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.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. One of the design blogs I read linked to an artist, Mincing Mockingbird, who paints birds and whose painting titles are my new favorite thing ever:
This one is "Will You Please Put Down That US Magazine And Listen To Me?"
And this one is "My Genial And Relaxed Countenance Hides A Startling Amount Of Naked Rage."
2. I reached back into my first days in marketing and was able to set up Google Analytics on the blog. It tells me that I've had 4 unique visitors since last week, which is probably pretty accurate.

3. A Moab trip is planned for next weekend, so I've been spending downtime staring at the hotel's river cam: redcliffslodge.com/webcam

Actually, It's Not

C.S. Lewis Was A Wino

Well, he probably wasn't a wino, but I think he liked it. I was reading Prince Caspian last night waiting for dinner and there were two separate passages about it:
"..what was in [the pitcher] was not water but the richest wine, red as red-currant jelly, smooth as oil, strong as beef, warming as tea, cool as dew."

And not ten pages later:
"Then...came the wines: dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellowy-green and greenish-yellow."

Is anyone surprised to learn that this was one of my favorite Narnia books as a child?

Tuesday Project Roundup: "Now Is The Winter of Our Discontent."

Emphasis on the "tent":
The problem with sewing a muumuu in February is that you can't really justify its voluminousness until the weather is hot. So until then, I have the world's roomiest jumper.

I do like how it turned out; I like muumuus. (Nothing better has been invented for summer wear. Those old ladies knew.) I just got a little overeager for the weather to warm up.

The plaid is very nice, though--the colors of dry grass and evening light on the foothills in August. It will look nice with a tan.

Farm Escapism Monday

If I had a goat dairy, I might have to let my hair grow out so the goats could nom on my braid, because that's just so cute:
(But to be fair, if I had a goat dairy in the winter I might miss things like days inside, health insurance, steady paychecks...maybe.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. There was consternation at the apartment this morning: a Desert News was delivered by mistake! As much as I mock the Tribune, it really is the lesser of two evils—and when I had it re-delivered this morning, there was a picture of a kitty in the masthead. You’d never see kitties in the News of Deseret. They are clearly the anti-kitten paper.

2. Did anyone else want to start singing Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” every time someone mentioned the total eclipse of the moon this week?

3. Speaking of music, someone in the next row of cubes at work has been listening to Led Zeppelin at barely-discernible volumes for three weeks straight now. I think Led Zeppelin is a brilliant band, but not when you can just hear snippets of songs repeated throughout the day, every day, for three weeks. I might start screaming along with Robert Plant.

4. And in this week’s report on the coming of spring, there are crocus and tulip and daffodil bulbs coming up in the planters downtown.

Me And My Half Elf Army

Comments are still a novelty to me, so I was excited to see one on my Buttars post from yesterday. And guess what? It was from a Buttars supporter! It was so very crazy that I deleted it—then thought, “But it’s too good not to share.” Below, my favorite parts of it (oh yes, it was lopnger):

you are a hypocrite liar who publicly preaches free speech (except when it is something with which you disagree)but who really hates open discourse.

anyone who might say, “hey, you have a black mark on your {record}{shirt} {soul}” is a racist devil to be destroyed.
If i say “that black mark on your record is one ugly baby” I should have my gonads removed by a team of man hating lesbian trasgendered [sic] half elf midgets with a speech impediment.

Because people who think Buttars is a hate-monger with the faintest grasp of subject-verb agreement are clearly man-hating lesbian (and transgendered--bonus!) half elf midgets with a speech impediment. Sorry, guys.

Buttars Rides Again

Buttars is feeling picked on from all the backlash to his "black baby" comment, but guess what? He wasn't referring to a human! Also: He just can't understand how people can be so mean. "To have it taken to the extreme of hate that it has achieved is . . . I have no idea how people could act like that," he says.

Neither do we, Senator.

Tuesday Project Roundup: MasterCard Edition

Three yards of Japanese duck print fabric (a splurge): $24
One vintage pattern: $7.
Four pearl snaps from my mom's stash (also vintage): $0.


Wearing animals on your clothing as a grownup: Priceless.

I Want A Bird On MY Head

And I want that headscarf, just in case, and I want to be looking over that valley at those power lines. It's not long until it's summer here and we get our migration of scarlet macaws, right?

(Image by Paul Costello, via the Decorno site.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Even with the snow over the past two days, I keep thinking of this quote from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: "This is no thaw, this is spring!" (Said by the evil dwarf to the White Witch, which pisses her off.)

2. The Muppet Show has been coming from Netflix this week and I'm remembering things I didn't know I'd forgotten, like DR. TEETH AND THE ELECTRIC MAYHEM:
That is seriously the best band name ever.

3. I found a gallery of images online this week called Silhouette Masterpiece Theater, which is as cool as it sounds. This is my favorite (click to enlarge):

St. Valentine's

As Nigel Slater says, "St. Valentine's is rather like Christmas, in that if you ignore it, you always end up regretting it, feeling mean and cynical. Yes, it is more than a bit cheesy, but I think we have to go with it."

