It has been a kick ass week. . .

but not in completely a good way.

Work is nuts. We're packing. Solvie is eating but still -- she's sick. Sunny is at the vet overnight needing something done with her trach, as she still hasn't eaten (but she did shed last week). Zelia, at least, is healthy.

We're 98% sure we have an apartment, but I don't want to give the affirmative until the lease is signed and the keys are in our hands. But we are out of here, even though things go smoothed over with our landlady.

The next month will be nutty on the homefront. The next TWO months will be nutty on the work front, as we are going to trial at the end of April. Of course, I can't say anything else about that.

One good thing. . . actually two.

Tonight is the season premiere of America's Next Top Model.

Next Tuesday is the series premiere of Who Wants to be the Next Pussycat Doll?

Sometimes it's the little things.

Sick Day Sock

I finished a sock yesterday while I was at home feeling like all kinds of ass.



Does that black furry thing under my foot look familiar? Well, it should. It's Zelia the Wonder Kitty.



It's only taken me about 1.5 months to finish this one sock. It's got a lacy pattern; that take more concentration than the ribbed socks I have made. Plus, I've been a little busier than usual, and wouldn't dare take this sock on a train to work on. Plus, I've also knit two hats and a scarf since I started this sock. So that's enough justification, right?

I don't feel like all kinds of ass today. I can actually breathe through my nose, am not sneezing nearly a much, and may be all cleared up soon. That's the beauty of staying home when you should; your colds go away so much more quickly. I can't believe I even debated it, but it was because I knew work was going to be busy yesterday. It's going to be busier on Monday, however, so I'd rather take the sick day now and be healthy-ish by Monday.

The apartment saga continues. Yup, we're still moving. We haven't secured a place yet, but we saw three places today, and they'd all be acceptable. There is one we liked the most, and are hoping to get. The landlady is a knitter! No brainer. We'll still check Craigslist daily for places to look at.

We've been going through our stuff, and have taken this as an opportunity to offload some of the crap we've been holding on to. We brought a bunch of books and videotapes to a thrift store today, and have some records and CDs to sell. Maybe I'll RAK some excess yarn and fabric to a few folks.

Solvie is still always starving.



We ate at a sub/pizza joint today, and I got a turkey club. The turkey slices were packed on an inch thick. I only ate 1/2 the sandwich and some french fries, but took home the turkey for the kitties. When Solvie got a whiff of it, she was practically screaming for it. I have more to give her. Cats really like cold cut turkey.

(Oh, and at one point while viewing the apartment we liked, the landlady's dog started sniffing at my pocket. ZMrK didn't notice, but when I told him later he starting laughing.)

(I also starting laughing uncontrollably when I rolled up a thick wad of turkey and shoved it into the plastic bag that you get your fork/knife/napkin in at delis. It looked like a weird little taquita.)

I also deleted most of my myspace photos and made this the main photo:



I'm really vain, aren't I? I just *love* that picture. I almost cried when ZMrK gave it to me.

Another reason why I'm vain: earlier today, I told ZMrK that, before I met him, I considered the perfect partner for me would be "me with a penis". Really, that is exactly what I got. Our personalities and likes/dislikes just mesh really well, but we have enough different interests that we learn a lot from each other. Bliss.

Argh.

We have to move. Landlady is nuts.

If anyone has any leads, let me know. It has to be MBTA accessible.

Look Ma! No Hangover!

I'm shocked at my own resiliency. I was up by 9 a.m., have had my breakfast and coffee, and am getting dressed and ready to go out. ZMrK has gone off to a comic show, and I'm going to meet him there and we'll go and get lunch (and maybe do some shopping).

I'm also craving Vietnamese food, in particular BUN GOI CUON. Yes, I just cut and pasted that from Pho Pasteur's menu site. I've been craving Vietnamese food for a while, and it's the ONE THING we don't have in our general vicinity. One of the things I miss about living in Allston (okay, maybe the ONLY thing), is the number of Vietnamese restaurants around there. I used to go to V. Majestic all the time. There's also Grasshopper, an incredible vegan Asian restaurant. Yum.

So, maybe we'll go to Pho Pasteur, because Chinatown may be really nutty due to the Chinese New Year. However, I'm a little interested in going to Chinese New Year because I've never been. I'm willing to bet it will be next to impossible to get into any restaurants, so maybe we'll eat on Newbury Street and head over to Chinatown. Then I can stop in at Newbury Yarns.

For now, I leave you with something amusing: pictures from Filene's Basement's annual "Running of the Brides". Enjoy!

posting under the influence

we just came back from "heroes" (80s night) at Toast. it's my friend Jen's b-day; I've known her since high school.

it turned out to be a great night. I'm really glad ZMrK made the decisio to go. ZMrK, I love you.

I found out my limit is 3 glasses of merlot. one more and i would vomit.

The me that lived in New Orleans 12 years ago would be ashamed.

I am so stopping now, as I have corrected so many typos that it's embarrsassing.

MWAH!

Secret Pals, Showercap Stoopidity and Sick Pets

I got my Secret Pal package on Thursday!



