Portland is Awesome

You’d think that two women carrying around well-hatted babies and unfinished, knitted socks — and obsessively taking photos of them, and each other — would cause discomfort, if not outright consternation. But when Larissa and I participated in the Yarn Harlot’s ‘Inexplicable Knitting Behavior Scavenger Hunt‘ we were not once turned down for an extremely strange photo. We were welcomed with (largely) open arms and several eager smiles. And of course, some great one-liners. Such as:

• “This is not the first time I have held The Yarn today” — Pioneer Square snack vendor
• “I used to knit. When I was a logger. It was either that, or drink.” — Jimmy, who’s on his fourth step of NA, on the #75
• “Whose turn is it again?” — Office of Neighborhood Involvement receptionist, upon being presented with a sock (”held by a City Hall employee”)
• “Are you going to BUY it?” — Voodoo Doughnuts employee, when asked if he could ice “SOCK” on a Cock-n-balls doughnut. We did.
  
• “Did you take your photo with the windup toys, too?” — Leo, who runs the windup toys station at Finnegan’s, and was worried we might miss out on points. Leo is the best windup toy station employee EVER.
• “And she was handicapped!” — enthusiastic fellow knitter at the World Forestry Center, explaining why Larissa and I should have won prizes for our 5th- or 6th-place point totals, given we did the whole thing with babies and on the bus.

The thing is: in Portland, strange behavior is commonplace, encouraged, even. That the city can open itself to the possibility that strangeness might actually be worthwhile: that’s awesome.