Se7en

DON'T HIT ME [ducking for cover]:






But, for reals? Just look at that face.

This is Toothless. As you may have guessed, he's named after the dragon from the How to Train Your Dragon film.

He's as sweet as could be, a little shy, and one of the most lovable animals I've ever encountered.







Ok, so how did we end up with this cat? Well we started noticing him in November or so of 2010. He would often show up around feeding time when we were still feeding Moonie outside. They would eat from the same bowl without conflict. But he was so shy and unsure of us (worse than Moonie, if anyone could believe it), that he was literally like a shadow of a cat. He would hide somewhere until we closed the door and then he'd come out to eat. Open the door, and poof, he would dart away into the night. We started calling him Toothless because of both his look and behavior!

After we brought Moonie into our house, he started coming more frequently, often twice a day. Every few weeks I noticed that he was letting us get closer to him. One day in April or so, he actually let me pet him on the head. From that point on, the improvement in his trust in us was increasing much more rapidly. We considered bringing him in. But since Moonie was still not used to us or her surroundings, and we had reached our usual capacity of 6, AND we knew that he was not neutered yet (expense and spraying inside were big concerns) we decided that maybe we'd wait. Things were great and we were happy to feed him outside, as he basically appeared to be pretty much living on our property quite happily, safely, and comfortably. Until...

Mulder. Yes, Mulder as in Fox Mulder. In May I noticed this orange and white tabby just sitting on our lawn. An attractive cat, he had very large ears, a long body and a slightly bushier tail than most cats (especially since he's a short-hair). Very fox-like. So I just stared calling him Fox Mulder one day and it sort-of stuck. I took a picture from the window:













Well...Mulder and Toothless did NOT get along. In fact, Mulder is quite the bully. We noticed one day that Toothless had a cut on his head and another time a bite near where his ear meets his head. Whenever Mulder was around, Toothless was absent. If Mulder showed up when Toothless was there, then Toothless would run away as if the devil himself were chasing him. It was obvious that Mulder was claiming our house as his territory. Toothless started coming less frequently, and almost always in the dark. In fact at one point, we hadn't seen him in about 4-5 days. I feared the worst. But because Toothless had built up a trust with us, he actually responded to hearing his name! He would come from seemingly out of nowhere after hearing me call him. We decided that we had to bring him in. He would not survive long with Mulder around, plus the heat of the summer.

So Todd scooped him up in early July and we made a comfortable, private space for him in my knitting room. We were worried that the scars from Mulder would result in Feline HIV or leukemia or something, but after a vet visit, I am happy to report that he's completely healthy. Toothless is only about 15-16 months old. He weighs around 10 pounds. We have his neutering scheduled for July 27. The vet also told us that he's a very timid cat. Her exact words were: "He's not very brave." He's not the type to fight or spray (he has never sprayed at all, which was a miracle). She said that when confronted, he will run away or hide. :-( My poor, little Toothless.

He's still getting used to the house and his siblings. Luna is behaving most deplorably, if I do say so. I think she's a little jealous. I am most concerned about her being evil towards him. My other concern, albeit much less, is Hercules. Herc has always been rough. He's also frickin' HUGE now. I think he's got to be 20 pounds. He could really put some hurt on a cat as shy and small as Toothless. But Herc's not evil, just big and rambunctious.

So, there you have it. And UGH, I just realized that I now have to change my header AGAIN!

Speaking of Idiots on Facebook...

Warning...RANT to commence in 5...4...3...2...1...

So yesterday this random woman, who I will call Moron, who was in my friends list (a person who I friended through a friend because of a stupid, bullshit game or petition or something that I can't even remember at this point because it was so long ago) posts the following status update and it showed up in my news feed:

"It's official.. signal at 12;20 it even passed on tv. Facebook will start charging this summer.If you copy this on your wall your icon will turn blue and facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message if not your account will be deleted. p.s, this is serious the icon turns blue, So please put this on your wall."

So, I KNEW halfway through reading it that it had to be fake. False rumors about Facebook charging for their services have been circulating for several years. In about 4 seconds, I did a Google search and found several articles confirming that it was indeed a hoax and not to re-post it on your page.

OK

I posted the link to the article as a comment to her post. This is the link:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/facebook-icon-blue-hoax.shtml

Moron already had about 8-9 comments on there from her apparently LEGALLY RETARDED friends like: "OMG WTF BBQ! I will go back to MySpace!" and "I'm posting it right now! I can't afford to pay!"

