kmkat and her kneedles

End-of-summer links.

photo credit: Pericomart ( ¡ VIVA EL MAL, VIVA EL CAPITAL ! ) via photopin cc**

Want to see some yo-yo tricks?*

Readers' favorite New Yorker cartoons. 

Neil Gaiman quote yarn bombed.

The Magnetic Fields lyrics illustrated by cats.

Linkety from Chris.

Did you know that a snood is now an overgrown cowl?

No guns. Killer bees... negotiable. (via Chris)

Jenny pins kick-ass stuff.

...and this is why they call Jupiter a gas planet. 

The divine toilet.

I wish I could give this to my FIL.

Hilarious feedback on dubious vacation rentals.

Stitchery for the new millenium. (via redshirtknitting Tumblr)

...aaaannnnd another one from Erika.

 

 * The Duncan Yo-Yo was manufactured in Luck, WI from 1946 until sometime later. 

** Normally, the photo at the begininng of the Saturday links post is something that bears a relationship to the word or idea of link. Today's photo does not, except that it came up in a search for "yo yo link", and it was such a striking photo I wanted to use it. I know you can deal with that.

Friday stuff.

But first, let me show you what happens when a book-lover and avid reader gets a little carried away requesting books from her library system.

Those are the books stacked by my bedside. There are seven more that got cut off at the bottom of the screen.

These are the books I have on request:

This morning I realized this was madness and froze all my outstanding requests. Should have done that a week ago. Then I might have a prayer of actually reading that stack by the bed.

* * * * *

Remember this photo?

How about now?

Or now?

Now?

Or now?

Effect found here.

Out and about again.

Really, I need to keep my camera attached to my dashboard. So many sights to capture.

Last Thursday on the way to interview candidates for the computer support position
for the ten municipal libraries.

On the way home yesterday from meeting with the person we hired.
Photo taken blindly out the driver's window with camera pointed back toward the bear.

Mama Bear was heading to this field for a little corn snack.

You cannot see them, but there are two cubs hiding behind the goldenrod.

 

Scenic tree in Range, Wisconsin.

Sorry, cannot blog.

I am going out soliciting today. 

For donations to the local humane society's fundraiser! Get your mind out of the gutter.

Finished a pair of socks yesterday, started a new long-term project. 

More later/tomorrow/someday...

If it is Sunday, I must be muttering. And stuff.

First, the mutterings.

1. 64 :: When I'm...
2. Dark :: Crystal.
3. Honor :: thy father.
4. Crystal :: Gayle.
5. Postscript :: printer.
6. Things :: go awry.
7. Fever :: heat.
8. Bare :: butt.
9. Thump :: Bunny!
10. Point of view :: slanted.

* * * * *

Chocolatesheep blogged that her household is off the innernetz for a few days because there are Major Problems with her connection.  A technician will call on Tuesday to Fix It, whatever It is. This prompted me to do a speed test with my connection just out of curiosity.

Go check yours now and report back with the results and your approximate location:

www.speedtest.net | My Results | Take a speed test.

I am curious to compare my rural results to yours, given that the site rates my speed as a D.

* * * * *

I am making chicken soup this afternoon and just did something incredibly clever. Instead of sautéing the vegetables in canola oil as I always have done, I sautéed them in the schmaltz that I skimmed off the chicken stock. We shall see what that does for the flavor.

* * * * *

Both sons are here this weekend. The only time that has happened in the past six years or so is at holidays. Elder Son and a friend from grad school came last weekend after attending a wedding in the UP. They and Smokey then went camping on the North Shore for a few days. (This was the ten-day camping trip that Smokey and I were supposed to go on. It had been planned for at least six months. But his recovery from the kidney stone surgery delayed and shortened the vacation drastically, plus I had an important vote at the county board meeting on Tuesday night that I didn't want to miss. So I stayed home. All by myself, as long as you don't count the cats, books, wine, knitting, and NetFlix. It was sheer torture, believe me.) Andrew's friend, who came here from Somalia when he was 13, had never been camping in the woods and wanted to know what it was like. From all accounts he had a great time. Alí is a very friendly, outgoing sort. He says he learned to be that way when he was a beggar in Somalia because it helped him get more handouts.*

Younger Son is here finishing the dog run. Sadly for him, the outdoor temperature sucks. Don't believe this thermometer.

