We are spinning our own fates.

Hi, my name is Carlin. I’m 23 years old and I’m already a spinster.

As referenced before I had the idea in my head that I was going to learn to spin yarn. I journeyed back home for the weekend to visit with relatives who were visiting from NH. That in and of itself is a separate blog worthy event, but for now I digress. On the route back home (as in the house that I live in on a daily basis these days) I had arranged to stop in and visit Mrs. D. She is my friends, Bananas, mother. She has five pet alpacas.

She is also crazy. Having visited and having listened to stories a number of times during our high school years and even a few times during college I knew she was crazy. But sometimes time makes one forget things, like how odd some people are. Not to knock her or anything. She’s an exceptionally nice and kind individual. Just happens to also be crazy.

I pulled into the driveway and Mr. D happened to be out in the yard and went to go and get her. Laid out in the garage (they have a big garage) were, oh probably 40-50 medium size plastic garbage bags of alpaca fleece. Holy crap how much did she think I was going to take.

She eventually came out and so began the chatting. We were rather focused around alpacas and hand crafts. But at least at one point we dabbled very briefly on personal spirituality. All in all I barely got a word in edge wise.

To begin with I was feeling a bit iffy about just taking all of her fleece. The stuff really does actually have value, but no worries there anymore. She just wants to see something done with it. From Banana she had heard that I’m considering going back to school. And somehow she suggested that I could sell the fleece and use the money for school. The naivety of the idea makes me laugh. Yet it does show the point. She had also given thought to the prospects of us starting a business together. Both of our names have good C sounds so she was combining that with some form of Create. Actually rather catchy. Tempting, maybe someday, I can always hope.

I left her house with a bag of fleece for each Alpaca. And big dreams.

At home I weighed my new treasure: approximately 15 lbs. For comparison sake, one will typically sell fiber by the ounce. 15 lbs at 16 oz to 1 lb = 240 ounces. A slightly researched conservative estimate of $2.50 per ounce from an individual alpaca farm = $600.

*Reaches down to pick jaw up from the floor*

That is ridiculous, even if you reduce the number in speculation that one would receive a bulk discount.

My goodness.


This story of my transition into spinsterhood to be continued…

“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar.”