Say It Ain't So!

Last night after dinner, I cleaned the kitchen, walked the dog, got the kids headed toward bed, and settled in for a bit of knitting, movie watching, and chocolate. I was working the provisional cast on for Sahara, so I was a little distracted when my husband handed me a piece of chocolate and said, "Here, try this." But it was chocolate, so of course, I paused long enough to pop it into my mouth before going back to my counting.

About halfway through the cast on, I started scratching my chin. Not because of the cast on, although that would have been legitimate, but because it itched. And then my neck started to itch. And my face. When my back and chest started to itch a few seconds later, it got my attention. Not wanting to put down my knitting mid-cast on, I turned to my husband (scratching frantically at my head, which was starting to feel like a colony of ants had sprouted in my hair). "Do I have bites or something on my face?"

He looked up and examined my face and neck, then my back. "Nope," he said. "Hives. Bad ones. I think you're having an allergic reaction. And you'd better go take some Benadryl. Fast. Probably a food allergy. What did you eat?"

Pregnant pause as the horror slowly dawned on me. "Only the chocolate!"

Can it be? I've eaten pounds of chocolate in my life. Maybe tons. Candy, ice cream, brownies, cake, hot chocolate...I am an equal opportunity chocolate lover. And aside from the occasional stomach ache (and that fudge incident when I was a kid that I prefer not to recall), I've never had a reaction to it. But last night I did a pretty good impression of someone with a definite food allergy, and the only thing I had consumed in the previous two hours was a single piece of Hershey's Special Dark.

While the full import of this appalling turn of events sinks in, I'll show you this:

This is the beginning of Sahara, worked in the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted I showed you yesterday. I'm getting perfect gauge and the fabric is a delightful texture. I'm liking the way the colors are blending together. I'm knitting with two balls, alternating every other row, to prevent any unattractive pooling. I'm a little concerned that the finished product won't look good in a variegated yarn--all the FO's I've seen are solid colored--but I'm going ahead with it anyway. What the heck--it's just yarn, right? If it's ugly, there's always the frog pond.