A Sad Day

RIP Hoover, my knitting kitty 2001-2009

Boxing Day 2009

Well, as you can see, Ralph looooooved the spider I made for him :-)

Christmas was a very good day. I like all the gifts I got, including the "it's not a Christmas gift" Lizard gave me: stitch markers with little pictures of Jeff Goldblum on them. I don't know if I'll be able to get a good picture since my camera is not so hot with focusing on small items but I'll give it a try later on when the sun is out. I think Ralph liked everything he got, too, including the spider although he will never admit to that.



Had a very nice time visiting at The Kids' place. Lots of chatting, good food, good company, and AT even kept his new hat on long enough for Lizard & me to get a few pictures of him wearing it.

Yay! It's Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! Woke up with a song from a musical version of "A Christmas Carol" stuck in my head: "Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, bah, humbug, who cares? Candy canes and cuddle bunnies, fluffy teddy bears. Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, bah, humbug I say! Christmas is just a day, like any other daaaaaaaay!" Of course, that is exactly the opposite of how I feel about it all.



Can't wait until Ralph gets up & sees his stocking. Yes, that's it in the pictures. See, he's a bit of an arachnophobe, with the black widow spider being the worst enemy of all. So of course I just had to knit one for him & use it to top his stocking. In addition to clinging to the top, it's also holding a couple of the gifts that didn't quite fit inside. Heh, heh, heh!!



Got some holiday baking done yesterday. Made two batches of cookies & a jelly roll. The jelly roll is not a pretty sight--the cake decided to cleave itself unto the pan until death did them part--but I managed to patch it up well enough. It's only Ralph & I who will be eating it so it's not a big deal that it is less-than-picture-perfect. It tastes good, too. The cookies are to take over to The Kids' place today.

Only 4:20 in the morning. I am sooooo ready to start Christmas. Wake up Ralph, wake up! I guess I could see what's in my stocking, however I think it will be more fun to wait for him & open ours together. Guess I'll surf the web while I sipsipsip my coffee (running joke between me & my sister there, should she happen to read this) & then do some knitting until he gets up.

Speaking of knitting, I'm working on a scarf & pair of wristwarmers. I started the scarf first, decided I wanted some wristwarmers to match, and am knitting those from the other end of the ball of yarn (hooray for center-pull balls!), then will finish the scarf when those are done. That way I don't have to worry about using so much yarn in the scarf that there isn't enough for the wristwarmers. I'm using Jitterbug in October Afternoon, which has about 3 shades of dark orange and a bit of green in it. Not sure what it will look like after blocking; my fingers turn orange after a few rounds/row so I know it will bleed like a head wound when it gets wet. I'm planning on putting some vinegar in the water to help set the dye.

Good dogs, my butt!

What has gotten into my dogs lately? Two weeks ago, I caught Sadie sleeping on the couch. A few nights ago, I caught Hali sleeping on the couch. Last night, I caught Hali in the act of jumping onto the couch. And as you can see from the photo, Zoe has decided that the basket of formerly-clean laundry makes a good dog bed. And here I thought we had good girls. Please pardon the poor quality of the photo; the lens was dirty, and of course the battery died after I took the shot so I couldn't get a better one after cleaning the lens.

Still finishing up Christmas knitting. You would think, since I started two weeks before last Christmas, that I would be done by now. Guess I shouldn't have spent so much time making octopi, even if they are fun. I finished K's mittens, and AM was my Santa's Helper & gave them to her yesterday. AM said that K's face just lit up. I'm really glad I decided to make them. I also made a little hat for my great-nephew A; it's a mini version of the ogre hat I made before. Now I am working on one last gift & am halfway done with it. Then maybe I can finally finish my sweater that I started in the spring.

I got all of Ralph's gifts wrapped today, and his stocking is stuffed & ready. I sort of overdid it on the stocking stuffers, and had to wrap some of them instead as not everything would fit. Still have some things to wrap for other folks, but I got burned out today doing his so they will have to wait.

Tomorrow we plan to finally get a tree. We had a really good artificial one, but sadly it has given up the ghost so it's time for a new one.

