Hannah Rose

This is my most recent finished object. It is a baby bunting with bonnet. I made it from Peaches 'n' Cream Cotton in white. The pattern is one of Katy's vintage patterns that she shared with me. I had some small confusion with it but it worked out fine in the end. It is the most complicated stitch pattern I've attempted so far. Here is the bonnet.



I made the set for this baby, born on the fourth of July, six weeks premature. She belongs to a friend of mine from work.

A Woman Who Knits

I learned a new word today. I was reading a manuscript to get a feel for the topic before I designed a cover for it and I came across the word tricoteuse. Twice. I thought that an author who uses such a word twice within the preface and introduction must be given to pretention so the editor-wannabe in me decided to see what was so tricoteuse about Camp in Literature. Turns out the strange word was not in my Webster's.

Soon enough, Dan passed through the room and I asked him if he knew what it meant. He did not readily know but thought he could find out. He took the page to retain the correct spelling and soon returned with the Oxford English Dictionary. "This is so cool," he said. "You're gonna love this." The definition was, appropriately and ironically: "A woman who knits, especially of the late 19th century as of Madame DeFarge." I'm paraphrasing, of course. I can't remember exactly but I do remember the important bit: a woman who knits.

I Knit for Babies



Celestial Pillows. Pattern from Knit It! 2005 magazine. I used Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton in white and Lion Brand Polar Spun in Polar Yellow, Polar Blue and Polar Pink. I was supposed to use Delft instead of Polar Blue but made a mistake when I ordered the yarn. It worked out OK in the end, I think. These were really fun to make and I would like to make another set but use Polar white instead of the yellow, pink and blue. It ends up with the texture of those old chenille bedspreads that all of our grandmothers had on their beds.



Knitted Diagonal Baby Blanket. This pattern is free from Lion Brand website. I used Lion Brand Homespun in Delt - 3 skeins. This is one of my very favorite patterns. It is the first pattern I ever knitted. It is a snuggly, easy-care, all-purpose baby blanket and Homespun is a great yarn to knit with a huge variety of colors.

I have one more FO (finished object) to show you but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I think I must have exceeded my space allotment for one day on blogger. Stay tuned tomorrow for another episode of A Woman Who Knits.

Flower Child

Barkley appears to have no ill effects from his encounter with the groundhog.

Today was foggy when I got up to let the dogs out but the fog has now burned off and it is sunny and clear and promises to be a warm day. I wonder how many sunny Sundays we have left before cold weather? I don't know but I'm going to appreciate every last one of them. This summer has gone by faster than any summer I have ever known and, indeed, time does seem to be speeding up every day. Weekends are just a blur before time to go back to work on Monday. This Wednesday is the last day of flex time for this year so I will have to get used to getting up at 6:30 again (instead of 4:45) and getting off work at 4:30 again (instead of 2:30). That will make time go by even faster since I really made good use of those extra two hours in the day.

Things to be happy about this week:

-camels (Yes, I know, this is a strange thing to be happy about.)
-camp-style meals (my friend, Rita, has an oven that will bake biscuits over a campfire!)
-gumbos (my friend, Katy, knows how to make gumbo)
-penny valentines (when was the last time you gave or received tiny valentines?)
-bundling up for a long walk while the turkey is roasting (mmm, I've never done this but it sounds like fun)
-looking forward to the mail each day (perhaps expecting a valentine?)
-the clinking of ice in a glass

My personal list of things that made me happy this past week:

-Talking to my sister on the phone for the first time in weeks.
-Dinner with Pam and Rusty and knitting afterward.
-Hearing Terry play guitar and sing in public (he's really good).
-Seeing Katie at the football game Friday night.
-Watching Ethan play in the football game Friday night.
-Emails from Keith, Tracy, Katie, Kim, Wendy and Katy.
-Sunny Sundays.

By the way, I would love it if each of my readers would send in something special that makes them happy. I will compile the list and post it on my blog. Thanks! Now go out and enjoy the sun!

Ethan Rocks!

If you didn't make it to the Ashe County High School football game last night, you missed quite a performance by the young man who used to love Ninja Turtles and red cowboy boots three sizes too big. I used to call him "Tiny E" and now calling Ethan Goodman "Tiny E" is like calling Barkley "Tiny B."

