On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

7 wanton women
6 geezers lying
5 0ld things
4 falling birds
3 wrench sets
2 purple gloves
and a party with some friends



One of the downtown hotels has a great little boardroom where, on the weekends, they will cater a lunch for a very reasonable rate. So we can pay back all our generous friends who have been feeding us all year. No need to clean our house before and after and worry that I have missed something that will ustterly disgust someone else. No need to bustle around with food and service, no headaches, just delightful times with charming people. Can't beat it with a stick. It's what we do as a Christmas gift for the usual suspects.

I looked around, and realized that five of us had gone to college together. Friends thereafter for life. And the daughter of another friend has just been accepted to the same college. Pretty cool.

As for knitting news - here are the extortion socks.
Now I send ONE sock and hold the other hostage till we know what is planned for the 50th wedding anniversary in August. I'm planning ways to threaten a sock. Scissors? Tug-o-war dogs?

DH loves gadgets. We have one of those self-cleaning litter boxes. Candy the kitty views it with GREAT suspicion. Ten minutes after she potties, the box grinds into life, a rake combs through the litter, lifts a lid, and dumps the "solid waste" in, then rakes its way back to starting. So, after pottying, she sits beside the box and glares at it. When it begins to move, she hisses and bristles. As the rake lifts the lid, she smacks it several times very hard. After the rake returns to its starting place, she sits and glares at it for at least another hour. The litter box is possessed! This is the box she prefers to use, but a demon lives in it! There's a short story idea - the haunted outhouse!

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

Six geezers lying,
five old things,
four falling birds,
three wrench sets,
two purple gloves
and a jet flying over a tree.

Neatly bringing in a shot of the Saturday sky as well.

I have had such fun in blogland this year. All thanks and good wishes to my on-line pals. You have brought me much joy and company.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

...five old things, four falling birds, three wrench sets, two purple gloves, and some rose-hip, bright as can be!


1. If you are talking math problems and you mention a slide rule and he wonders why you have switched the topic to baseball, you are too old for him.

2. If she thinks a sanitary belt is a drink out of a clean glass, you are too old for her.

3. If he is surprised to find that Paul McCartney was in a group before Wings, you are too old for him.

4.If she can't remember where she was when America made that, "One small step for man, one great step for Mankind," you are too old for her.

5.If he has never dialed a rotary phone, you are too old for him.

Do you remember, "Where's the beef?" Did you ever watch "Sky King?" Do you miss Beeman's Gum?

Do you think it's possible to do a re-make of "A night at the Opera." or, "A day at the races?"

How did we survive without Tupperware and its copies?

In 2007, I plan to send Miz G. one pair of socks a month, and I plan to take a photo of the back yard on the first of every month. And I wanna lose weight, finish my Western Romance, publish book two in the Sanna Series, maybe start writing book four, re-knit my pink silk blouse, and use up more of my stash. Oh, and I hope to sew three pieced and tied quilts, too.

How about you?

On the fourth day of Christmas

My true love gave to me . . .
three ducks squabbling with a nutria by the pond

"What, pray tell, is a nutria?" you may ask. The nurtia is a large South American water rat that someone imported to our area with the misguided notion that they could be raised for fur or food or something. Unfortunately, no one wants to buy nutria fur. And though the critters are a protien staple in South America, they are not a longed-for delicacy. So the importers - turned - them - loose!! They have taken to our waterways like ducks to water and are upsetting the ecology no end. This one is about half-grown and happily ensconced in the protected wetland behind the local library. He will waddle to within five feet of you, grin at you with his orange rodent teeth, and beg for duck food. The ducks hate him.

Blackjack has good, strong kidneys and liver, so if we do decide to opt for surgery, he is likely to survive it. On the other hand, he is doing pretty well, just gimping around with the splint. Time will tell.

I went to the yarn store yesterday and bought the yarn for pop-up paws. And somehow, while the credit-card was out, my mind went into a fuge state and I came out of the store with yarn for a gift, and a new set of size 4 rosewood DPNs. How did these get into my basket?

