kmkat and her kneedles

Happy Halloween, Google style!

Am I the only one dorky enough to check Google on holidays just to see what they came up with this time?

Happy Halloween!

Meet Mocha, who belongs to one of our renters:

Mom, I am so going to pee in your shoes!

Vaccination day.

Andrew's column for this week's local paper.

The photo is the medicines that the delegation from the Chiapas Support Committee brought when they came to San Mañuel for the installation of the new autonomous council in early October.

Satur--, er, Wednesday sky. On Sunday.

It was just too good not to photograph, even though it was Wednesday.

The back-up.

Matthew says I shouldn't put any comments here. "It speaks for itself, Mom."

Eye candy Friday: score!

Guess who got herself a new light box on eBay?

Here is a similar one:

I had assembled a cardboard box of the proper dimensions and white tissue paper in preparation to make my own like Erika did, but decided to check eBay to see what was available ready-made. The selling point, besides the fact that the whole thing with shipping was less than $20, was that this one collapses flat and fits into a nylon zipper carrying case. Sold!

Stay tuned for the story of the photographed swatch and yarn.

CAP @ MoA.

Barnes & Noble, Mall of America, October 25, 3:30 pm:

Barnes & Noble, Mall of America, October 25, 6:00 pm:

Barnes & Noble, Mall of America, October 25, 6:55 pm:

The above photo in no way shows the actual number of people present for the reading/signing. There were people standing shoulder to shoulder out of camera range at the left, sitting knee to knee on the floor, hovering around outside the cafe and craning their necks to see the author. Nobody sat in the space directly in front of the author's table, though. We are from Minnesota! That might be too forward!

Here we see the public relations manager of the store, quickly scanning the book before CAP arrived, trying to figure out why so friggin' many people showed up so early to see the author of... a knitting book?

 (The comment heard most often as new arrivals walked into the cafe and saw the meager number of chairs: "They're doing it again.")

Barnes & Noble, Mall of America, October 25, 7:02 pm:

Laurie Perry is the cutest thing on two legs. And the funniest. We clapped, we hooted, we laughed, we cheered, we clapped some more. We all fell in love with her.

I had brought a library copy of her book, which she graciously signed:

(I bought a copy for myself, too :-) )

* * * * *

I met up with Dale-Harriet (of WI) and her Beautiful Daughter for the signing. She and I had never met and had only discovered each other's blogs within the last week, but it was quickly apparent to both of us that we had been separated at birth. Especially when she saw the wallet photo of my husband and exclaimed, "He looks just like my husband!" Just a  couple of old hippies, each married to a Scandinavian-type guy with a full beard.

Outlaw chocolate! Crazy Aunt Purl!

Outlaw chocolate.

* * * * *

Crazy Aunt Purl is coming to Barnes & Noble at the Mall of America on Thursday evening. I shall be there, knitting and library copy* of her book in hand. Yeah, I'm gonna have her sign the library's copy -- hey, it's not like I'm gonna deface the book, ya know? I'll be adding to its value.

So far I know that Dale-Harriet in WI and Cursing Mama will be there, too. I've never met either of them but I'm planning/hoping to. Anybody else planning to go? If so, look for me, overexposed and smirking, or underexposed and grainy:

Perhaps I'll wear that scarf, just to be recognizable...

* I'm a trustee of the regional library board, treasurer of the county Friends group, and an occasional librarian. In my own mind, at least, that gives me permission :-)

Why housework is such a drag.

I swept the laundry room today. Half a tablespoon of dirt, half a cup of leaves and fabric trimmings, and ::sigh:: half a gallon of dog hair. (Clog added for scale :-)

Adventures.

Smokey and I visited the tribe for dinner this week. St. Croix Casino has a seafood buffet on Thursday nights. Since our anniversary was Friday (33 years! yikes!) we declared this to be our celebratory outing. Cameras are forbidden in the casino and I didn't want to risk getting yelled at, so I didn't try to photograph our dinner. Picture my plate with salmon, peel-and-eat shrimp, deep-fried shrimp, homemade scalloped potatoes, and prime rib. Picture Smokey's plate piled high with crab legs.

