The Cute Made Me Forget

The Toby Show last week consumed all my attention, so I forgot there was a birth and a death anniversary of my two favorite artists: Friday the 21st was Bach's birthday in 1685, and Friday the 28th was the day in 1941 when poor Virginia Woolf walked into the River Ouse.

In Toby-related news, he's very cute.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. KHAN!! KHAN!! I've been on a kick of sci-fi movies while I knit this endless cotton sweater: We've watched the original Star Wars movies and the last newest one; Starship Troopers (so very bad); the David Lynch version of Dune (which almost made Toby get named Leto, except he looked like a Toby); and, last night, The Wrath of Khan. Up next: The Search for Spock. I haven't seen any of the Star Trek movies as an adult, so it's pretty awesome.

2. Speaking of Toby names, he's already gotten a few nicknames: Squeakers, Tiny Toby, Tidy Toby, the Toble, and Toblerone.

3. This is for you, Dad!

Mr. And Mrs. Stompy Renewed Their Lease, Too

My upstairs neighbors are not particularly light of foot. I've seen both of them and neither of them weigh 300 pounds, but it sounds as if they do. Last night they were babysitting a small child, so there were three people running, crashing, and dropping things. I've learned to tune out the running, crashing, and dropping that starts every morning at 6:30, but Toby was bothered by the sounds last night, too.

I had to think of the Grinch wanting to steal Christmas from the Whos because they make noise. I'd do it to the Stompys if I could.

For Tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys,
Would wake bright and early. They'd rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!
Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE!
NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

The Pear Tree By The Parking Garage Almost Has Leaves

"With so many trees in the city, you could see spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly one morning."

A Moveable Feast

Tuesday Project Roundup: Nothing To Show But Toby

I still need to photograph the pattern and the four variations I've made from it that I talked about last week, but I got distracted and photographed Toby watching birds out the window:

I've been knitting, too--a cotton cardigan to wear over dresses in the summer--but there's really nothing to see yet, since I'm not past the shoulders and it's just plain stockinette. If you want to imagine it in tan, it's this pattern.

And inspired by the goat pictures and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, I've ordered some navy gingham to make into a dress that hopefully will come off more like a sophisticated nod to hobby farms than Dorothy from Kansas. (We shall see.)

Toby approves of the crafty plans. And birds.

Toby!

After one trip to the PetSmart Saturday adoption, one last-minute test for FIV, two different kinds of treats, three different kinds of food, twenty-four daylight hours of hiding under the bed, seven nighttime hours of yowling loud enough to wake the upstairs neighbors, one kitty bed, one purchased mouse toy, one homemade yarn toy, one robe tie that became a toy, and half a bag of catnip, Toby has joined the household:

And I'm so glad he did, because I was seriously doubting my cat-whispering skills during the Saturday Night of Yowls. Thankfully that was followed by the Sunday Night of "I'll Sleep So Close To You You Won't Be Able To Roll Over And You'll Get A Leg Cramp But You'll Love It Because I Am So Very Cute."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's been kind of a dark week in posts--major problems with our food supply, sickly cats, unending wars--so here's a link to a video of a cat purring. Mr. Isbell watched it and said, "That's almost a lion noise." These are some serious purrs.

2. If you want to leave work early today, say you want to go to a "choral meditation" at the Cathedral of the Madeleine and no one will give you a hard time.(They will think you're Catholic, though.) You'll get to hear the Pergolesi Stabat Mater.

3. In other entertainment news, the midnight movie at the Tower this weekend is Duel! My brother owns this movie, along with other awesome road classics such as Two Lane Blacktop and Vanishing Point.

Anniversaries

Happy Vernal Equinox! Curiously, there isn't a lot of history about how Druids celebrated this holiday, but the Christian way of determining Easter is Pagan enough: The first Sunday after the first full moon that follows the spring equinox.

And as of yesterday, we marked five years of the Iraq war. There's a really good article in the Tribune (I know, I never thought I'd say that, either) about the local protest that only drew 75 people, and about public apathy in general. To quote, "Just one in four Americans know that nearly 4,000 U.S. service members have died in Iraq." We're at 4,000 dead and 30,000 injured--and people think putting a "Support Our Troops" car magnet on their SUVs (not even a bumper sticker, a magnet) makes them good concerned citizens.

Support our troops. Get them home.

I Would Just Put Out Cat Food And Hope For The Best, But There Are Raccons In My Neighborhood

Perhaps you were wondering if, after nearly a year of dithering, preparing, and looking online, I actually went and looked for a cat in person last weekend. I did, while I was getting a litter box at PetSmart, and I saw a little cat that spoke to me. (He was actually behind glass in the more permanent pet display in the store, but I saw his mouth open.)

