I belong to the Bar. Yeah, I know, scandalous. It's not an interesting bar, though -- it's the Paralegal Division of the Utah State Bar. To keep belonging to the bar I get to do 10 hours of Continuing Legal Education every year. Usually I go to the free "brown bag" seminars. That way the boss can't complain that I cost anything -- they're free and during lunch hour. I take my lunch and am gifted with a cookie, a drink and some esoteric knowledge.
Once a year they really splash out and give me $100 to go to the Fall Forum. I can get 80% of the hours I need in an evening and one day. This year I went to the evening performance of "A Midsummer Night's Mediation Tragedy." It was, too -- tragic that is. There's a reason lawyers become lawyers instead of actors. Don't get me wrong, they did a very nice job. However, every one of those litigators does a MUCH better acting job when they're standing in a courtroom, NOT in a dining room!
I take my tatting with me to these events. Everything I need to know is on the handouts which I can download from the bar website. I listen very closely, and I have a pen and paper in case I want to write something down, which I do now and then. Now, there are occasionally people who don't think I should be tatting when someone else is speaking. Not meaning to sound sexist or anything, but it's usually men. I don't believe they can multitask after all. I thought it was a rumor. I've told them before, "I listen with my ears, not my hands!" Every year I have to tell a new person. I'm wondering now if some of them do listen with their hands! Besides, tatting keeps me from getting up and wandering around the room, or talking on my cell phone, or playing sudoku on my smart phone, or doing my office work on my iPad -- which would be much more rude, and which I saw quite a lot of those same people doing. This year I made four bookmarks. I've only got three, though, because I gave one to another of the attendees who was interested (more interested in my tatting than in A Midsummer Night's Mediation Tragedy -- really. Hard to imagine, eh?).
I like Jane Eborall's butterfly bookmark because it's so adaptable. I know the basic shape and stitch counts and it can be done without beads. Now dropping a container of beads, THAT would be distracting! These are made in Lizbeth size 20 Golden Yellow, Medium. Yeah, I know. It surprised me too. Funniest yellow I ever did see -- that's what the label said though. So, I don't really know what color-name is assigned to this red, white, blue and purple, but it makes good bookmarks!