We had a 45-minute wait to get into the buffet. I hate to gamble. Smokey likes to play the slots but had decided not to do so this time. After sitting around for a few minutes, though, he was bored. Not me, I had brought my knitting. Of course. And then he realized we were sitting in front of a row of nickel slots. I gave him a dollar, which he had turned into five by the time our number was called for dinner (he's lucky that way). Took care of the waiter's tip :)

I did manage to capture a couple highlights in the parking lot.

We stole the land from them, they can certainly park anywhere they want. I just like the reminder that I don't live in a city anymore.

This was rather... unsettling:

That is a row of eight handicapped spaces. There were at least four rows like this. That is a lot of handicapped parking, people! Gambling is apparently popular among the elder set. Not that we are members of that set, Smokey's handicapped parking pass notwithstanding.

* * * * *

Last night my friend Colleen and I went to a fund raiser dinner and auction for the new library and museum in Luck, the next little town north. Here is what they are planning to build:

It will be by far the most attractive building in the village.

The festivities were held in the fire hall.

The local ladies served up roast pork sandwiches, cole slaw, hamburger/rice hot dish (Midwestern for casserole), squash, and a multitude of homemade desserts.

The serving ladies were friendly and generous and photogenic, but what I really should have gotten a photo of was the array of desserts. I hadn't seen that many home baked cakes and cookies and bars (correct pronunciation: barss) since I don't know when. Maybe when we used to go to the monthly fish fry at the VFW down the road from our house.

In addition to the usual donated kinds of stuff -- gift certificates, home decor items, sporting equipment -- there were some actual antiques  that had been donated. A treadle Singer, complete with tattered pages from the original manual:

and a wooden trunk in very good condition. (You can see more of the Singer in the background):

An oak rocker in excellent condition that was very comfortable. Colleen pronounced it Just Right for petite people like herself.

Anyone ever have one of these?

   

Not everything was an antique, however. What's that?

This is Packer Country. Vicki, this shot is for you. You may have gotten to go to Rhinebeck, but we have a signed jersey here.

Movies.

How about another list? AFI's top 100 movies. Bold the ones you have seen. Strike out the ones you couldn't finish. * the ones you have seen more than once.

1. Citizen Kane (1941)*
2. Godfather, The*
3. Casablanca (1942)*
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
6. Gone with the Wind (1939)*
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)*
10. Wizard of Oz, The (1939)* This used to be on TV once a year in the 1950s. I'd watch it every time, even if it meant hiding under the coffee table because I was so scared of the Wicked Witch of the West.
11. City Lights (1931)
12. Searchers, The (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)*
14. Psycho (1960)*
15. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
16. 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968)*
17. Graduate, The (1967)*
18. General, The (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Nope, never seen it. Hard to believe, huh? 
21. Chinatown (1974)*
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. Grapes of Wrath, The (1940)
24. E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982)
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) An amazing number of older female boomers wish they had had James Stewart Gregory Peck* for their father, apparently because of this movie. I saw it years later so wasn't affected that way. ETA: Thanks to Ann of Sheep Shots for pointing out that it was GP, not JS, who played Atticus Finch. Thanks, Ann!
    
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)*
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. Maltese Falcon, The (1941)*
32. Godfather Part II, The (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)*
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
35. Annie Hall (1977)* For years this was my favorite movie. (It has since been replaced by The Big Lebowski, tragically missing from this list.)
36. Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)*
37. Best Years of Our Lives, The (1946)*
38. Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948) I read it, too, in Spanish!
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)* "Gentlemen, there is no fighting in the War Room!"
40. Sound of Music (1965)
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. Philadelphia Story, The (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)*
47. Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)*
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. Deer Hunter, The (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)*
55. North by Northwest (1959)* Seen it many times, most recently while camping in the Black Hills.
56. Jaws (1975)*
57. Rocky (1976)
58. Gold Rush, The (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)* Many, many times. I love the Marx Brothers.
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941) never heard of it
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976)
65. African Queen, The (1951)*
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) I was quite taken with Edward Albee's work in high school.
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)*
70. Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)* I can’t believe this one isn’t higher in the list.
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)* Smokey and I quote from this one all the time. “And if I could remember what I had for dinner that night I’d die a happy man.” “Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” “Woodcock?!?”
74. Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)*
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)
77. All the President’s Men (1976)*
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. Wild Bunch, The (1969) Notable mainly, imho, because it was the first Western to show blood spurting from gunshot wounds.
80. Apartment, The (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927) Never heard of it.
83. Titanic (1997) Only saw the first half or so; I had to leave the theater at the scene where the water started lapping up the corridor because being trapped underwater is my worst fear and I couldn’t stand to watch.
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. Night at the Opera, A (1935)*
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)* One of Smokey's favorite movies.
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. Sixth Sense, The (1999)
90. Swing Time (1936) Never heard of it.
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. French Connection, The (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)
95. Last Picture Show, The (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

