Aaaah...Saturday

It's 7:30 on Saturday morning, and I'm sitting up at Honda North in either Danvers or Topsfield waiting to have my oil changed and my tires rotated. There is a little snack bar here so I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, which is so good that I wish I had some tomato soup. I used to come up to this neck of the woods all the time, so when I got my car in November, Danvers was very convenient. Now I don't come up here anymore, so it's kind of a pain in the ass. Doesn't matter. Before my current car, I bought my last two Hondas at Herb Chambers, and I'd probably drive to NJ for service before going back there. I like Honda North much better.

Before heading up here this morning, Thor and I went for our ususal walk around the neighborhood. We encountered something that Thor had never seen before, and we can add another item to the list of things that he's afraid of: shopping carts. Some of the other funny things he's afraid of are umbrellas, balloons, tv tables, and those big exercise balls. For a dog that's as big as he is, you'd think he'd be embarrassed to be such a baby. There are three beautiful pointer puppies in my neighborhood that have been out with their owners on walks the last week or two. One is brown, one is black and one is all over gray and white speckled. Their mother is all black as well. Whenever we see them, Thor cries because he wants to go meet them, but I thought it would be wise to wait until they were at least a little bigger before The Moose went over and overwhelmed them. How happy were we this Wednesday when we were able to go say hello?? They are SOOO cute. They are 10 weeks old and their owners are trying to socialize them by having them meet as many dogs and people as possible. Thor is very well socialized w/ other dogs. He goes on walks with his friends every day, and goes to doggie day care one day per week. He did so well with the puppies! He was very gentle and didn't get excited at all. Now if only I could keep him gentle and calm IN the house, I think we'd be on to something.

Next Monday, the 29th, I was scheduled to have the molds done for my Invisalign braces. I would've had my first set of straighteners as soon as I returned from Italy, and in six or seven months, my teeth would've been back in their original locations where they belong. That was the plan. Sadly, I cracked one of my teeth, and I'm about to enter the nightmare zone. I thought I had either chipped a tooth or a filling. I could feel it with my tongue, and it was sensitive to sweet and cold. As time went on (a day or so; not months or years) it became hard to chew on that side, and I have to breathe through my mouth because of the sensitivity to the cold air passing over the tooth. I made an emergency trip to the dentist on Thursday, and was told that I had sheared off part of the tooth and it can't be fixed with a filling. The pain was so bad that they had to turn off the air conditioning so that they could get the x-ray. It turns out that the tooth is cracked and I need another crown. Tuesday morning I'm going in for the prep work on the tooth and the temporary crown. Fun. (Now normally I'd just be annoyed about the situation, pissed about the money and uncomforable and inconvenienced by the sensitivity and pain of the tooth. What's REALLY getting to me is that I can't have my molds done. This pushes back my Invisalign project by at least two months.) At the emergency visit, they put bonder over the defect in the tooth, but it fell off last night when I was brushing my teeth. I guess it's mind over matter until Tuesday at 9AM.

I can see that they just finished my tires, so I think I'm nearly done here. I'll pick this up when I get back home.

So I'm thinking about changing the name/theme of my blog. It's not really about knitting anymore, because I haven't knit anything in months. Until the last couple weeks I hadn't written anything because I was spending so much time with the dog. I'd rather not have it just be about the dog though, either. I don't know. Just a thought. I do have one additional thing to mention about Moose Puppy. Yesterday I stopped by Petco to get the cats a bag of food. I generally grab Thor a chew toy when I'm in there because he goes through them so fast. When I go home, I offered him the new toy, and I plastic milk carton. Which do you think he chose?

Wow. I have Animal Planet playing while I write this, and I just saw the coolest product: an exercise wheel for cats. It seemed like it might be an interesting thing for Munchie and Tubby, so I just checked it out online. Holy Smokes! $800 for a giant hamster wheel. On second thought, no thank you...Tubby will just have to remain tubby.

