Caturday and Minor Content

Hi, everybody! ("Hi, Dr. Nick!") It's that time again--time for Caturday!

Pippin has discovered a new lair. He's hanging out in a wire storage cube, on top of one of my sweatshirts. That's what happens when you don't put your clean clothes away immediately! It's so cute, though, I can't bear to take it away from him by filling the cube up again.

George did not do this to herself, but she was strangely content to hang out in the crate. Cats.

And here's Eve, in one of her friendly moments. Eve has a new friend--a stray cat that likes to hang out on my front porch. This leads to Eve sitting on my nightstand (a habit I have given up trying to break her of) and looking out the window, meowing and scratching, mostly while I'm trying to sleep. When it's really bad, I give her catnip until she's too stoned to care about her new friend. At this point she might be keeping me up just to get the drugs. Addict.


After my exhibit last weekend, I had to haul a bunch of crap to my car. And rather than taking two trips, this is what I did:

Ambition: I has it. I did manage to make it out without any catastrophes, though, which only reinforces my crazy desire to get everything hauled out at once. Sometimes I'm a little nuts.

I was a bit nuts last night, too. I was feeling restless and bored, so I made a little shopping trip and picked up some henna. (Sorry, Samara, I didn't get your e-mail until after I sent the last package. The next one will have henna in it, like you requested.) Of course, I picked some up for myself, too, and went to town. I couldn't do my hands, because I have yet another work event this afternoon. But here's what I did do:

You might have to click to see it. I could only stand the cold for about two hours before I had to wash off the henna paste and put on long pants, so it's kind of faint. Basically, I made vines and leaves climb all over my leg and foot. I like it. I did something similar to the other leg. And then I felt better.


Right now, all of my crafting is of the secret variety, which is frustrating. I'd love to be able to post pictures of the things I'm making, but I guess that'll happen soon enough. Assuming I can manage to finish everything. In the meantime, please admire the granny square afghan that my leg is resting on in the above photo; I made that.

Scheduled Caturday!

Through the Magic of Blogger, I am writing this on Thursday, and in theory it will show up on Saturday. Whoooo! Spooky magic!

I'm doing a fancy scheduled post because I will once again be off on a work trip this weekend. (I mean, as you read this, I am on a work trip. Ooooh! Magic!) I should get back Sunday evening, and I'll try to catch up with the family phone calls then. Unless the booth is dead, in which case I might call from the exhibit.

So, cats! Some cats are easier to photograph than others.

For instance, George will sit on anything you put down. Bandanna=George's.

Eve, however, does not care for photo sessions. Most of my pictures of her look like this one.

And Pippin is easily embarrassed, even though his fur looks adorable when you brush it up the wrong way. (He wasn't heading for the litter box, just hiding in the cat room. And he didn't mind the brushing--just the attention.)

So there are cats. Happy Caturday!

HOLY CRAP LIONS!

Oops, I mean, "Holy crap! Yarn!" Yep, I'm still knitting. And here's something that is in no way secret.

It's a sock, and a tiny part of a sock! There's nothing special about this sock. Plain ol' Regia sock yarn, US 2 needles, my standard 2x2 rib pattern. Except... there is something special about this sock.

Check it out--I got all clever and did the sole in reverse stockinette, so the flat side of the knitting is facing my foot. Now I just need to remember to do the same thing on the next sock, and I'll be all set!

Historic

Yesterday around 8 am, I drove past my polling place, and the line stretched through the parking lot to the sidewalk, even though they had opened two new polling places in my neighborhood. At 9:30, I drove back, and the line was almost as long--and I realized that I didn't have my knitting with me. So I made a quick loop and joined the line, knitting in hand. It was a beautiful day, and no one seemed to mind waiting very much. I know I didn't. For two hours, I slowly shuffled forward and knit half of a Calorimetry. I chatted with my neighbors and thought about democracy, and patriotism, and civic duty. I was happy to see so many people line up and wait to cast a vote to elect either a person of color to the Presidency, or a woman to the Vice-Presidency. (Later, someone would tell me that they had heard that 70% of registered voters had turned up to vote nationally. Amazing.) To be honest, I was moved. I was moved by the number of elderly and handicapped voters who stood in line, and moved by the number of able-bodied voters who ushered them to the front. I was moved by the blind man whose son helped him cast his vote and by the little girl in the big red-white-and-blue hat who sat so patiently waiting for her mother to cast her vote. And I was moved by the scores of busy people who took the time to stand in that line. And later, at the election party I went to, I was moved by the fervor of my peers--a generation largely regarded as selfish and apathetic. As CNN called states for McCain or Obama, some of us colored maps--an exercise in geography as much as it was an exercise in civics. The electoral college was discussed at length amid conversations about the mundane, songs were sung, snacks were eaten, and games were played--with occasional map-coloring breaks. And when the final results were announced, tears were shed, friends and family were called, and speeches were anxiously awaited. And again, I was moved, both by McCain's graciousness and call to set aside partisan rivalries for the good of the country, and by Obama's optimism and joy together with his fierce practicality. (I do wish that McCain's crowd hadn't booed his concession, but there's really no controlling a crowd like that--not everyone can be a gracious loser.) And even though some of the results that came out of yesterday's elections are disappointing to me, I'm still left with a depth of joyful, hopeful emotion that surprises me. It's the idealist in me coming out, I think, bolstered by the rhetoric of both presidential candidates. And it leaves me thinking that maybe the next four years will be different, on a lot of fronts, in a lot of good ways.