It lies. The real outdoor temp:

Poor Matthew. We set up a big fan to blow on him and moved the table with the umbrella so it would offer him a little shade. Right now he is skipping the hottest part of the day by making a supplies run -- in his air conditioned car -- to the Big Box Building Supply Store.

His and my car were sitting in the shade talking about the Old County (even though my car was actually made in Belgium).

* * * * *

Earlier this week I had to go out and about. After a little thought, I decided it would be prudent to take Smokey's car instead of mine because:

1. We haven't gotten the new plates from the dealer yet.
2. We haven't gotten the new insurance card from the insurance company yet.
3. I haven't replaced my driver's license, which I lost sometime in the past month, yet.

I figured that if I were stopped for the lack of plates, that error would be compounded exponentially by #2 and #3. The first thing I did on my errand run was to apply for a replacement license. At least  I will be legal, even if the car isn't.

* If you ever doubt the value of education (and opportunity), think of Alí. He went from begging on the streets in Somalia to grad school at the University of Michigan and hopes to work at the CDC. What a guy.

Links

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc

Although buying local is generally a good idea, it should not apply to quinoa.

Ballet dancers in random locations.

Maps to teach you about the world.

Percy goes frog hunting.

One second on the innertubz.

Famous shoes.

Throwing water.

Abandoned house in the woods.

.

Picking some nits.

I may have mentioned that John Sandford's Prey series of police procedurals are my favorite over all other mystery/suspense/procedurals because his characters are so darned intelligent yet understated. Yesterday I picked up the latest one, Silken Prey, at the library. I am on page 94 of this 400+ page potential bestseller and have found three --three! -- errors that should have been caught in the editing. 

1. "Rose Marie's husband opened the door; he was holding the Times in one hand and a piece of jelly toast in the other."

What, he has three hands? How did he open the door with stuff in each hand? If he put something down to answer the door, why are both hands still occupied?

2. (sorry, don't remember what this one was so I cannot look for it}

3. "I've got a cabin on the Wisconsin side of the St Croix [river], north of St. Croix falls."

It's St. Croix Falls, dumbass. The falls are there, but the name of the village is St. Croix Falls.

The Prey series is still my favorite, editorial nit-picking aside. I'll let you know if that changes.

 

Edited to add: On the very next page there was another one. After correctly detailing the protagonist's highway route from St. Paul to St. Croix Falls via I-35 and US Hwy 8 through Chisago City, Lindstrom,  and Center City, the author mislabels the highway leading north from SCF, calling it Hwy 82 instead of Hwy 87. There is only one highway leading north that the character could have taken, so why bother to disguise it? I think it is another goof. (Elder Son was a fact-checker at the NYU student newspaper during his undergrad days. Now we all know where he got his nitpicking ways. When I read the sentence in #1, above, to him he asked if the character had a foot-operated door. Yep, the acorn does not fall, etc.)

A rural Wednesday in late August.

Today I was out and about. There are signs of fall.

The corn crop is water stressed.

The hay has been gathered into giant round bales.

Gardens are at their peak.

And the temperature was about 90˚ with the same humidity. Even though I was driving a car with killer air conditioning, I had to give up about 4:30 and come home. I couldn't take it any more.

Main street in my little town.

Those three buildings were, once upon a time long before we came here, thriving Main Street businesses. Now they are for rent and have been for months, even years. The third one, originally a movie theater by the looks of it, was a pizza/pool hall/non-alcoholic music venue for a couple years earlier in the aughts, but it folded. During that time it was painted purple, which I thought kinda livened up Main Street, but I may have been the only one who thought that.

It was a beautiful day nevertheless, and I got a lot done.

Sunday, mutterings, and stuff.

1. Karma :: bad.
2. Detail :: -oriented.
3. Conversation :: starter.
4. Optimistic :: live longer.
5. Social :: justice.
6. Approval :: ratings.
7. Tab :: open, many.
8. PM :: AM
9. Share :: cookies.
10. Cheat :: income taxes.

