kmkat and her kneedles

Thankful Thursday: the random (and possibly superficial edition).

I am thankful for:

1. ...Neil Gaiman, who posted, on 12/31/2008 "...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind." Those are exactly the things I would wish for myself. (but for myself I would also add courage)
2. ...the warm afghan(s) wrapped around my shoulders. It's chilly in the house, and the extreme warmth of the wool and mohair afghan I made several years ago plus the extreme softness of the one Matthew and Maggie gave me last Christmas is very welcome.
3. ...the enormous New York strip steak I am going to eat for dinner this evening, with fresh asparagus. And perhaps ice cream with warm blueberry sauce for desert.
4. ...my comfy recliner, the lamp next to it, my iPod cum audio book on the iPod dock on the table, and my knitting. Those things together always make me happy.
5. ...#1 Son being able to come home for Christmas. He is about as stressed out as he can be by med school, and I am happy he can come home to relax and recuperate.
6. ...#2 Son and Maggie coming back this weekend. It is always good to have them visit. He always makes me laugh.
7. ...warm furry mammals to keep me warm. I may have mentioned this one before, but I do love my furry mammals.
8. ...the plentitude that surrounds us. We want for so little.
9. ...Smokey, who has learned to chuckle over my occasional irascibility and to let me recover my equanimity with dignity. (say THAT five times fast!)
10. ...another year on this earth. Life is good.

Pink.

Have I ever mentioned that my least favorite color is pink?

And that my least favorite shade of pink is hot pink?

Here's my latest FO.

 

Hot pink is, however, the favorite color of Maggie, #2 Son's gf. And these are for her. Because I am willing to sacrifice my eyeballs (and sanity) in the cause of love.

Yarn: Sock That Rock heavyweight, colorway Hot Flash.
Needles: Addi Turbo, US#3 (foot and ankle) and US#4 (leg).
Pattern: Wendy's generic toe-up pattern, with a cable thrown onto the sides of the leg just because I am really, really into cables right now. Worked on 42 st except for second leg, which was worked on 44 st b/c the first leg was a little tight. I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off, which works a treat. It will now be my go-to bind off for things that need to stretch. If you haven't used it yet, I highly recommend it.

Wendy's pattern linked above has become my go-to, toe-up sock pattern. I really like that I don't have to fiddle with casting on at the tip of the toe. It uses a provisional cast-on of half the total stitches on the top of the toe, then uses short rows to form the toe. Tidy and easy, perfect. My next goal is to learn to do a slip-stitch gusseted heel on toe-up socks. I know there are patterns out there, just haven't done the requisite research yet. If any of you know of one that is easily adaptable to any gauge and/or size, sing out in the comments.

Note: there seem to be a plethora (there's that word again!) of hot pink socks being thrown up on people's blogs lately. Cookie (not that that is a surprise; that grrl loves her some pink), Cookie again (these for Our Joan), Carole (hers are mittens, but still very, very pink), Diane. I guess hot pink is The Thing this month.

Druggies.

When I was in Minneapolis to pick up Andrew from the airport last week I was able to squeeze in a visit to Twin Cities Green, a really great little store that sells good stuff. I got two catnip slugs as recommended by Chaos and Mayhem Chris, plus picked up a couple pounds of Peace Coffee (not available in my area).

Later I emailed Chris to relay Hannibal's and En Esch's ecstatically enthusiastic thanks for the reccy:

I took some video of them when I first gave them the toys this afternoon. Then we all left to run some errands and eat lunch/dinner. When we returned three hours later both cats were in the same place, still licking their toys.

Andrew was filling their feeders when I initially gave them the toys. The feeders have been empty for a couple days, so both cats were pretty hungry and were prowling around him meowing, telling him to hurry up. But when I threw them the slugs, they totally ignored Andrew and the Science Diet. That speaks volumes for how great that 'nip is.

Eating our way through the holidays.

On Christmas Day Andrew, Matthew, Maggie (the boys and #2's girlfriend), and I ate Christmas dinner at a rustic local restaurant, said dinner sponsored and prepared by the local commercial club. #2 and I had done this a couple years ago, and we all decided to do it again. (Actually I decided, but since I'm the cook, I'm also Boss Of The Meal).

 

The turkey qualified as mystery meat, but the rest was pretty good. And there was a plethora (thanks, I love to use "plethora") of homemade desserts.

