Vegetable Matter

Nice family time this weekend. We went out to Davis, and as usual, I am amazed by the way things grow out there. It's really quite astonishing. I took a walk this morning out to the community garden on 5th, and snooped around everyone's beds, to see what they were growing this spring.

Someone had posted a sign:
"Please do not steal our vegetables. We have called the police and they have confirmed that they will prosecute theft of our vegetables."

I'm sure there are lots of funny things that could be said about that, but it made me sad. Not only that someone would steal another person's vegetables, but that a person would be so possessive of their community dirt that they called the police about it.

I really need to get my camera working again. This would have been better with a picture in it.

Lokmonster

Loki is really much happier about life now that his course of antibiotics is over... He really thought I was waging a jihad on him or something (a la Eddie Izzard).

Now he lays on my lap all snuggly and purr like. Until I start doing things like trying to catch him on the webcam:


And then he just gets that really miserable expression, "why do you hate me so?"

He's quite a handsome cat, really, it's just that he hates having his picture taken. Or being restrained in any way. So I don't actually have any pictures of him when he's not looking cross.

Always Welcome

Watching Rome with Bucket, and I swear, this is a vital piece of advice I just heard from Atia:

"A large penis is always welcome."

Sick, sick, sick

I had my first ever cold-induced asthma attack the night before last! Happy fun time. Not being able to breathe is pretty freaky. Hasn't happened again since, which is good. I still have only one nostril at a time, but I have discovered that's way better than nothing.

Meanwhile, I feel like I haven't finished any knitting projects in ages, so I put the HP scarf on hold and have been using my sick-on-couch time to finish the grey wool scarf on my smallest ever size 4 needles. It took forever. However, I have finished! Now we need to see if it will block properly or not. I'm kind of afraid to try it out.

I did block my hot water bottle cover made out of spiffy Noro Big Kureyon, though... I now understand what the fuss is about Noro yarns. It is even more gorgeous as a finished project than it was in the store when I couldn't resist buying it. Incredible. Once it finishes drying I shall whip the sides together and fill it full of warm coziness. And you shall all be jealous.

Advanced Basic Knitting

So I am sitting here, cat in lap, laptop balanced semi-on top of cat (there isn't really room for both of them in one lap), rather precariously knitting and reading Crazy Aunt Perl, with my new found "it's almost sort of possible to read web pages and knit at the same time, if you're willing to stop knitting and scroll every few stitches" method of entertaining myself.

This is a site that I stumbled upon one day during one of those periods of internet serendipity, which I promptly sent to Eddie saying "this is awesome" and which he now has an RSS feed for and reads obsessively every day while I have been back, maybe, twice. But Aunt Perl is awesome! And my lack of blog reading does not reflect on her quality or interestingness as a blogger.

And I think I have spent too long on her site this morning, because I am starting to sound like her.

Anyway, I ran across this post, about being an Advanced Basic Knitter which I have definitely seen before, but it is just striking me again how much this applies to me. I tell everyone - I pretty much only knit rectangles. I love knitting, I love the texture and feel of it, I love digging through my stash, I love the colors, I love making something useful out of something pretty. But this is not a hobby about "how can I stretch and challenge myself more" because let's face it, between the freaky stressful job, and the grad school, and everything else I am SO FREAKING CHALLENGED ALREADY. I want something nice and calm and non-stressful to do in the times that belong to me, so I can say, "when I do have downtime I do this fabulous relaxing and yet worthwhile thing with it. "

And you know what? That's okay. It's okay that I have an endless supply of scarves. They make me happy. They give me a productive reason to sit on the couch with my cats and play with fiber. And scarves are AWESOME. And my downtime is awesome. And that is a very good thing.

The Real Purpose of the Internet

I wonder if Kristin was trying to tell me something when she sent me this: funny because it's true

Poor Monster

Every time Loki starts to forgive me for yesterday's Vet Adventure... I have to give him his meds. Poor baby.

Freya is kind of liking this whole "every time Loki has drugs we BOTH get a treat" thing. Pretty sweet deal she has going there.

Also

Never in a million years would I have expected to be playing with a web cam.

It came built in to my new Macbook Pro. I can't seem to help it. Everything on this computer is just so damned shiny!

And I'm using it to take pictures of KNITTING. My god.

Confession Time

I am even more of a nerd than you realize.

Can you guess what this is?
















(but check out my nifty stitch marker! I've had them for ages but this is the maiden voyage for knitting in the round (not just using round needles) for me. I am also working from a pattern, another first.)

Oh wait. It's not a confession unless I actually tell you. I'm making a *mumble Harry Potter scarf mumble*. Well, I always said I was going to make one, and with the final book coming out in a few months... I'm running out of time.

Yes, those are Slytherin House colors, but only because they have the best ones. I'd have made a Hufflepuff scarf, but OMG I'd look like a bumble bee.

(See, I told you I was a nerd!)

Cue OK Go

Here it goes again... I haven't blogged for years. And Blogger was the first tool I ever used, after the hardcoding days were over. Why am I blogspotting it now... why, laziness, of course.

Okay, to be fair... it's less laziness than sheer exhaustion. I'm working full time in a crazy job, doing the grad school thing (part time), trying to maintain a relationship and friendships, and fussing over my cats. Oh, and knitting, and occasionally logging in some time playing The Sims 2.

My inner computer geek isn't bursting to get out, since I work on websites all day. But on the other hand, I work on websites all day, so it seems dumb not to be working on one for myself. Ahhh, contradiction.

So I don't know where this is going, I've just been kicking around the desire to post again. Mostly because I've been using Twitter as my personal mini-blog for the last month. And that's just silly. Everyone KNOWS I can't be that brief.