Catch Up

I did say I had a few pics, right? Let's start with one from VD. I actually had the day off, and we had a very nice, low-key day. No roses or cards with pink and red hearts, but we did pay a visit to our local chocolatier and each picked out an assortment of their handmade yumminess, according to our individual tastes.



The box on the left is David's and tended much more towards the conventional, or at least as much in that direction as Cacao ever goes. His big stepping-out-of-the-comfort-zone pick is the white one in the upper right corner, which had a gorgonzola-white chocolate ganache filling. He also got one of their extremely popular fleur de sel caramels, as did I. My selections, on the other hand, trended much more towards the spicy. I started out with the one wrapped in green foil, which is filled with an habanero-lime ganache, and finished off with the "Mayan", which is filled with a citrus-chili pepper ganache and has had a square of 24k gold leaf on top. Yum!

After that it was lunch at the local bakery, followed by a visit to the produce market next door, where we got salad fixin's, baby taters for roasting, and artichokes, which I steamed up and served with a cheese sauce for dinner, which we ate while watching a movie. As I said, low-key, and about as perfect as the day should be.

Work Pics

For the most part, work is what it is lately. The other night, though, we had this handsome fellow come in:



You can't tell from the photo, but this kitty weighed in at over 22 pounds! And he wasn't even fat! He's a Maine Coon, and a real one. Most people around these parts will call any long-haired cat a coon cat, but the purebred ones are generally really big like this.

This guy had a couple of issues. He came to see me because he had a urethral obstruction and couldn't pee. Common enough problem in male cats, but he'd been previously diagnosed with problems and I know his regular clinic would have counseled the owner properly on avoiding recurrence, meaning there were likely some compliance issues. Complicating matters a bit was this little problem:



This lip lesion is what's known as an eosinophilic granuloma, or rodent ulcer, because of its tendency to deform the upper lip at the philtrum (the cleft at center front) and expose the incisors. It's peculiar to cats and appears to be a type of allergy manifestation. The suspicion with this guy is that his diet was likely to blame, which meant that he probably should go on standard prescription-type diets for the urinary problem. Of course, these lesions tend to be steroid-responsive, and there are hypoallergenic diet options available that would also be appropriate for the urinary issue, so I suspected there was a bit more to the story than I was getting, but his owner opted to transfer him to his regular veterinarian the following morning, meaning I never got more history on him. I'm hoping the management of his health issues improves, though, because he was a really nice cat.

Knitting

There has been some going on. I have yet to cast on my sister's second glove, as I got wrapped up in a special project just for me. Two Rhinebecks ago I bought myself 2 oz. of qiviut, but I couldn't decide what to make with it and it's been sitting in my stash. And then last month Carole (whose blog appears to be down as I'm typing this, but y'all know who she is, right?) posted pics of her Dale wearing her rendition of the Three Seas Cowl. Instant inspiration!

So it took me a few false starts to sort out the right combination of needle size and pattern repeats for this particular yarn, which is a little thicker than the yarn the pattern calls for, but I found it and have been knitting away on it - a little here and a little there.



I weighed the remaining yarn last night and calculated that I should get it to about 11", which is one inch less than the pattern recommends but will be, I expect, just fine to keep my neck nice and toasty. Exquisitely and expensively so, even.