Hours have gone by since the entry above. Since it didn't rain today, I decided that it was the perfect day for my least favorite thing: working on the house. My front porch faces east. Because Winthrop is a tiny strip of land surrounded by water, it is often damp/humid here. Because the front porch is covered, it doesn't get blasted by the sun like the sides facing south and west, so the paint has grown mildew in some areas. Improving the curb appeal of the porch (excluding the ceiling) is a three step process: bleach and scrub the mildew, paint a coat of Kilz, and then at least one coat of the exterior paint that is on the rest of the house. I did the bleaching, scrubbing, and hosing down today. I'm beat and I smell like Clorox. Hopefully it will be warm and dry for the next few days so that the wood dries out enough to paint. When I paint, I'll be sure to post pictures.

That's it for now...thanks for reading.

Finally...Wireless

Last year at this time, I was doing blog postings two or three times per week. I had established a routine, and had assembled a small group of loyal readers (led by my mother - Hi Mom), who seemed to find me amusing and interesting enough to read on a regular basis. Then Thor came in February, and I haven't really had much time to write anything since. I got into the habit of spending my evenings with Moose Puppy, and our activities didn't included me sitting upstairs at the computer. I've been meaning to get a wireless router, but it never seems to be at the top of my list when I'm doing errands. Since it happens to be tax-free weekend here in MA, G and I tacked a few extra destinations on our usual Saturday errand route - one of which was Best Buy to get the router. I hooked it up without any difficulty at all, and now all of my problems are solved. (Well, that's a total lie. All of my problems are not solved, but I digress...) I can write on my netbook while keeping the pooch company downstairs.

Right now I'm sitting on his sofa watching The King's Speech while Thor (taking up 3/4 of the sofa) is alternating between chomping on his bone and snoozing. Did you ever notice that Colin Firth always has actors from Pride & Predudice in his films? Just a side note. Okay. Now, for something totally different, The Royal Tenenbaums is the current film selection. I should be able to type faster since I don't have to concentrate on the film as much and plus, Wes Anderson rocks the house.

Last weekend I went up to Wingaersheek Beach to spend some time w/ my dear friend E and her family. E is one of my two best friends from college. I used to visit her at her family's summer home during college, but I hadn't been there in years. It was so beautiful; exactly as I remember. I'm not really much of a beach person, (and I never take my ghostly white, nordic skin out in the sunlight) so the fact that it was raining last week was perfect beach weather for me. When I got there, I found out that we were going clamming. What fun!! (My mother is from Philadelphia, and in the summers when I was little, we used to go to the Jersey shore with our cousins for vacation. The older six of us were all born within 34 months, so we were all basically the same age. Somebody told us how to find quahogs, and so we used to dig for them. When we'd find them, we'd smash them on the hard sand, dig out the clam and throw it up to the seagulls. I remember sometimes the seagulls would miss and the clams would land on people sunbathing on the beach. Now, I'm sure it's hard to imagine me ripping a raw clam out of its shell and throwing up to a seagull, but I did. Great fun for kids.)

When we went out last week it was pouring, so no one else was on the beach. We got off to kind of a slow start because they have to be 5" to be keepers, but things picked up when the tide started to come back in. We ended up with tons. It took E's brother R close to two hours to clean them all. Then E made stuffed clams w/ onion, garlic, salt pork, tabasco, the ground clams and bread crumbs. I generally don't eat fish or shellfish, but I did have half of a stuffed clam.

During the time that I wasn't writing or posting pictures, there was a black crowned night heron baby that was growing up in my biggest tree. Check him out:

This first photo was taken in June. I have these birds every year, and this is the youngest one I've ever seen.

This was taken in July, and he or she had grown into a very handsome teenager.

This was taken just a couple days ago. He's sleeping, but you can see that he's getting big. I think he's full grown at this point, but you can tell by the feathers that he's a juvenile. If he were an adult, he'd be primarily white with some gray and a black head. For more on these birds, check out this link.

During my post last Saturday, I was complaining about the mystery mammal who has been eating all my zucchini flowers. When I was at E's I asked her mother if she knew how I could get varmints to leave the zucchini flowers alone. Her answer was absolutely brilliant. Forget the zucchinis; pick the flowers, dip them in egg, roll them in flour and fry them. Check out a picture of last night's dinner: Fried zucchini flowers at 2:00.

