Waves Become Wings

This will surprise exactly nobody ;-)



The question marks have been stitched on afterwards.

After taking the photo I searched for my embroidery needle that seemed to have disappeared into the same black hole as my missing sock ... It turned out it was sticking to the magnetic ring on the back of my phone case ... :-D

It seems like everyone who found the sports club pool yesterday morning too crowded had the same idea and turned up 20 minutes earlier today. Almost entirely the same people, only now at 6 am instead of at 6:20 am. :-D
It is again extremely hot. I am not a fan. Of course, this is the day I decide I need sock yarn in shades of colours I don't have at home for a fannish knitting idea I'm brooding over, and feel I need it right now, not delivered on Friday. So, I waited until the craft store in my district opened, taking the trolley with me as I wanted some groceries. Of course what with it being the start of summer their selection of sock yarns wasn't that big and they had none in the colours I needed. So, I spontaneously decided to take the S-Bahn to town, it's just a bit over 10 minutes and a bigger craft store is right near the main station.
The first S-Bahn train spontaneously was rerouted to the long distance tracks of the main station. Due to the eternal Stuttgart 21 construction site which you have to be lead around in a huge half circle when getting from long distance platforms to the exit, this means an additional 20 minutes walk. It has been dubbed "long-distance hiking trail" here, a local musician even made a short video clip (just when I had found a way to get the embed link again by switching to the desktop version YouTube changed something and it won't work anymore. Thus, back to hyperlinks) So, out of the train a station earlier, to take the next one. That then was cancelled. Then I took the underground. And didn't really find the shade of blue I wanted in the store in town either and due to the heat didn't want to go any further. I bought two not completely wrong kinds (after all, I can always use blue socks ;-) ), and ended up mail-ordering yarn online on the way back after all.
This was a very harmless and short hold-up on the way to town. But it happens constantly, and usually costs way more time, and I am very certain that for this town, it is a big part of the reason why stores in town are losing business to online stores, not only people's laziness. The likelyhood I'll do this again next time and don't just order online to begin with - at least when the weather is like that - is smaller each time.
Of course, once I finally also had my groceries and was home I fell asleep on the couch and so nothing got done about my idea anyway.
In half an hour I should leave again, the building complex has the yearly home owner's assembly scheduled for tonight. I very much do not feel like putting on a bra and going out again. But I also would like to be more up to date about what is going on in the neighbourhood, and not only hear when once in a blue moon I meet a neighbour on the stairs and have a chat, so it really would be sensible to go. At least the agenda seems to have nothing on it that should lead to longer discussions. (I hope I haven't jinxed in now. ;-) )
Twice within a very short time now I ran into a WIP on AO3 which the author didn't choose to mark as such, turning the part x/ of? into number/same number, both edited when updating. One has left me puzzled now for the second time whether this is it and they are trying to tell their readers that that pairing just won't work (it is the first in that combination they are posting on AO3), or whether there'll be more. This time they replied to someone's comment in a way that might indicate a coming happy ending, and I commented then in approval of both story and further parts, only to now wonder if they were actually sarcastic and that was the end and I end up looking like an idiot for eternity.
Oh well. Off I go to face the hell outside. ;-)

Yesterday, I've been to the Wilhelma, Stuttgart's zoo and botanical garden, to see the water lilies in bloom. I'm an idiot - for decades I've always been travelling there via the main station. We often went to the Wilhelma in my childhood, and coming from another town we of course started the Stuttgart part from the main station if my father didn't want to or feel up to drive, and when meeting with other people one tends to meet in the centre of town and go from there - so I somehow never questioned that it made perfect sense to look up the underground connection from the main station, the part of getting there I knew anyway. Only because of all the construction works I had the public transport website show me the whole way this time - and lo and behold, I just need to take the S-Bahn one station to the next district and there is a direct underground line to the Wilhelma and I'm there much quicker. Well, at least from now on I'm wiser. ;-)
I haven't been to the Wilhelma in a long time and actually never alone, but it's nice to do everything on ones own time, too. The water lilies weren't yet quite as much in bloom as the last time I was there in time to see them with my Mom, or my memories have made them more numerous, but still they were very very lovely and I'm glad I got myself to get out and see them. Despite a lady erupting in a quite baffling amount of explitives when she saw a group taking a tour from afar (I was feeling very tempted to go stern middle aged lady on someone actually older than me and tell her I was sorry she only now found out she wasn't alone in the world but to watch her vocabulary) it was very agreeably empty with the school having started again. Even if there were a few other people in front of what you wanted to see, you just had to wait a few minutes and you were alone. I was astonished that the first two restaurants I passed by seemed to have no vegetarian option, that seems quite strange in 2025, but it was too early to eat anyway then. The third one had rather innovative variations of pretzels, including one with broccoli nested in its arms and cheese melted over it - my lunch was saved then. ;-) A minute later I came by a restaurant with apparently an Italian menu, but I was happy with having had my unsual pretzel dish then. There were baby cheetahs and a toddler zebra and an I suppose teenage kangarooh. Most animals were wise enough to just lie around and nap at that hot day, although it thankfully wasn't as hot as on Sunday. I could have saved myself taking a sun hat though, in the morning it was often cloudy and in the afternoon too windy for a hat.
I had initially thought I'd only see the water lilies and maybe a small selection of animals, but ended up seeing probably everything except for the parts closed for construction (the farm animals, but I know cows aren't Milka purple so that is ok). Today, I should finally clear up a bit, my appartment is unusually untidy because since Friday I just dropped everything I bought and received except for the perishables. I also should finally decide what to keep from my latest Tchibo order - there was a sale and so I got a plain boring cardigan which I need as I have too many non-boring things I need something plain to combine with and I don't want to knit a boring thing, a t-shirt that turned out to look horrible which will definitely go back, and two linen pants about which someone allegedly my height wrote in their review they were just the right length for long pants for us (7/8 for normal people) - but they aren't, they drag on the ground, if I keep them I need to get out the sewing machine. Meh. But after so many hours of walking yesterday I just feel like this lady or gentleman (I wasn't indescrete enough to look ;-) ) I met there:



So I don't have much hope much will happen today. Though I may have to move inside now because it still seems a bit too windy for the awning and the sun is coming around the corner now.