Mittens, fish, and a parade

Merry 12 days before Christmas! I am nearly done with the gift-knitting. Working on the penultimate project now: a pair of mittens for K, a homeless woman who lives under the stairs at work. She leaves her little area very early in the morning with all her things packed up in a big backpack, and I thought a pair of mittens would keep her hands warm on a cold day/night, but be small enough to fit in the backpack without adding a lot of weight in warmer weather. They are rather large, as I figured she could still wear them if they were too big but not if they were too small.

Yesterday I finished the last of the fish hats. I've got the whole school of them here in this photo (the dark blue/purple striped one is the one I just finished). Well, not quite the whole school; I left out the ones I made for Ralph and myself, and of course I couldn't include the one I sent to Cheapet in Oklahoma earlier this year. I need to get a box to pack them up & ship them out. Hope they are well-received.



Before moving on with the next topic, I need to sort of explain the layout of the streets around here. We're on Maine; to the south of us is Barnett, to the north is Hill, and behind us (to the east) is Daisy. In the section behind us, Daisy is a two-way street, but when it hits Hill it splits into two one-way streets with a wide stretch of grass dividing it. This section of one-way streets is the City's "Christmas Tree Lane," and every year the City puts up decorations in the grassy area (I'll get some pictures later today) and many of the residents put up some amazing light displays.

So last night was the annual Christmas parade. It starts at the intersection of Daisy & Barnett, goes up the east side of the one-way section, back down the west section, turns onto Hill then comes down our street, ending at the intersection of Maine & Barnett. I went for a walk last night to looky-loo the lights, and as luck would have it the parade started just as I was nearing the intersection of Daisy & Barnett. I went back up Daisy a ways to find a place to sit that wasn't too wet. This is only the second time I've seen the whole parade in the eight years we've lived here (it's only been coming down our street for the past two years; it used to end at Hill). It's sort of a dorky parade--poorly spaced, with some groups too close together followed by long waits for the next group to come up--but I enjoyed myself waving madly at the people in the fancy cars & fire trucks as they went by.

I especially liked two things about the parade. The first was this really cool police car. It was the normal-for-California black and white, except where the paint colors met it was painted in flames so there were black flames extending from the front of the car into the white section, and white flames extending from the middle of the car into the back black section. Really awesome. My other favorite was a group of cheerleaders. They were quite good, very enthusiastic & energetic, but what I really liked about it was that they had girls of different ages & sizes, not just skinny teenagers. The youngest was probably about seven or eight, the oldest I'd guess to be about sixteen. One of the girls in the front was about, oh I'd say thirteen or so, definitely on the heavy side, and IMHO the best performer in the group (which is probably why she was at the front). This girl could *move.*

Once the whole parade had passed by (ending, of course, with Santa Claus & his reindeer atop a fire engine) I walked back home only to discover that SOMEbody had locked the door. Did I have my keys? Nooooooo, of course not. I rang the bell but no reply. So I sat outside for a bit & re-watched the beginning of the parade as it started to make its way past our house. Ralph eventually came out (he'd been in the jacuzzi in the backyard) and let me in. Luckily it wasn't too cold out or he'd have been in big trouble :-)

Today's exciting plans include grocery shopping, maybe a little Christmas shopping, wrapping some gifts, and yay laundry.

12/09/09

Today was a good day at work. First off was our quarterly meeting, which was actually a lot of fun. It was E's birthday, and first Mr. Boss Man's Boss made him sing "Happy Birthday" by himself, then we all sang it to him. Awards were given & guess who won Admin Associate of the Quarter? Why, yes, it was indeed I. I thought for sure it was going to be Ms. Boss Woman, up until the word "sarcastic" was used in the description of the winner. Funny, a lot of people looked at me at that point. . . anyway, I got a very nice plaque and a hundred dollars, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Speaking of sneezing, there was also a health fair at work. There were about a dozen companies there including a dental office (free toothbrush!), a doctor's office (free band-aids!), and a bloodmobile. There was also a representative from Sam's Club; not really health related, but they are offering a membership discount to our company right now and today was a good day for him to come out since all the field people were there for the division meeting. He was giving out cookies, which I skipped because Ralph bought Entenmann's donuts last night & I knew I'd want one after dinner.

