chipmunk bites and moving schools

dear reader,

i've been putting off the first post for a few reasons:

1. this is a new blog. beginnings are important, or so i've been led to believe.

2. at this point in my life, i've become overly enthusiastic about playing with string, and i wanted to not feel so alone, but i was afraid of THOSE KNITTERS. (you know the ones.)

3. i was too shy to post before, but i need to now, because... this could be my last chance to type with my right pointer finger.

okay, so, the last one was a bit melodramatic. but let me explain.

about two weeks ago, i was bitten by a chipmunk.

let me back up a bit more.

i have a cat. she likes to think that i am lacking in hunting skills, so she likes to try to teach me. every spring, when the tiny furry animals around my house start pumping out babies, she starts thinning them out and leaving them for me, because she is my jewish mother and i'm just not eating enough. look at you, she says, you're skin and bones! (i'm not.) so, every other day, through a dead mole here and a twitching baby squirrel there, my dear jewish cat tries to fatten me up, maybe get me to cook more, because you're not going to get a man heating up food in the microwave, i'm sorry to say it, and couldn't you put on some makeup once in a while?

two weeks ago, she positively prances into my room with A LIVE CHIPMUNK hanging from her maw. i commanded her to "DROP IT! NO, GET IT OUT OF MY HOUSE" and she dutifully did, leaving me to pick up the dear, dear disney creature and cradle it in my loving, nurturing han-

*EXPLETIVE DELETED*

after throwing the cursed thing out the window (lovingly, onto a tree), i examined the bite marks. a nice deep incision from the lower teeth and three gnawy-bites from the upper teeth adorned my right forefinger. cursing liberally, i water-boarded the wounds with anti-bacterial soap and drowned them with neosporin before suffocating them with a band-aid.

if you were to look at my internet browsing history for that night, you would find (aside from the japanese big-bosomed lady porn pages, of course, duh) about eight and a half billion google searches for "rabies", "tetanus", "chipmunk bite", "rabies treatment", "tetanus photos", and "chipmunks are satan spawn".

now, here's where the rationalization comes in.

i found out that, not only is rabies not usually carried by or passed to rodents, but there have been no rabies cases in my area for a number of years! whew! another of my morbid fantasies laid to rest. (morbid fantasies of death by exotic or long-thought-dead disease courtesy of house, m.d., giving hypochondriacs ammo since 2004.)

so, like, rabies is out! i don't need to go to the doctor, right?

also, have i mentioned? i'm a teacher. a pre-k teacher. i teach a class of twenty four-and five-year-olds with another teacher. and that's a feat in and of itself. this year, however, we have quite a, uh, challenging class. in fact, one of our children routinely endangers the lives of the other students by swinging about large pieces of furniture. to leave my teacher with such a sweet, complex soul and a substitute teacher is out of the question. most subs, while good-natured folk, are ridiculously ill-equipped to handle any pre-k, let alone mine.

oh, also, up until this past monday, we were holding class in a building that was built by white people for black students (a segregated school) in the 1950's. (i live in georgia. yeah.) it wasn't made of the best materials then, and the building has only deteriorated in the sixty years it's been in existence. mold, mildew, even bats are commonplace (DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID "BATS"), and we've been promised a new school this year. it's been under construction this entire school year, and on monday, we moved into it! yay!

except, oh, wait, uh... it's three weeks before the end of the school year.

so?

for those of you who do not have, nor have ever had, a four-year-old child (much less twenty of them), you don't know this, but... it's a BIG HONKING DEAL to switch school buildings in a school year. it's a big deal to pack, to explain, to maintain order, not to mention to reinforce the understanding that the rules of the previous building still apply in this new setting. now, take twenty four-year-olds, and do this to them at the peak of spring fever.

it's not a pretty sight.

sorry, wait. what does any of this have to do with knitting? and why did you elaborate on the chipmunk bite?

wait for it.

so, here's the timeline. (please imagine knitting permeating this entire timeline.) chipmunk bite, crazy class, moving, chipmunk bite completely healed and is fine, working on weekends, working after school, getting kids readjusted to schedule and rules... after two weeks, chipmunk bite becomes red, itchy, and imflamed.

oh, and my doctor keeps post office hours.

so, i had a choice. go get tested for tetanus, rabies, scurvy, lupus, leprosy (and any of the other ten thousand rare diseases that house has taught me to fear) and leave my teacher vulnerable to a sub that thinks her job is catching forty winks (NOT KIDDING), or, suck it up and hope to god it's not too late to get some sort of treatment.

all this figures into knitting because, instead of going to the doctor (i know, i KNOW), i've just been practising knitting without my right forefinger. i think it's okay because i'm a continental picker and rarely use that finger (with knitting) anyway, but i'm still worried that i may not be able to type once i lose it. if, i mean. if i lose it. just in case.

so, i'm planning a doctor visit monday afternoon when the kids are down for nap. but if worse comes to worst, i wanted to start my knitting blog off with a bang. a crazy school year, a chipmunk bite, and the enduring faith that i could still knit, even if it was frodo-style.

also, i just wanted to caution the knitters of the internet to keep up on the tetanus shots (especially you sock knitters that leave US 1's lying about willy-nilly, don't look at me like that, you know who you are, etc.), and don't, under any circumstances or delusions of disney-princesshood, attempt a rescue from a cat's mouth, no matter how cute the creature is.

let the feline kill the durn thing.