I had a bit of time still to kill, so I stopped at the fabric store. Inventory clearance sale. Aquamarine silk - usually $15.99 a yard. Bolt-end price is 50% off. clearance price - 20% more off. OK, so I bought 1 1/8 yards of the silk , and two skeins of sock yarn for less than a full yard of silk would have retailed for. Lessee - what can I do with 1 1/8 yards of silk?

So I had new needles and new yarn in my bag when I got to the writer's group. Obviously, one can listen better when knitting, right? And yet another UFO hits the needles!

On the third day of Christmas

my true love gave to me, three wrench sets,
two purple gloves, and a partridge in a spare tree.

Today's knitting: the second sock of the pair to motivate cousin L. Sock one is warm and wooly and pretty in pink. Sock two will be knitted and held hostage. Give us details, or I'll BOIL THE SOCK! Mmwahahaha!

Blackjack is back from the vet with a snazzy new splint. They took xrays and blood tests. Results today. He is gimping around more easily every day, and purring quite a lot when being petted, hand fed, and cooed over. Mostly, he curls up on the down comforter in the bedroom and practices his power napping.

I have requests for pop-up paws. Oh dear (back of wrist held to forehead in a Little Nell sort of pose) I'll have to go shopping for yarn! See the dust? This is what remains of Roxie's goodbye today! CHAAAARGE!!!

on the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me

...two purple gloves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Actually, what he gave me was a movie date. We went to a matinee of "Night at the Museum" and ate buttered popcorn and drank coke and laughed and laughed. It's a sweet, funny movie with lots of slapstick for the kiddies and enough wit to keep the grownups amused. Wonderful special effects! How do they get a skeleton to show so much emotion?

So I took knit-in-the-dark work. The very last bit of Dave's wonderful confetti-colored yarn made a splendid cuff on a stocking hat. Named, of course, "Confettis in the night." (exchanging glances, wondering in the night, what were the chances, we'd be sharing love, before the night was throooo..)



Today we take Blackjack back to the vet to see how his leg is doing with just the splint. He is getting around more, and sleeping in one of the desk-top baskets right now. Angela, I can't find a direct link to you, but thanks so much for your input on his condition. It's SO helpful to hear from someone with eperience in the field!

Hey, before you get them put away, folks, why don't those of us who do creches (manger scenes) share pictures? Here's ours.


As you can see, I am ecclectic with my animals. There's a black and white plastic cow that poops jelly beans. There are two porcelain kitty ornaments DH gave me the first Christmas we were going together. And then there's Gordo. He is playing the part of the hairy angel. You know - "Hark the hairy angels sing!"

The creche is about thirty years old, carved of olive wood in Deepest Poverty Mideast and sold through the Mennonite Church to provide craftsmen opportunities to earn some money. I had a cat that used to sneak into it and mug the baby Jesus. Left all the other pieces alone, but would carry the baby away and gently gnaw and droool all over it. The glue holding the stable together has given up over the years. It used to have three sides and a roof. Well, old barns DO fall down in time.

Best wishes for the tag end of the year!

Merry Christmas one and all!

It's not much, but one of the compensations for being injured is that you get to eat in bed. And you get carried to the litterbox and back. And you get lots and lots of hugs and strokes and cuddles. And good drugs (That's the white patch on his side. A three-day time-release painkiller patch.) And you get lots of good wishes from the nicest people in the world. Thank you!!

I definitely have to get out my thank-you cards. This has been a bountiful Christmas and people deserve proper acknowledgement! Janette in Australia sent me a goodie box with beautiful cups and matching tea-towels and pot-holders. And a can that said "Green Tea" on the side in big letters. I was too wound up with ripping paper and squealing with glee to read the small print. Imagine my surprise this morning when I opened it and found bath fizzies! Green tea bath fizzies are just too cool for school! DH showered me with LUSH bubblebaths, and Paul of the Blithering Knitiot sent me hand-made soap. Guess the word is out that I'm a dirty girl. (snicker!)

