Your Brain Knitting and Raffling

I went to hear Stephanie Pearl-McPhee speak at the DKC meeting tonight on the topic: This Is Your Brain on Knitting.  I've known Stephanie casually for several years and often knit with her at Lettuce, so I know how witty and charming she is, but I'd never actually heard her "public speak" before.  Now I see why people all over the continent flock to do so. Not only does she present a well organized, well researched lecture, but she's funny as hell doing it.  She had us all in stitches while talking about such seemingly unfunny things like dopamine, theta waves, meditation and visual spatial sense.Of course we all know knitting is good for us but Stephanie provides the scientific evidence in a totally entertaining and inclusive way..


Embarrassing story of the evening:  
I bought some tickets for the fundraising raffle.  They sell the roll style tickets 3 for a twoonie and the proceeds go to Cancer research.  You  separate the matched pair along the dotted line, put one ticket into the bag and keep the other for the draw.  I tore my tickets accordingly and returned to my seat.  Checking my numbers I saw that I had 707, 708 and...708.  I had put two of the same tickets in the bag.  I basically screwed up a pretty simple raffle concept.  Sigh. Then they did the draw calling...709.  Silence. So I timidly raised my hand and told the whole crowd that I'm a boob and why.  I offered to forfeit but everyone kindly agreed that I had won.  I got a beautiful wicker basket and a copy of Stephanie's book, Things I Learned from Knitting...whether I wanted to or not. What nice people.