Franklin’s back! (As if you didn't know!)

And thinking about Franklin, and my classes with him next month, I began wondering which issue of the Twist Collective it was that published his brilliant essay about the Ten Knitters You Meet in Hell. I pottered around in the Twist archives for a while, quite needlessly, because Google found it in one.

[Google has done some good work for me lately – I have started to compile this year’s list of Books People Might Like for Christmas. There was one, recently reviewed, for which I could remember neither author nor title, just what it was about. Amazon’s search engine failed – I kept getting helpful suggestions, but not the book I was looking for. Google, same key words, got it right away. They also tracked down an ode of Horace for me the other day from a mis-remembered quotation. Those boys can write an algorithm.]

Not much else on the knitting front. I have advanced to the third triangle of the Wingspan. Not sure if I like the yarn I snatched, rather than chose, from stash.

So I’ll write this morning about my credit card. It’s been blocked.

It got some heavy use last week – the Shetland Times, that Kirkmichael postcard, the order to Jimmy Bean, rail fare to London.  (It’s not maxed out.)

The rail tickets were bought on Sunday afternoon. On Monday I thought I fancied something to read. Granddaughter Lizzie (American Studies, Birmingham University) is doing a course on The Thriller this year. The reading list makes a feature of Sara Paretsky whom I’ve never read, so I thought I’d have a go. No luck. [Elmore Leonard isn’t even mentioned in the extensive reading list. I suspect the academic attraction of Paretsky is partly, at least, that she’s a woman who writes about a feisty, perhaps even Lesbian, woman detective. Two birds with one stone.]

I tried various stratagems and eventually rang Amazon. They were kind and helpful and suggested all the things I had already tried. No luck.

And just as I was gloomily revving myself up to phone the bank, armed with the last four digits of my Social Security Number, they phoned me! And I assured them that I really had wanted to pay Jimmy Bean and the Shetland Times, and they said that’s fine, the card is un-blocked as of now (and the balance is what I thought it was).

I spent the evening in a glow of happiness. The only trouble is, still no Paretsky this morning. But I have the comfort of knowing I can phone Mr Umesh when he gets to his desk – I don’t have to start at the bottom.

I have never believed in this unusual-activity business, since I went to Theo’s wedding and paid for a hotel room in CT, and hired a car, and they didn’t raise an eyebrow. What activity could be more unusual than that, for me? None of last week’s transactions were really that odd, or that high-priced, except perhaps for paying so much for a postcard. What will they do when I buy a new desktop computer, or a suede shirt?