Janette, who is also a knitter, also sent me yarn that is soft and sophisticated and purple hued and is already scratching at the screendoor of my creative instincts, demanding to be put in the front of the line. The color makes me think of purple grapes hanging on the vines,sweet and dusty in the summer sun. A scarf, I think. Maybe with some bronze and copper beads . . .

DH also gave me a collection of the third season of Northern Exposure! Wah Hoo!! Major knit time there!

And, so I can be fully prepared to knit, a dear friend has given me a ginormous, beautifully cheery tote bag. I am SOOOO goona rule the knit scene this year!

I'm currently working on a pair of stockings for DH's cousin. Her parents are having their 50th wedding anniversary this year. DH was their ring-bearer. Cousin is putting together a celebration involving reunion of surviving members of the wedding, but is still vague about specific dates, times and locations. So I will send her one sock, and tell her she gets the other when we get the details. This is known variously as motivation or extortion. Oh, Maybe, if she dawdles, I could send a picture of the sock tied to a chair. Who do I know that might be persuaded to dress up as a giant moth? What else could I use to threaten a sock?

Sorry, breakfast was two rum-balls, a handfull of vitamins, a spoonful of yogurt with the Prilosec, and two cups of strong black tea(In the new cup). I may not be totally on kilter.

Fleece Navidad to all!

We open our presents tomorrow night

Saturday sky for December the 23rd. Warm(40 degree farenheit) and dry.

Poor old BlackJack came home yesterday with a broken foreleg. The vet took x-rays and yep, the radius is broken in two places, and the ulna in one. Poor old man! He's sixteen years old, and the vet wants to send him to a specialist who will commit surgery and put pins in those tiny little bones. For over a thousand dollars. And no guarantee that he will even survive the operation. Anyone out there ever had an old cat get a leg pinned? We don't have to decide right away. The specialist can't fit us in till after Christmas anyhow. Meanwhile, Jack has a honking big splint that he sort of drags around, and a patch that will keep him drugged for three days. We take him back to the vet on Tuesday, when we will reasess our options, and give the old man some new drugs. Poor old cat!

seven scarlet scarves

Last night, I finished another red scarf, and since today was a day off when the heavens were not pouring down buckets of rain nor trying to blow my hair off nor freezing my very nose-hairs, I decided to try shooting a picture of the red scarves under natural light. Unlike most of you, we don't have a lot of gracious, scenic locations in our yard. So I draped the scarves in a pseudo-artistic manner in one of our rosebushes, warning said rosebush that if it tried to eat the scarves, pruning would be swift and brutal. The warning worked. All the scarves were recoverd intact, which is more than I can say for my skin. I guess rosebushes don't like to be threatened.

I have completed a pair of short-fingered gloves - beloved, for some reason, by many of the men I know. DH shows off his pair, and all the other guys want some too. Hope these will fit OK. DH and I have hands much the same size and shape - long and narrow. Makes it hard to guesstimate for other people.

I noticed, this morning, that my yarn basket was making funny little noises. Cautiously, I approached. Have the moths gotten that big? Are the dustbunnies trying to reunite with their parent culture?

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No, Candy had simply found another wonderful spot for a nap. All that lovely, squooshy wool yarn to treadle with her little feeties untill it makes the perfect kitty nest.

You may have noticed that Candy has an odd ear. She was spayed by the Feral Cat Society of Oregon, who, to make sure they don't try to perform hysterectomies on the same cats repeatedly, clip the tip of one ear on each of their patients. It makes the neutered cats quickly identifiable in the wild. Candy, however, turned out to be quite adoptable, and has settled in with us very happily. Lucky us!

walkin' in a winter wonderland

Things were still frosty up at the school on Wednesday.

This is the very best sort of winter stuff. The roads were bare and dry, but the trees got all coated with frozen frost. As you can see, the moss on the ground under the tree branch is frost-free!

And the fascinating thing is that just down the hill, about 100 feet lower in elevation, there is no frost at all. There was a line as sharp as if it had been drawn with a ruler to show the frost zone. By 2PM, everything had warmed up and it felt almost balmy. It's amazing how still air at 38 degrees is SO much warmer than a wet wind at 32 degrees.