That's pretty much it for today. I'll think of something interesting to write about and post again sometime this week.

I know it's been a while...

I know I haven't posted an entry in an age. I mean to, but Thor cries when I'm upstairs and Munchie cries when I'm downstairs. No one around here seems willing to leave me alone. I left Thor with the new toy he won as an award at the doggie cookout yesterday, but if he starts to sound too destructive, I'll have to take a break. Hmm. Sounds like he retired to his crate. In an effort to NOT talk about Thor all the time, I'm going to start w/ some other topics and see how far I get. Two months from now I'll be in Italy. I just printed off the #112A bus schedule which goes from Siena to Montepulciano. That's the one that stops in Pienza, which is where we are staying for a week. I think I've posted the link before, but now that it's so close, I'll post it again here . I'm going on a knitting retreat to Tuscany, with the women I've been to the Adirondacks with the last two years. I'm headed over with my friend D, and we're going to hit Amsterdam and Florence on the way there. I guess most of the group is headed to Tuscany via Rome, but I'll take Florence over Rome any day. This will be my 4th trip to Florence, so I know exactly where to go and how to get there without wasting a whole lot of time. D's probably going to want to kill me when we're done, but I'm trying to decide how much can be crammed in a day. Yes to the leather school at Santa Croce, yes to David, maybe a 463 step climb to the top of the Duomo, hopefully the Leonardo da Vinci museum, no to the Uffizi based on time restrictions, but definitely yes to the San Lorenzo Market. I'm almost giddy thinking about it. Luckily I'm getting Invisalign straighteners slapped on my teeth for the next 9 months, or I'd likely spend an obscene amount of cash that day. Yeah, that's it; practicality is better. We have an 18 hour layover in Amsterdam on the way to Florence. We chose that flight so that even w/ getting in an out of customs/security and the train to and from the airport, we'll have enough time to see a bit of the city. D is a photographer and she wanted to do the walking tour of the Red Light District, so that will be the first thing we do. If there's time, I want to do a water tour or at least take a water taxi around for a bit. Neither of us have been to Amsterdam, so the goal will be to take in as much as possible and still get back to the airport in time to catch the flight to Florence.
Yesterday D and I went up to Yarns in the Farms to pay off the balance of the trip. (Shit. Thor is crunching on something... Gotta go.) I'm back. So we went up to YitF, and I haven't been up there lately. To be honest, I haven't knit anything since my dog arrived, and being in the store made me want to knit something. Jill had the CUTEST skirt on - I loved it. She said we might do them as projects while on the trip, so that's cool. Hopefully I can use some yarn I already have. Some of you might remember that I moved all the yarn into it's own bedroom, but I couldn't stand looking at all of it, so I moved it all back up into the attic. Too much. Even I realize it's too much.
I have a gift certificate to YitF which I didn't even spend...I'm trying to get in a zero spending frame of mind now that I'm going to have my teeth moved around. I get my payment plan on Aug 15th, and I can't wait for that day, I'll tell you. I decided to not get my teeth done at the megapractice where I normally go; I went with the Orthodontist here in town even though the price quote was higher. I think my dentist may've been pissed, but the practice is bumming me out lately, and I'm thinking we may not be such a good fit. We might even be headed for a break-up. Sigh.
Wow. Not a single photo yet. I'll fix that right now. When I planted the seeds for my garden this spring, a lot of them didn't take. The day after I planted them, it looked like the local wildlife had dug them up, but I hoped for the best. When I ended up with one pea plant, one bean plant and one zucchini plant, I realized I'd indeed been robbed. Not to worry - I scampered over to Home Depot and filled in with plants. I have zucchini, yellow summer squash, cucumbers, (I thought I'd try...) a watermelon plant, green onions, two kinds of lettuce, (I thought I'd go WAY out there and try...) an artichoke plant, and my ususal six tomato plants, which always do very well here. Damn artichoke brought the slugs back, but they are leaving everything else alone, so they can have it. The bigger problem is my zucchinis, yellow squash and cucumbers. Look at this lovely zucchini flower here to the left. I've had tons of flowers, but no zucchini babies. Upon closer inspection yesterday, I noticed that all the flowers are being eaten.

