Harvest-y Food

But first, go enter the Raffle for the Critters. Only one person has entered so far, and I'm pretty sure her stash isn't hurting for this much more stuff. Plus, Carol of GKIYH has promised some of her hand-dyed Black Bunny Fibers sock yarn to sweeten the pot a bit more. Seriously, a tax deductible donation of $5 or more gets you a chance to win yarn with the holidays and cold weather coming up. I'll wait right here while you go to it.
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Okay, I haven't had much in the way of food pics for a little while, and this week has been a bountiful one in the garden. The other night, I made this garden veggie soup almost entirely with veggies from my beds. The store-boughten ingredients were onion, mushrooms, olive oil, butter, salt, pepper and miso. The homegrown ingredients were swiss chard, potatoes, roma tomatoes, carrots, garlic, noodle beans, broccoli, oregano, thyme and butterpeas (although those actually came from South Carolina and not my own garden).



Tonight we had the leftovers with these wonderfully yeasty rolls I baked - particularly nice considering the temp has dropped down into the 40's (It's currently 46.5F/8C) tonight:



For breakfast (which was at 6:30PM), though, I had my first tomato sandwiches of the season. I got my tomatoes in the ground a little bit late, and then for an eating tomato I went with Brandywine, which is a late season heirloom. I have to say that it was worth the wait - sweet, low acidity and wonderfully juicy.



The perfect tomato sandwich, in my opinion, is a very basic one. The fanciest I get is toasted whole grain bread. Other than that, it's just slices of fresh garden tomato with real mayo, salt and pepper. Anything else just tends to distract from the flavor of the tomato. That may be fine for a tomato from the supermarket, but I say that if that's where you're getting your tomato there's not really much point in making a sandwich in the first place.

Raffle for the Critters

Okay, you've read this post about the turtles and the excellent folks at the Center for Wildlife, right? So I thought about this blog contest idea a bit and I've gone through my stash and picked a few things - with a combined street value of several hundred dollars - that I think will be of interest to folks. So here are the items that will be up for grabs:


Approximately 6oz. of merino roving from a farm in Massachusetts (I've forgotten which)


Two 100g skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky and nine 25g skeins of Alpaca with a Twist Landscapes (discontinued baby alpaca/silk)


Five 100g balls of Paton's UpCountry 100% soft wool singles (sadly discontinued)


Approx. 1kg cone of orange-brown marled superfine alpaca yarn, fingering weight


Seventeen 25g balls of Austermann Gold der Anden 70% baby alpaca/30% merino sportweight, grey marl


Fifteen 25g balls of Austermann Gold der Anden 70% baby alpaca/30% merino sportweight, blue


Four balls of Brown Sheep's Wildfoote and two balls of Regia Stretch self-striping sock yarn - total of three pairs' worth of sock yarn

Since the goal here is to raise as much money as possible for the selfless work these folks do, I decided that a raffle would be the best way to do it. So here's how this will work:

1. First go to this page and make a donation of at least $5 to the Center for Wildlife. Remember, donations to them are tax deductible (at least here in the US - I'm not sure if it works that way for international donations).

2. Then e-mail me at mel daht vassey at gmail daht com and let me know how much you've donated. Or you can leave me a comment, which goes to the same address. All comments have to be approved by me before being published, and I won't publish individual donation amounts.

3. Every $5 donated will count as one entry into the raffle, so a $20 donation will enter your name 4 times, a $50 donation 10 times, etc. The more you donate, the better your chances of winning something. I trust that people will be honest on this, but I can always go back to the folks at the Center for Wildlife and check up, especially since I told them today that I was planning this.

4. I will leave this raffle open for the next two weeks, so any donation through 11:59PM on 22 September 2008, will be eligible for the drawing. After the deadline is reached, I will use a random number generator to select seven winning "tickets". As in a real raffle, persons with multiple entries may be able to win multiple items. The winning "tickets" will be ordered numerically, so that the first winner will get their first pick of the item they'd prefer, and so on down the line.

So go and do a good thing. You can claim a tax deduction and you may just get some fabulous prizes out of it, so you'll win either way!

Unexpected Houseguests

Now that summer has passed, I've signed on to pick up a few more Sunday day shifts for a bit of extra income. Today was a fairly busy one that included this rather surprising arrival:



Eastern box turtles are actually an endangered species in this state and this one, a female, just happened to be found at the corner of a busy intersection in downtown Portland. She probably didn't stumble into town from the wilds, though. Far more likely that she was being kept in captivity, which is illegal here due to their state endangered status, and either escaped or was released.

Although the chances are that she was caught somewhere down South, where they are far more plentiful, the fact that she's in this state now meant that I needed to try to contact someone from the state. So I called the state's Endangered Species Program office and, unsurprisingly, got a voice mailbox.

Fortunately, I just happen to know someone, who just happened to know whom to bug (only a little bit) on his day off. A couple phone calls and e-mails later, we sorted out a game plan for communicating about a hand-off after the weekend and I decided it would be easier to bring her home with me, in case it meant driving her up to Augusta (on my day off, though I can use it as an excuse to go see my mom).

Meantime, a good Samaritan (actually, they were Jehovah's Witness - or at least they were calling from a Kingdom Hall - but as they didn't leave a Watchtower, I'm going to call them a good Samaritan) brought in a far more common Eastern Painted Turtle that had been hit by a car. This one I didn't take photos of, though. She has a pretty nasty, but potentially fixable, crack in her carapace, and the wound had fly eggs laid in it.

Again fortunately, the fly eggs hadn't hatched out yet, so I did a bit of debriding to try to clean them all out and gave her a dose of antibiotics. Then brought her home, as well, so that I can take her over to the nearby York Center for Wildlife, where I expect they'll be able to put her back together and get her back into the wild by sometime next year.

YCfW is where I take pretty much all the injured or orphaned wildlife that I write about here, and they're a bunch of really dedicated people who do a really phenomenal job. They're also funded by donations, which is why I put that link over there in the sidebar a little while back. I give them a bit when I can, but their costs run about $70 for each animal they rehab. So if you can spare $5 (or even a bit more - it's tax-deductible), I'm sure I can something nice in my stash, possibly several somethings nice - to do a little drawing.

And if you really need the incentive, I'll go stash diving once I've gotten some sleep and take some photos.

Inga

We lost Inga last night after two-plus years of dealing with her chronic renal failure. She'd deteriorated a lot over the past few months, so it was pretty clear that this was coming. Her decline over the past couple days was particularly rapid, though. She didn't try to move from my lap at all when I gave her fluids Thursday night, and then barely managed to walk from the kitchen into the living room afterwards. When I left for work yesterday afternoon it was all she could do to lift her head. By the time David got home, she couldn't even do that.