Today, the temperature is up to 40, and people are running around in shorts and sandals. OK, so they're also wearing knee socks. But holy crow, Louise,
sandals??!!

Today is the shortest day of the year. For those of you in more temperate climes, that means that the sun has not yet risen by 8 AM and will set shortly after 4 PM. The shadows fall straight north at noon, and they are quite long. The sun is a watery, dime-sized thing, squinching through the overcast, and the coldest part of winter is still to come. Right about New Year's Day, we usually get a really good cold snap around here. It's been a while since I saw ice in the Willamette, but you never know. I'm ready for anything. We have a gas stove, gas water-heater, gas fireplace, and if all else fails, I have twenty pounds of candles stashed in the garage. I WILL get a hot cup of tea in the morning!

If any of you are in sunny, warm place, please post pictures. I need to be reminded what summer looks like.

popup paws

RW is going to be one of those ski-patrol angels who rescue hurt and frightened people, and he needs to wear a red jacket. So I figured, he could use some red gloves to go. Pop-up paws give lots of warmth AND dexterity. They're just a pair of short-fingered mits with a flip-over cap knitted on to the back. And they have extra long cuffs which do wonders to retain warmth.


This is a good replication of the color. It's Weally, weally wed!


This shows how the finger-tips are freed when the top pops off.


I had some of that mystery mohair blend left, and less than a ping-pong ball sized ball of left-over Lorna's Laces Lakeview. Added to that was a space of time when I could do mindless knitting that didn't need to be watched. And hey, look, another sock! Named, of course, "Lakeview in the Mist."

feast or famine

I know, no blogging for nigh onto a week, then two blogs in one day - and this has a plethora of pictures!

We start with one of the complications of my blogging - My desk.


You will notice it is rather thickly scattered with cats. That's because it is right over a heat vent and right in front of the window.


And how can you be so selfish as to deny such dear,

sweet, adorable,

stubborn,greedy kitties such a premium nappy spot? So I have to cover the laptop with cat-baffles to prevent hairball damage. Then, when I uncover it, I have to persuade the kitties not to walk on it. I still haven't grocked the idea that each kitty is the consummate center of the universe and should also be the center of all my attention. Therefore, if my attention is centered somewhere NEAR a kitty, they kindly assume that I simply have bad aim, and helpfully place themselves IN the center of my attention. Kitties are like that.


And then there is the meterological phenomena. It has been rather warm and wet. Then a cold front blew in. The college is several hundred feet higher than home. High enough to spend time in the bellies of the clouds on occasion. High enough to freeze. Fog froze on the bushes.

And on the Oregon Grapes

And continued to form thicker borders of rime for the 6 1/2 hours I was proctoring tax boards. It's like lace edgings. Wayyy cool! I live in a wonderful place.

Tomorrow, pop-up-paws and hey-look-another-sock!

I've been a dead possum

First, there was nothing to blog about, then suddenly there was too much going on and no time to blog. I have been proctoring tax boards (five hour tests with people who very much want to be tax preparer) and taking GED tests in to the county jail. And I am wishing I could get the camera to make pictures that look like what I see. There is definitely a learning curve on the photos.

But life is good and I am smiling all the time. A heckuva windstorm blew through last week, with lots of rain, but our neighborhood didn't lose any big trees, didn't lose power, didn't even lose shingles. We lost a few garbage can lids up and down the street. Why can't you buy just the lids? The garbage guys (Who are stud muffins in soiled bib-overalls) save their backs by doing this clever trick where they step on the lip of the lid, it flips up, they grab it without bending over to the ground, and slap it back on the can. Unfortunately, this breaks down the plastic really fast. And we need tightly fitting lids, because the raccoons will pillage, rape and burn if they can get just one of those clever little black leather paws under the lid.


Raccoons are not dear little Disney characters. They are viscous, rabies carrying, verminous, cat-killing thugs. The Vandals have nothing over raccoons when it comes to wanton destruction and random havocs. But that's just my opinon.

One of these socks is not like the other

These are silly asymetric socks. They are made to wear on days when when the entire fricking world is out of kilter.