Click on this picture and notice how the stem (dead center) has been chomped by the local varmints. I don't know why I even do this to myself every year. At least the tomatoes are going like gang busters. I had tomatoes into November last year.

As I briefly mentioned, yesterday G, Thor and I went to a doggie cookout at Leash Love, which is my walking, boarding and doggie daycare provider. It was a riot. Probably 20 or so dogs in all, most of which were greyhounds. This is my favorite photo of the day. The little boy's name was Val, and he was a real cutie. He had pepperoni in his hand, and the dogs were all over him like a new suit. Thor is the moose in the right foreground. Yes, he's sitting, but don't let that fool you. He's not as well behaved as he looks. During the cookout there were contests for the dogs, but they were easy enough that he even placed in one: tail wagging. He's a big, happy boy; I'll give him that.

In this photo, they had set up nine bowls in a line. They were to be filled with water for bobbing for hot dogs. Thor went down the entire row and checked every bowl for food. You'd think he had never eaten before, I swear.

They didn't give an award for eating ice cream (actually frozen yogurt), but if they did, he would've won it. He polished off his, and then moved on to everyone else's. A fun day was had by all, and he snored the entire way home. I was going to write about a couple other things, but I've been at this for a while, so I'm going to sign off. I know people who were regular readers have inquired as to when I fell off the planet, so I wanted to get an entry in. Right before I post this, I'll post an entry I wrote in May (after Munchie bit me) but never posted. It is a mildly amusing description of...well, I'll let you read it if you're so inclined. Thanks for stopping by.

The Story of Munchie and my Finger...

I wrote this entry in May but never posted the draft. When I re-read it, I thought it was kind of amusing, so I'll post now before today's entry. It ends abruptly where I left off...

It is Wednesday, and I've been home sick all week. The dog was just picked up to go to day care for the afternoon, so I can actually sit at my computer and get some stuff done. I haven't written an entry in so long, that it would be nearly impossible to recount everything I've done since I last wrote. Plus, the last week has been so action packed, that I think I'll start there.

This is a photo of Munchie, sitting on my shoulder last year. She is a beautiful Lavender Oriental Shorthair, which is like a Siamese with green eyes, no points and the color of a Weimaraner. She is fancy; her entire name is Sinergia's Princess Violet of Tlu. She is a little thing (Munchkin), and she eats pretty much anything, so she earned the nickname Munchie. She led a pretty charmed life until February, when I brought a new member into the family. That would be Thor (which is pronounced "Tor".) Thor is a big baby, and he either gets along with or is afraid of everything. Except the cats. Sadly, Thor and the cats cannot even be on the same floor together. The cats now live upstairs, which is separated from the first floor by a baby gate half way up the steps. Munchie doesn't like being banished to the upstairs and she screams her brains out (Siamese), and pees on everything (well, not everything...just my bedding and my clothing) to show her displeasure. Anyway, I was having enough issues with Munchie even BEFORE last week's incident; I didn't really need another pain in the ass, but that's exactly what I got.