 

Besides the eleventy-seven dozen cookies, many of which were so heavenly delicious I cannot possibly describe them, there was pie -- cherry, peach, pumpkin, blueberry, and perhaps one other I cannot remember.

Afterward we rolled ourselves out to the car.

* * * * *

One of Smokey's and my traditions is to feed Andrew very, very well when he is home. He loves and appreciates good food and doesn't get a great deal of it when he at school. Of course, we do this out of sheer altruism. We get nothing for ourselves out of this deal. Nothing at all. We eat pb&j whilst #1 son gorges himself.

Well, maybe not.

Here is the note that greeted me when I got up this morning.

 

 

However, I decreed that those humongous New York strip steaks and the porterhouse were way too big to be paired with the lobster, and replaced them with some delightful little tenderloins instead. (The big steaks are being saved for tomorrow.)

 

Smokey had a very, very attentive audience while he ate.

No bit of edible lobster went to waste.

The post-dinner destruction:

 

There were no steak scraps for the dogs, but they did get to lick our plates. Enthusiastically. Cats, however, must be persuaded that lobster is yummy and that we are not plotting to poison them.

 

* * * * *

Stay tuned -- tomorrow there may be actual knitting here!

Want to scare the kiddos?

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Found at GeekTyrant.com via tweet from QI.

The last thing the shrew/mouse/vole saw.

Happy day after Christmas!

Above belongs to a biking friend of #2 Son. Said friend decorated his bike for the holiday with jingle bells attached to bike with red and green zip ties. Festive!

And now I am being paged and implored and begged to please make waffles! for everyone so that everyone will get up and then we can wake Smokey and then we can open presents. Not that the younger generation is materialistic or anything...

Greetings!

To All My Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Shamelessly stolen from an email from a friend in California.

Oops, almost forgot the traditional 12 days...

Thankful Thursday: the Christmas Eve edition.

I am thankful...

1. ...to have a warm(ish), snug(gish) house when the snow and cold and wind are everywhere outdoors. When I went out last night to move my car to the top of the driveway hill -- just in case we got that 11" - 20" of predicted snow all in one night -- I thought about the Native Americans who lived here a hundred+ years ago and how did they keep warm? I concluded that at least a few of them didn't and that every winter some of them died.
2. ...that #1 son flew in on Monday, when the weather in both New York and Minneapolis was clear. And the terminal was peaceful, unlike the next day.
3. ...that #2 son has a job he loves, especially when so many other 20-yo high school grads are unemployed. His job may not pay much, but it makes him happy (and gives him health insurance and a 401(k)).
4. ...Smokey has a job, a good job, even though it means we won't see him until next Monday (or possibly Tuesday).
5. ...to know that my family will all be together to celebrate our own Christmas in our own good time.
6. ...to have good friends who invite us to have Christmas dinner with them.
7. ...to have a refrigerator and freezer full of food for the other days.
8. ...that the health care reform bill, flawed though it is, is likely to become law.
9. ...for this blog, which has brought me into the internet community of knitters and bloggers.
10. ...to have met you all, some of you FTF.
11. ...for every day in this life, amen.

The true spirit of Christmas.

Okay, I'm just gonna bombard you with stuff because, for some unknown reasons, I seem to have lots of stuff with which to bombard you. And I cannot hold it all it.

If you read Dork Tower, you have already read this. If not, you can listen.

You just never know...

...what you are going to find on the memory card in a camera that has been sitting for awhile. I remembered that I had decided -- like, three months ago -- to use my bulky Fuij FinePix for photography at home because it takes slightly better quality photos than my pocket-sized Canon. I got it out, took a few kitteh photos, and connected it to my computer. Lo and behold, there were photos from June, 2008 on it.

First, the current kitteh photos. Here they are in their favorite place for daytime relaxing:

 

 

Now, the surprising shots. Here are socks finished June 2008 that I knit for my brother and sister-in-law who live in northern Canada. If these photos were still in the camera, that means the socks were never immortalized here on the blog in their FO state. Let's fix that:

(left)
Yarn: Online Highland Color, heels and toes Knit Picks Encore sock yarn held together with one strand of Lang gray reinforcing woolly nylon.
Needles: Addi Turbos US#1.
Pattern: generic sock, 2x2 rib on leg and top of foot.