She was the first pet of David's adult life, adopted from the shelter in Lincoln, Nebraska, nearly twenty years ago at 8 months of age. She'd been with David for practically half of his life. I was a newcomer by comparison. In her last three years she'd had to learn to live with dogs for the first time in her life and with a kitten for the first time in about ten years. She took it all in stride. When Tolo, and later Cougar, tried to play rough with her, she gave them a much needed smackdown and taught them some proper respect for a lady.

A lady is what she always was, and queen of the household. The house and our hearts will be a little bit emptier without her.

The Daily Show on Palin

Jon takes on the pundits. You'd think they'd know better by now.

Post-Vegas Re-entry

Has it really only been 4 days since we got home? In some ways it seems like longer, possibly because I haven't gotten much sleep since our return. Anyway, the trip was good. David made some promising contacts and got a good bit of interest at the trade show. We went to see Kà, which was David's first Cirque du Soleil show and my fourth. I got to meet some of my favorite musicians. We got propositioned by a whore. I even ended up a few dollars ahead at the slots.

All in all, a good trip, but it was so nice to leave the desert and get back home, where it's beginning to feel downright autumnal. I finally managed this evening to get outside and do a bit of needed work in my raised beds. Mostly I needed to do a bit of harvesting. I picked some noodle beans, which haven't been great producers (nor all of them red), but a little does go a long way.

There were also several roma tomatoes ready for picking and a whole mess of soldier beans and Vermont cranberry beans ready for shelling (I'll try to get a pic of my own when I've got decent natural light). The noodle beans and some of the romas went into the curried tofu I made for dinner, and even more of the romas went into the guacamole I made as an appetizer. Nom, nom, nom.

Among things that still need to be done in the garden are clearing out dead and spent plants, seeing if I can collect any of the mustard seeds either as a spice or for planting next year (though I wasn't thrilled with how fast this variety bolted), planting some lettuce mix for fall mesclun, planting some kale to see if I can get any decent production before we get a really hard freeze, and trying to do a bit of cleaning up in the front flower beds.

We did a garlic exchange with Rain at Green Label Organic (buy their awesome shirts!), so that will need to be planted later in the month. I've also got what appears to be some sort of Artemisia growing in one of my front beds which looks nice enough when it's small but tends to get leggy and flop over late in the season. I'm thinking I may just dig it up altogether and see about replacing it next spring with this rosemary. In theory, at least, it should be able to survive our coastal winters, particularly if it's planted right up against the front of the house, since we're south facing.

Speaking of the house, we're still waiting on the verdict of appraisal #2, which was done while we were away. If it's good, then we're all set and can close in 12 days as planned. If not, which is a distinct possibility, then we have to figure out what other options exist. Hopefully we'll know tomorrow sometime.

And since I've shown no photos from Vegas (there are a few from my phone, but I downloaded them onto the work computer the other night), I offer you a bit of cuteness that I took this afternoon.

Starstruck

Okay, so this is my first big fashion industry show, and it is HUGE. It takes over the entire Las Vegas Convention Center complex, which is several enormous buildings, plus the adjacent Hilton - a big complex in itself. It's not just designers showing their lines here; there are buyers looking for product, of course, and sales reps looking for lines, other designers looking to see what's out there, suppliers looking for potential customers - upwards of 100,000 people. Like I said, HUGE!

For all that, though, the "Ecollection" section where we are feels small and intimate. And we've got musical entertainment. Yesterday, while I was stuck at the booth by myself, a singer with guitar started playing and singing. A lot of his repertoire were songs by Toad the Wet Sprocket, which was a band who started up when I was in college 20 years ago and one I absolutely loved (not the least because they had a really cute lead singer). I only got to see them play once, back in '95, but it is one of my favorite concert memories.

As I sat there waiting for potential customers to stop and ask about David's line, I thought, "Boy, that guy is doing a pretty good job of sounding like Glen Phillips." When the mini-concert was over, David's production manager, Christine, came back to the booth and our conversation went kind of like this:

C: "That guy used to be the lead singer of this band, Toad the...."
Me: "OMFG, it was Glen Phillips!"
C: "Yeah, I went up and introduced myself."
Me: "OMFG, I am soooo jealous!"

Not only that, he was there with Sara and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, another band I love. They played today, and Glen got back up on stage for several songs with them. And this time, I got to go over and say hi and had a really nice conversation with a musical idol. And then David brought over socks for them all.

What's even funnier/odder about all this is that all last week I had Nightingale Song by Toad bouncing around in my head for no apparent reason (It's a YouTube video, but I can't figure how to turn off the autoplay so I'm just linking - and I'm not sure what the deal is with the trains). I hadn't even heard any of their music in quite a while and it just popped up in there.

So yeah, it totally made my day.

Small World

The other freaky thing that happened today is that this morning we were sitting in the booth when this guy comes by looking at the line and he turned out to be someone I knew from college in South Carolina. For those who may be a little confused, I started college at a small school in South Carolina, then went to Spain for a semester, then went to the University of Maine, where I earned my undergrad degree - a little complicated, but that's how life often works.

Anyway, this guy was a year behind me, but he had an older brother in my class, we lived in the same dorm and basically ran in the same circles (not hard, considering there were barely 1000 students at the entire school). He actually ended up rooming with my former roommate when I left for Spain. Now he's in charge of sales for a knit fabric producer in South Carolina with a division that specializes in organics. So freakin' bizarre to bump into him like that after 20 years.

When we were in school, he was a buff, blond 18-year-old hottie. Now I can work a fitted t-shirt so much better, despite having a little extra flesh of my own. I think I even have better hair - what's left of it. Is it bad that I feel just slightly good about that?

Potty Mouths

Okay, so I've overheard two weird cell phone conversations in bathrooms today. Is this a Vegas thing?

First, I went to the bathroom in the convention center this morning and got to listen to a guy who was sitting on the toilet while giving relationship advice very loudly in Spanish. His argument was repetitive but basically along the lines of, "She's a nice girl and all, but her character just doesn't really balance yours so I think you're being with her is a mistake." Just stretch that out for several minutes and imagine it emanating from a bathroom stall.

Then this evening we went out to eat at an Asian fusion sort of restaurant, which was pretty good. At the end of the evening I decided I'd better go pee before we headed back to the hotel, and when I opened the door to the bathroom, it bumped one of the servers, who was standing right behind it talking on his cell phone.

He was apparently talking to a girlfriend (possibly a boyfriend, but my gaydar says not likely), because there was a bit of "I love you" going on. Then he said, "George wants to smoke with us tonight, so we're gonna go pick up a gram somewhere. Did you smoke that other stuff? Okay, I love you."