If your socks are asymetric, they restore the essential balance of a tilted universe.

Hey look, another sock!

Dave's wonderful colorful yarn makes me think of confetti. The blue and confetti socks I called "Confettis in the Mist." This pair is "Confetti and Cream."

How did it get to be Sunday already?

This cold knocked me down, stomped on me and did a little dance on my chest. Just can't seem to get my energy back. Probably because I didn't lie down and accept the wretched thing when it first hit, but decided to be brave and soldier through with drugs and will power. As a consequence, I will be dragging three trails all month no doubt, trying to get the old zing back.

Luckily, things were so slow on Friday that the other gals let me go home early. I had time to herd the dust rhinos into the garage, terrify the black mold in the bathroom with a spritz of Clorox and a flourish of scrub-brushes, and get the table set. On Saturday morning, all I had to do was clean the litterboxes yet again, bake some scones to make the house smell good, and put on the kettle for tea. Tamara brought: 1.star-shaped sugar cookies that melted in the mouth, 2.cardom-flavored shortbread cookies,3.ginger-nuts, 4. the world's best toasted hazlenut biscotti, 5. warm apple muffins, 6. jam-filled thumbprint cookies, 7. a bag of clementines, 8.a home-made pannetone with butter and jam.



Isn't that a gorgeous table?



I finished the tube socks using the mystery mohair and Dave's wonder-dyed sock yarn. Halley and her mom Pat joined our knitting group, and Pat asked for a closer look at the socks. Halley was enthralled, so I asked her to model them for me. "Mom, they're so fuzzy! Mom, they're squooshy! Mom, they feel really good. Oh, mom, they're so warm!"

She wasn't hinting at all. She's not that kind of girl, but she loved them so much I just had to send them home with her.



Anyhow, I've already started another pair using white wool instead of the blue.



And, because I love kitty pictures, here's a basket full of Candy.

Pearl Harbor Day

One of these days, we should all get together at the memorial at Pearl Harbor to show our respect for all the young men who died there.

Then, since we are all going to be in Hawaii anyhow, we may as well go hang out together on Waikiki at Duke's Canoe Club, drink Mai Tais, knit things (in cotton and silk,) and watch the tourists. You'll see straight-laced Japanese buisness men walking on the sand in their thousand dollar suits and shoes. You'll see well fed German men overflowing European Speedos. You'll see beautiful girls in tans and thongs, and buff young men with white, white smiles. And what goes from the color of a cooked flounder to the color of a cooked lobster in one afternoon? A tourist! Then we can take the free buss to Hilo Hattie's factory and buy matching mumus and aloha shirts. Who's with me?

The cold is nearly gone, and the final exams are trickling to a close. Yayyyy!!!

twenty days till Christmas

cc

seven thirty AM on the way to work, even the sun isn't up yet.


I finished a hat last night, and brought it in to show off. It's hard to take your own profile shot. I always purse my lips when concentrating. There are pompoms on the ends of the ties, but this was the best of five shots. If you saw the hat's pompoms, my own pompoms were showcased rather too vividly. Bad angle.

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I'm making tube socks using one strand of Dave Daniels' hand dyed sock yarn and one strand of wool and mohair mystery yarn. Cozy, lovey sockies!!

The cold is doing fine. I am enduring. People continue to wait till the last screaming instant to take their tests, then wail in dismay if it turns out they got the hour wrong. Life lesson here:Don't wait till the last minute!!

I got the sneezels

Spent the weekend on the sofa, with tea and cats and knitting and drugs. The cats lay on me and made me strong, because they are the tribe of Tygre, and their breath is the Tygre's breath. And the drugs are Zicam, Nyquill and Dayquill. The drugs are efficacious, but the kitties are comforting. Now at work, sniffling and soldiering through. Stay well, you guys. This cold sucks AND blows!

Thank Goddess for drugs

I am feeling like all seven dwarves today - Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Achey, Whiney and Snot.

On Thursday I was all American. Now I am very Phlegmish.

Drugs allow me to breathe, but interfere with cogitation. buh bye!