About the time Terry and I left the house, the sky was sloshing buckets of rain over the side of the big dark cloud overhead. Terry said, "It's raining" about three times before we left and asked me if they would call the game twice and also twice asked if I had two umbrellas. The answers were: "Yes, yes, yes, no, no, yes, yes."

We ate cold Wendy's hamburgers in the car in the high school parking lot then started making our way to the field with our umbrellas. Katie jumped out of a truck the size of my house, surprising and thrilling me at the same time. She had told me she didn't think she would come home this weekend. She was dressed for weather in Raleigh, not rain and fall temperatures like we were having here. Austin was there, too, and the four of us made our way into the bleachers where we immediately met up with Kim, Jim and the grandmas.

The game was against Avery County who has always been the team to beat, even way back in my high school days. Of course, my senior year, the football team lost every game they played and it had been that way since my sophomore year when the football players started quitting football to be in the band. It was exciting to go to a football game that we had a chance of winning. Unfortunately, Ashe County lost but only in the last quarter. They gave a good, solid effort and Ethan played like a world class player. He reminded me of, well, I was going to say Brad Lopp and thought better of it and then I was going to say Troy Aikman and thought better of that so I'll just say that I was impressed with his athletic prowess. He played offense and defense and was on the kicking team. I only saw him come out of the game once until the very end and that was to work out a cramp in his leg. He rushed, he threw, he tackled and was a force to be reckoned with. He's only a junior.

Rita showed up near halftime and sat with us. I saw several people from McFarland who have kids in the band. The band only played one song - "Call Me" by Blondie - then marched off the field. I saw Josh and Amanda who are Katie's friends and Rita's son, Isaac, and his girlfriend. We talked, yelled, laughed and weren't disappointed by the 21-14 loss.

Terry and I stayed in the parking lot talking to Katie and Austin until nearly everyone else had left. It was a nice night and, in spite of the rain, we had a good time.



Today's Instant Karma: Support your local high school football team.

Barkley and the Groundhog

Barkley killed a groundhog yesterday. It had taken up residence in the wheel well of the van and seemed quite determined to stay there. Karma was ambling around the yard and started barking at what appeared to be a clump of grass hanging from the wheel. Tantra joined her and Terry encouraged them, laughing, thinking they were barking at the grass. He bent down to pull the grass off and show the little dogs that there was nothing there to bark at when a little brown head poked out. He yelled in surprise then got a stick to poke at the thing. It nearly bit the stick in two. It resolutely refused to leave while the dogs screamed expletives at it in German and broken Cockney. The groundhog apparently, didn't speak German or English for that matter. Maybe it did but just refused to be bullied by the likes of Barkley. Big mistake. Big.

Terry was afraid to let the little dogs outside because of the thing and was determined to get rid of it. Stick-poking was out as was any attempt at bodily removal due to the stick incident. He rolled the van backward but that didn't phase it at all. Finally, he rocked the van and the little guy ran down the driveway. Out of instinct or just because it's fun to sic a big dog on things, Terry yelled, "Get it, Barkley!" The poor little guy put up a brave fight but never really stood a chance. I looked out the window in time to see Barkley whipping it around his head. It latched onto his lip and he started yelping. Terry was now screaming, "NO! BARKLEY! NO! RUN BARKLEY RUN!" I ran outside and down the driveway to try to persuade Barkley to leave it alone. By the time I got there, Terry was yelling, "IT BIT OFF HIS TONGUE!" My stomach rolled over half a dozen times and that many equally horrifying thoughts ran through my mind: emergency trip to the vet, can they sew it back on? maimed for life, huge vet bill, why sic our perfectly good dog on something that doesn't pose a threat?, and if I had some weapon I would kill the thing myself for injurying my beautiful boy. By the time I got near, Barkley had it in a death grip around the throat and was obviously not maimed for life.

I came back inside and called the animal control office, not sure whether or not groundhogs can carry rabies, then quickly rounded up vaccination certificates for all the dogs and cats. We don't mess around when it comes to keeping them current on their rabies shots since Simon's close call two summers ago. The animal control officers didn't even take the groundhog to test it. The worst offenders, they said, are skunks (!), silver foxes, and raccoons. Barkley already killed a skunk this year.