So, um, yeah. It's an interesting city.

It Never Fails

I'm in Cleveland at the moment awaiting my connection to Las Vegas. The flight from Boston was loaded with cute boys and fabulosity. Of course, I got stuck sitting next to the old guy with the tropical print shirt and no sense of personal space who was reading the large print version of The Greatest Generation. *sigh*

And the Cleveland airport is full of scary people and smells funny. Prospects for a halfway interesting neighbor on this flight look even grimmer.

Oh well, only 4 more hours 'til the land of whores and poker.

Viva Las Vegas!

David is already there for the MAGIC trade show. After I finish tonight's shift at work, I have to run home, pack, hit the ATM, make sure the pet sitter is all ready for the hand-off, and get myself down to Boston to fly out there myself.

The forecast for the coming week: 107, 106, 105, 105, 106, 107; no clouds; overnight lows of around 80 (for the metricals out there, that's around 41, give or take, in the daytime and 27 at night). What's that you say? It's a dry heat? Ah yes, the daytime humidity will be running somewhere between 12% & 17%, which should actually make a huge difference. That 107 high will only feel like a mere 102.

So long as we can get tickets to one of the Cirque du Soleil shows, I suppose I can deal with it. Just wish me luck at the quarter slots!

Happy Flu!

This just warms my little epidemiologically-minded heart. Come on and go viral with me.

Hint: Pull the scroll bar all the way down. Then click and drag.

Twitter Humor

From my friend Jonathan:



My German isn't very good, but I'm pretty sure it's not a direct translation.

Setbacks

I spoke to the loan officer at the bank today, and the appraisal on the house came in below the purchase price. Way below. In fact, it appraised pretty close to what I had originally thought would be a reasonable market price for the house. The realtor The Ladies talked to thought differently, but then I don't know that he ever really got a look under the hood, so to speak.

This bit of news wouldn't be so bad if there were a chance on negotiating down somewhere close to the appraisal value. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen, though. Which leaves us in a bit of a state of limbo until we can sort out the possibilities. The bank apparently told Wendy that there's some sort of process of appeal on the appraisal, but the discrepancy is so huge, that I don't expect a rethinking of the appraisal to come anywhere to The Ladies' comfort zone.

In other news, I decided I'd gone a little too fast on stepping up the new meds. So after several very dizzy and not terribly productive days, I decided to back off just a little until I've adjusted a bit better. In the meantime, I do like being able to sleep really deeply for a change.

Making Up

Since I've been such a slacker lately and because we actually had nice weather for a change, I thought I'd take a few photos today. It was even a nice enough day that I could do this:



And before anyone says anything, yes, there are some tightie whities on those lines. I'll leave it to you to guess whether they're mine or David's. Of course, because my day starts rather late, some items were still a little damp by the time it was getting dark, so they did end up in the dryer for a short run to finish the job. Still, that's less energy than would have been used otherwise, and I'm very happy the sun obliged.

Also, I've been meaning to get pictures of the cedar waxwing nest in the sumacs in our sideyard. I swear she's been sitting in this same position for the past week.



Can't see her? How about from this angle (biggifying might help, too)?



Lastly, these are some duck eggs I got from Wendy & Paula this evening. The ducks have been laying like crazy, so The Ladies have been more than happy to give us all we'll take off their hands. They're a little different from chicken eggs (bigger, for one thing), but they still made a very tasty omelet for tonight's dinner.

Slacker

I haven't updated in 9 days, which is a bit unusual for me. Partly I think it's the summer doldrums which hit a lot of bloggers, but I've also not had much of interest to blog. I've been working a lot (put in 80+ hours in 8 days), knitting a little on the second Hundertwasser sock (yeah, I finally finished the first one, but no pics as yet), and not too much else aside from the incredibly mundane.

Today it was a bit of handyman stuff while David's off at the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City. I filled in a hole in the kitchen mudroom that's been a thoroughfare for mice, bugs, and slugs with some low expansion foam. The "low" part of it is a relative term and I'll be cutting away the excess tomorrow. Aside from that, I planed down the door to the same mudroom so that it'll actually close. It's still a little snug, but it's super humid around these parts at the moment and I figure there'll be shrinkage when things dry out this winter. I also took my Dremel to a cast iron skillet that's been waiting for me to attend to it for a long time. The seasoning was never great and had cracked all to hell, so I had to grind and buff away all the stuff that was still sticking to the metal then reseason it properly. It now has two good coatings on it, and I think I'll add a third tomorrow for good measure.

When I was done, I made myself a caipirinha, which I'd never had before. I used Darren's recipe and was very pleased. The only problem was that I've been running on not quite enough sleep. Plus I just stepped up my gabapentin to the full dose yesterday. So even though I nursed the drink, when I finished I had to take a nap. And then woke up two hours later with a headache, which I still have 6 hours later.

I still plan to try a variation made with peaches (The local supermarket actually had South Carolina peaches!) instead of lime, though. Just not tonight.

Miswired

A couple of weeks ago, I read this article in the New Yorker by Atul Gawande (an associated podcast can be found here). The primary case he discusses in the article is that of a woman with chronic & severe itching, but the main thrust is about how much we don't yet understand about how the brain functions and what happens when its sensory mechanisms go haywire.

This is basically what is happening to people such as myself who deal with fibromyalgia pain and restless legs syndrome. The off switches for certain sensory pathways stop working properly, so we feel pain (or a crawling sensation in our legs) when there is no physical reason for that sensation. Sometimes, as in my particular situation, we even have abnormal motor activity, also - meaning that my limbs move involuntarily, thankfully only when I'm asleep. And nobody really knows why that occurs or how to go about repairing that faulty wiring, which is frustrating as all hell.

Fortunately, despite our lack of insight into the mechanisms, there have been some advances made over the last several years in terms of treatment. Unfortunately, the treatments carry their own set of problems. For over a year now, I have been on ropinirole for the restless legs and periodic limb movement (the twitching in my sleep thing). The problem is that eventually the brain gets accustomed to the dose and the problems start recurring, requiring higher doses.

The other problem is that this particular drug attaches to dopamine receptors, which is one of the pathways stimulated (via a slightly different mechanism) by amphetamines. So as the dose gets higher, you run a greater likelihood that the drug, rather than helping, will actually start to ramp up the problem by causing excessive stimulation. Oh, and did I mention the nausea? Yeah, really.

