presents plus comfort=friendship

Edited slightly to give you some helpful details and links so as not to be obscure:
When you least expect it, when you're needing comfort, life gives you shwarma. (Shwarma is like Middle Eastern fast food) Or something like it. (This is my attitude, and it's been dang hard to find shwarma here unless I make it!) The professor has a childhood friend who is very dear to us. This childhood friend is married to Pam, (also dear!), who just happens to be a Fulbright scholar working on research about women in Egypt for her PhD. Many threads connect us...the professor's childhood friendship with her husband, and also, my research interests. When I started my ill-fated PhD in religious studies, some of my interests were similiar to Pam's.

Now, I got an M.A . out of that experience, and my advisor retired, abandoning me in the middle... enough of that sad tale, which I'll tell another time.

On to the real story. While Pam was in Egypt, she stayed with some friends who knew the value of good shwarma spice. I'm about to run out of this spice, and even though you can mail order spices in the USA, you can't smell it in advance, or know it's "right." Pam emailed me before she left Egypt, and said, "Anything you want?" I knew what to ask for. However, her friends insisted that only shwarma spice from Libya would do. Today, in the mail, I got two blue ziploc baggies containing--delicious smelling spices. I can't wait to start cooking with this-all the way from Libya!
Cushioning the precious spices were two handstitched applique pillows. Gorgeous. I may use them flat on dressers so I can admire them visually and sit on them less!

These weren't my only treats this week, either! On Monday, I got to meet two lovely women, mother and daughter, who will be opening a Yarn Shop in Russellville, KY !!

Now, let me be the first to say that I completely babbled to them when I met them... diarrhea of the mouth, as my high school band director used to say. I felt embarrassed when I got home. Whew, a true sign of how badly I need to talk sometimes! (the dogs just don't seem like an audience..) Despite this, I was given a lovely present from them. Check out this coral skein of fingering weight merino, bamboo and nylon yarn, hand-dyed by Ashley herself. If you want to buy something subtle and luscious like this, wander over to her etsy shop, enchanted yarn & fiber and support them in this new enterprise.

Now, at the bottom of this photo, the last set of presents from this week...several skeins of the new Jamieson & Smith Shetland Supreme 2-ply, a little "I love Wool" button, and two chocolates. These were sent to me from The Inside Loop editors as a wee gifty gift for contributing to their first issue. I'm stunned by the hand of this worsted shetland, it is nearly silky. I'm not much of a lace knitter, so I'm considering doubling these to do some fingering weight colorwork--someday.

Sometimes the karmic cosmos knows you need a present or two, and I've been so lucky this week. -- No, nothing bad is happening. we're healthy, etc. We're just juggling a lot right now. The professor is travelling a lot to give talks at other universities, I'm thinking lots about "what will come next" for me when the book is finally finished, and it causes me, urr, to feel a little overwhelmed. Hence, the need for some sincerely neat presents....thank you, thank you to my friends, and to all the blog commenters who keep me company here! (...and gosh help me if I blather like that again in public, really. Someone slap me or something.) --OK, I meant that metaphorically, of course...but I was definitely out of control! Has this ever happened to you?!