So. I have seen 90% of these. Or 91%; I can't remember for sure if I have seen Spartacus or not. When Andrew was in high school he set himself the goal to watch iMDb's top 250 movies. That's when I saw many of the old classics on this list.

List shamelessly lifted from Jill Smolinski's blog, My Life List.

Books.

Bold the titles you’ve read. Italicize the titles you own but haven’t read. Strike out the ones you couldn't finish/stand.  Put an * next to the books you've read more than once.

1.    The God of Small Things
2.    A People’s History of the United States: 1492-present (Too depressing to finish; I can read about horrible stuff in fiction, but in non-fiction it upsets me. Go figger.)
3.    Cryptonomicon
4.    Neverwhere
5.    Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
6.    Anna Karenina
7.    Crime and Punishment
8.    Catch-22*
9.    One Hundred Years of Solitude
10.   Wuthering Heights
11.   The Silmarillion
12.   Life of Pi*
13.   The Name of the Rose
14.   Don Quixote
15.   Moby Dick
16.   Ulysses
17.   The Odyssey
18.   Pride and Prejudice
19.   Jane Eyre
20.   A Tale of Two Cities
21.   The Brothers Karamazov
22.   Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
23.   War and Peace
24.   Vanity Fair
25.   The Time Traveler’s Wife
26.   The Iliad
27.   Emma
28.   The Blind Assassin
29.   The Kite Runner
30.   Mrs. Dalloway
31.   Great Expectations
32.   American Gods
33.   Atlas Shrugged (Didn't everyone read Ayn Rand as a teenager?)
34.   Reading Lolita in Tehran : a Memoir in Books (This one inspired me to read some Henry James. I'm in the middle of Portrait of a Lady
35.   Memoirs of a Geisha
36.   Middlesex
37.   Quicksilver (Never heard of it.)
38.   Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
39.   The Canterbury Tales (And I can still recite the opening lines. In middle English. Such a worthless talent.)
40.   The Historian
41.   A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
42.   Love in the Time of Cholera
43.   Brave New World
44.   The Fountainhead (More Ayn Rand.)
45.   Foucault’s Pendulum
46.   Middlemarch
47.   Frankenstein
48.   The Count of Monte Cristo
49.   Dracula
50.   A Clockwork Orange
51.   Anansi Boys
52.   The Once and Future King
53.   The Grapes of Wrath
54.   The Poisonwood Bible
55.   1984*
56.   Angels & Demons (No Dan Brown for me ever again. His special talent seems to be seeing how many cliffhangers he can cram into one book.)
57.   The Inferno
58.   The Satanic Verses (#1 son read it for a world lit independent study course in high school and loved it. Me, not so much,)
59.   Sense and Sensibility
60.   The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde is enormously witty and entertaining. Must read more of his work.)
61.   Mansfield Park
62.   One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
63.   To the Lighthouse (Never heard of it.)
64.   Tess of the D’Urbervilles
65.   Oliver Twist
66.   Gulliver’s Travels
67.   Les Misérables
68.   The Corrections
69.   The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
70.   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time* (Loved this book.)
71.   Dune
72.   The Prince
73.   The Sound and the Fury
74.   Angela’s Ashes
75.   A Confederacy of Dunces (I slogged through the whole thing. What a waste of time. Pulitzer? Genius? Not imho...)
76.   A Short History of Nearly Everything (Really only natural history and physics and maybe chemistry. Nothing about literature or psychology or economics. But fun anyway.)
77.   Dubliners
78.   The Unbearable Lightness of Being
79.   Beloved
80.   Slaughterhouse-Five*
81.   The Scarlet Letter
82.   Eats, Shoots & Leaves
83.   The Mists of Avalon
84.   Oryx and Crake (My note to myself after reading this book: No more Margaret Atwood for me.)
85.   Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
86.   Cloud Atlas (Never heard of it.)
87.   The Confusion (Ditto.)
88.   Lolita
89.   Persuasion
90.   Northanger Abbey
91.   The Catcher in the Rye*
92.   On the Road
93.   The Hunchback of Notre Dame
94.   Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
95.   Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
96.   The Aeneid
97.   Watership Down*
98.   Gravity’s Rainbow
99.   The Hobbit*
100.  White Teeth
101.  Treasure Island
102.  David Copperfield
103.  The Three Musketeers right now.)