(right)
Yarn: Trekking, but I didn't record the color number.
Needles: Addi Turbos US#1 for the leg, US#0 for the foot.
Pattern: generic sock, 1x1 rib on the leg and top of foot.

* * * * *

The other photos were apparently taken by #2 son* when he and Smokey moved a whole bunch of boxes from the Minneapolis house to the lake house. They parked the van (this is the van that was totaled by its recent unfortunate encounter with the bear)  as close as possible to the front door...
 

...and loaded it with boxes.
 

Clearly, Garfield approved.
 

* I know it was Matthew because I recognize this shadow:

Politicians are the same everywhere.

Found @ Mother Jones via The Morning News.

Solstice!

In case you missed my tweet*, #1 son emailed us a few weeks ago: "Be it known that I am come home on the solstice, so gather the jimsonweed in readiness but delay the bonfire until sunset."

That's today! Weather is much better this year than 2008, when I spent seven or so hours at the airport waiting for him. Fewer photo ops this year, but that's okay.

* How could you miss it, I wonder; do you not tweet? And if you do, are you not following The Kat™?

Dirty deeds done with sheep.

Ruth posted something about AC/DC t'other day, then Smokey showed me this. Apparently Angus&Friends are on EVERYBODY'S mind!

Christmas is icumen in.

We have wreath.

 

We have tree.

 

We have tree with lights.

 

We have tree with lights and sagging star.

We have presents*.

The trouble with finishing our Christmas shopping in early November is that in the intervening month one present went MIA somewhere in the house. I finally found it on the fourth or fifth searching expedition today. Whew!

We have snow.

We have welcoming bear.

 

We have welcoming bear still festooned with last summer's cobwebs.

 

We have welcoming bear still festooned with last summer's cobwebs, who says,

 

Must get on that...

Andrew flies into Minneapolis tomorrow. Let the holiday begin!

* I did not wimp out on wrapping even the largest present. See that tall one at the back, right? That sucker felt like it weighed about 50 pounds. Have I ever showed you the obstacle course that we must navigate to get to the tree?

 

The two large empty cans that block the walkway are necessary to keep Bear, the senior dog, out of the cats' feeders. She has never been a jumper, but she did manage somehow to get to the feeders when there was only one can, hence, the second one. It is tricky for a human to get over there, particularly when said human is burdened with a heavy and ungainly package. Given my inordinate affinity for gravity, I am extremely cautious when navigating that passage.

Oddities.

So I was reading tweets one night and decided to see if any other of my favorite knitbloggers were on Twitter. I searched for The Norma (using every handle I could think of) and got this:

 

I checked with Our Favorite OFA Fan; she claims she knows nothing of this "reagan haynes", but who knows? Perhaps she has a whole secret life as a non-knitting, 22-yo preppie named Reagan...

FYI, Norma is not on Twitter. Darn.

* * * * *

Remember Kliban? Apparently he had another cartoonist life that had nothing to do with cats but only with very, very weird humor. This one, found at blackjelly.com, is particularly appropriate at this time of year.

 

* * * * *

Speaking of cats, have you seen this ultra-awesome Cat House? I so want to do this, but the color scheme might be vetoed by my less-cat-and-color-crazed-than-I sweetie.

Do click the above link to the Cat House and take the tour -- start in the kitchen so you do not miss anything. It is amazing!

* * * * *

Okay, this is not an oddity exactly, just really cool.

How not to train your kitteh.

Hardy boy.

#2 son keeps me updated on his biking adventures.

 

Last night we had a brief discussion on the phone about the virtues of a high-tech windproof balaclava vs. one hand-knit of a silky-soft and warm yarn by a loving mother.

No decision yet, but there is a possibility of both. Don't want no frostbit boys...

Thankful Thursday: the food edition.

I am thankful for having all the food I could possibly eat. Millions are malnourished but not me.

I am thankful for the tools I have to enable its preparation...

...and handy storage...
 

...and cooking.

Yes, I made that yummy beef stew again. Every bit as good this time.

I am thankful that my 30+ year-old stove works...
 

...and that it has a self-cleaning oven.

Not that I use that feature very often.

I am thankful for the things that accompany good food.

In the words of Ben Franklin, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Or, as Homer puts it, "Mmm, beer!"