His name was Gus and he was a young Siamese with a white nose; I called his foster Sunday afternoon and left a message. I had thought I wanted an orange cat, but Gus had meowed at me through the glass and then played with a toy! I had to call again Monday (all after arranging the litter box and thinking where Gus would like to sleep best and how cute he would be) and then found out someone had already spoken for him a few hours before I saw him.

I was sad, but moved right on to the next one I had seen on PetFinder, Harvey: Harvey was big and orange and white, which I told myself I really wanted in the first place. There's a video of Harvey online and in it he's rolling around and trying to give the camera head butts--that's even better than meowing through glass! I filled out the online application Monday morning and heard back right away from the adoption coordinator, and spent most of Tuesday waiting to hear from Harvey's foster parent.

We spoke in the afternoon and I heard all about how Harvey had been rescued from a feral colony and was sweet and mellow and a good indoor-only cat. I told his foster that Harvey sounded perfect and I wanted take him home, and we had planned that and were saying our goodbyes when his foster said, "He is FIV positive, by the way."

Now, I can understand why a shelter wouldn't indicate online if their animals are FIV or FeL positive, because obviously people don't want to adopt a cat that will require extra medical attention. But I was so disappointed, because I had set my heart on Harvey the way I had set it on Gus 48 hours before, and I know I can't take on a cat with FIV. It would be too hard for me to cover the kind of vet care I would want to give Harvey (or Wilbur, for that matter), and if I couldn't provide that care, I would feel terrible.

I felt pretty terrible anyway after I found out I would not be adopting an orange-and-white kitty that gives head bonks. My co-worker firmly believes that "pets choose the person they're meant to be with"--not a comforting thought last night.

I've been avoiding going to shelters because it would be sad to not be able to take all the cats home, but after the last few days I think that might have to be plan B: Go with no expectations to a place where they're not named, just numbered, and see what cat "chooses" me. It's that, or I should return the litter box.

(Seriously, people just take a kitten from a box in front of the grocery store that says "Free" and boom, they have a cat. They put out food and adopt a stray and have a cat. Crazy cat ladies have hundreds of cats! It shouldn't be this hard.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Does Making Bread Count?

It's not that I haven't been sewing--I've now made four out of the five variations on a vintage dress pattern--it's that I'm too lazy to get pictures taken. (I was thinking the latest variation could be my Easter dress. Although I technically don't attend church anymore, it's robin's egg blue and very spring-like.)

So no pictures, but I have another quote from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral that reflects on the homemade process:
"A lot of human hobbies, from knitting sweaters to building model airplanes, are probably rooted in the same human desire to control an entire process of manufacture. Karl Marx called it the antidote to alienation."

Kingsolver goes on to talk about the process of cooking as the antidote to "alimentary alienation," which made me wonder why I don't make my own bread more (I had sourdough starter in the family fridge all through junior high), which made me get some bread going last night. (No pictures of that, either.)

Don't be surprised if I've grown my hair into braids and am holding a chicken in the next photo shoot, though.

I'm Reading A Book

Maybe I should say I'm reading a new book, because since last July I've only been re-reading things: The Dune series, the young adult The Dark Is Rising series, M.F.K. Fisher, Hemingway, some Anne of Green Gables--whatever I picked up from the shelf.

I was at a different library a couple of weeks ago, though, and saw Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, her non-fiction account of trying to grow whatever her family eats for a year, starting with "enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals and enough sense to refrain from naming them."

I'm only three chapters into it but I highly recommend it. (When one dreams of a hobby farm and a big garden and fiber animals and posts pictures of goats on one's blog, that's probably a given.) Here's something to think about today:

"In two generations, we've transformed ourselves from a rural to an urban nation. [...] The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor, and dirt--two undeniable ingredients of farming. It's good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.

"If that is true, why isn't it good enough for someone else to know multiplication and the contents of the Bill of Rights? Is the story of bread, from tilled ground to our table, less relevant to our lives than the history of the thirteen colonies?"

And here's a goat picture. Cute!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Did you know there is a word to describe plants that have bluish-green or grayish leaves and/or a waxy bloom on them (like plums)? It's glaucous.

2. I'll be eating artichoke dip for dinner tonight. (This recipe, very easy and good.)

3. There might be a scientific reason behind why we love to search the web all day: According to this article, "coming across...new and richly interpretable information triggers a chemical reaction that makes us feel good, which in turn causes us to seek out even more of it."