Thus endeth my touchy-feely stuff.

Belated Caturday, Plus More!

Sorry Caturday is late--I spent all day yesterday in Newport at the aquarium! The best part was a newish thing they're doing--the Penguin Encounter. Anne and I were lucky enough to be the only ones signed up, so we got 20 minutes alone with 4 penguins and their trainer.


We got to pet them!

Scratching your head is tricky, when you're a penguin.

That's Simon in front.

We fed some lorikeets.

And we saw a leopard shark.

It was a lot of fun to be able to tell Anne that I had seen one of those in the wild.

That was just the highlights--there were many hours of aquarium fun. It was an excellent day. It made up for snapping one of my wooden spoons making spaetzle the other night.

Oops!

And now, cats. I'm taking baby steps toward posting videos of them--I'm waiting to complete the process until I have something to show for each of them. Right now all I've got is George. So today we get stills.

George is the queen of the bookshelf.

As usual, Pippin plays it coy.

And Eve wants to go on a trip.

Things that Annoy Me Today

Driving to work this morning, I was behind someone who had this license plate. Now, I really don't mind if someone wants everyone driving behind them to know that they are pro-life. What does bother me, though, is that there's no pro-choice license plate option. Whatever happened to equal time?

And another thing. Someone has apparently posted a link to my floating/sinking knitting needle entry--on a Megadeth forum. At least, I've been getting a bunch of visits to that entry from that forum. What bothers me is that, when I went to go look at the posting, I didn't have access because I wasn't a member of the forum. I signed up, activated my account, and discovered that I still didn't have access. Because a moderator needs to approve me first, which they haven't done yet, 24 hours later. I need my Megadeth fix, people! Get with the approving!

Stupid people really annoy me. Someone thought it would be a good idea to hang an effigy of Barack Obama from a tree on campus. That person was stupid. Their actions were viscerally offensive to a lot of people (which seems countereffective, if your goal is to have McCain elected President), and is being investigated as a threat against a presidential candidate--not good. And while I am offended by the effigy (to a lesser degree than Lee Todd, possibly because I didn't see it and I'm not dealing with all the behind-the-scenes bullshit) and I do disagree with that person's mode of political communication (mostly because it involved what amounts to an act of vandalism), I think that the ensuing furor was a bit over the top. As an employee of the university, I received 5 e-mails yesterday about it. Two from the university president, one from my staff senator, one from my department's business manager, and one from the provost. There was a forum last night to discuss the incident and talk about race relations on campus. I don't think this is so much about race relations on campus as it is about race in politics, and politics in general. Oh, well. I'd just like them to stop e-mailing me about it.

And the final thing that's got my dander up this morning is the people who interrogate the employees at Second Work. Nearly every person who came to my register last night had the same question: "When are you all closing for good?" Answer: Not sure. Probably after the holidays. Many had a follow-up question: "When are the discounts going to get better?" Answer: No clue. And a few sensitive souls asked me this one: "What's going to be in this space after you're gone?" Seriously? I DON'T KNOW. It was depressing. I finally started answering question Number 1 with, "Actually, I'm not sure when I'll be losing my job. Probably some time after the holidays." Which is probably a bit more touchy than necessary, but when you've been answering that same question for several hours, you start to feel a bit raw.

Sigh. And I guess it does annoy me a little that pretty much all of my projects right now are Secret Holiday Knitting, so there's not really any good content up here. Bleh. Soon I'll try to post some knitting content. Have a happy Thursday.

Halloween Fun!

I went to a Halloween party on Sunday.

I was Rosie the Riveter. I even had a sock project in my lunchbox--Rosie the Riveter was definitely a knitter. "Our boys need sox!"

There were a number of political costumes. From left to right, we have Joe Six-Pack, the Bridge to Nowhere, Sarah Palin, a McCain/Palin yard sign, Sarah Palin, and "A Russian who's voting for Sarah Palin because She's Her Neighbor."

Awards were given--the 2008 Weenies. ('Cause it's Halloween--get it?)


Jackson the Pumpkin was fascinated by his "Most Adorable" award.

And Sarah Palin told me that I should take home the Hockey Mom award ("Everyone's a winner!"), so I did.

We also carved pumpkins.

Click to embiggen and see the designs. The front row is exclusively Obama-related; someone brought a bunch of Obama patterns, because apparently there's a chance to win an iPod.

Here's mine:


I picked that pattern because it was more subtle than the others.

A good time was had by all.

In cat news, I got home from work today to find that someone had knocked down the flowers I had on the kitchen table, and there was water everywhere. At first I wasn't sure who to be secretly mad at (there's no good yelling at them now, after the fact), when I spotted the smoking gun in my water glass.

Only one resident of this house has soft, fluffy white hair. Grrr.