Terry was traumatized by the incident and we had to leave right away because he was due at a "gig" in town. I use the term gig loosely. He played his guitar and sang and got paid to do it so, in that way, it was a gig. He sat on a chair in a median strip in a parking lot between two rows of rebuilt and classic cars and belted out about eight or ten songs. There were lots of distractions and with the added trauma of our killer dog at home, he did well to hold it together. He belted out Venice's "If I Were You" and sang, "Them Dog Kickers" with accompaniment by Karma.

The experience was enough to prompt Terry to decide that maybe he would like to perform more solo gigs locally. I hope so. I've been telling him since 1991 that's what he should do.

Tonight we went to a football game. I'll write about that tomorrow.

Guess Who Has Triplets?!

For my friends and family who don't know my friend Wendy from Ohio, I wish you could have known her when I knew her in the early '90s. She was part of the circle of friends I accumulated by being friends with Tracy and Julie. Wendy and I hung out together occasionally, shopping for rubber stamps, and getting tatooed(!) We mostly hung out with the group: Tracy, Julie, Edie and sometimes Matt, Nancy and Todd. She once came to a Halloween party as the Energizer Bunny and I have the pictures to prove it. The hardest I have ever laughed in my life, before or since, was when Wendy told the joke about Michael Jackson on our way to Quaker Steak and Lube for dinner.* She was red-headed, sassy, funny and naughty.

I left Ohio in the Fall of 1996 and I haven't been back. I haven't seen Wendy in all that time but have recently reconnected via the internet and, although I'm sure she is still sassy and funny and hopefully still a little bit naughty, I find she has changed in three fundamental ways: spiritually, matrimonially and ... numerically! I've seen the pictures but I still can't believe that Wendy has triplets. Not that I never thought she would have children or that she wasn't the mother type. I don't mean to give that impression at all. It's just thinking about the girl I used to dance with to "My Sharona" at Dinker's as the mother of three little pink-skinned beings reminds me of just how long I've been gone, how much has changed and how we all, somehow, got older. All I know is, as shocking as it is/was to me on one hand, on the other hand, all I could think about during the final months and weeks of her pregnancy was if I knew anybody in the world who was capable of managing the monumental task of three babies at once, it was, and is, Wendy.



Here they are. I'm not sure which is which but their names are Antonia, Brandon and Celeste.

Congratulations to Wendy and her husband Tim!

*I can't tell the joke in this public forum but if you really want to hear it, email me and I'll send it to you privately.

Guess Who Is Getting Married?

Marla and Joel! I guess most of my faithful readers already know it by now but maybe not everyone has seen this picture of them that was taken by my cousin June Clayton at the Bare Family Reunion, July 2. It is the same weekend that the engagement was made official, as you can see by the identical "beams" on their faces. Here also is a picture of the ring which you probably haven't seen, either. It is an emerald, per Marla's request. They have set the date for April 26, 2006.

Moonfredi

Speaking of Terry, he has spent the last week working intently on a website with pictures, his music and information about himself. The link to the site is listed under "My Cool Links" on the left. While you're there, check out Terry's son, Jason. You can listen to music by both father and son and see how the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. I think the next step would be a musical collaboration. I doubt anything would make Terry prouder than playing in a band with his son.

I've received a lot of good feedback on my blog this week and I want to say thanks to everyone who left comments or sent me email. I really appreciate your encouragement of my shameless "self-absorption."

Things to be happy about this week:
-tiny gold heart lockets
-watching the moon at night
-stomping in mud puddles
-wooden spaghetti spoons
-a parenthesis in time
-stretch pants
-a room filled with candlelight at Christmas

My own list:
-Dinner, knitting and conversation with Katy
-Reconciliation chili
-Tantra's bark
-a grilled dinner al fresco
-the full moon
-fairy rings at dusk
-one more week to spend with Terry before he goes back on the road