Fortunately for me, I've been on a really low dose, so my recent need to increase the dose isn't likely to run me into too much trouble. Even though the higher dose seems to be managing the restless legs part of the equation, though, I've still not been getting very restful sleep lately, likely because of the fibromyalgia pain. My irregular schedule doesn't really help, either, but for the moment I'm focusing on the things I can change easily, and that's not one of them.

To that end, I sat down with one of the physician's assistants at my local family practice today to get a prescription for gabapentin. This drug has been around for a while now as an anti-epileptic. It's newer cousin, Lyrica, is labeled for treating fibro pain.

Gabapentin won't be labeled for this, since it went generic a few years ago and there's no financial incentive to do the research, but the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) published a study last year that found it to be effective for this purpose. It's also been shown to help with restless legs. Since, as a generic, I can get it for a much lower copay than the Lyrica, this is a good thing.

The downside - because of course there had to be one - is that it can cause problems with concentration and it causes physical dependency. Those are probably the top two reasons I've avoided trying it before, but I finally decided that putting up with the pain and the lack of sleep was probably the worse option of the two. Of course, on the label it says that I should be wearing a medical ID bracelet saying I'm taking it, which is not particularly reassuring, strangely enough. I shall, however, soldier on and hope that it does some good.





Oh, and I also somehow managed to bugger up my bad knee while mowing the lawn the other day. Good times, I tell ya.

Somnolent Fiber Humor: An Allegory of Sorts

So I woke up this morning from one of my characteristically bizarre dreams. In this one, I was sort of an observer in the middle of a sitcom. As a teenager, I had a recurring dream where I was an observer in the Brady Bunch household, so there is a precedent.

Anyway, one of the characters was this really ditzy but beautiful woman with long, silky, lustrous black hair. At one point, one of the other characters called her by name; she was named Rayon. Initially it struck me as a really odd name choice, but then I thought, "Oh, I get it. She has no memory."

And then I woke up.

Happy Dog!

Three posts in one day! Guess I'm trying to catch up.

Tuck has recently discovered the joys of rolling around in the grass.

Peas & Carrots!

The carrots are itty bitty baby ones from some thinning I did today. I was less than impressed with the germination rate of my shell peas. Perhaps I should have added inoculant to the soil, but you'd think there'd be plenty of naturally occurring microbes in a pile of composted 'paca poo. My pole beans have been really slow growers, too, and are only now starting to send up some tendrils.

On the other hand, my shell beans are producing like gangbusters and should provide us with some good soup beans for the fall. Speaking of which, I think the two above items are destined to go in a soup of some sort for dinner tonight.

Cake Wrecks

Stolen from Cake Wrecks

After a very fitful night of far too little sleep, I have been laughing my ass off at Cake Wrecks, thanks to Joe.My.God. That all of these cakes were made by paid professionals makes it all the more hilarious. And, of course, painful.

Blast from the Past

Geez, has it been a week already? My apologies for neglecting you all. It's not as though I haven't had blog ideas, but it's been my 60 hour week at work, so that and getting enough sleep have taken precedence. I have, at least, managed to get photos from the honeymoon uploaded to Flickr.

Anyway, now that we're both here, do you remember this?



I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, because I first posted about it way back here. You'll notice that I have made a little progress since that time. It now has a heel and, after setting it aside for a few months to concentrate on wedding knitting, I've finally started the ribbing. Of course, there's still another sock to knit up after this one, but I hope to have a finished pair in under a year.

I think they'll look particularly smart worn with my new(ish) work shoes:



These were actually delivered just before the wedding, but since they were designated for the workplace (because the FiveFingerses are not a good idea when you need people to be paying attention to you rather than the shoes), they got set aside for three weeks before seeing any action. So far I've been very pleased.

7 Things

Another thing that got set aside was this meme, which Andy tagged me for the day before the wedding. I've been meaning to get around to it, really, but we haven't even gotten caught up on the housecleaning since the wedding, so it's kind of had to languish. Anyway, here goes, and since everyone's likely seen this one by now, I'm dispensing with the rules.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago, I was living in North Carolina, working at a few different clinics. I had just taken a leave of absence from grad school because my first advisor had me on the verge of going postal. I was a bit over a year away from buying my first house and a couple blissful years shy of meeting S. It was a good time. Mostly.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
a. finish my shift at work
b. walk/run around the Back Cove
c. shower
d. sleep
e. have dinner with the Landladies to go over the purchase contract for the house (which means I have to miss CWS yet again *sigh*)

3) Snacks I enjoy:
- Most of them, especially if cheese and/or salt are involved. Or fruit. Or all of the above.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
- Take our house off the grid, open up the floor plan and basically renovate it from the cellar up.
- Build a nice heated garage with a well-lit studio space for David above it.
- Buy my grandmother's childhood home from my great-aunt and restore it.
- Fund spay/neuter & vaccine clinics in India, where tens of thousands of children die of rabies from dog bites every year.
- Build my parents a home for their retirement.
- Fund my sister's education and set up college trusts for all of my nieces and nephew.
- Fund my own return to grad school and get my PhD.
- Set aside enough so that David & I would never have to worry about our own needs.
- Fund more projects like those linked over in the sidebar.

5) Places I have lived:
- Cayce, SC
- Newberry, SC
- Kinards (Bush River Community), SC
- Charleston, SC
- Johnson City, TN
- Fountain Inn, SC
- Winslow, ME
- Granada, Spain
- St. Paul, MN
- Portland, ME
- Raleigh, NC
- Durham, NC
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Auburn, ME
- Kittery Point, ME


6) Jobs I have had:
- Dishwasher in a seafood restaurant
- Farmhand
- Veterinarian

7) Friends I want to know more about:
You've likely realized by now that I don't pass these things on. Besides, I think most folks that would do this one have already done so. If not and you're in need of blog fodder, then go for it.

Finished Object

Pattern: Baby Jacket from EZ's Knitter's Almanac
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Prima, 80% bamboo/20% superwash wool

I made this little jacket for former neighbors of mine from Pittsburgh who are now in California and proud parents of their fist child. I cast on for this project the day after the wedding and worked on it while we were honeymooning in Nova Scotia. It's intended recipient was born the day before we came home, so I should be able to get it to her before she outgrows it.

It's the first time I've worked with Prima, but I picked it thinking that it wouldn't be overly warm for NoCal (The openwork should help in that regard, too). The hand is nice and it's a good supersoft yarn for baby clothing. As a cabled yarn, though, it does have a tendency to be a little splitty, though this wasn't a huge issue.

More frustrating were the knots. I think I got one in every ball of yarn. Between that and the color changes, it made for a lot of ends to weave in. I got through them all, though, and found the little vintage buttons at an area yarn shop. I washed it to make sure there wasn't any bleeding, and now it's drying so that I can package it up and get it sent off.

