Friday, May 09, 2008
Putting ribbons to good use however has not.
Filed Under: Cats
Friday, May 02, 2008
This is Bunny and Veeb's favorite Aunt Mouse. My dad got her one weekend when my mother wasn't home to say no, he called me up to tell me about it, described how skinny and wiry she is, so I told him he should name her Mouse.
Ten years later Mouse has gained a couple of gray hairs and more than a couple of pounds. She's got cow udder for a gut. From other angles it looks like a peach. Or a baboon's behind. Or a giant hooha.
Despite the advanced age and weight, Mouse is still the greatest nemesis to mice, gophers, and the two frogs that live in the little koi pond out front. She's being sent to her cousins in DC when my mom moves to China next month - they have a huge yard filled with other playmates so I hope she'll be happy there and not try to walk all the way back home. Although she could use the exercise.
We're definitely a little more worried about this one.
This is Mocha. She's a poodle and she's eleven years old. I call her the World's Saddest Puppy because she spends about 80% of her little dog life waiting for my mother to come home. When she goes out for errands I try to distract Mocha from the window with a rousing game of cards or a belly rub or a dog treat. But she was never a playful dog - tennis balls bounced acrossed the yard unchased - a belly rub from me is about as welcome as a bath, and a dog treat doesn't last 5 seconds long enough for her to forget that there's a window with a view that she has to get back to. I even try talking to her, interjecting her name every three words so she'd look at me. But her focus is 100% on mom.
So now the question is, do they bring the dog with them to China and risk her not making the long and scary travel plus the long and scary month-long quarantine? Or do they leave her with friends and risk her dying of a broken heart?
If I could take you Mocha I would.
Three years is a long time to wait by the window.
I'm doing some research online, but if anyone has some first-hand experience traveling with pets overseas, I'd love to hear it!
Filed Under: Cats
Monday, April 28, 2008
Duck left last week. I'm still in Atlanta, still helping my Mom clean out the house. It's like a giant spider lived here, what with all the cobwebs and detritus of dried bug corpses littered in every unswept corner. Can't wait to go back to mine so I can start my life anew as a minimalist slash obsessive-compulsive neatfreak. I will be a caveman meets MarthaStewart, possessing only a sharp rock, and a couple of votive candles.
I was taking a break at friends' house for dinner last night. We were gossiping about old high school acquaintances - who has kids and how many, who are balding, who are married and who are already divorced - all that juicy stuff, which led to a discussion as to the appropriate age for marriage. Apparently age is pretty much the only deciding factor used to determine wedded longevity, and according to my high school buddy, I married too young. You're just feeling dumb that it took you 10 years to propose to your girlfriend, but look now you've already spawned! I countered. I'm still gettin' it AND sleeping eight hours a night haha! I like how old friends can be relied upon with all the non-sugarcoating. That led to some reminiscing about our wedding in Puerto Rico, and it was only after a full 10 minutes' discussion that I suddenly bolted upright and screamed, WAIT WHAT'S TODAY'S DATE?!?!
Today's Date (as in yesterday) would be our 6th anniversary. I would have mentioned it to Duck during the two phone calls we had earlier in the day. Had I remembered. Had either of us remembered. Heh.
April 27, 2002
Here's to 60 more years of forgetting!
Filed Under: Life
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Nestled somewhere in this jungle field is my parents' house, which they have lived in the past twenty years and for which the mortgage has been all payed off, yay! I lived here too, but for a much shorter period of time, aged 13 to 18. Only five years, but I can distinctly remember junior year of high school, with the scary senior year and the even scarier college and the Big Bad World looming, talking to my friend Michelle in the kitchen and together wondering how long, once we left home, we would be able to last on Taco Bell and Coca-Cola before dying.
Goldfinch picnic in the backyard.
In the backyard is also buried my dog Beau and my cats Pepper and Tammy, may they rest in peace.
But la. We flew the coop and did survive out in the big bad world afterall, and with finer nurishment than that of canned beans or soda thankfully, and it's been a very long time since we've referred to our houses as "my house" or "your house." It's now my parents' house, and I am just a guest.
Right now my parents' house is pretty much empty inside. It is the exact opposite of what it's like outside, with the masses of rose and azalea bushes, wisteria and camellia trees, peonies and irises bursting from every corner. There is a thick row of rose bushes growing and spilling along the brick courtyard in the front of the house that has not even yet bloomed. Once it does, watch out! It will be a bumblebee's favorite playground. My mother sent me a small stump of this same rose variety up North when we bought out first house 6 years ago, I stuck it in the ground, where it remained stunted at 6 inches tall for all that time. What went wrong? Besides the fact that clearly I have inherited both my parents' messiness but not their green thumbs? Life isn't fair, I'm doomed to not pick after myself and kill plants forever.
My mother wails everyday how much she's going to miss her garden and her backyard wildlife. It's been a long while since I've missed this home myself, but I understand how she feels.