The Little Stone

In the week that followed Momma's death, Marla and I went through a lot of her stuff - and there was a lot to go through. To say she was a pack rat may seem a bit unkind ... Terry said it best I think: "She was an eternal sentimentalist." She had saved and kept everything! We took most of her clothes to Doreen's consignment shop although Marla and I kept an item or two for ourselves. We went through her jewelry, took what we wanted and gave the rest away. She had knick-knacks and chotchkes from before she was married and we ended up giving away most of them. She had myriad collections and we gave some of these to her brothers and sisters who were here for her memorial service. For a year afterward, I was still giving her things to her friends and family who I knew would treasure and love the thing because it had once been hers. Sometimes the person would say, "But don't you want to keep this for yourself?" As much a sentimentalist as I am myself, the answer was, in a word, "No." Because I kept a lot of stuff anyway. Lots of pictures, books, things she had made for me, pieces of jewelry, her pink depression glass, her diaries, her love letters to my dad that she had lovingly and sweetly illustrated by her own hand. I just couldn't and even didn't want to keep everything that she had. There was a process to it that helped with the grieving and the healing and it still goes on. Terry and I have worked in the basement many times to clean it out and it still is not finished to our liking. Once, while sorting through shelves, I came across a rusted tin container that I thought I would just throw away. When I started to lift it, though, it was heavy. I opened it up and it was filled up with rocks. I started to take the rocks out and on each one, in Momma's neat handwriting were places, like "Parkersburg, WV" and "Myrtle Beach, SC." There were a couple dozen or so from places all over the country and even one from Iraq. I know that Momma had not been to all these places but she must have asked people she knew to bring her a rock from each destination of their travels. I've been a rock collector myself my whole life but I didn't know about my mom's little collection. I threw the tin away but put the rocks in a bowl and set them on the window ledge over the kitchen sink so I could look at them every day. I put the one from Parkersburg on top. That's where Terry is from. Momma had more than likely been there herself, stopping on a trip to Akron to visit me.

There was another box of rocks in the basement that I knew about all too well. I have been angry about them for a long time. I felt some anger (one of the natural processes of grieving, mind you) with the responsibility of the task of cleaning out that mess down there and it was A Mess. The box of rocks was the last straw. These were flat, river rocks that Momma had gathered up on which to paint animals. The box was too heavy for me to lift or even to scoot across the floor. I couldn't get rid of those rocks without taking out a few at a time and it would have required several trips, back and forth, tossing those rocks outside. I nagged my dad while he still lived here but he never would do it. I then started nagging Terry to do it but he didn't do it either. Earlier this week, I started taking the rocks out of the box. I put them into a tub and was going to carry a group of them outside when I came across a solid white rock, smooth and oblong. It didn't look like the others and would have been a beautiful canvas for painting. I turned it over in my hands thoughtfully and on the other side, in my mom's neat printing was one word, "Alaska." I don't know the people who went to these places and brought these rocks back but I can't help but marvel at the woman who gathered these small pieces of earth. Maybe she had dreams of traveling far and wide but somehow knew she never would.



The ancients believed that each stone has a soul and scientists know that all things, rocks included, give off vibrations. Some spas now give massages using heated stones. Some people, myself included, gather and collect quartz crystals because of their beauty and mysterious attraction. I know that I'll never know the full story behind my mother's stones but I don't really have to. I just hope that they gave as much comfort and joy to her as they do to me, now.

Your Instant Karma assignment this week (and this is from me, not from the book) is to make friends with a stone. Find a pretty one or one with a pleasing or unusual shape and put it in your pocket. Carry it with you, hold it in your hand, gaze at it while you think your thoughts. Remember my Momma or your own mother or just honor mothers in general. I think Momma would like that.

Knitting Blog

I intended for this blog to be a knitting blog. That's how I found out about blogging - from all the knitting blogs that are out there. Somehow, even as much as I knit, it turned into a hodge-podge of everything blog instead of just a knitting blog. I still like to write about knitting occasionally though - especially when I have something good to tell ... like my evening with Katy.

Katy has this wonderful house with features that I adore. Like a front porch with a swing, a living room with a fireplace, a loft bedroom, and cabinets with glass-front doors. Katy made chicken casserole, marinated vegetables, and, as she well knows, my favorite: deviled eggs. We talked, laughed, and ate and continued all those activities on her back porch while we knitted. (Yes, we ate and knitted).