The Aperitif

Spring has filled me with a sense of possibilities--the possibilities of cocktails. The time change makes lingering summer evenings seem very close, and while a gin and tonic is the drink of choice for hot weather, I've been happily trying out other suitable warmer-weather, pre-dinner drinks. (Ideally, of course, I would try these out in a cafe that I could walk to after work, maybe meeting friends there. I'd order a different aperitif a day from the menu to find my favorites, and then go home and eat something delicious, probably involving seafood.)

Sadly, there are no Parisian cafes in Salt Lake, so I've been doing my aperitif experimentation at home. My recent favorite is a far cry from the red wines I sucked down all winter just to keep warm--it's a vermouth cassis, which is white vermouth, creme de cassis, and soda water.
It's probably the French equivalent of a wine cooler, but it's good: it's just boozy enough for after work but not so strong as to impede cooking; it's a festive shade of pink; and it has a tasty berry-wine flavor that's not too sweet.

If you want to make one (and why wouldn't you?) take 2.5 parts of vermouth to .5 parts cassis and top with club soda and a lemon slice. C'est bon.

Invisible Cat!

I took the first step towards cat ownership Monday night when I bought these nice melamine bowls from Target.

I've been toying with the cat idea since last fall, and it's been so hard to decide whether to get one or not. It's not that I wasn't sold on the idea of a cat--I love cats; Mr. Isbell calls me "the cat whisperer"--it's that I was terrified to take on responsibility for another living creature. Would it be happy being an indoor only kitty? Would it get lonely during the day? What about a future family, how would that impact the kitty? Would I have enough money to take care of it if it got sick? (My cat struggle just reinforces my belief that 95% of pregnancies accidents, because imagine how much harder it would be to consciously decide to take on responsibility for a human.)

But I have bought bowls. And next I'll make a fleecy throw for the kitty to sleep on. And maybe, just maybe, I'll go look at kitties up for adoption this Saturday.

(Wilbur is still available, by the way. For the love of god, someone please adopt him!)

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Haven't Done A Crafty Thing In Days

Instead, I went to Moab for the weekend.It was cold but sunny; my sister-in-law kicked ass in the half marathon; we ate some fantastic fish tacos; and it was good to see that area again after so long. In fact, I think I can only express my feelings with a quote from a T.S. Eliot poem!

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Moab trip forecast: It will be warm(er) and there will be rocks.

2. Quote of the week from my blog reading (it's about Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel): "The Road defies all logic, ignores basic rules of fiction, casts an idealized version of the author's own son in the role of what should have been a near-feral child, and all but leg-humps the reader while decrying the fate of humanity."
Nothing like working "leg humps" into a book review. And it was on a knitting blog! Shouldn't knitters be more polite?

3. Obama is clearly the pro-cat candidate:

Go Read Another Site Today

I’m sorry I’ve just been linking out to other sites this week; I wanted to have a quote-y post about aperitifs today and why they’re fabulous, but I’m suddenly popular at work and had to rush in. Thus, no aperitifs (until tonight, when I am home and can make another tasty one!).

Instead, go visit the site, “Stuff White People Like.” It’s not hateful, just really funny—included are things like Whole Foods, not watching TV, Oscar parties, modern furniture, and many other things I, indeed, like.

This Is Great

Someone has removed Garfield from the "Garfield" comic strips, leaving Jon Arbuckle by himslef and creating, in their own words, "an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life."

If you like that sort of thing, go visit garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com for more.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Still Knitting, Still Fighting The Cylons

I've been trying to pace myself on my sewing projects since it still isn't dress season (warm days in winter are nice but it's still technically winter). But what to do while watching season 2 of the new Battlestar Galactica? Knit, a scarf of course: I get enough distraction from the Cylon drama but I can still look up and make comments such as, "Oh come on, Earth is so far in the past it's become a legend, but there's still such a thing as piano wire?" [or yellow pencils, or paper printouts, or model ships--in BSG, the future is just like now, but in space!].

Anyway, it's a scarf. A long rectangle made of yarn.
I like it because it looks like crochet. I don't know how to crochet; maybe I'll have to learn.

High School Reunion!

Last night, my friend forwarded the website for our upcoming 10 year reunion (with the note, "Look how many of them have three kids") and while just the organizers have signed the guest book so far, there were a lot that I recognized. All the girls that I went through sixth grade, junior high and high school with do, indeed, have three kids. I tried to explain to Mr. Isbell why I did not want to attend and had to resort to quoting Virginia Woolf. From To the Lighthouse:

For it was extraordinary to think that they had been capable of going on living all these years when she had not thought of them more than once all that time. How eventful her own life had been, during those same years. Yet perhaps Carrie Manning had not thought about her either. The thought was strange and distasteful.

(Part of me still wants to go--just to see how bad it will be.)