I will taunt you a second time

How, you may ask, did you manage to get a cat to hold still long enough to place a hat on his head?

In short, I didn't. This photo is some kind of miracle. Most of the brief photo shoot this morning actually went like this:



This is the aptly-named Demetrios is an angry French cat hat, but is known on Ravelry as International Cat Hat: France, Le Mieux. There is a small number of hats for other countries: Germany, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom — even the US (a stunning rendition of the Statue of Liberty's crown and scepter).

That's all I can muster today. Happy MLK Day!

Free kittens for sale. Price: free!

After a phone call and a whirlwind cleaning spree on Friday, I managed to send a kitten home with a member of a certain Republican's* local campaign office. All of the people who work in the office were reportedly "very excited" about the prospects of an office cat.

And then Saturday rolled around. I decided to take my chances at the Farmer's Market on the square. I packed up the remaining three kittens, three separate baggies of food, a little cash, and my winning smile and paraded around the market for about an hour. Just after I had purchased a delightful jar of raspberry creamed honey from a local honey farmer, I was stopped by an older woman. "Free kittens? Let me see," she demanded. We extracted the grey kitten from the carrier, and a moment later she was holding a baggie of food and heading toward her car. Score!

At any rate, I'm down to two kittens. I think I'm just going to boot them outside and see what happens. They can hang around, but outside should be fine. (I feel a little guilty saying that, because we've had a rash of thunderstorms in the area recently, but I should think they'd be capable of handling themselves.)

My mom and I visited my brother at Iowa State Saturday afternoon. He seems to be doing well, despite some stupid people (or maybe just one stupid person). The problem seems to be severe enough that they're holding an all-dorm meeting. Hopefully this will curtail the bad behavior. Despite the drama, he's taking 19.5 credits in his first semester. Not wishy-washy ones, either — he's taking trig, calculus, chemistry, English, and philosophy.

Anyhow, I've failed at knitting lately. I haven't worked on the Entrelac Market Bag because I'm worried about running out of yarn before I finish the first tier of blocks (I'm halfway around). I haven't worked on socks because I'm lazy. I haven't re-done the bind off on the Eagle's Flight socks because I didn't have scissors with me Sunday. I started a string bag, but the base was too small, so I stopped working on it. I'll probably just rip it and use a different yarn or different needles. Or both.

*I won't name names, but I will say that the last name rhymes with shoe-crispani. (Because that's a common pair of words.)

Seven is heaven? and other such tales

I realized yesterday at some point that I forgot to tell you all about the dream I had Wednesday night.

I was with a group of people in a cozy room set up with a number of small dining tables. People were being served pieces of meat that rather looked like bits of pork. While everyone was being served, Sam Neill (Jurassic Park Sam Neill, no less) was walking around, acting as the host. He was talking about how fantastic this society of people was, and how lucky the newest members were to be joining.

It was around this point I became aware that the society was in fact a group of high-class, civilized cannibals, and that the pork-like meat that was being served to everyone was actually human flesh. I don't recall being terribly revolted by the thought, either, which scares me a little. One woman, however, seemed to be having second thoughts. She told Sam Neill that she wasn't so sure she could actually go through with eating people (and I'm sure she was one of the new inductees.) Well, Sam Neill told her that that wouldn't fly, and that she had to partake. She was the one scheduled to host the next meeting; had she declined, she would have attended as a rather more cooked version of her present self.

Craziness.

---

Gwiffen is back from the vet again. She now has a dashing plastic collar adorning her neck, and glowers at me from wherever I'm sitting. She also has new sutures — heavy-duty ones this time — so that she can continue the healing process.

And, after a day or two of putting it off, I finished the Boobholder this morning. I opted for ties instead of buttons, so the two buttonholes I made can just hang out and act cool. The ties were knitted in garter and are 7 stitches wide and 7 inches long each. (Had to throw in a little book 7 symbolism.)

I have my bag of fun ready for the book launch, sans the socks in progress. I even managed to do a little last-minute extra costuming: plastic 3-D glasses became Spectrespecs, a small handful of Turkish currency became wizarding money, and an odd assortment of items became a charm bracelet. I think I'm ready.