* * * * *

Smokey maintains that if whoever wrote the bass in this song never did another thing in his life, that life would still be counted a success.

I find nothing to disagree with in that statement.

* * * * *

Snicket socks have been knit nearly to the heel, including repeated tinking and re-knitting, frogged back to the ribbing, and re-knit to the heel. Needless to say, it took me awhile to grok the pattern. As of this writing (Friday evening) I am ready to do the heel. The pattern directions for the heel are hard for me to follow, and I knew I wanted it to look like this (photos cheerfully borrowed from Ravelry):

wherein the pattern continues into the heel. So I'm gonna wing it. There is a good chance that that is what the pattern actually says, but I am not going to try to decipher it.

Foot should go faster than leg because the pattern is only on the top half. Pattern has sole done in stockinette. I am thinking of using reverse stockinette to match the rest of the sock. Anybody have experience whether stockinette or reverse stockinette wears better?

Toe will look like this:

ETA: I have knit and reknit the short-row heel more times than I can count. I hope to get it right today (Sunday). It's not like I have never knit one before...

ETAx2: I just realized that the upper photo is NOT a short-row heel. Did I know that? Huh. Shall I continue with the SRH, or should I frog (again!) and do a gusset? Huh.

Stay tuned.

* * * * *

It was recently pointed out to me that I have one helluva Heidelburg dueling scar on my ass from the hip replacement. I'll spare you a photo of that.

The game of link(s).*

photo credit: disavian via photopin cc

Posters.

Weird photo of the fortnight.

YouTube complaint department, parts 1 and 2.

If Microsoft redesigned the iPod packaging.

Have you heard [of] Landfill Harmonic?

Just a kitten and some ferrets.

Cat bounce!

By amazing coincidence, these look exactly like the stairs to our third floor.

Three very short videos of flowers with astonishing sound design.

Second item is excellent life advice (warning: may be NSFW).

This is cool.

So, so true.

The classics... renamed.

Knitting as computation. (found via boingboing.net)

High fashion knitting... in prison. (We may have seen this before. It rings a faint bell in my memory.)

"...and the banquet was also getting dirty and full of hair, as it was my cats’ favorite napping place."

If you liked that last one, see her first exhibition.

The ultimate missed connection.

Three pints of ice cream  free every day.

Madison, Wisconsin: 60 square miles of heaven surrounded by reality.

.

* Get it?

Realized this week that I have a theme song this year.

"...knit a sweater by the fireside..."

Just substitute my face for Sir Paul's and you've got it!

Jeopardy!

No, I didn't get The Call to appear.

April Fool's Day, 1997: Pat Sajak hosts Jeopardy!; link from Younger Son.

The questions were a lot easier back then.

More April Fool's madness from YS: Alex Trebek hosts Wheel of Fortune!

The rant for today.

I was reading today's Feedly feeds and came across this helpful link at The Morning News:

Always wanting to keep myself at least somewhat informed as to the state of the world, I clicked on the link. The article came up and was immediately overlain with this:

I am not a news junkie, so the free limited access to eight article per month looked just about right. I clicked on the the Subscribe button and got this. It was four screens long. I cropped and pasted them together to be continuous:

There was no way to get past the overlain subscribe screens. Clicking on the darkened area underneath, the actual article, did nothing.

And if you can find anywhere in that four-screen image that allows one to sign up for the free, eight articles per month, subscription, you're a better person than I, Gunga Din.

Ten on Tuesday, the Inspector Gadget edition.

I suspect my list may come up short because I despite single-use gadgets -- hot dog cookers, George Forman grills, rice cookers, pizza cookers, etc., etc., etc. Let's see how it goes.

Ten Favorite Kitchen Gadgets, In No Particuar Order.

   

1. Corkscrew. Duh. I bought this one over 40 years ago, haven't seen one like it since. It requires no strength; you just twist the t-handle at the top and the cork comes right out.
    
2. Herb mincer. I could probably get rid of this one, since I can mince herbs with a chef's knife just fine.
    
3. Jar opener. Inherited from my mother's kitchen, this is probably older than I am. It works great, though.
    
4. Egg slicer. It delights me every time I use it.
   
   
   
   
5. Knife honer. Necessary to keep that chef's knife sharp.
    
6. Spreader knife, tomato knife, chef's knife with 6" blade. Back in the early 1990s I took several cooking classes and learned, among other things, to use a chef's knife.
    