Now I need to figure out a possible project for a cousin in Florida who just had baby boy number three. I'm thinking booties might be a better idea for that climate.

Jumping in with Both Feet

I started back at work Friday night, the 4th of July. So much for easing myself back in. It was busy, which wasn't particularly surprising, but it could have been much worse. As it was, though, I didn't get all of my paperwork done until nearly 1PM on Saturday, making it a 20 hour shift. I took a fitful two hour nap before heading home and getting another too-brief nap. I have until Tuesday to recover, so let's hope I manage to rest up well in the next 36 hours.

I suppose this is all a very roundabout way of explaining why I've been making slow progress at going through the wedding & honeymoon photos. I do now have a Flickr set from the wedding. though not all of the photos have captions yet. Pics from Nova Scotia yet to follow.

Speaking of the wedding, though, let's talk about...

...Cake



Juno recently sent out a call for cake recipes and my hospital manager has been bugging me for the recipe for the wedding cake, so
I suppose I have to share. The recipe is actually just a minor variation on cold oven pound cake, which is an old family favorite. You can follow the recipe at the link with the following notes and modifications:

• Use cake flour, if possible, as it will give the cake a somewhat finer crumb. Make sure to sift before measuring.



• Sift two teaspoons of baking powder together with the flour.



• Preheat the oven to 375°.



• Grease two 9" cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment or wax paper and flour the sides.



• Bake for about 40 minutes, or until center is done. Cool for about ten minutes before turning the layers out onto wire racks to finish cooling.



• Ice as desired. If you go by the original recipe and bake it in a bundt pan, a simple lemon juice & confectioner's sugar glaze is really tasty.



• Try not to think about what this does to your cholesterol levels.

Enjoy!

Required Listening

You know that bumper sticker that reads, "If you're not mad, you're not paying attention"? Well, pay attention to this Fresh Air interview with Seymour Hersh. I have yet to read the New Yorker article, as I've barely sorted my mail yet, but that's going on the required reading list, as well.

A Start

My legs are giving me fits and I need to try to get to sleep, but I've gotten the first few of my favorite photos from the past couple weeks uploaded to my Flickr photostream. David's attendants, Mike & Sue have also uploaded their photos from the wedding to Flickr, so you can mosey on over here to have a look as well. Mike got what I think is the best shot of the kilt hose, which you can see here.

I promise, there shall be more forthcoming.

After the Honeymoon

We got home about 2.5 hours ago, and I'm in the middle of sorting through all my e-mails and, according to Google Reader, 454 (!) blog posts. I'm exhausted and we had to break camp in the rain, but we really had a wonderful time. We decided we could happily run away to Canada if the need should ever arise. And now, of course, we're officially and legally married there.

The biggest worry of our trip wasn't the rain. Tuck developed what was thankfully just a mild pneumonia - I think from aspirating a little fluid while vomiting, as the GI signs reportedly appeared first - and had to spend a few days hospitalized. We picked him up from the clinic first thing after we got through Customs, though, and he seems to be, if not 100% normal, at least recovering well and very happy to be home.

A more thorough report, of course, shall be forthcoming. With photos. But with 300+ photos to go through, it'll probably take me a bit to go through them all.

We Did

The kilt hose got done in the twelfth hour, the weather was perfect, we remembered the rings (and the kleenex), and we had a party in a beautiful place that everyone will remember. Pictures to come (eventually).

Quick Pic

Since I haven't had many pics lately (except, of course, the gruesome one last week) and particularly no progress pics, I thought I'd give you this one*:



As you can see, it's coming along, but there's still quite a lot to do.

I also baked 8 cake layers today. We're doing multiple smaller cakes in an arrangement, rather than some elaborate monstrosity, and the recipe is actually for a pound cake. Except that I'm doing it in round layers, and it's going to have real buttercream frosting. It may give someone a coronary, but at least they'll die in cake-induced ecstasy.

*The books right at my toes are from the Pure Dead series by Debi Gliori. She has a wonderful blog (in which there is occasional knitting content) right here.

Storm Clouds Gathering

Not the metaphorical sort, though. Nature has decided that this week would be the perfect time to make up for all the rain we didn't get this spring. And Nature, as we all know, doesn't really care about things like weddings and visitors from out of town. And lawns badly in need of mowing before said visitors arrive.

I suppose it's just as well that there's plenty to be done indoors, too. I spent today rearranging and cleaning the kitchen and feel like I made a really big dent in it, though there's still a fair bit that needs to be done. Of course, there's also a fair bit to be done in the living room, the bathroom, the guest room,... I think you get the point.

I also have cake layers to bake - lots of them. That's right. I'm baking the cake(s). It's a minor modification of a family favorite recipe that I do very well. So now I have 5 pounds of butter, 5 pints of heavy cream, 10 pounds of cake flour, 10 pounds of sugar, and 5 dozen eggs in my kitchen waiting for a couple marathon days of baking. While I'm also working on getting everything else cleaned up.

The decorating part, though, is a bit beyond me. Fortunately, my mother (who does have experience in this regard) volunteered for this duty while we were hunting for someone to hire, which will save us a bit on an already stretched budget. We planned for 60 guests and are getting 90, so the reception expenses have gone up just a wee bit, though likely not as much as they could have.

And the kilt hose moves along, but it's going to be close. The calf decreases are done now, though, and I think I can get it done. If not, I'll just cast off a little early and wear a thin sock under it to cover my toes. And the weather predictions are now calling for the possibility of a little clearing by the weekend. So maybe, just maybe, we can pull all of this off.

One More Night

After tomorrow night, I will be off for three weeks!

It occurs to me that I haven't posted very many photos lately, and it's been quite a while since I've posted any of gross stuff. Last night at work I managed to get a really good one, though. Since I know some of you are delicate, I'll just put it up here in thumbnail size (You know what to do).



This is a fat, middle-aged weimaraner who had been vomiting on and off for a few days - had been hospitalized here, sent elsewhere for an ultrasound, went home and didn't improve, and ended up back here - and nobody could quite figure out what was causing the problem. So the decision was made to go in and do an exploratory, and I found this section of infarcted bowel.

While this sort of thing isn't unheard of in dogs, I believe it's the first one I've seen in 14 years of practice. At least in a dog who was still alive. This guy was likely within 24 hours of having this rotten bowel perforate. And I do mean rotten - this stuff stinks to high heaven. Had it done so, he would have joined the body count of what was a very. bad. night.

Now, though, the nastiness has been cut out and the rest has been pieced painstakingly back together. We won't know for certain if he's out of the woods for another week, as the repair can always break down and start to leak. I'm paranoid about these things and my track record is actually very good as a result, but I worry about every single bowel surgery I do. Which is probably why I don't like doing them very much.