There's about 450 meters of yarn there, in a gorgeous cranberry color with flecks of blue and yellow that you can barely see:





Thankfully, my macro lens can pick them up.

This is what I know about my Secret Pal:

1. She lives in the Netherlands (check out the cool stamps! My Uncle Henry will be thrilled to get those!)

2. She has beautiful handwriting (well, she printed the card, but her printing is very neat)

3. She picks out awesome yarn to send. I'm trying to figure out what to make with this. There may be a few lace scarf/shawl projects that I could use this yarn on, and the light could pick up the subtle flecks of color nicely. What do y'all think?

4. She has said that we are somewhat similar, except she doesn't share my disdain for "adult alternative" type music (I really don't know what it's called, but it's all that Dave Matthews/Shawn Colvin/whatever whatever that dominated the airwaves for a while). That's really forgivable, because musical tastes really matters when you have to share living or working quarters with a person (I once had three roommates who played the Pixies constantly, and I HATE the Pixies. People seem to think it's really weird that I hate them so much.)

Thank you, Secret Pal!!!!!

I also made an online purchase of some Cherry Tree Hill:





One of these may be a present for my downstream secret pal, but I'm not going to tell you which one!!! If my SP stalks my blog, she'll have to find out when she gets it.

I bought myself a pressie in Sephora yesterday. A shower cap with girls and kitties all over it. I couldn't resist it, plus my shower cap was looking awful and needed to be replaced.

I think buying it gave me a new stage name:



Seriously, if I were a drag queen, I would SO go by Charlotte de Douche. It kind makes me want to get a sex change so I can become a drag queen. Or I can just pull a Victor/Victoria. I did dress up as a drag queen one year for Halloween, and talked in a deep whisper all night. My then-boyfriend didn't want to be seen with me at the party we were at. Humorless jackass. Of course, nobody else's girlfriend gave themselves 5 o'clock shadow with mascara, so can I really blame him?

This is what I look like with my Charlotte de Douche shower cap on:



ZMrK laughed so hard his stomach hurt after he took this picture. I suppose it will be one of the classics, eh?

If you think that's bad, here are the ones that didn't make it:



(Kudos for me for blogstalking Turtlegirl and finding out she used "fd's flickr toys".)

Now on to the less fun and more serious part of my post. . . my little blorange bitch, Solvie, isn't doing well. She recently lost weight again, and started peeing in really inappropriate places -- on the carpet, on my wheel, on me while I was in bed, and today, on ZMrK's bill payments he was about to mail (I've considered doing THAT one myself). We took her to the vet on Thursday, and she is down to 4 lbs., 6 oz. She's lost almost a pound since she was last at the vet in December. A pound is a lot for a cat. I think her top weight was over 7 lbs. Oh yeah, and she's been eating A LOT lately, and always looking for more.

The vet (a different one than the one who saw us in the fall, although at the same practice) took another blood sample, and found some elevated calcium levels. This could point to two things: a cancerous growth (probably lymphoma), or a problem with her parathyroid gland. An additional test could tell us if it is her parathyroid gland, and then surgery could remove the extra growth, although the vet didn't really think it would be in Solvie's best interest to have it removed at this point.

What we are going to do, short-term, is put her on a 2x daily liquid antibiotic to see if it clears up any sort of UTI that might be causing her to have these accidents. We may have the option of keeping them on her long-term.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will remember that lymphoma was the suspect back in the beginning of November. Then the culprit was FIP. Then Cornell's tests discovered it was not FIP, but they had no idea what it was. Then we discovered she was
eating mice, and a round of antibiotics and deworming seemed to help her out. By the beginning of January, she seemed to be feeling much better.

We're not sure what we're supposed to do at this point. Do we bother with the test for her parathyroid gland, opening up the possibility of surgery and whoknows how much longer she'll live after that? Or do we keep feeding her as often as she wants (2 - 3 x a day, lately, plus dry food down for her 24/7), and loving her and making her comfortable until it is time to say goodbye? We've moved the litterbox back into our bedroom, and she's used it. I don't think she can lose much more weight and still live. The docs told us before that, as long as she is eating, there's hope, and she'll "let us know" when it's time by going off her food.

This is why I distract myself by taking stoopid pictures with a showercap and obnoxious pink lipstick.

Our other potential sick pet is our ball python, Sunny. She hasn't eaten in 2007 at all (not the worst thing in the world for a snake, but unusual for her). She hasn't shed either. Right now she looks like she is going to shed (pink belly, cloudy blue eyes). Hopefully, after she sheds, she'll eat. If not, back to the vet she goes.

I only have one pic of Sunny on my flickr account, and it has Zelia in the background (yawning):



Dang, this was a long post that covered lots of ground.

While I'm posting pet pictures, did I ever tell y'all about Velcro?



Velcro passed away in December 2004 at the age of 9. He was a bearded dragon, and was an awesome pet. The first time I met him, he licked my boob (okay, my sweater, but he did try to "taste" everything). He once tried to eat the floral pattern on a pillowcase, and another time, he tried to eat dapples of sunlight on the rug. Bearded dragons aren't terribly smart, but they have their looks.

Birthday and VD pressies!