I have an awesome Swedart bracelet which I wear all the time. I got it at the Swedish Yuletide Festival a couple years ago. They are made by the Sami people (in Lapland) out of reindeer leather, spun pewter and shed reindeer antlers. Because I wear it nearly everyday, the bracelet doesn't often make it into my jewelry box. It is kept in my bedside table drawer. Now, Munchie also likes this particular bracelet; she thinks it's quite a tasty chew-toy. She knows the bracelet is in the drawer, and she can open the drawer and grab the bracelet herself. Bad kitty. So. Normally I get up about 6AM to get ready for work and walk the dog. Last Monday I awoke about 4:30, got up to use the bathroom and came back to bed. As I mentioned, Thor stays downstairs and the cats sleep with me. Because I had about an hour and a half before I had to be up, I had every intention of falling back to sleep. I only made it to the mostly asleep stage. Munchie was trying to get into the bedside table drawer and she was making enough of a fuss that I was aware of it. I rolled over and with my right hand and pushed the drawer closed. On her paw. I initially thought that I'd closed my finger in the drawer as well, but in hindsight, it doesn't seem very likely. She lets out a scream and bites me - HARD. (Hard enough that I thought I'd slammed my finger in the drawer.) In the time it took to sit up and look at my finger (a couple seconds), there was already blood on my sheets, my rug and my floor. Uh oh. Jesus. So I'm making my way to the bathroom, and I'm trying to make sense of what just happened. I put my hand over the sink, and I'm looking at two punctures - one of which is pumping blood. I run it under water a couple times, but each time it just keeps bleeding. Time to call in reinforcements. So I go knock on G's door, wake her up, and ask her to come out and help me. By the time she gets to the bathroom, I was resting my head on my forearm, and my hand was in the sink. She thought I had a bloody nose, but when I looked at her, it was obvious that my face was not bleeding. G: "What did you do??" Me: "Munchie bit me." We cleaned it really well with hydrogen peroxide and she squished my finger w/ a washcloth until it stopped bleeding. I then hopped in the shower and washed it some more with dial soap. It was in the shower that I realized I had two more punctures on the underside of my finger. Applied Neosporin and bandaids, taped it to the next finger over, packed it in ice and went to work. I work for a healthcare organization, so there are a lot of people around with clinical backgrounds. It was decided that I should call my doctor as soon as his office opened, and I was sitting in front of him exactly 12 hours after the bite occurred. The wounds were really clean and looked good. He put me on seven days of prophylactic antibiotics, and said he didn't think I'd have any problems. (I should probably mention that I'm allergic to penicillin. Cats carry some really gross bacteria in their mouths, so they had to put me on two drugs to cover the spectrum of shit that passed from Munchie's mouth to my finger. If I could've taken penicillin, my story probably would've ended right there.) So out of the office I went - to fill my prescriptions and relate the story of Munchie - the cat who'll eat anything - to everyone I encountered. It was still pretty amusing at this point - or at least I thought so. So fast forward to Wednesday. I get up, look at my finger, and ooh - that doesn't look so good. I hadn't been able to bend my finger since the bite occurred, but now it was noticably swollen and red and hot. So I take my finger to work for a second opinion, and the concensus is that I should call the doctor. They make me come back to the office, where I see a second doc b/c mine is not there that day. New doc tells me that yes, my finger is infected, but I pretty much already knew that. He tells me that the only thing worse than a cat bite is a human bite. He does some painful probing which I don't really need to get into, and says that I don't need to see a surgeon that day (WHAT??) but I need to come back the next day. That takes us to last Thursday, when I saw my usual doctor again. Sure enough, my finger is still not so good. We didn't need to open her up, but we did switch to what I've been calling "napalm antibiotics" (Bactrim and Clindamycin for those of you keeping score). The list of side effects of these abx is long, and by the time I got back to the doctor Monday (for my fourth visit) I was so sick from the meds that I couldn't even go in to work AND I'd lost seven pounds. The absess had pretty much cleared up, but I can't come off the abx - I have to take the full course. As far as my other symptoms: I agreed to the stool sample, passed on the internal and departed with another prescription and what little dignity I had left. Today is Wednesday, and I'm still sick. I suppose it's to be expected because I'm still on the Clindamycin. They now have me on a diet of bananas, rice, applesauce, broth and gatorade. I could have toast, but as a rule I don't eat bread. (If you ever come to stay at my house, bring your own bread or you'll be eating knackebrod. Seriously. Ask my mother...she brings her own bread.) Anyway, if I don't get better, I'll have to go back to the office to be retested for a nasty GI bug called C-Diff, which is a side effect of the Clindamycin. I'm hoping to pass on that. I'm ten days out, and my four puncture wounds are in various stages of healing, but they're all still quite visible. I keep waiting, but Munchie hasn't apologized yet.

Thor update...it's been a crazy few weeks.