And no, I didn't have time to work on the kilt hose, but I'm just a few rounds shy of starting the bottom-of-calf decreases.

Two Things I Learned Tonight

Thing the first: When the cookbook says that the skins will slip off of your beets easily after cooking, what they leave unsaid is that the beet is liable to flip up into the air and then roll right down the front of your clothes and onto the floor, leaving a red mess everywhere.

Thing the second: Tuck, apparently, likes beets.

Because Several People Have Asked

I hadn't really mentioned it because it felt odd putting it out there to a lot of people I don't know, but we do have a wedding registry on Amazon. It's not big and most of the items have already been purchased for us.

Since David & I have been around the block a few times and aren't kids just starting out, we actually didn't need very much, but we thought it would be a good opportunity to get a set of matching plates to replace the hodgepodge we have and upgrade a few aged small kitchen appliances. Now I just need to pull out all the old stuff and rearrange things neatly before we have visitors next week.

A Random Drive-By

There have been a lot of things happening lately on a lot of different fronts. Since there's no good way to incorporate them all into a cohesive post, I figured the best way to write about them would be in bullet format*.

• Plans are coming together nicely for the wedding, which takes place in less than two weeks! We still have to write our vows, though, which is a form of writing that, I think, most people are ill-practiced at.



• I still have a good bit to get done on kilt hose #2, but I should be able to get it finished in time. The vest, unfortunately, has been set aside. I had to come to the cold, hard realization that I am a process knitter and have to be very realistic about my production speed. If the wedding day turns out to be as hot as it is today (just shy of 90ºF), this could be a blessing in disguise.



• When the kilt hose are finished, I shall be casting on for a Baby Surprise Jacket in Debbie Bliss Prima for friends who won't be making it to the wedding because they're expecting baby number one at about the same time. I also need to plan one for a cousin who won't be making it to the wedding due to similar circumstances (baby number 3).



• For the person who asked about the needles I'm using for the kilt hose, I'm working them on two 12" Addi circs. The rigid portion of the circs is kind of short, which some people find a bit problematic, but I rather like doing them this way.



• We planted nasturtiums this weekend at my grandmother's childhood home. The seeds I had ordered came too late, and I forgot the replacement seeds I had bought before we left, requiring the purchase of even more when we got there. Now I have four packets of nasturtium seeds, so I suppose we'll have plenty around here, as well.



• The week before last, I finalized my application to start an online certificate program in field epidemiology at the University of North Carolina in the fall. Because the application deadline for the fall term isn't until late July, I didn't expect to hear anything for a while. I was notified of my acceptance in less than a week.



• I plan to incorporate this coursework into a Master of Public Health degree, which UNC also offers online. The plan would be to move out of clinical practice almost entirely, though considering this degree will take a few years to complete, there won't be any big changes for a while.



• I only have three more shifts to go at work before I'm off for the wedding. Not having taken a proper vacation since we went to Hawai'i two years ago and given all the extra shifts I worked over the past year, this three weeks off is badly needed.



• I don't know if I mentioned it, but the kilt arrived a bit ago and looks wonderful. It's a box-pleated kilt, which aside from being an older, historical style, uses half as much fabric (natural Scottish thrift, as opposed to the Victorian extravagance of the 8-yard kilt). This lighter weight will be a good thing, especially if, as mentioned above, temperatures decide to soar.



• As at Rhinebeck, there will be too many people at the wedding who will want to look under my kilt. With that in mind, I bought new underwear especially for the occasion. Black briefs, for both comfort and modesty.



• In exactly 10 days, we will be having an open house here for both wedding guests who might be en route to the venue and for folks in our extended network of friends who might not have gotten an invite due to the economics of the thing (We're already 50% over our anticipated number of guests. I'm trying not to think of what this means for the wedding budget.) This, of course, means that we have to clean house. Frantically. I'm thinking maybe we should just hire a dumpster.



• Remember the prayer shawl I knat last year for my great-uncle's widow, Carol? Well, Carol has a (non-knitting) project of her own these days. She is spearheading a drive to dig a well for a community in Haiti which is in desperate need. To find out just how desperate, click the link in the sidebar or just click right here. Please help if you can. Because this is being done through her church, donations are tax-deductible.

Okay, that's all I can think of for now. It's hot and I need to get ready for work. Hope you're having a spectacular weekend!

*As popularized by Sheepish Annie.

Just Wondering

For all the angry women who vow they'll vote for McCain if Hillary doesn't get the nomination, I have this question: How would voting for a man who, on at least one public occasion, called his wife a "cunt" do anything to advance the position of women in our society?

Footwork, Fancy and Otherwise

One down,



one to go.



And in other footwear news, I managed for the first time ever to sustain a running pace (only 5mph/8kph, but it was still running) for a full mile today without having to drop to a walk and without feeling like I was about to fall over and die. Granted, it was on a flat treadmill rather than on the hills on our little road, but it's still a milestone for me. I've always been better as a (very) short distance sprinter than any kind of distance runner. I've just never been able to maintain the pace and have had too much trouble with all my joint issues and raging shin splints (and general lack of commitment) to effectively build up to it.

I've also not done any training to speak of to get to this point. Between going out of town and kitty emergencies, I hadn't even been to the gym for a couple of weeks. The only thing different was that I was wearing my FiveFingers shoes, so it seems that they're helping me run much more efficiently. I also didn't have any knee pain during or after and, after slowing to a moderately brisk walk for ten minutes, I was able to go back up to a running pace for the last eight of my half hour of cardio. Color me very pleased.

Of course, I'm nowhere close to catching up to David's cousin Greg, who just ran his first marathon the other week (and whom you may recall from this post). Seeing as he's still in his early 30's and I'm staring down 40, I'm not sure that I'll try to catch up, either, but it was still a nice feeling.

Memery

MollyBeees tagged me for this one and it seemed interesting enough. I won't be tagging anyone else, but feel free if you wish to do it anyway.

What's the last book you read that you thought was really super, inspiring, you'd recommend it to most anyone?

I'll make this a twofer and say surgeon Atul Gawande's books, Complications and Better. For the lay person, I think that they help to put a human face on medical practice and point out the reality that we aren't perfect and aren't capable of miracles. For me as a professional, I think they're inspiration to aspire to be better.

What food totally grosses you out, you'd never be able to touch it? Ew. Gag. *hurl*

After many, many years as a vegetarian, this is pretty easy. I can't see myself ever going back to eating meat. Maybe as an act of absolute desperation, but I really find it repellent. Also, fat dog flesh under surgical lights smells an awful lot like beef, which doesn't help.

