A (Knitting) Tragedy in One Act

This is a tale of love and loss.

As my dear readers might know, I spent last week in Belize—half work trip, half vacation. And I truly had a wonderful time. (Photos) Mostly. While Belize City is, um, a bit rustic (read: underdeveloped, boring, and swampy), the rest of the country is beautiful, and there's so much to see and do. I visited only 2 of the country's dozens of Mayan ruins, I trekked through some rainforest, and I visited just one of the many cayes (teeny islands along the coast). I drank lots of Belikin beer. I visited the "rum museum" for a rum tasting, as one of our Belize contacts is actually part of the family that owns Travellers Rums. Overall, it was a lovely trip.

In preparing for the trip, I of course, selected a number of knitting projects to tote with me. For the plane ride, I decided to only take wooden needles—less chance of them being noticed and/or confiscated. So I dug up my neglected Foliage hat, the yarn for the second Chevalier mitten, and then selected a new sock pattern to try, since someone gave me a lovely set of Knit Picks Harmony DPNs in size 2.

I didn't have time to wind yarn, so I picked up the Knit Picks Felici I'd purchased specifically to make the Jaywalker socks, and off we went. On the flight from Houston to Belize, I cast on. After the ever annoying ribbing, the pattern was FANTASTIC. Easy to memorize, and the sock was knitting up quickly on 2s. I had a good 3 inches done by the time I got off the plane, I don't think I've ever knit a sock that fast, it was like magic. It's really too bad I will never see that half-knit sock or 4 of my DPNs again . . .

Because someone stole my handbag. Not just swiped it, stuck a probably-fake-but-let's-not-test-it-and-find-out pistol in my face and demanded my bag. In broad daylight. As I sat on the low wall that separates the beach from the road just 2 blocks from my hotel. Let me tell you what he got for his troubles:

a half-knit sock

half a granola bar

a hershey kiss

a hair brush

a Metro Smarttrip card

a bag full of makeup

a spare pair of contact lenses

a cell phone

Yes, thankfully the most valuable thing in there was my cell. If you don't count the Jaywalker. So now I've got a single ball of Felici, and two size 2 DPNs. What on earth am I going to do with those? Sigh.