Caturday!

George has very definitely laid a claim to me.

If I'm on the bed with her, and one of the other cats jumps up, she chases them away! I'm trying to break her of that habit.

I found a nice recipe I wanted to try out this week: Pippins preserved in slices.

(Click to embiggen.) I started with his front legs, but then I realized I didn't know how much a "gill" of water was, so I stopped.

He seems to be dealing with his lack of mobility very well. Poor no-leg Pippin!

And Eve? I think she's the victim of a body snatching.

This sweet, affectionate cat is not the demon I have come to know and tolerate. Every time I sit down she comes over and rubs her head against my hands--and doesn't bite them when I pet her! Seriously, though, I was actually a little concerned this morning. I sat down next to Sleeping Eve and started to pet her head--and she let me pet her for several minutes with no complaints. Multiple minutes, no bites, no escape attempts, no swats at my hand. She just sat there and purred. I was literally starting to wonder if she's sick. But then she rolled onto her side and bit me, and I was relieved. I think she just misses her people.

So, today is the Festival of Cleaning at my old place, and then I can wash my hands of it--literally and figuratively! I'm also planning to do a little care package assembling. I have to make sure my new cats' real owners survive, so they can take them back in a year! And then I'll probably go TV shopping. Last night my old TV was making a high-pitched whine while I was trying to watch a Mythbusters rerun, and I think that means it's time to finally buy a new TV. I've done some online shopping, but most of what I'm finding are LCD and plasma TVs. Those things are expensive! I'm really on a tube TV budget, even though it's slightly stone-age of me. But I could literally only get a 7" LCD TV on my current budget, and I'm afraid that's just not adequate for my television needs. I'm hoping that if I go to brick-and-mortar stores I find a little more variety in the tube TV selection--maybe the stores are just not putting them on their websites. Here's hoping!

Meme--Edited for truthiness

You know the picture of my sweater sleeve that I posted on Saturday? I've done about 9 rows since then. Imagine it slightly longer.

Since I have nothing very interesting to report, I thought I'd do a meme. This is a list of 100 foods that every omnivore should eat sometime in their life. The idea is to bold the ones you've eaten.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare--my dad calls this a Cannibal Sandwich and eats one every New Year's.
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding--sadly, I wasn't brave enough.
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp--I've really tried to like seafood, but to my knowledge this isn't a fish that has passed my lips.
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari--didn't like it, though.
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes--plum wine makes me very happy
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese--ick
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche--no, but I've had things that were dulce de leche flavored... does that count?
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut--not a fan
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O--I've never understood the allure
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat--no, but I've had goat soup. YUM.
42. Whole insects--it wasn't intentional. I think, even though that misses the point of the exercise, that it should still count.
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more--um, I'm cheap
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut--overrated. It's a doughnut.
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer--probably.
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal--nope.
56. Spaetzle--I even have a spaetzle maker!
57. Dirty gin martini--not a big fan of gin
58. Beer above 8% ABV--Apparently I have!
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin--I don't think so.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian--I've had durian-flavored candy, though.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe--they were sampling it in Liquor Barn one day--tastes like anise. No hallucinations.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie--lemon is the best!
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky--Men's Pocky is the best!
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

There you have it! I feel pretty good about the number of bolded foods on that list, considering how picky I can be when it comes to food. 42 out of 100!

It's Caturday!

Announcing a new feature on my blog, which will run for the next 52 weeks: Caturday! Because my friends Aaron and Samara are off to spend the next year in Alaska, I have taken temporary custody of their house and their two cats. Also, permanent custody of my own cat. (I'm the only person I know who has ever moved in with their pet instead of the other way around.) Anyway, I know they're going to miss the little furballs, so I will be posting cat pictures on Saturdays.

I give you... Pippin, the Sleepy! (I discovered this gentleman on top of the dining room table my first night here. "Ooh, I'm Pippin, I'm the good one!" Right.)

And Eve, the... um... Also Sleepy! (Aw, she almost looks like a real cat when she's sleeping, instead of a tiny, furry demon that won't stay out of the cupboard under the sink!)

Last but not least, I present George, the Never Sleepy In Her Life! (Who has been extremely affectionate and disturbingly well-behaved since I moved.)

Thus endeth Caturday.

Today's a busy day for me, which is why I'm up and blogging at 8 am on a weekend. I have my first pride planning meeting at 10. I'm strangely nervous about chairing this meeting--it probably has to do with the dreams I've been having about the meeting going terribly awry. Or maybe it's the other way around--dreams because of nerves. Anyway, I'm sure it'll be fine. After that I have to go get a haircut, then try to grab something to eat before I go to work at Second Work.

Tomorrow, though, I'm footloose and fancy free. Which probably means sleeping until the phone rings at 10:30, then spending most of the rest of the day moving crap from my old place to my new place. (Clothes. Must move clothes.) There's been precious little time for knitting, but just to prove I still know how, here's part of a sleeve!