Katy showed me the lovely Little Dutch Girl coat and hat she had recently made. It was a beautiful red in garter stitch and her stitches were perfectly formed. The texture invited touching and I could picture a sweet little toddler wearing it to church on Sunday with black patent mary janes and matching purse. That project finished, Katy had moved on to a mother/daughter hat, scarf and mitten set. Midway through our knitting, Katy abruptly left to go pick fresh blackberries from the bush in her backyard for our fruit pizza - yum!

Before I left, Katy showed me the finished version of my current project. I was afraid mine was small and I was right, by nearly an inch. I still think it will work, though. Maybe. Hopefully.

I would like to share how much Katy has taught me about knitting since I took up the needles almost four years ago:

-She taught me how to pick up stitches and knit in the round with a circular needle and double-pointed needles.
-She shared her huge box of vintage patterns with me.
-She taught me how to cable.
-She taught me how to unknit a stitch at a time so that I could get back to an error without dropping a stitch or unraveling and trying not to lose the stitches. (A trick I've used over and over and often wondered how I ever got along without knowing it.)
-She taught me to knit into the back of the stitch in the cast-on row to make a flatter, more pleasing edge.

Some of these are small tips that just make a knitter's life easier. Some are major skills that can make or break a knitter's ability to knit any pattern - like knitting in the round or cableing.

She also taught me that no matter how beautiful the finished project and no matter how much time you spent, all knitters look at their own project and see the mistake(s) they made. No matter how small or miniscule, we zero in on the hole or uneven stitch and wish it wasn't there and that our final project was perfect. Maybe knitting mistakes are the same as mistakes in life. Maybe we have to make those mistakes for whatever reason, to learn a lesson or, as in the old tradition of the "humility blocks" legend, to keep us humble.

Here's what I'm knitting now:

"I'm Rusty"

When we had my dad's 50th birthday party, Rusty, who must have been 3 years old at the time, arrived at the party, looked around at the assembled crowd (all family members who knew exactly who she was) and announced, "I'm Rusty." We all laughed and this seemed to please her immensely because she beamed brightly at us and thus began the tradition of Relating Things That Rusty Said that continues to this day.

Rusty has a huge family and I once attended one of her birthday parties where she received so many gifts that she tired of opening them all and wanted to stop and do something else. I can't mention Rusty anywhere in this county without someone saying, "Rusty? You know Rusty? I know Rusty," proudly, as if saying, "I know Dakota Fanning." I'm always a little amazed at Rusty's reknown but I didn't realize how famous she really is until I went to pick up Terry in Nashville and came upon this vehicle on I-40.



It says, "RSTYFAN."

Simon Le Bon

Here sits Simon waiting for me to bring his cognac and turn on the History channel. This little trick of his is how I got to keep him. When I brought him home, there was a parental uproar. They thought two cats in the house was too many (ha! ha! If they could only see me now...). Everyone was mad at me that evening, including Gracie who had already lived here without her brother for six weeks. Poor little guy spent the night hiding under the treadmill. Next day, he came out, knocked Gracie down, ate a peach right out of my mom's hand and sat down on the couch next to my dad and watched TV with him. He was less graceful in his kitten stage than he is now and so just leaned against the back of the couch, bent in half, with his pudgy belly similar in shape, if not size, to my dad's. No one ever complained about him again (well, except maybe Gracie).

As a joke, I had nicknamed Gracie, "Gray-Gray" (think Winona Ryder's guest appearance on Friends) and so now began, as an even further and worse joke, to call Simon, "Sigh-Sigh." My dad altered it further to "Sci-Fi" like the channel. It's no wonder the cat likes to watch TV. Terry and I call him, "The Merm" now after Ethel Merman. Gracie is still, "Gray-Gray" and sometimes, "Gracie Face" because she gives good face. She used to be "Gracie May" after my friend Tracy. Sometimes she is "Gracie Girl."

You know, people sometimes ask me how I tell Simon and Gracie apart? This is the reason that Gracie is seldom seen when we have company. She is very offended by the idea that someone might accidentally mistake her for Simon. They do resemble, of course, because they are brother and sister from the same litter. But there are some pretty obvious differences. For one, Simon weighs 13 pounds and Gracie weighs six. Simon is darker and has his mother's face where Gracie is lighter and has the rounder face and eyes of her father whose name was Rascal.