I've meant to post a bunch of times since Thor got here, but it's been really hard to get away from him so that I could sit down at the computer and write. The cats are living upstairs, and every time he comes up here, he gets into it with Tubby. She just swiped him across the nose so he has settled down under my desk at my feet...for now. I'll try to get in as much as possible, but may have to jump off quickly if another offensive starts.
Thor is great. Everyone who meets him abolutely loves him, and he's a really good boy. The problem (and there always is one) is that he doesn't get along with the cats. As I've mentioned NUMEROUS times, Tubby is a bully. She's just awful. The first time I brought Thor home, she wouldn't let him in the house. She literally blocked the front door and wouldn't let him come in. When he was finally in the house and we were making our initial tour of the first floor, she attacked from the rear by jumping on his back. Welcome home Thor.
The first day was a little rough, actually. I've never had a dog before, I don't have kids, and I don't take care of anyone besides myself (well, a little bit when my father was dying, but not what I'm about to relate). If I'm being honest, I have limited experience with certain bodily functions and accidents related to said functions. Okay. So Thor came from Arkansas, which was a two day drive. The men who drove him up said that he hadn't been drinking much during the trip, he hadn't peed and he hadn't taken care of other business. This other business issue wasn't really surprising because of the stress related to the trip. I took water when I went to pick him up and got him to drink. I walked him when we got home and he peed, so I'm thinking "I've got this." No prob. We then come into the house where he is NOT welcomed by the cats and then attacked from behind. I make the mistake of removing his leash so he can get a feel for the smell of Chateau Hol, and he wanders into the dining room and shits everywhere. Bad. Really bad. Now I am the first one to admit that I was totally unprepared for it, but now that I know him better, I have to say in my own defense that what happened in the dining room was not just healthy defecation in an inappropriate location. So here we go...are you ready? (*Edit note: Gina DID offer to clean up the mess, but I knew I would have to deal with this eventually and would not accept her offer of assistance. Thanks G.*) Hol goes into the dining room and immediately begins to gag. Mind racing, I don't even know how to begin, but I'm going to have to come up with something. Gag. Gag. My room mate G had Thor in the living room saying, "If you can't clean up after this dog, we're going to have to give him back." I was pacing around (while gagging) trying to come up with a plan. Okay. Doggie poopie pick-up bags...I'll start there. I get the bags, go back into the dining room and throw up everywhere. No joke. Thor's accident was eclipsed by my own. Now I'm mostly crying. I wail, "G....I threwww uppppp!!!!" She says, "I'm out of here. It's all you." and takes Thor outside. (*Edit note: Oddly, G didn't offer to clean up after I puked all over the place...*) Yes, you heard it here first. This is what really went on the day I got my first dog. Believe me, Thor seems no worse for wear, but the experience has left me scarred.

So here are a couple decent pictures of him. Doesn't he look sweet? I had him to the vet yesterday and he's tipping the scales at a solid 77 lbs. I think he's a big baby, but it turns out that my cleaning lady is afraid of dogs and won't come in the house if he's here. That's a problem. I decided that on the days the cleaning lady comes, I'd send him to doggie day care. Good plan...unless it's raining. He was all set up to go on a field trip last Wednesday so that it wouldn't interfere with her coming to do the house. She's scheduled to come at noon. The day care calls at 9:30 to tell me his field trip is cancelled because it's raining. What? Now, I'm sitting in a cubicle in Needham, nowhere near a window, and I say, "It's raining? Was it supposed to rain today?" And then panic sets in. Oh god. My cleaning lady is supposed to come today. That is a whole 'nother thing. She doesn't speak English, so all communication is relayed through her husband. The whole concept of doggie field trip being cancelled due to rain is totally lost on him, so I'm pretty sure they think I'm insane. I think the main issue is that I'm just not used to the additional layer of logistics yet. I feel like I've been thrown into the deep end of the pool and I don't know how to swim. As far as the house goes, no need to fret. I took him on a field trip yesterday so the house could be cleaned in our absence; it looks decent right now. Thor is as messy as about five people I think.
There are so many more things I wanted to write about, but I have to leave for a baby shower in an hour and I need to find something to wear. I was hoping to write about my terrifying trip to Babies-R-Us, but I'll save that for later...except for one thought. If you ever want to have an anxiety attack, go in Babies-R-Us. Jesus. It's like the friggin' Costco of baby shit. It's a whole world I've never been a part of, and the store practically makes me twitch.
I know this is supposed to be a knitting blog, but I haven't knit much of anything since Thor got here...
Bye for now!