So some douchebag (A dude who's profile pic was---I'm not kidding---a woman's nude ASS) posts right after my link: "I'm not clicking on any links, my computer is slow as it is! I'm not screwing it up more."

I responded: "It's just a link to an article confirming that this is a hoax and not to spread false info on your Facebook pages."

So Moron responds: "Yeah, I'm not either."
And responds again, to clarify: "not clicking the link, I mean."

I went APE SHIT. I was like WHAT?!?!? Yeah, I'm going to knowingly spread a virus to people in my friends list? RAGE. So, I said to myself, "You all want to be ignorant jerkoffs with your heads up your asses? FINE."

DELETE. I deleted her and about 10 other people who were "friends" by the same definition.

But this stupid, inconsequential, meaningless bullshit pissed me off for the entire rest of the day and even this morning.

I swear, sometimes Facebook is like "watching retards trying to hump a doorknob." Thank you, Patches O'Houlihan.

Finally!

I got a decent enough picture of Moonie to use in the header! She's the 2nd from the right (in between Titus & Luna). And, how do y'all like the new look?

We're still trying to get poor Moonie used to us and our house. She loves the other cats; it's Todd and I that she hates. LOL Well, maybe. I think she must have had some horrible trauma in her life at the hands of people. People are such freakin' idiots sometimes. So it makes sense that she's still so leery of us. The rest of our feline family are mostly ambivalent towards her, which is a little sad, but certainly better than hissing and fighting. So, I'll take it!

I also think she's way older than we or our vet originally thought. It's so hard to tell their ages once they get beyond about age 2. I'm thinking maybe 10 or so.

The other issue is getting her to use the cat door into the garage where the litter boxes are. See, we have been leaving the flap up for her since February because she didn't seem to know how to use it any other way. Normally, we could just gently get behind a cat and help them go through it until they learn (which is usually immediately; we've never had any issue before). But she hates us and won't let us get within 10 feet of her, let alone touch her. This wasn't an issue until the last month or so when it started getting VERY warm. The litter boxes are more stinky than usual and they attract flies. Todd is pretty meticulous about keeping the boxes clean. Bless his heart, he sifts them out twice a day. But it's still getting to be a problem now that summer is almost here and the hot weather will be more prevalent. We've always prided ourselves that, upon entering our house, nobody would ever be able to guess that we had even ONE cat, let alone 6.

Anyone know of any good ideas how to get a shy cat to use the cat door without traumatizing her further!?

In knitting: I'm almost done with my Helix scarf. It looks great and it's a simple pattern to learn, but it is tedious! Lots of short rows makes it take 3x as long to knit! Plus, I'm knitting it with sock yarn on size 5 needles. Hey, less time in purgatory. It's a free pattern too, but I think you have to sign up for a newsletter to access the patterns on the site. Here's the link.

I finished my alpaca socks, they turned out loverly. And I cast on another pair of socks in the Deborah Norville yarn because that yarn is nicer to work with in the summer. I like to always have a pair of socks on the needles!

I am going to make this mosaic scarf for my boss, who is stepping down as the department chair (and therefore won't be my boss anymore either) on September 1. I'm extremely nervous, but the person replacing him is VERY competent and seems really nice. Anyway, I'm using Rowan Felted Tweed yarn in a midnight blue and a sagey gray. The yarn should arrive any day in the mail.

I've made a few Christmas ornaments for a disaster relief package that my friend Marsha will be sending to a close friend of hers whose family was deeply and devastatingly affected by the Tornadoes in Joplin. These were a quick and fun knit! I might make more for myself and family members too.

These are the balls (Free pattern from DROPS):















I also knit up a ball using some left-over mohair/wool/acrylic yarn with sequins that I used to make a shawl. I improvised this a little by adding some rounds in the middle to make it bigger. This was a little painful to knit because I held the strands doubled, and used size 1.5 needles, and the yarn has absolutely NO stretch or give to it at all. Also, I had to finish it with the wrong-side out because that's where all the sequins seemed to want to land! Not sure if I will give this one with the package. It might be too weird for the tastes of Middle America!
















Then there is the Oisin Owl. Another free pattern (link is through Ravelry). This was super easy and fast to knit. Everyone that sees this falls in love with it. I have like 4 family members who all exclaimed "AWW! I want one!" I embroidered the eyes, beak and feather details on the front afterward.




