I can has satellite cat

Gwiffen has already licked all of her stitches out. This did not bode well for the now-gaping hole in her abdomen, so I took her back to the vet this morning. He was surprised that she'd been so industriously disposing of her stitches. He is re-stitchifying her today, and when she gets home she will look like a satellite dish, as she will be the proud owner of her very own dorky cone collar.

Meanwhile, I decided to add another inch to the bottom of my Boobholder, just for a little more stability. Right now I'm still waffling between having buttons or having ties, so we'll see what happens.

As for the socks, they will be my let's knit at the bookstore while waiting for Deathly Hallows.

Here is a tutorial for a very cute keychain. It's made of felt, embroidery floss, and a little bit of ribbon. I might make one or two. (That blog, by the way, is filled with very cute, very crafty things. I'm rather smitten at the moment.)

As someone's apparently leaked a little of the DH out, I'm going to avoid most of the internets until Monday. Because I'll be very done by then.

"We had a mess."

Not exactly the words you expect to hear when you go to the vet to pick up your cat.

The mess wasn't a pregnancy, either, though Gwiffen certainly looked at least a little pregnant to me. It turns out that her abdomen was rounded due to some sort of bloody mass in her uterus. I didn't think to ask what caused it until I was on my way to work later, mostly because I just wanted to get her home and comfortable. The vet said he'd only seen it two other times in his years of practice. To judge by his age, I'd guess he's had a practice for a good long while.

But she will be fine, now that everything is gone. It would have killed her eventually, he thinks, so I'm glad I got her spayed when I did.

Huzzah!

Not Knitting
Back from the Bulbous Nose — had a fantastic time. Of course, who wouldn't when you're playing on a Catholic school's playground and taking dorky pictures on plastic mountains and stacking people up on slides? That's not all we did; there was also some drunken croquet and a couple rounds of Circle of Death, which is pretty much the funnest drinking game ever. (Although if I figured out how to make cribbage a drinking game, I'm pretty sure that would be even more fun.)

Let's see. I've given away three of the seven kittens. All I have left for people are two peach / cream males. (So hurry up and get your cat-friendly apartment so you can have Bellini, Timmy! And I get full credit for that name. I swear, everything is not about alcohol.)

In exchange for the first kitten I gave away, I got a starter for Amish Friendship Bread. I got a wild hair and turned on the oven last night to bake up a batch, after separating the other starters. I had a little bit about five minutes after it had come out of the oven and boy is it delicious. I was going to bring it to work today, because I had something else on the agenda this morning: kitten abortion.

Really, I'm just having Gwiffen spayed, but I'm pretty sure she's pregnant. I don't think she's far along at all, so I don't mind continuing with the spaying. I really don't want to bring more kittens into the world that may or may not have homes. I find that it's a waste of space. I live by Bob Barker's philosophy: "Help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered." I'm pretty sure Gwiffen's temperament will be better, as well.

Knitting
On the way to the Bulbous Nose, I worked on my Boobholder. I got the sleeves finished per the pattern, but decided not to work on them at BAS' house. On the whole, it fits pretty well, but I'm adding a garter stitch short row section at the bottom of each sleeve, just for a little extra room. I've done one sleeve so far, and will probably do the other either tonight or tomorrow night.

I have to decide if I need a little more length on the front, as far as fastening goes. I might just knit some garter strips and knot them, despite the buttonhole that I've already done. (It was only a two-stitch buttonhole anyway.) On the whole, I think it's turning out pretty well. I still don't have pictures of it for you, because I'm a jerk like that. I think I can finish the Boobholder by Friday. There's not that much left to be done, really. A few ends to weave in, finish the sleeves, and figure out how to fasten it, and I'm done!

On the way back from the Bulbous Nose, I worked on my Eagle's Flight socks. I've now got the heel turned on both, and done about one row of the leg. I don't want to do much more until I can try them on, and I just haven't had time. They probably won't be finished by the Friday party, since I've got photos to take at the county fair this week.

I've been spending time on Ravelry a lot, joining groups and chatting in the forums. I've been talking a lot of Harry Potter theory in one of the groups. It's quite a lot of fun.

Anyway, back to work!