Crime

We Wisconsinites take our libraries very seriously. I got a kick out of that story.

In other news, I'm mostly moved! Last night I got to sleep in my own bed in my new place for the first time. Oh, my bed, how I missed you! On the moving agenda today are items such as my coffee pot and microwave. I'm slightly amazed by how many "little" things remain at my old place. Like, you know, most of my clothes. Half of my kitchen. That kind of thing. Oh, well--if I'm not working Sunday I'll spend the afternoon toting and hauling, and maybe get a little closer to done done.

Knitting continues slowly. I'm about 6 inches into the first sleeve of my sweater, but sore and tired arms have kept me from knitting much this week. I might not finish my sweater before the Olympics end, but I feel great about it--if nothing else, I'm an entire sweater front closer to finished than I was a few weeks ago.

And I have a brilliant plan to celebrate The End of moving and perhaps make knitting more comfortable again: a massage. There's a massage school in town that offers one-hour massages in their student clinic for the low, low price of $30. Count me in! But not until I'm totally, officially, finally moved. That includes cleaning my old place. Because what's the point of getting all relaxed and happy if I'm just going to screw it up by scrubbing things?

Gearing Up

Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be moving! Well, moving my furniture, anyway. I'm going to do my best to get most of my stuff moved--I don't actually have to be out of my current place until the end of the month, so I can take it more slowly than the last few times I've moved, but it would be nice not to be living in two places at once.

Here's what my dining room looks like:

Mmm, boxes! I still have a shocking amount of packing to do. I think I'm going to dinner with a friend tonight, so that'll cut into packing time, but it should be all right. (A & S, do you want to grab some dinner with Pablo and me tonight?) I've got a big stack of empty boxes, and I can stay up all night if I have to. (I'm not going to stay up all night.)

Yesterday I finished my sweater front and cast on the first sleeve. Yay! I'm so close to actual sweater-dom... It's thrilling. Before work today I was knitting on my sleeve and came to a knot in my yarn. So I untied the knot and started to spit-felt it. I wasn't really concentrating on what I was doing; I was thinking about how impressed someone was last weekend when I showed them the magic of joining yarn by felting it, and what a cool trick it is generally. Then, once my yarn was all felted together, I realized that it didn't look quite right.

I didn't join the ball-end to the working yarn. I joined the ball-end to the cast on-end.

I'm a genius.

The yarn has been summarily cut, and is now ready to be re-joined at the correct place. I'm going to wait to do that until I've had another cup of coffee.

I Fail Blog

Yep, I've been doing a whole lot of not-blogging lately. Part of the problem is that I'm getting ready to move; sorting and packing take up a lot of my free time. I continue to work two jobs. And I was just elected chair of the 2009 Lexington Gay Pride Festival planning committee. It's possible I've gone a little insane.

Here are some pictures of things I've been doing instead of blogging.

I found a big stash of blank postcards in the course of my sorting and packing; this was among them. I assume I found it while I was in England and picked it up because it seemed like a fun and strange postcard. (I might add that I had not yet rediscovered crocheting or learned to knit when I did my study abroad.) Along the bottom of the woman's sweater it says, "What a wonderful feeling," and the box in the bottom corner says, "Member of the hand knitting wool council. Buy your wool where you see this sign." Clearly, I was meant to knit and crochet. The signs were there; it just took my skillset a little while to catch up.

I've been working on my Seascape scarf, slowly.

I am also a master photographer. Click to see pretty lace more clearly. I'm on the third repeat (out of six) of chart B. I've even got lifelines--but I'm proud to report that I haven't had to use them for a while. (Knock on wood!) I'm really looking forward to finishing and blocking this. I think it's going to be awesome. Right now it kind of reminds me of a phrase one of my college friends would use to describe a general, non-specific feeling of crappiness: "sack of dicks." It'll be better once it's blocked.

I've also been making great progress on my sweater.

I'm nearly done with the left side of the v-neck. After that, I just have to do the right side and the sleeves! I'm so close I can taste it. And just in time, too--I just ordered the yarn for my second sweater. I'm getting Wool of the Andes, in blackberry. And with that I will be making the Opulent Raglan from the Fall KnitScene. I think I'll probably extend the sleeves to full length. Maybe. We'll see.

Oh, and I have to show off what I've been using to carry my sweater pieces around.

It's a messenger bag made of recycled billboard vinyl! I'm madly in love with it.

That's flash glare on the back, not actual whiteness. I've been coveting this bag since I first saw it in ReBelle months ago, but I didn't feel like I could justify the expense for something I didn't really need. But then some of my coworkers gave me a ReBelle gift certificate for my birthday, and I decided that this was the perfect use for it.

The big move is happening this weekend, and I've got a ton of things to do before that. But I'll try to be a better blogger!