Did you ever watch a scary movie that frightened you so much you were afraid of the dark afterward? I mean like you're lying in bed trying to sleep, but you have to pee, but you're scared to get up. It doesn't have to be recently; could be when you were a kid. So what movie was it?

Not a movie, but when I was in high school I read Pet Sematary in a single day. When I got to the end, I was home alone (we lived in the sticks in South Carolina) and nobody was going to be home for over an hour. I closed all the curtains, locked all the doors, turned on the TV and radio and called a friend because I was so freaked out.

Oh, and The Mothman Prophecies still gives me goosebumps if I think about it, and I saw it in the theater over 6 years ago.

Is there a song that makes you dance every time you hear it? Would you tap you feet and sing along to it in public?

Every time I hear Pat Benatar sing Love is a Battlefield, I have to sing along and do the titty jiggle move from the video. Every time. Just see if you can resist.



Tattoos: yes or no? Do you have any? Tell us! Do you think they're gross? TELL US!

I blogged these in this post.

When's the last time you laughed so hard your ribs ached and/or you nearly peed yourself? What made you do it?

The hardest I have ever laughed in my life was the first time I saw Suzanne Westenhoefer perform. My face hurt.

Draw or doodle a picture of your pet(s) and post it if possible. Nothing fancy, don't be shy!

It's late, so I'm not going to try to draw anything, but I did make an lolcats of Tuck and Cougar just the other day.

Go through a stack or box of your old music. Stuff that you may not have heard in years. Pick one and tell us about it. Is it as good (or as bad) as you remember?

Again, it's late. And I really do need to go through my collection to see what needs to stay or go, but that project's been pending for a few years now.

Do you still sleep with a stuffed animal? We won't laugh!

No. Not since I was in my early teens, I don't think.

Cummington

Yesterday morning, after working all night and then driving an hour home, David & I hopped in the car and made the nearly 3½ hour drive to Cummington, Massachusetts, for the Mass. Sheep & Woolcraft Fair. I managed to nap for about two of those hours since, as you might imagine, I was in no condition to be driving.

After we got to the fairgrounds, all I managed to snap photos of was this handsome fellow:



Otherwise, we made the rounds of all the vendors while David made sure that I didn't add to my already-straining-at-the-seams stash (though I was so very tempted by a couple skeins of laceweight cashmere in gorgeous man colors). And we visited with the usual knitblogger crowd whose company I very much enjoy, but not nearly often enough. There's definitely something to be said, though, for spending time with people you'd rather just spend time with than photograph.

Then too soon it was time to turn around and make the long drive back. And once again I slept.

Sunday in the Garden

Today was devoted to outdoors. Tuck and I started the day with a trip to a nearby garden center, where we got a couple of tomato plants for the garden (Brandywine & Roma), and an assortment of herbs for the front flower beds. David put together a brazier that the Landladies gave us for Christmas, and this evening we had a little cookout for two.

And now I need to see how close I can get to finishing kilt hose #1 before I fall asleep. I'm just a few rounds short of starting the toe decreases, but I don't think I can stay awake long enough to finish it off.

Do You Think...

...anyone would notice if I just cast this off right here?



I have to do a whole other one of these in the next 4 weeks!

Too Cute for Words

Well, maybe not entirely.

Knitters with Lots of Balls

David and I got home yesterday afternoon from the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat at Easton Mountain, which was organized over the winter by Ted and Joe. After Friday's sadness, it was a much-needed escape, my only complaint being that it didn't last long enough.

Because I was a bit distracted on Friday and because events set us a couple hours behind, I forgot my camera and was stuck with the camera on my cell phone, which made for some very fuzzy pics (Sorry, Joe and Josh). And because we had to rush the 4.5 hrs back home so that I could drive the hour to work a 15 hr shift, I'm too tired to write any more about them. Click and you can read the (short) captions on my Flickr site.

















And then we came home to this:







And Inga is feeling better and her kidney values have improved with the IV fluids. Another day and I think it'll be time for her to come home.

And now I need desperately to sleep.

Kitty Update

We now have two kitties in the hospital. This evening David told me that Inga, our 19 year-old who has been in kidney failure for two years, stumbled on the stairs today before I got up. Since we're leaving town tomorrow and since we hadn't checked her bloodwork for a while, I thought it would be prudent to take her in tonight and do a bit of workup. Like their human counterparts, it often doesn't take very much to get an old lady kitty down.

Sure enough, she's pretty badly dehydrated and her kidney values have gone up a good bit. It appears she has a low grade urinary tract infection, so I'm hoping a few days of antibiotics and IV fluids will make a big difference.

Dolores is a somewhat different story. Her pathology report came back as abscess, but sometimes abscesses can be caused by malignancies and I'm waiting to hear back from the pathologist with a couple questions I had. She still doesn't look very well and definitely isn't out of the woods yet, so it's going to be one day at a time for now.

UPDATED UPDATE:

Dolores's condition worsened considerably and some repeat bloodwork this morning was bad. Really, really bad. Weighing what really would have needed to be done (a lot of very unpleasant things, including very major surgery) against the slim likelihood of having a happy, healthy kitty at the end of it, I decided I couldn't justify putting her through any more. I don't believe in heaven or treacly rainbow bridges, but I do believe that it's good not to suffer anymore. I've shed a few tears and will likely shed more over the next few days, but it was the right thing to do for her and at least I know that she was well-loved.

Now with Bullets!

I realize I haven't been as diligent in posting as I'd like to be lately, but there's been quite a lot going on - not all of it good stuff. In the interest of catching up, I'm going with Annie's preferred Wednesday night format.

• I've decided that my lawn has a certain mythic quality, mostly because it sprang forth fully formed, like Athena from Zeus's head. We're barely past frost and it was already over a foot high in places and in bloom when I mowed on Sunday.



• I have tiny little seedlings sprouting in my garden beds. This makes me very happy. At some point I'll take photos.



• This evening, David and I drove down to Massachusetts and had South Indian food with my cousin George, whom I hadn't seen in far, far too long.



• If you don't know whether or not you've ever had South Indian food, it's likely that you haven't. Which is a pity, really.



• Upon leaving the restaurant (Mysore Veggie in Lowell, MA - I definitely recommend it), we saw a rather large possum skirting the perimeter of a nearby building.



• On Friday, David and I will be heading to the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat organized by Ted and Joe. I'm pretty sure I'm really going to need it.
  
  
• One of my girl kitties, Dolores, who has been living with my folks, is very ill and has been hospitalized at the clinic since Saturday.