Blatherings before the dog gets here...

This post is probably going to be all over the map. I'm really excited because Thor is coming today, and a blog post will keep me in my seat until we leave to go get him. Since my last post, I took the cats to the vet for their annual physicals. That's a comedy show right there. Munchie did pretty well - I need to take her to see an opthamologist, but I knew that going in. Things took a turn for the worse when Tubby's was on the table. I've probably mentioned that she is miserable. She likes me (she's sitting here on the desk with me as I write this), but she hates everyone else and she doesn't like anyone to touch her. Sadly, going to the vet involves touching. She does not allow me to clip her claws, so once a year we show up to the vet with razor sharp talons growing out of her paws and I ask them to take care of it. So there we are at the beginning of the exam with the vet on the front end and me blocking her back end so she couldn't escape. She's taking swings at the vet left and right, and before you can say band-aid, she caught him in four spots on one arm/hand and one spot on the other arm. They looked like fairly bad scratches, but what happened next was unbelievable. Turns out my vet is recovering from a heart attack and is taking an anti-coag. He starts bleeding, and before long it looks like he'd put his hand though a window. He's trying to deal with the cat while reaching for a 4" x 4" and a tourniquet...kidding...yes on the gauze, no on the tourniquet. Finally they dragged her miserable ass out back. From the exam room, my roommate and I heard one of the techs say, "Take your meds this morning Dr. X?" Nothing to do but cringe...
On Wednesday I picked up a really pretty scarf at a thrift shop in Needham. I've worked in Needham for 2 1/2 years, and although I know where all the surrounding yarn shops are, I didn't realize it was such a mecca for thrift shops until a colleague invited me to go with her during lunch. Anyone who has ever seen me in person knows I have a thing about colors and matching. It's just one of my glitches; I can't explain it. The scarf is woven and has turquoise and light aqua running through it. (What a surprise.) Anyway, in my neverending quest to corner the market on Uggs and flip flops, I scampered home and bought something to match the scarf (as if I didn't have something to match the scarf already).

So exciting...can you stand it?

So here they are! The scarf and a pair of boots to go with.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm knitting the Knotty but Nice hat by Natalie Larson, which has a kick ass cable in it. I'm going to give it to my friend K, who is going to look quite dashing I'm sure. I'm putting up a picture of the hat in progress, and a picture of the chart. I was having a little trouble following the chart, so I had the brilliant idea to color the different cables (there are six variations) with colored pencils so I can tell at a glance what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. Works like a charm. Not sure why I didn't think of this sooner.

I was hoping to finish this hat last night - or at least get through the cable and start decreasing for the crown. I shouldn't jinx myself. Like an idiot, I put on a movie that totally distracted me (Clash of the Titans, which sucked), I made an error, and spent TWO HOURS tinking back to the F-up and correcting it. I saw a cartoon once that said you can't read a chart and watch a film with subtitles at the same time. Probably should've considered that and put on Sense and Sensibility or some such.

So here are a couple pictures of Thor's stuff. His crate is half way between the dining room and the living room. It seems like a pretty big crate, but he's tipping the scale at a solid 75 lbs at this point, so it should be a good fit. Here are his new leash and matching collar which will look awesome against his brown coat. (It's that matchy-matchy thing again - but I have a new color palette to work with.) We've got a bunch of errands to run before we get on the road, so I'm going to sign off. I expect my upcoming entries will relate to socializing pets that want no part of it. I'll be sure to take pictures of THAT. Bye for now...