So . . . today is my birthday.

ZMrK, my stepdaugther KBH, and I celebrated yesterday with dinner at Border Cafe and cake. I've been getting loads of pressies: KBH gave me scrumptious Burt's Bees lotion and some earrings handmade by a friend of hers from old records and beads. ZMrK gave me a lovely loose tea pot, some yummy tea, the One-Skein Wonders book and this:



I had remarked that I would love to have a portrait of my "ancestor" like there often is in old Hammer or Roger Corman films. ZMrK took that idea and ran with it, with the help of the artist Stephen Blickenstaff. I love the addition of the tuxedo cat.

I also came home from work to a lovely VD present from knitmonkey on the knittyboard:



Check it out: Altoids gum (I love Altoids!)and some cool skull stitch markers that came in a little Pacheco (sp?) pouch, and some Green & Black Organics Hot Cocoa that came in a Chinese takeaway box.

Thank you, knitmonkey!!

Thank you, ZMrK and KBH for giving me such an awesome birthday!!!!

Spinning Success and a RAK!

I finally had some success at spinning last night!!! I don't know if it has anything to do with the cat pee I discovered pooled up under my wheel, or if it was just the right amount of tea, chocolate, and the right music (soundtrack to The Umbrellas of Cherborg; maybe French musicals are good for the spinning).

The cat pee . . . yup. One of those little witches peed on the yoga mat I was keeping my wheel on (to keep it from sliding when I spun). It all of course rolled to where my wheel was resting on the mat. I wiped the wheel down with a wet rag sprayed with Febreeze, and sprayed Febreeze all over the mat and stuck it in the shower and rinsed it off. I discovered that I don't need the yoga mat anymore; my wheel isn't sliding all over the place.

I don't know who the culprit is, but one of them has a little residual pee-smell on her, so I think I know. That long orange fur likes to hang on to smells. I just hope she is not sick again.

You're still waiting for pictures of the yarn, aren't you? Here we go . . .







My handspun "has character". I think that character is one of the Muppets.

I skeined it myself too!

I also spun a bobbin-full this morning too:





I purposely spun it a little bit thicker, because some of that first skein was dangerously thin. I wanted something a little closer to sport or worsted weight (i.e., something that wouldn't require knitting forever to make a hat).

I also got a Random Act of Kindness (RAK) in the mail yesterday:



(Yes, I realize my windows are filthy. I also just realized I don't think I've ever cleaned a window in my life. Don't you have to wait until the sun isn't shining on then, lest they streak? My mom has some crazy rules about cleaning windows.)



Bluetangle from the Knittyboard sent me a gorgeous 4 oz. skein (skein?? what do you call it?) of supersoft Merino roving. This may be the softest stuff I've ever touched. I have to figure out how much yarn I can get out of this; this stuff would feel awesome on my feet.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, BLUETANGLE!!!!!

Meanwhile, Zelia shows us her best pin-up pose:



I think she is channeling Anna Nicole Smith (RIP).

In this one, you can see her cute little stub tail:

Favorite Colors

I haven't done any blogstalking assignments in a while. This week's was to post a few things in your favorite color. That's really tough for me, because I don't have a color that I call my favorite. I don't even have color families I call my favorite. So, I decided to post some colorful photos:

Pink! I love pink. Here are a few pink anemones and corals from the New England Aquarium:







(I got a little bit of orange in there as well.)

Green! Green is another favorite of mine, especially bright, springy greens.







Myrtle the Green Sea Turtle:



You know how when a woman is wearing low-rise jeans, and her hips are pouring out over the waistband, and it's called a "muffin top"? Well, Myrtle has what we call "muffin plastron". Look at this:



We've got the blues, too:







We had a fun night at the Aquarium. It was an adult's only member's night, and there were only about 100 people there. Dinner and an open bar were included, but it was worth it to be able to enjoy a nearly empty aquarium.

The painted turtle was a great source of amusement. Most of the photos I took of him looked like this:



I have a few more photos just as blurry, but I figured I would save your eyes and not post 'em here. If you want to take a look at them, you can check out my New England Aquarium 2007 photo set on Flickr.

Meanwhile, check out the video I made of that turtle being a complete jerk to this poor fish:



Since we're talking about colors here, I figured I would include some fiber pr0n. I have a very small spinning stash, but I suppose it's big enough for a new spinner. Here's some of the fiber I bought from Spunky Eclectic right after Christmas:



I believe this color is "Atomic Melon". As you can see on the label, it's Falkland. It's very, very soft.



It reminds me of sherbert! Yum!



I don't remember the content or the name of this, but it is a nice, mellow blue:







This color is called "kites". I'm not certain of the contents:







And I KNOW this is called "hot rod".



Doesn't the bottom of this look like a bum?







I've been working with this a little bit. The color is called "hidden".



This reminds me of looking at distant mountains:



This is some of the natural coopworth I got with my wheel. It's really soft and lovely, and I have 2 lbs of it!





I got more fiber today! bluetangle from the knittyboard sent me some luciously soft, undyed merino roving from this etsy shop. So not only do I get to play with spinning, I get to play with dyeing too!!