• She had the name long before Franklin's infamous ovine roommate came on the scene. Please note, however, that both of them are spelled D-O-L-O-R-E-S, not D-E-L-O-R-E-S. It matters.



• My Dolores has two masses in her liver. While I am holding onto the slim hope that the pathology will come back as abscess, the cells I saw from the aspirate suggest otherwise. Given my track record with pets and cancer, I expect the pathologist will likely concur.



• Did I mention I'm really going to need this retreat?

Walk Before You Run

On Wednesday, I gave the FiveFingers their first workout at the gym. The website recommends that people whose feet pronate (i.e., are really flat, like mine) use caution starting out with these shoes. Fortunately, several years of yoga taught me to correct my pronation without support, so I don't think that'll be much of concern. The real challenge is the whole shift in how I move.

I learned that I will be building up calluses at the base of the second toe on each foot, as that seems to be where I'm getting the most friction. I've always built up calluses in the summer from wearing sandals, but never at this spot. On the other hand, I noticed a lot less knee pain after my workout than I had in regular running shoes. I didn't try to run yet, of course, but I did walk on the treadmill at a pretty good pace.

Today I'll get to work out in a new pair, as I bought some more just for the gym.

Kilt Hose

I started these on my trip to California at the end of March, but I haven't really blogged about them much. Our minister (who is now on Ravelry, but I'm not sure how a nonny moose she wishes to be) pointed out that I hadn't added them to my projects or posted any pics of them or anything, so here goes:



Because I started these on the go, I opted for a fairly simple design that I could work out in my head. They're 3x1 rib with a simple braided cable running down each side. The wool is woolen spun worsted weight from Elsa Wool Company, and I'm knitting them on two size US3/3.25mm Addi 12" circs.

I knat the cuffs first with a provisional cast on to obviate any concerns about dealing with holes when switching directions for the leg. I'm getting fairly close to being able to decrease the extra stitches for the calf on the first one. I hope to make a lot of progress on these next weekend at the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat.

Apropos of Nothing

Because my job entails long hours with no ability to leave for lunch (assuming you could even find lunch at 2AM), I try to keep a stash of food on hand at the clinic. It's generally nothing fancy, but it keeps me from starving. Everyone else keeps food here, as well, and the rule is that if you don't want it thrown out or eaten, you need to put your name on it.

Fair enough.

The only problem is when people don't respect that rule and eat your food anyway. This happened recently with a brick of cheese I had in the fridge, but it's not the first time.

Now I'm generally more than happy to share my food when I'm working. I don't want staff coming in here and not having anything to eat for 10 or 12 hours. But when I'm coming in to work a 15 hour shift and expect to have food in the fridge, it's more than a little irritating to find some two-legged rat has been at it. So with my latest cheese purchase, I made a little sign to tape to it that I thought would get the point across a little more emphatically.

And Even More Shoes!

These are totally unrelated to the wedding, though I did consider saying I'd changed my mind just to see what people said. Anyway, last week I read this article (courtesy of Chris, who in turn got it from Chappysmom), which is basically about how bad shoes are for us biomechanically and we're better off going back to barefoot as much as possible.

Given that I already preferred wearing as little as possible on my feet during the warm months and given all my musculoskeletal issues, plus the fact that the article was backed up with hard data, I was an easy sell. The Vivo Barefoot line profiled in the article is pretty much all sold out at this point, so bought myself a pair of these at half the price:



Because they shipped from just outside Boston they were delivered the next day - Friday afternoon - literally a couple of minutes after I left for work. I think the UPS truck deliberately waited around the corner for me to leave, just to be spiteful. David will attest that I called him several times that night to see if he'd touched them or tried them on (He didn't. The toes scare him.) I tried them on briefly on Saturday, but it was too cold to wear them for long.

Sunday was little different, except that it was wetter. So today they got their first real breaking in. I had a few errands to run then spent the bulk of the afternoon working on the garden beds and getting seeds planted. The website doesn't say anything about them being good for moving wheelbarrows full of partly-composted manure to spread on the garden, but they worked quite well. And when I was done, I just tossed them into the washing machine.

I think I may get another pair for the gym and maybe, possibly a pair for work. I think the Vivo Barefoots might freak clients out less, though. When they're back in stock, that is, and assuming I can spare the pricetag.

Other Stuff in the Mail

I did get one package before I left for work on Friday. It was my prize from VUBOQ that I won from entering his 10% Tax Refund Challenge and donating 10% of my refund to a charity of my choice (and getting my name drawn out of a bag.) Unfortunately, when I picked it up I heard a faint *clink* that didn't bode well.

Inside was a pair of handmade pottery mugs, but the handle of one is in about four pieces. Eventually I shall take a tube of epoxy to it, but it was sad because I know VUBOQ put a good bit of work into them. The other mug, at least, is in perfect condition and very lovely.



The Rest of the Weekend

Saturday was quite a big day around the farm. It was David's 40th and Landlady Paula's 60th birthday, so we had a big 100 year birthday bash for them in Paula and Wendy's brand spanking new barn, complete with live band, lots of food, and lots of booze. A good time was had by all, though the size of the crowd was a bit overwhelming.

On Sunday, the main order of business for us was setting up a wedding registry, as friends and loved ones have been asking us more and more frequently. Now, we're hardly just starting out in life, so our needs are relatively few, but one thing we really need is some coherency in the dinnerware department. David had been living in single mode for a decade when we started dating, and I had come away from the relationship with S with his old hand-me-down med school dishes - leaving behind the nice dinnerware set our parents had chipped in to get for us.

So we agreed on putting together a multicolor set of Fiesta® ware, which meant a trip to the local Macy's to get a better visual idea of some of the options available and a couple of hours of discussing which pieces we actually want and what colors were available in each piece - not a straightforward task when you're trying not to have the exact same color grouping in any two pieces. Eventually, though, we managed to put together a list that will give us some nice multicolor place settings but give our guests some inexpensive gift options.

I also added on a few bigger ticket items, just in case anyone is so inclined. After all, that's what wedding registries are for, and I really could use a decent food processor. And a workbench, and a handmixer, and....

Gimme That Buckled-Down Look

With 53.9% of the 152 votes cast, the buckle shoe is the clear crowd favorite. It's also the one David and I agreed on. In fact, I ordered it because it immediately made me say, "Oooh!" Honestly, I love all three of these styles, but (in my best Sean Connery) there can be only one*.

Um, yeah...anyway, the other two pairs will be headed back to the store soon, though there may be a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth over seeing them go.

No pulling of the hair, though. That's going away well enough of its own accord.



*I did not know until I just read it on IMDB, but the big scary guy who plays the Kurgan in "Highlander" also does the voice of Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants. The things you learn.