Filed Under: Travel | Atlanta | Wednesday is for Where I Live
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I'm down in Atlanta for a few weeks helping my parents clean out their house in preparation for their move to Beijing. After years and years of my dad threatening to relocate to no less than a dozen different places around the globe (including Taipei, Geneva, somewhere in France, Zambia, Johannesburg, South Africa, and also Birmingham, Alabama) for job-related reasons, my head started spinning and I stopped listening. Just call me when you're about to board that steamship and I'll show up on the boardwalk to wave goodbye, k?
So it has really, finally happened. It was bon voyage to dad on Monday, as he took of for his new life and new job in China. My mom is sticking around for another month or so to tie up loose ends before she joins him for their couple of years there. They've rented their house out to several friends of my high school friend, which I think is hilarious, all of my good furniture and books and piano and other possessions worth keeping were shipped to us in Boston several years ago, other large pieces of furniture have been sold or given away, the cars are sold...So all that's left to do is to throw out, pack up, store away 20 some-odd year's worth of clutter. As well as 20 some-odd year's worth of GRIME. The most aggressive kind of grime known to man. That part is making me cry. I now can blame my parents for me not being a neat freak. They are DIRTY PEOPLE.
Anyway, before my dad left we all took one last roadtrip to New Orleans, which is one of our most favoritist cities, so we could eat our most favorite critter, the crawfish.
Crawfish eaten daintily for breakfast. Yeah that's right! I had crawfish at 8 am!
Eating crawfish is probably as much an acquired taste as it is an acquired technique. They are boiled en masse in a vat of spices, to which some ears of corn and chunk of potatoes are also thrown in. To get to the sweet, spicy meat you break the body in half at the tail, suck out the head innards which has absorbed all the flavorings, and squeeze out the tail. It's not a lot of meat, so you have to go through at least 2 lbs of crawfish per person to be really satisfied.
Once you're had your fill, and if the spicing is done right, the outer rim of your lips will be swollen and chafed from the heat, your finger tips will be shriveled from the salt, your shirt will be splattered yellow with crawfish innards, and you'll be half-drunk from all the ice-cold beer you washed down. The whole process is filthy, disgusting and totally AWESOME.
I acquired my taste for crawfish during the several years we lived in Louisiana when I was around 10. Had I encountered my first crawfish plate at this time of my life, this post would be the topic of my Least Favorite Things. Because it really is just about the most unappetizing thing once you've gone through your however many pounds of crawfish, there are flies buzzing all around, and you're left with a heaping pile of exoskeletoned body parts.
Crawfish eaten not-so-daintily (or, the proper way)
It is utter crawfish carnage. Mmmmmm!!
Filed Under: Tuesday is for Favorite Things
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
I made Chevron Scarf - in the same fashion as the first one - for a friend's birthday, using the remainders of Sundara Yarn's Bartlett Pear (made entrelac socks with it), and a skein of this Koigu in a colorway that is both beautiful and craptastic, depending how far you stand. I really am not sure whether my friend is going to like the color combo. Us knitting insiders know that for the Chevron Scarf, the more the colors clash, the better (er right? I think?)...but will she feel the same way?
Lookit all the pretty colors.
I asked Bunny, always the most willing and photogenic fashion rabbit, to model it for me.
I think it'll do. As soon as I remove all the cat hairs.
Filed Under: Cats | Chevron Scarf | Completed Projects
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Pattern: Pomatomus
Yarn: Sundara Yarn, Ltd Edition Aqua Over Lilac
Needles: US1 dpns
I decreased the shell pattern to a 10-stitch repeat, giving a total of 60 stitches overall.
* Also, you omit rows 10, 11, 12, and 13 of both charts. The pattern is now a 10-stitch by 18-row repeat.
Aside from a pair of socks, it's been a really unproductive week. I mean really. un. productive. I've had this stupid itchy dry cough that peaks between midnight and 5am, despite the barrage of syrups and pills. I'm all bloodshot, drugged up and still coughing. I don't understand the reflex of coughing when you have nothing to cough up. By the way, have scientist figured out why we yawn? And isn't it weird that cats do it too? Yawn, that is. But they don't cough. Now why is that. If you've ever seen a coughing cat please let me know.
PS Rambing Rose cardigan remains in a heap in the corner, waiting for me to just take the 30 minutes already to finish the button bands. I'm still not in the mood for it. I'm visiting my parents this week in ATL, so I might pawn the job off to my mother.
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Socks | Pomatomus
Friday, April 04, 2008
We all have a preferred sleeping position. I like to sleep on my side with my palm under my cheek. Duck likes to sleep with his arm thrown over his head. Veebs likes to sleep on his back.
But I think Bunny's favorite sleeping position takes the cake. Have you seen anything so unorthodoxed and cute at the same time?!
Filed Under: Cats
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