I'd like to knit myself a couple shrug/bolero/cropped cardigan kind of things. When the scarf for my boss is done, that's probably what I'll try next.

Times, they are a-changin'

Ok so I am going to change the look of this blog very soon and upload some new photos of my cat family (since my poor Sophie is no longer with us and we now have Moonie, who we rescued in January).

And I think I will use the Instagram pictures from my iPhone. I love the look of those photos. Here's a preview of a couple!

Orson

















Luna

















Titus

Things That Make You Say, "Hmmm..."

There really isn't a delicate or demure way to segue into this post so I'm just going to dive right in.

Menstruation is horrible. I hate every second of it. Every 28 days or so I violently curse my womanhood audibly and often in public. I'm not sure why we as a gender haven't changed the name to "35-year, monthly gore and torture fest." I might start a petition. There are few things that ameliorate the situation. Ibuprofen being the stand-out champion in my book. It is nearly impossible to be even the slightest bit comfortable (physically or mentally) for the duration of the monthly catastrophe. But now, after having suffered though 27 years -- and counting -- of this nasty business, I've built up a decent level of resistance to its evil and tolerance for its unfair necessity.

BUT

Every once in a while something comes along in this timeline of feminine existence that leaves one scratching her proverbial head.

I'm talking about reusable, handmade, sewn/knitted/crocheted "feminine products." Really?

Like this, for example:


Here's the etsy link, if you want to buy this as a gag gift (both literally and figuratively). Read the description. This mo-fo is 1/4 inch thick. Yeah, SO comfortable. Awesome. Also, he's the stupidest, most proportionally-bizarre pirate I've ever seen. Blargh.












Or this:

Why the Battenburg parasol? Hmm? Just curious. This is a crochet menstrual pad. Here's the link to buy the pattern, if you have completely lost your mind.

I saw this on Ravelry today. One person commented, "wouldn’t it go through the holes???" Which is, indeed, a valid question and a much kinder, gentler question than the one I was very tempted to pose, which was, "What the fuck?"

Imagine folding over those "wings," and then putting any pair of pants. 'Nuff said.




Or my personal favorite:

Yeah, I don't use normal, hermetically sealed tampons because I think they are gross.

Everyone else getting a picture of actually USING these? Hope you're not eating.

The designer also claims, "I have used these personally for most of the last year, and I can attest that they are comfortable, easy to make, easy to insert and remove, and they absorb as well as a commercial tampon." Uh huh. Riiight.

And for $.50 you can own the pattern to make as many of these darlings as you want. Hmmm...these would make good cat toys, now that I think about it. Whew, that's a relief. Now at least I can look at the picture and apply a more pleasing image of Titus batting one of these around the floor.


For as much as these items are intended to "free" women from the oppression of the evil corporate entities that make feminine products and to bring eco-social-green-whatever consciousness to the forefront, they, in fact, do the exact opposite. Also? They are rigoddamndiculous.

Two points:

1) Think of the time, money, and energy spent making these (albeit, the first one is ready to use but I have seen patterns for sewing them) and then having to wash and sterilize them. I don't know about you, but I don't find that very liberating, nor very eco friendly. I hate my period enough as it is, let alone to have to bear the constant resentment of making and cleaning my own sanitary accessories. Not that I don't believe that I should be responsible for my own body. I should, and I am. But I am not about to be guilted into making my own menstruation pads because of landfills/pollution/global warming, etc. Thanks for making the argument that a woman's ecological footprint is somehow bigger and more insidious than anyone else's. Isn't this the reverse of freedom: to be chained to this biological function that I have no control over? I don't identify myself as a woman because of my period. And I certainly am not willing to waste any more time obsessing over it. I am more than that.

2) You know maybe back in the day when the activities of women were relegated to afternoon tea, needlepoint samplers, and decoupage, these might have been progressive. But for any female from about 1850 to present, they are a hindrance to basic existence. The thought of donning any one of the above atrocities angers me beyond all comprehension. We are not frail, sedentary dolls who come down with frightful cases of the vapors anymore. Moreover, I've never been a slave to fashion. Anyone who's ever seen me knows what I'm talking about. But, I can't imagine any modern, normally-fitting garment worn below the waist working well with 1/4-inch-thick inserts in my panty. How about, oh I don't know...WALKING? Hmm? Am I supposed to just lounge about all day for a week? Recall that it is 2011 and women do not have that luxury (certainly no woman I know). I can't even begin to fathom the level of discomfort associated with those knitted tampons.