And go with it we shall, Nigel. In years past, I have never been bothered by being single on Valentine's Day nearly as much as I was bothered by being single on New Years Eve, but I obviously didn't do much in the way of celebration. And when I wasn't alone I still didn't really make a fuss about the holiday, due to the nagging fear that the partner of the moment would get scared off. (Which I guess they did anyway. No great loss.)

But now, I have a honey who seems like he will stick around in spite of my many moments, and I couldn't be happier that his idea of celebrating nearly everything is just like mine: seafood. (And champagne, of course; any excuse for that.) Happy St. Valentine's, my seafood-eating, blog-commenting, public-declaration-of-sentiment-inducing, continually-patient, dear.

A Note To Senator Chris Buttars

Dear Chris (on the right),
Jesus said we shouldn't hate people. Just thought you might need a little reminder.

Love,
Karen


(Story here.)
(Bonus story of more inappropriateness here.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Next, I Will Sew A Car Edition

Now I’m sewing furniture. Well, it’s technically a really big pillow (that took 8.5 pounds of fiberfill to stuff!) but it’s being used as an ottoman, so I think it’s furniture. Behold!

Of course, right after I finished this my brother and sister-in-law found a round ottoman at Target for the price I paid for the fabric alone. But mine is certainly more fiberfill-ious.

Cute Goat Picture Monday

Today I was going to play either Ad Police (the Utah anti-meth ads really bother me) or Word Police (seriously, Trolley Square? You really want to post a flier a year after your fatal shootings that says, "Hit the Bricks! Shop til You Drop!" ?) but I don't think righteous indignation is what we need on a Monday.

No, what we need on a Monday are pictures of cute baby goats:

(Pictures taken from search results for "cute baby goat," of course.)

Now we can pretend we work on a goat dairy instead of various business-to-business tech accounts.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Tribune had an awesome typo this week in Wednesday's coverage of restaurants offering fixed-price, or prix-fixe (pronounced "pree feex") meals: They spelled it "pre-fixe".

2. Quote of the week from my blog readings: Rachel Ray "has tourettes of retarded sayings" (from isuwannee.blogspot.com).

3. Have you been wondering what breed of sheep to include on your ranch? Check out the A-Z guide of sheep breeds! www.sheep101.info

Winter, I Say, "Meh" To You

I was so unhappy to see the snow yesterday morning, but then I remembered that 1.) it'd not dark until 6:00 these days; 2.) I can hear birds in the morning; and 3.) there are real afternoons again--it's not just lunchtime and then dusk.

Plus, I found this quote in The Kitchen Diaries while I was looking for something to cook that wasn't cream- or cheese-based over the weekend:
"People get down about this time of year, but even today [at the market] there were fat little partridges, clementines heavy with juice, and bunches of narcissi to cheer us up. There is good stuff if you are prepared to go and find it."

And while partridge carcasses don't cheer me up, the sentiment of the last line is sound.

Word Police 2: Bad Word Combinations In The Latest Anthropologie Catalog

"Eyelet cargo shorts"
"Fiery dew"
"Zulu knobs"
"Colorful buzzards"

Oh Anthropologie, your clothes are so expensive, your copy so bad.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Stop Worrying About Throw Pillows And Go Vote Edition

Remember: Obama, bama, bo-bama, banana fana fo-fama, mi my mo mama--OBAMA!

Because we can always worry about what throw pillows to make to match the couch later.

Post-Superbowl Madness

MADNESS, I say! I couldn't care less about the actual football, but there were some high points. Did you see the kitty halftime show on Animal Planet? The FedEx commercial with the giant pigeons?

Another high point: This McSweeney's list, titled "NFL Players Whose Names Sound Vaguely Dickensian, And The Characters They Would Be In An Actual Dickens Novel (2007-2008 Regular Season Edition."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have a couch! I feel just like a real adult now, with a KitchenAid and flat-pack furniture.
2. It's February 1st, also known as Imbolc if you're a Celt or St. Brigid's Day if you're a Catholic. Essentially, it's a pagan Groundhog Day, although it does signal the beginning of the end of winter.

3. Here's a philosophical question to ponder: Do you think the alpacas know that the reflection in the mirror is themselves?

Word Police

Check out this sentence from yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune article, astonishing in both its construction and in what it reveals:

"Hinckley, after all, has been called the first 'rock star' Mormon prophet for having appeared before tens of thousands of Mormon youths--from Brazil to Nigeria to Radio City Music Hall--in entertainment-oriented stadium events on the eve of temple dedications in those locations."

Wow! Who knew there was a Mormon temple in Radio City Music Hall? They're certainly branching out.

Speaking Of Dressing Seasonally

Posting about wearing a dress in the middle of winter yesterday made me think about this section of a Robert Hass poem, "Santa Barbara Road," from Human Wishes:

Everything rises from the dead in June.
There is some treasure hidden in the heart of summer
everyone remembers now, and they can't be sure
the lives they live in will discover it.
They remember the smells of childhood vacations.
The men buy maps, raffish hats. Some women
pray to it by wearing blouses
with small buttons you have to button patiently,
as if to say, this is not winter, not
the cold shudder of dressing in the dark.