It's a good thing that work was a pleasant day, because my knitting SUCKED. I'm making a hermit crab, and one part of the instructions says to purl one row that I was positive should have been knit. So, silly me, I knit that row. I'm now at a point where it's obvious why it was purled, and now I either have to live with it not looking right, or pull out the picked-up stitches, cast-off, and incorrect row. I'll probably do the latter, as I had major problems kitchenering (grafting) the picked-up stitches. I kept getting off count, plus I cut the yarn too short & had to do a Russian join which is great for knitting but terrible for grafting. I might just chuck the whole piece & start over on it; it's only 22 rows plus the picked up stitches so that's not so bad.

Today's picture is kinda crappy--too dark, and there are dirty cups on the table ooops! However, I like it because it shows the two resting styles of my cats. Hoover is all neatly tucked up like the meatloaf he is, while Mudgie is sprawled like a dropped Jell-o mold. What a pair!

And it's a sad thing indeed when one's onliest sister doesn't even read one's blog.

Now we'll see if Lizard is still reading my blog

People at work are really getting into the holiday spirit with decorations appearing every day. VT, I think, has topped us all with this inflatable snowglobe. I've never seen one in a building before, except in stores that are selling them. He said he's had it in his garage for years, and since he can't put it up at his apartment he figured work was the place for it.

Now, to see if Lizard is still reading my blog, I've posted two photos that will be of interest to her. The first is of Mudgie being a monorail cat; she mentioned a while back that she had searched my Flickr account looking for such a photo & was surprised that I didn't have any. The second is of LS's Eeyore Family Christmas, the latest addition to the costumed Eeyores she uses to decorate her cubicle.


It's been a pretty busy morning. I got up at 5:00, and by 5:50 I had ridden the exercise bike for 30 minutes, brewed the coffee, packed lunches, gave Sadie her pill, fed the dogs, cleaned the cat box & taken a shower. I'm ready for a nap, ha ha! Mind you, tomorrow will be busy too as we have to take 4 of our 5 mammals to the vet for vaccinations. The dogs aren't too bad, but since Hoover's last visit resulted in me getting scars I'm not really looking forward to taking him in.




Ralph made a wonderful potato dish last night. He sliced up red potatoes very thin, layered them with onion & butter in a shallow dish, then baked it. After the potatoes were completely cooked, he topped it with shredded cheese & baked it another 20 minutes or so. The bottom was brown & crusty, the onions cooked until they were sweet, and the cheese was just starting to turn brown. Delicious!!

Utilities--what fun

Did utility shut-offs at work. This is when homes have closed & we notify (and by "we" I mean "I") the companies to let them know that we no longer own the homes. It's really getting to be a ridiculous process. Before, I would just send a fax for each community and be done with it. Things have changed, though. For example, at our Beaumont location, the water company insists that we use their form with a separate one filled out for each home rather than one fax with all the info on it. Palm Springs water wants theirs e-mailed, and also to please put the new homeowner's first name on it as well (normally we only put the last). We have three communities that use Southern California Edison, and those have to be done on another fax specifically for SCE, because unless there are at least seven shut-offs on the fax, they won't do it; you have to phone them in. So that means two faxes & an e-mail for Palm Springs, and for Beaumont one fax for SCE, one fax for the gas company, and one fax per home for the water. Oh, well, at least they're done for another week.

Sadie's chewed-up spots are clearing up, so of course now Hali's started. Sigh. We used some of Sadie's spray on it which hopefully will help. We also Frontlined all five animals last night; I was going to say it was a bit early for it, however now that I think about it today is the first of the month; they were early by what--12 hours? If the weather is warm enough we'll bathe all the dogs this weekend with the special shampoo the vet prescribed.

I had two weird dreams last night. One was I was at rehearsal for the Renaissance Faire, and realized I had committed myself to being in Danse Macabre, AND the Washerwomen, AND St. Ives. Most of the dream was trying to work out a schedule where all three would get a decent amount of my time as well as leaving me some free time to see the Faire. The other was I came back from vacation to discover that not only had someone turned my office into a storeroom, but I was now sharing that office/storeroom with Ms. Boss Woman. Luckily she was good at organizing & got it cleared out enough for us to work.

By the way, if anyone has the slightest clue where I put the pipe cleaners, please let me know.