I brought my knitting project (gauge swatch for Michelle Stern’s baby’s sweater) to Nicole and Dave’s excellent New Years’ Party last weekend (we celebrate New Years at exactly 9PM with a secretly prepared videotape of the ball drop. The kids have an excellent time, since for them New Years is really just a Pavlovian mechanism: Shiny ball! Numbers counted loudly! Blow party horns and SCREAM!!! Exhausted sleep. And we actually ARE celebrating the moment of the new year, we just happen to be celebrating it for our fine neighbors to the east in the Azore Islands. Dave and Nicole, I salute you.

I knew that Kate’s friends would be bringing their husbands, so I just threw my knitting in, you know, whatever was handy. No big deal, it’s not like I’m overcompensating…

Yeah, that’s right, I put my yarn in a milspec, waterproof, and monster-truck-resistant Pelican 1200 case. In Hazard Orange. With a Firefly ACR/4F SOLAS distress strobe epoxied to it (“Warning! Per US Code, distress signal to be used only in case of emergency. Fine or imprisonment for unauthorized activation.”) You know, just the sort of thing that a fellow has lying around the house to carry his knitting in. I’m not overcompensating or anything. Really. Do I sound defensive? I’m not defensive.

I’d show you the case that I carry my My Pretty Pony collection around in, but it requires a full environmental protection suit in order to approach within camera distance.