Shamelessly lifted from Carrie K.

I love lists like this because I read so much and because I am so disgustingly competitive. But I didn't compare my % read (57.3%) to Carrie's; that would be too rude, even for me, after taking the list from her blog. Thanks, Carrie!

Wednesday.

nataliedee.com

Thanks to Susan for the link.

Hatz.

This yarn that I bought online last year from Smiley's:

recently became these hatz, destined for Afghans for Afghans Dulaan (dang, missed the A4A October 12 deadline):

Colors are true in the first picture, which was taken outdoors in natural light. Although I was supposedly using exactly the same pattern and the same size needles for all, the seven hats somehow ended up being seven different sizes. Oh, well, they will each fit someone.

The yarn is a lightly spun single ply, lovely and fluffy and soft, a  wool/acrylic/alpaca blend. I knit the hats variously on US#7, 8, and 9 needles,  depending [apparently] on the phase of the moon.

Today I ran some errands.

Wait! What does that sign say?

Let's go check it out...

Awwwww.

But these guys were a little shy. A little twitchy. And they preferred to stay in the shed. It's hard to take good photos of twitchy alpaca in low light conditions.

Sometimes I got a good shot...

...and sometimes not.

Defeated by shutter lag once again.

I risked one shot with flash.

He (she?) didn't seem too freaked out by it.

Later they stampeded outside where the light conditions were better. This guy was determined to pose artfully and gracefully.

He posed. And posed. And posed. No problem with shutter lag there.

No problem with shutter lag with these guys, either.

There was more to see than just the animals. There were these wee cuties:

And fleece:

And last but not least, yarn:

The pink and orange and red skeins are dyed with KoolAid, the turquoise one with some less-toxic-than-usual chemical dye. The brown are undyed from the darkest alpaca. One of the undyed skeins in front came home with me. It is the softest, yummiest stuff ever. I think I might use it to knit something for Rina.

I had company on this outing. Matthew and Rina:

My boy is in love.

Puzzled.

Do you need a time waster? Sure you do.

I love jigsaw puzzles. And I really love online jigsaw puzzles.

This one is my favorite.

It has just the right mix of pretty pictures, levels of difficulty, background color options, and conventionally-shaped pieces to suit me.

Sorting the pieces is the button box all over again for The Kat.

There's a satisfying little click! when a piece fits into place.

None of that annoying, Does it fit? Does it really fit? that occurs in real life jigsaws.

And unlike other online jigsaws I have tried, this one gives you a little reward at the end, an intact image with a caption that describes the subject and source.

The only downside -- or maybe it is an upside, in the grand scheme of things -- is that there is only one puzzle per day.

Because there are some days when I would waste far more time than is good for me doing this.

Delurk, darn it!

Discovered at blackbird's blog and shamelessly lifted from Schmutzie.

Comments, please! Let me know you are there!

All's well that ends soon.

Zapatistas /Jose Clemente Orozco (1931)

The latest dispatch from Andrew in Chiapas. In his own words,

After two months of nothing I’m fairly bored and unexcited, and I’m afraid that shows in the writing, sorry about that. I expect that’ll change at the end of this week once I actually have something to do. But if that warning doesn’t daunt you, then read on, this one does contain fire, machetes, and a novel use for feces

All's well that ends soon.