One disadvantage of having spent most of the last three years abroad is that I rarely have had the chance to get together with other knitwear designers.  So when

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I stopped into an interesting LYS today, in Bellagio.  No, not that parody of classic Italian design in the Las Vegas desert!  I mean the Bellagio on Lake Como, in northern Italy, where George Clooney likes to hang out.  In fact, I saw him by the boat dock...not really.  Yes, those are indeed baby bibs; along with yarn, this store also sells bibs, T-shirts and other sundry items of clothing.  I didn't recognize any of the yarn brands (where's the Filatura di Crosa?  the Filati?  the Berroco*?).  No needles or patterns, or at least none visible, and the yarn, aside from the tempting window display, was stacked in boxes on a high shelf behind the counter--no tactile temptation there!  And although I loitered in the store for nearly ten minutes (a really long time in these kinds of circumstances), no one ever appeared to sell anything to me!  No wonder they keep the yarn out of reach. Oh well.  After a splurge at the latest WEBS online sale, I'm finally on the dreaded yarn diet, anyway.  I wish my husband would go on a cigar diet.  This is his favorite store in Heathrow airport.  As one can see from the cigar box labels, the husband likes to practice the art of ignoring good advice.  These labels go on cigarettes in the U.K. too, and they hit every angle, from the high to the low:  motherly and fatherly instinct ("don't make your children breathe your smoke"), consideration for others ("smoking seriously harms you and others around you"), fear of death ("smoking kills"), vanity ("smoking causes ageing [sic] of the skin"), and the dreaded below-the-belt "smoking decreases blood flow and may cause impotence." *Ha ha.  Although it sounds Italian, Berroco is actually a Massachusetts company.

I have no idea who Elissa is, but I do know that my LYS, Elissa's Creative Warehouse in Needham, MA, has a great selection of yarn, lots of books, nice salespeople, and OK, they never seem to have current issues of Vogue Knitting or Interweave, but compared to the place I just visited yesterday, that is a very minor quibble.  True, both are located in a sort of industrial park, but this Jupiter, FL LYS has the odd concept of organizing yarns by color, making it a little hard to find them by fiber content or brand.  I could get used to that (although their selection didn't excite me), but the attitude!  I mean, listen to this monologue: "This one customer, she's a regular but seasonal-- you know, a snowbird--she's the type that sits in her car in the parking lot, waiting for us to open...so what I usually do is, I get in early, get things organized, and a few minutes of ten, I open the door.  Well, she comes in, and she says to me, 'Your clock is wrong.'"  (Commiserating chuckles from the yarn cronies.)  "So I said, 'Well, that's the clock we go by here.'  And she was fine--no further trouble.  But she's just the type, if you let her push you around...." I have to admit, that customer doesn't sound like a prize.  But can you imagine trying to go to the BANK on your way to work, and trying to open the door at 9, and ten minutes later, they open it and say, "Well, we go by our OWN time here.  We're on CHASE MANHATTAN time here!  GFY!"  Or the supermarket--"We're on PUBLIX time here!"  Elissa, I love you.  And WEBS, I love you too:  sometimes it's easiest to just order yarn online.