7. Mortar and pestle, for grinding spices. We also use it every day to grind up Lucy The Intrepid's meds, the better to mix them with canned dog food, aka The Daily Treat. 
   
   
   
   
   
8. Jar funnel. I have a crappy plastic one, too, but that is relegated to the bag of thistle seed for the bird feeders.
    
9. My collection of whisks. No flimsy wire handles for me, only sturdy solid handles..
   
   
   
   photo credit: notmargaret via photopin cc
   
   
10. My espresso maker. For the daily latte. This is not mine, but it looks the same, right down to the pyrex measuring cup for the milk.

Smokey would add hand blender and waffle iron to this list. At one time I might have included my free-standing griddle and bread baker, but I don't use them much since I started avoiding gluten. There are the blender (for salad dressings and smoothies) and the food processor (for grating cheese) and the KitchenAid mixer and the microwave/convection oven (for EVERYTHING), but those are appliances, not gadgets.

Prepare for a whine.

But first, the weekly muttering.

1. Games :: video.
2. Fame :: Irene Cara.
3. Construct :: -ioneer.
4. Pants :: jeans.
5. Outlier :: Gladwell.
6. Column :: numbers.
7. Circus :: circus.
8. Remedy :: healing.
9. Other :: The Other.
10. Outlet :: mall.

* * * * *

So. What did you do on your birthday, Kat?

[digression] Thank you for all your good wishes! If you happen to be my friend on Facebook, you may have noticed that I just turned 108. Yes, I am amazingly well-preserved -- enough wine will do that. [/digression]

You remember Smokey was having a kidney stone -- which had not been giving him any pain or problems -- removed on Friday at the VA in Minneapolis. Day surgery, no biggie. I left him there around 10am and went off to buy buttons for my Tappan Zee (which I plan to finish forthwith). I returned to the hospital, ate lunch in their cafeteria (fish creole and green beans, very good, thanks for asking), and settled in the surgery lounge to knit and wait for the surgeon. 

Surgeon came out about 2:30, told me everything had gone well, and that I would be beeped to come get my Bear in a couple hours. (They have exactly the same beepers as Outback Steakhouse, in case you are interested.)

I knit, I read, I read some more, I knit some more, I knit while I watched Jeopardy! on the humungous flat screen TV. They finally beeped me a little after 5 to come back to the outpatient clinic.

Long story short (too late!), his oxygen saturation was lower than they wanted, and he was admitted to the hospital overnight. He was extremely annoyed at this -- ever heard the phrase "madder than a wet hen"? -- but submitted to the doc's wishes.

I drove back to Wisconsin, let the poor doggies out -- they were walking around with their little legs crossed -- and went to bed.

Saturday/birthday I drove back to the VA to pick him up and bring him home.

Sunday: after telephone consultation with the VA urologist on call, he woke me from a nap to say he needed to go to the ER at the VA. He could not pass urine at all and was becoming extremely uncomfortable. I drove him back to Minneapolis, where he saw the ER doc, was re-catheterized, and (sound of trumpets! cheering!) allowed to come home with the cath. 

Recounting: that is three round trips from the lake to the Minneapolis VA in three days.

Not exactly the way I would have chosen to spend my birthday. But really, it is only fair that my birthday should pass unnoted; his passed uncelebrated in June because I was recovering from the hip surgery at the time. 

Keep your fingers crossed for no more complications, m'kay?

 

 

No links today -- HB2ME!

photo credit: Ѕolo via photopin cc

Today is...my birthday! I am so many years old that I cannot count that high. Yo tiene mas años que tu. 

