Luke’s Diner

This was going to be a beautiful post about the joys of not only knitting in public, but of knitting at a Luke’s Diner pop-up. Instead, I’m probably dying from a bug bite right now. Goodbye, cruel world!

The picture below is of me before I was accosted by mother nature.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLMLUAdD7bL/?taken-by=jac_attacking

Megan-Anne and I were between dye baths when we got wind of the news that there are Luke’s Diner pop-ups everywhere today. There are over 200 coffee shops across the US and Canada participating today. (You can find one near you HERE.) They had the cute Luke’s sign in the window, a cardboard cut out of Luke himself, barista’s wearing backwards Luke’s hats, and more importantly FREE COFFEE! We quickly finished up the dyes baths we had going, threw on some big girl pants, and drove to the nearest location. By the time we got there, they were already out of the free coffee and the special cups with Gilmore Girls quotes on them, which probably should’ve tipped me off that my delightful afternoon outing was about to take a turn for the worst.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLMKbQyD3Fh/?taken-by=doctor_llama

There I am, sipping my dirty chai and knitting a pair of MineCraft Socks (pattern by Heather Cox) for our Socktober KAL when I grab my knitting bag off the floor. That’s when tragedy struck! One minute I’m looking for my ruler to check the length of my cuff and getting distracted by Megan-Anne trying to sell me on putting together a special Gilmore Girls pattern kit to celebrate the mini-series airing in November, and the next I’m getting bitten by a bug on my pinkie finger.

I didn’t see the bug at first. I put my bag down on the table and watched my finger swell. A tiny, bleeding pinprick appeared. Megan-Anne asked if I had gotten a splinter off the table and I looked to make sure there wasn’t something sharp puncturing through my bag like a rogue darning needle. Then, I saw it. A giant nightmare bug.

I took a picture of the bug before a barista killed it, so that I’d be able to search the internet to find out if I’d be losing my finger or not. But, I won’t share the picture here. No one wants to scroll down and have a nightmare bug pop out at them. Either way, after much frantic internet searching and a frantic phone call to my husband, we decided that it was a Wheel Bug and definitely not its cousin, the Kissing Bug, from South America that would give me Chagas disease.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLMMkoDDBnY/?taken-by=lattesandllamasyarn

So far, I’m still alive, but I didn’t get to make as much progress on my socks as I wanted due to the bug incident. I wanted to finish the leg while I was there and then work on the heel tonight. I’m a bit behind schedule now, but I think I can make up the time this weekend. Then, I’ll be back on track to make a pair of socks in two weeks.

Megan-Anne and I are running Socktober KALs all month long in our Lattes & Llamas Ravelry group. The mystery KAL starts on the 17th, but it isn’t too late to jump in on the MineCraft Socks KAL now. I promise. You can do it! Use it as an excuse to knock out that Christmas knitting. ;)

~Jac
Although, I’m still 48% convinced that I totally have Chagas now.