Which is which?

All I know is, they're the best cats in the world. They're clean, mostly quiet, affectionate, they come when they're called, they don't eat much, they tolerate the dogs and they're beautiful. What more could anyone want?

Things to be happy about this week:

-an authentic, artistic and aesthetic life (this is the life Terry and I aspire to)
-shells collected from the beach (are yours in a basket on the back of your toilet?)
-the aroma of cinnamon rolls (Macado's has fresh cinnamon rolls now)
-the cold coming and knitting a film of ice (anything that has to do with knitting makes me happy)
-the grinding undertone of stones (I had to think about this one for a while)
-"Once upon a time..." (and "they lived happily everafter.)
-the pick of the litter.

My personal list:

-a vacation day spent with my newly returned husband
-a hen party in my kitchen with Jean, Kim, Katie and Amanda
-Nag Champa incense
-the memory of Grandma Miller dancing the Charleston
-getting to see my friend Katy
-Simon and Gracie (and their silly nicknames)

Be happy!

Karma and Tantra

Aren't they sweet? Believe it or not, they're actually cuter in person than this picture shows!

Last night I worked at the Civic Center for my friend, Katy. Her band, Alternate Roots, hosts a Blue Ridge Concert Series on the second Friday of each month. They get together with another band and play bluegrass/traditional music.

I have two Katy/Katie(s) in my life. One is Katy with a "y" who used to work at McFarland, where I met her. When I picked up knitting needles (after Katy left McFar) she quickly became The Queen of Skeins in my life. She has taught me so much about knitting with laughter and love and praise for my little projects. Katy is going to school, getting her master's, studying speech pathology and in the meantime, she plays guitar and sings (testifies) and knits. She is a real and rare treasure in this day and time. Oh, and she cooks, too. Really cooks. From scratch. She's fabulous.

Katie with an "ie" is leaving today to move to Raleigh where she is starting her freshman year at NCSU. I'm sad to see her go because I will miss the fun we've had this summer. On the other hand, I'm thrilled and very proud of the beautiful, talented, smart, funny young woman she has become. I know the world is going to be a much better place by having Katie "out there" in it.

(Private message to Keith: I told Katie that if she needed to get home in an hour and fifteen minutes to call you. Hope that's OK!)

And today is Instant Karma day. How is everyone's Karma since we started this little project? Mine is noticeably improved. I've had a couple of synchronistic events of marked good fortune and I attribute it to focusing on improving myself, helping others and appreciating the many, many good fortunes I already have.

This week's Instant Karma is ... drum roll please ... look at situations with a balanced point of view.

This sounds easy but it isn't always. Most of the time, we only want to look at things from our own point of view without thinking of why the other person may be saying that or reacting that way or what their motivation is. If we each stop to investigate that motivation, we may find out it isn't as annoying, irritating, unreasonable, demanding, irrational or insane as we at first perceive from our own point of view. We may find that another's motivation is quite similar to our own, only expressed in a different way, based on the other person's background, beliefs, experiences, etc. This is a lesson I need to keep at the forefront of my mind at all times. If, at some point in the coming week, you are able to diffuse an escalating situation by looking at the situation with balance, write and let me know.

Have a great weekend!

P.S. This came to me this week from my friend Wendy about the Bonsai Kitten website: You are correct, that web site is a fraud. I received it a while ago and then someone who had also received it sent us all the urban legend site that verified it as a fraud.

Natalie's Burgeoning Belly

Hey Everybody! Look at Natalie!


11 weeks pregnant.


13 weeks pregnant.


Today. 15 weeks pregnant.

A Reason to Be Glad

Here are some of the blessings I've counted recently:

1. Lovely emails from Pam, Beth, Tracy and Carla.
2. A picnic in the park with Kim and Katie.
3. The Laundry Room's wash and fold service.
4. My friend Tracy is going to learn to knit.
5. The Celtic Dragon Tarot.
6. Galactic Gateways in Nashville, TN
6. Having someone I know and trust look after Barkley when I'm not home (Thanks, Pam!).
7. Terry's home!