Notable events from the year I was born:

• January 11 -- Los Angeles received its first record snowfall.
• February 22 -- Grady. a 1,200-pound cow, gets stuck inside a silo on a farm in Yukon, Oklahoma and garners national media attention in the United States.
• March 28 -- English astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang during a BBC radio broadcast.
• April 4 -- The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, DC, creating NATO.
• May 1 -- Nereid, a moon of Neptune, is discovered by Gerald P. Kuiper. (The Kuiper Belt is named after him.)
• June 24 -- Smokey -- aka Dick back then -- celebrates his first birthday.
• July 1 -- The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is established.
• August 10 -- The Kat™ is born.
• September 10 -- Bill O'Reilly is born. 
• October -- nothing happens. Oh, wait. Chairman Mao declares the People's Republic of China.
• November 28 -- Winston Churchill makes a landmark speech in support of the idea of a European Union.
• December 1 -- Pablo Escobar, drug lord, is born.

 

Friday.

photo credit: Molly Des Jardin via photopin cc

Off to Minneapolis for the day. Smokey is having day surgery at the VA to remove a kidney stone. Unlike the one he had in 1989 when we were camping in the Florida Keys*, he has had no pain from it, and getting rid of it will ensure that continues. Depending on how he feels when I pick him up, I may drop him off at the Mpls house to sleep, and I'll pop over to Knit Night Orphans. I haven't been there since before April 15.

 

* He woke me at 1am to say I had to take him to the ER in Marathon. At the hospital they kept giving him morphine for the pain, and he kept asking for more because it wasn't working. He ended up in the hospital overnight. He was there for 18 hours while they sort-of removed the stone. Sort-of, because he still had to have lithotrypsy when we got home to pass the rest of the stone. The Marathon hospital bill -- fully covered by insurance, thank FSM -- was over $12,000. We figured they must have had every doc in the hospital walk into his room to say Hi, plus wheel through every expensive piece of equipment, all so they could charge for it.

Chicken soup for your stomach; soul optional.

photo credit: I Believe I Can Fry via photopin cc

I learned a way to make scrumptious chicken soup a few months back when Yarn-a-Go-Go tweeted this *recipe*. It is super easy but the most delicious chicken soup I have ever had, thanks to the tasty stock. Thanks, Rachel!

1. Buy a rotisserie chicken at your local supermarket. They are not as good as a free range chicken, but we are going for easy here, are we not?
   
   
2. Eat one meal of the chicken if you want. This step is optional.
   
   
3. Remove the rest of the meat from the carcass and refrigerate or freeze.
   
   
4. Put the stripped carcass into a largish pot, cover with water, and add your favorite chicken soup flavorings. I use some combination of peppercorns, sage, thyme, tarragon, bay leaf, oregano, ground chipotle pepper (Rachel's suggestion), or cumin. Simmer for an hour or two.
   
   
5. Remove carcass and toss. Strain the stock if you are particular about these things.
   
   
6. You can refrigerate or freeze the stock if you don't feel like making soup that day/week.
   
   
7. When you are ready to make soup, saute in a heavy soup pot some chopped onion and whatever vegies you like in your soup. I like diced carrots and potatoes and a spoonful of celery seed (no dicing required). When they are good and hot but perhaps not fully cooked, add the stock.
   
   
8. You can add noodles if that's how you roll. I don't want the gluten, so I have been known to throw in some leftover cooked brown rice.
   
   
9. Simmer until it tastes right. 
   
   
10. Dice the reserved chicken meat and add to the soup. Heat through. You can add salt at this stage if you want.
    
    
11. Enjoy. 

Ten on Tuesday, the selfie edition.

Ten Words To Describe Myself In An Interview.

1. Intelligent.
2. Conscientious.
3. Detail-oriented.
4. Calm.
5. Creative.
6. Cooperative, aka "team player".
7. Persistant.
8. Tidy.
9. Compassionate.
10. Funny. 

 

August is for fun days.

Kym posted recently about August fun days. I thought that sounded like great idea -- some fun every day.

But the more I thought about what constituted my idea of fun, the more I realized that I already do that every day. The proof is that every one of these -- except the last one -- already had a category and photographs on the blog.

My idea of fun:

Reading.

 

 

 

Knitting.

 

Hanging out with Smokey.

 

 

Eating something yummy.

 

   

 

 

Hanging out with friends, either virtually or analog-ly.

     

   

 

Hanging out with one or both of my boys.

 

Watching something good on TV or Netflix.

 

Taking a nap.

photo credit: Kerri Lee Smith via photopin cc

Yup. Life is good. And I am spoiled.