Words and Numbers

I love words. I like everything to do with words. I like the way a multisyllabic word rolls off my tongue. I loved being able to use "antepenultimate" correctly recently when talking about the next-to-next-to-last peach in the fridge. I like to spell; I was the fifth grade spelling champion, though I confess that some of that facility has diminished. I once could type 105 words per minute with zero errors. I like crossword puzzles. I like cryptograms. I like acrostics.

Numbers, not so much. In elementary school I did okay with arithmetic. I got the hang of long division, and still know how to use the carat to move the decimal over to the right when need be. I knew the various equivalencies of fractions to percents and took special delight in 87-1/2 percent being equal to 7/8. At least I think that's still the case.

In seventh grade, my math all started to go downhill. I squeaked past Algebra I and while I truly enjoyed plane geometry, I failed it during sophomore year and had to go to summer school. That was the end of math and me. Solving for x held no appeal and it seems like by now somebody should have found the least common denominator.

Moving right along . . .

Recently I became appalled by the number of finished quilt tops I have waiting to be sandwiched, quilted-or-tied, bound, and sent to their forever homes, wherever those may be. I've got a bunch of soon-to-be quilts over at the machinist's now, and another small stack to go next.

But there are still so many more. And, what's worse, there are pieces of yardage that I know must have been purchased to be backs for projects now long gone.

Over the past few days, I've measured each of the remaining tops (and I won't tell you how many there are). I've also measured each of the pieces of this-looks-like-it-was-meant-to-be-a-back fabrics. Dimensions are recorded in pencil and pinned to each piece.

So far, so good.

But being mathematically challenged, I'm breaking out in hives considering, for example, what I would have to do to a 55 x 110 piece of fabric to turn it into a back for a 63 x 72 top.

I hate this. I can almost hear my seventh grade math teacher crowing, "I told you that you don't know your fourth grade fundamentals!" (Miss Godfrey was the terror of our junior high and universally regarded with a combination of fear and loathing. I can still picture her brandishing a ruler and wearing a moth-eaten gray cardigan even though the school was uncomfortably warm. And she smelled bad, too.)

See? I'd much rather be writing than calculating.

But it needs to be done. And tomorrow, Scarlett, is another day. Perhaps I'll be able to face it all then.