Should You Give the Cat an Enema or Put It in a Glass Jar?

I got a couple of cat-related links e-mailed to me this week. I love cats, for the most part. The two tortoiseshell cats who live at our house are getting on my nerves. Not enough, I guess to do this to them, but enough to make me want to put them outside. Phoebe sheds buckets and buckets of long hair and her favorite place to stay in the house is the kitchen. Emma, whose favorite place to stay in the house is anywhere she isn't tortured by Simon and Gracie or the Yorkies, has decided to just start pooping anywhere she wants to. This is bad enough but as anyone who has kept both dogs and cats knows, dogs think cat poo is a treat and I've been going out of my mind trying to find where Emma has relieved herself and keeping it out the mouths of babes, so to speak.

So I went to the Bonsai Kitten website and I do not believe it is real. It is the product of a sick and twisted mind, certainly, but not real. I have personally witnessed cats crawl, of their own free will, into spaces too small for them, (just last week Emma wedged herself into the bathroom cabinet where I keep the towels and pulled the door shut behind her) and I think that is probably what inspired this website. I don't see any evidence of the cats being harmed (despite what looks like drugs being administered) and I think it is entirely made up and for show. I think the petition being circulated via email is also a devious ploy by the creators of the website to get people to visit their site and up their traffic. The reason I think this is because the directions on the email say to copy it into a new email, add your name at the bottom and then forward it to everyone you know. It says they need 600 signatures to have the site removed from the internet. There are a couple of things wrong with this: 1) there are no laws governing websites. If you are actually doing something illegal and posting it on the internet, the police will come to your house but there is no beaurocratic internet panel who removes offensive websites. If there was, this website would have been gone long ago. And 2) this email petition already had over 600 names on it but no email address to forward it so that the petition could actually be used.

On the other hand, despite the lack of actual photographs, I believe that this story is more than likely true.

I'm going to pick up Terry in Nashville tomorrow so I'm going to try to get some stuff done around here today as much as I would like to knit and finish Outlander. But before I get started on my chores, let's see where Instant Karma takes us this week:

OK, this is weird. I usually riffle through the pages with my eyes closed until I feel compelled to stop, then I put my finger on the page, still with my eyes closed and then open them to see where I ended up. First, I landed on "Sit with a Buddhist group in your area or a silent Quaker group." I quickly debated and discarded posting this because it really isn't anything I can do in my area. And since most visiters to my blog don't even leave comments, I doubt that they're going to actually go sit with a Buddhist group. So I started riffling through the pages again and landed on: visit a Shaker community. Quakers and Shakers? Reminds me of an Eddie Izzard bit. I'm going to give it one more try ....


Possess only what is necessary.

If you have time, check out my links at left. I've rearranged and added a few.

Decisions

OK, I need help with this. As everyone knows, Terry is out on the road and has been for almost seven weeks. This week marks the end of this tour. He is in Greensburg, Pennsylvania and will play there through Saturday night at which time he will return to Nashville where I am to pick him up on Sunday. He wants me to come to Pennsylvania and pick him up so he can avoid the Nashville detour. I would drive up on Saturday and then we would drive back on Sunday. It's further away than Nashville and would take the biggest part of the day to drive it. So I would spend my entire weekend on the road. This might actually be preferable to spending 12-14 hours on the road to and from Nashville on Sunday and then have to work on Monday.

Here is the other hitch: Barkley.

What to do with Barkley? When I've left him before, Pam and Rusty have come to stay at my house with him. That is my favorite option since he gets to sleep in his own bed (!) at night and he loves them and they love him. The problem is, Pam and Rusty are going camping with Chris, Trina and Jezik this weekend. At first I wondered if they could take Barkley camping because he's just that kind of dog. That won't work though because a) they're going canoeing and b) Barkley doesn't like Chris. I have boarded him in Sparta before but that turns out to be a hassle. Barkley doesn't like it, of course, although they all really love him. I just can't decide what to do.