The Word of the Day is...WOOF

I'm back. Second post in a week. Trying to get back on track with the entries, but it's hard. I had plans today that got cancelled, so with the exception of going out for milk this morning and getting gas later, I don't have anyplace to be or anything to do. Yay! This is probably going to be a long one, because I have SO much to talk about. I'm going to start with the newest addition to the fam. As you all know, I've been mother to a collection of fancy cats for about the last 20 years. I love Siamese and Orientals. If you've never met one, they are like a dog in the body of a cat. Orientals are hysterically funny, but they are loud, they are clingy and they are manipulative. Here's Munchie helping me frog a sweater, and hanging out at the window. I can't find a decent picture of Tubby right now, but she's a black Domestic Shorthair, she's really fat and she has a miserable disposition. If you've met her, most likely you've been bitten by her, right? She only likes me. So anyway, I've wanted a dog for a long time, but didn't think I could swing it due to my long hours. Now that my room mate G moved back in, I started thinking seriously about it because she and I work opposite hours. On Thursday I finally got word that everything is a go. Next Saturday I will be the proud owner of Thor, who is pictured here on the left. He is a rescue dog, and he is coming up from AR. (It should surprise no one that I first clicked on him because of his name. G was just reading my old blogs and reminded me that a few months back I named the water heater at the condo Thor, so the water heater's new name is Ulrik. Yes, it's true; I'm drawn to all names Viking, but that's a story for another day.) According to the woman who has had him for the last seven months, he's a big (70 lbs), sweet, baby. I have so much to do between now and next Saturday. Crate, bed, leash, harness, collar, bowls, toys. I already picked up 40 lbs of food, which is enough to get started and I made his first vet appt for March 19th. Speaking of the vet, I'm taking the cats there tomorrow for their annuals. Munchie has had a problem (a herpes virus, actually) with one of her eyes since she was born, and at her appt last year it was recommended that she see a kitty opthamologist. I've never quite gotten around to THAT $900 appointment, so my vet is probably going to give me shit about it. Munchie doesn't like anyone fussing with her eye, she doesn't like medicine in her food, medicine in her eye (we tried that for years, literally) or wet washcloths on her face. With the exception of the fact that it looks bad, it doesn't seem to bother her. Anyway, Thor is a mix, but I can't tell from his puppy pics online or the new pics shown here what he's a mix of. Any thoughts? I'm thinking Lab and Pit Bull Terrier. H - what do you and K think? I expect it's going to be a rocky few months here at Hol's. Probably Munchie will adjust better than Tubby, who will probably take up permanent residence under my bed...
So G is recovering nicely from her surgeries. She still has minimal use of her hands, but she's been off the pain killers since mid-day Friday, so she's completely clear headed. My friend D is having rotator cuff surgery (UGH) in May, so I'm taking the day off to do the surgical escort thing again, then she'll be camped out on my couch for a couple days. G thinks I should start a service - Hol's Home Healthcare. It's actually pretty funny because I'm the least nurturing person on the planet. D was awesome to me when my foot was broken most of 2008. I was totally non weight bearing on crutches for 7 (yes, seven) months, and D kept me company and drove me everywhere I needed to go. My mother also deserves a shout out as she was with me for my bone graft surgery and recovery, which in my limited recollection, was a horror show. (Just tried to find a lights-are-on-but-no-one's-home pic of Holly on dilaudid, but the disc is missing in action. Probably for the best.) If D needs to camp out on my couch post-op, she can stay as long as she'd like.
The other day I was looking for a fun, quick project to knit, and decided on this hat. I'm only an inch and a half in but here's a pic. It's in Cascade 220 in a dark teal. I've got 17 100 gr skeins of this because I started to knit a coat with it. The coat took so long - I probably worked on it on and off for a year and a half - that I got bored and frogged it. Now I have a ton of this teal in my stash. I'm probably going to do Bella's mittens in it as well. Hopefully the teal isn't so dark that you can't see the cables. I think it'll be okay.
Wow. I hope this isn't as exhausting to read as it is to write... This is the last thing and I'll finish up. I own a print and small original by an artist named Tom Barnes. He paints primarily long-necked ladies dressed in bright colors. I decided that I wanted to spend part of my tax refund (that I don't actually have yet, ha!) on another small painting, so I called him and he painted something for me. He sent some images and I picked the coloring of one and the composition of another, blah blah blah. So here is a picture of the painting (not yet signed). I should have her sometime this week. He named her Holly and I didn't even have to ask. She will be hung next to or above Celeste, who is pictured below.
Okay, that's going to do it for today. Hope everyone enjoys the long President's day weekend. Thanks for stopping by.