Scrapple from The Apple

My mother is a knitter. The closest I’ve come is hand spooling the yarn for my scarf at the yarn shop. It burns more calories than one would think. Lunch time at the Starbucks on 57th Street. I sit next to two women who are surveying their yarn purchases from the yarn show at the Holiday Inn two blocks away. We start talking. Soon enough two other women walk in, obviously from out of town, encumbered with garbage bags. I’m thinking, couldn’t they afford suitcases? Or, if you’re going that route at least use Hefty garbage bags. The two women I’m talking to recognize the cheap garbage bags and call out to the women whose sacks I learn are holding their yarn purchases. Now there are five of us, occupying three tables talking about knitting. As far as knitting goes, I have two topics I can riff from: My mother knits me a handsome cobalt blue scarf with the yarn I spooled. She knits one for my father too and presents it to him last Christmas in a nice box, where it remains. This ensures he