Today was the annual McFarland summer picnic at West Jefferson Park. We leave work at noon to eat lunch (hotdogs and hamburgers catered by Smoky Mountain Barbecue, who also brings to you "Hymn Time" each morning on WKSK - it used to be "Hymn Time with James Hartman" but I don't know who "Hymn Time" is with now, since James Hartman died.) After lunch, we are required to stay at the park although we can pretty much do whatever we want within the confines of the chain link fence. There were lots of babies there today, including the new ones: Trevor, Luke, and Hannah and two of last year's babies: Mason and Sophie. Terry usually goes with me and brings Karma but since he wasn't here, Karma didn't get to come.

Which brings me to my next musing: I just don't know how people with babies or small children do it. I've already mentioned in my blog that Karma has this thing she does where she rocks back on her hind legs and lifts up her front feet when she wants me to pick her up - just like a child would do. (Katie used to say, "Get her, BB" when she wanted me to pick her up because she had heard Kim say it so many times.) A lot of times when I'm getting ready for work in the mornings, Karma will come and lift up for me to pick her up because she wants me to stay or wants to go with me. She knows the drill but doesn't really like it. She sadly leaps onto the couch and watches me leave. By the time I get to my car, however, she is in the front room on the back of the chair looking out the window, watching me leave. I have a mad tendency to anthropomorphize but I feel horrible leaving that wistful little face watching me out the window. If I actually had a child clinging to my legs and crying for me not to leave, I think I would be devastated. I don't know how parents do it.

Right now, Karma is in bed waiting patiently for me to come and get in with her. It's 8:30.

OWeeeee!

Ow! Ouch! Augh! YIPPEE!! OW!OW!OW! Wow! Wow! Wow! errrgh! Mmphmm! Urk! WaHOO!

I've never been in such a conflict of emotions! MyfriendTracy just emailed me today to tell me that she is thinking of having her mom teach her to knit! That's about the best, most exciting, happy news I've heard since ... um ... I'm thinking ... since ... I can't think of anything happier than Tracy with two needles clicking together 'way up there in Kent. And that's the bad news. That I can't be with her while she's learning or after she's learned so we can knit together.

I met Tracy in 1991 when we both (and Julie) started working at UEI on the same day. I don't remember how it happened but ever after we were fast friends. Tracy and Julie had known each other since kindergarten and they took me in their circle of friends who became my friends and it seemed like I had always been a part of their group. Due mostly to their tolerance and acceptance of me, I'm sure. I started rubber stamping in late 1993 to early 1994 and I gave Tracy her first stamp - a sunflower. She started stamping, too, and very shortly thereafter (maybe even the same day) her husband was transferred to Kansas! I'm not blaming Tracy for this (I'm blaming Matt. Just kidding. Not really.) but Tracy's move to Kansas signaled the onset of several years of a continued downward spiral of mental and emotional turmoil that lasted until about two and a half minutes years ago. I had never had my best friend move away before. That happens to you when you're a little kid and they don't move away away - they just move across town or something and you think you'll never see them again but then you do - just not every day like you did when they lived next door. But Tracy moved AWAY away. At first we talked on the phone and sent each other 20 page letters (all of which I still have, Tracy!). Then, Matt got transferred to Georgia. THEN, Matt got transferred back to Ohio. By that time, I had moved back to North Carolina. I've only seen Tracy about three times in the last ten years (can that even be possible?) but, as much as I miss her sometimes, it seems like we're always together as much as I think about her and love her.

I'm glad that Tracy has her mother to teach her to knit but I can't escape my desire to be nearby when she casts on for the first time. And if not that, then with her on the first shopping trip to buy her first needles and yarn. What size will she get? What brand? What will she pick for her first project? What yarn will she fall in love with and what yarn will she look at and wonder, "What can you make with that?" When will she discover Debbie Bliss? Which Nicky Epstein book will she want first? Which will become her LYS (for the life of me, I thought that stood for "Lovely Yarn Store.") Will she join a guild or a stitch 'n' bitch?

Welcome to the knitting circle, Tracy. I knew you would come.

There is practically no activity that cannot be enhanced or replaced by knitting, if you really want to get obsessive about it.

--The Yarn Harlot from Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much



Links in honor of Tracy's conversion:

Yarn Harlot's Knitting Conversion of Her Best Friend

Favorite Free Knitting Pattern Site #1

Favorite Free Knitting Pattern Site #2