the proper equipment to play it, they can use it to barter for something they do want - but I think GameBoys are issued with combat boots these days), and drink mix. Yes, drink mix. All they have over there is water. Any change of pace from that is greatly appreciated.

I don't generally put out calls for charity donations, but this one hit a chord for me. Being something of an odd ball myself, I'm really sympathizing with gamers stationed in Iraq. Well, with anyone stationed in Iraq, but today it's the gamers.