Yeah, I'm getting pretty tired of that cold shudder in the mornings.

Tuesday Project Roundup Episode VI: Return Of The Dress

I am so very tired of winter. So I decided to ignore the last brutal weeks of cold and snow and make a dress. Of course, it is a dress that can be worn now, with boots, because as you may have guessed I lack the patience to sew a dress and not wear it until the weather permits, and I hate being cold too much to wear it weather un-permitting. Anyway, the dress:
"I can't stop staring at these boots! I love them so much it makes me blurry!"

Here is a detail of the yoke and its little inset thing, un-blurred by boot love: I think my pattern taste is moving up through the decades, because these smock-y hippie dresses are a far cry from the 50's housedresses from last summer. This particular dress was from a modern pattern, but look at what I have planned next--1970's GOLD! Check out view B there. I think I have the same hair--I know I have the same boots.

"Looks Like Someone Has A Case Of The Mondays!"

Now that the couch is ordered, I have boots, and I escaped the layoffs, I'm feeling the end-of-January slump. It's hard to be excited at either job, so I'll just have to remind myself:
Of course, I don't know what that target is, but at least it involves a cat picture.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. OMGPONIES!!!!!111!!NO,WAIT, BOOTS!!!!!!11!!!! My boots arrived yesterday. I haven't bought good shoes in over a year...oh, I loved this feeling. (Don't worry; I didn't charge them.) Here they are, with a modeled shot coming next week:
2. The blogs I read had some good quotes this week. The winners: "The finished work is called a manuscript, if you are the editor and publisher, and 'My Precious', if you are the author." (YarnHarlot) and "He looks like a cross between the mayor of Whoville and an angry Viking." (Agency Tart)

3. Have you been wondering what's going on with the alpacas? There's a lot of snow! They're furry! Here is Ziggy Marley, saying hello!

Picutres Of, And Poems About, Rocks

Some Roethke to go with the pictures, from "O Thou Opening, Thou," published in The Waking, 1953:

"The dark has its own light.
A son has many fathers.
Stand by a slow stream:
Hear the sigh of what is.
Be a pleased rock
On a plain day.
Waking's
Kissing.
Yes."

The "pleased rocks"--
The "slow stream"--

And, um, something else. But it also has bighorn sheep in the background! (I couldn't find a poem that worked for this one.)

More Zion Tomorrow

I didn't mention that the agency had a round of layoffs (!) and a re-organization last week. The good news is I still have a job with some new accounts. The bad news is those new accounts have a daily status meeting at 9:30, so so much for those long morning posts.

I was going to put up some more pictures from our trip, but Blogger is giving me trouble and it's time to get dressed like I'm a creative at an ad agency (smocks!), so check back tomorrow.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Car Knitting Edition

Mr. Isbell and I got out of town and down to Zion (or "Ziens," as they say here) for the weekend. We had just a few days so there wasn't much planned--just a few hikes and probably finding some appropriate quotes from Ed Abbey to blog about. And I was very excited about the prospect of car knitting (while a passenger, of course) on the drive there and back. I did get some in on the drive down, but then our plans had to change:Oh noes!

So I got to take us on scenic drives around the park, through the tunnel, and back home:

Fortunately, Mr. Isbell will recover, AND the hotel had a great view form the balcony:
It was a good trip.

Thursday Unrelated Information

1. I'll be taking a few days away from the computer and will report how that went on Tuesday. There will be craftiness. There will be adventure. There may even be pictures.

2. Last night I dreamed I was at a party at Martha Stewart's house with my mother and my sewing friend from work. Martha was serving champagne and when I told her it was delicious, she said, "Thanks, that bottle was ten thousand dollars." What can it mean?!
3. Today = The Day of Ordering The Couch. Hurray for a tangible benefit to two months of a second job! (Speaking of, I figured out that if I kept working two extra weeks in February, I could buy boots...must..get...shoes....)

I Don't Know If This Makes It Better Or Worse

I don't remember faces well. People who do remember faces don't quite get this:

Face Rememberer: "Oh, I'm bad at remembering names, too. Terrible."
Me: "No, I can't remember faces. I don't realize I've met the person talking to me."
FR: "I know, it's awful to not remember their name."
Me: [Sigh.]

But if someone's not in front of me, I can't pull up a clear mental image of them--even loved ones. So random acquaintances or classmates from long ago are even more of a crap shoot, because there's nothing to pull up to help me remember them. I always dread hearing "Karen! Hi!" from a stranger, because it's really not a stranger, just someone I don't recall seeing despite having been in three years of classes together.

So my post from a week ago about a long-lost classmate who's now the poet laureate with published books and a doctorate? Yeah, my classmate isn't that woman. She had the same name--I'm not crazy, just bad with faces--and similar dark hair and she looked poetic, so I just assumed it was she. It took Mr. Isbell pointing out that she got her B.A. in 1980 to make me realize last night that all that angst and lyrics and the "sad little blog post" were spent on the wrong person.

So, to the Utah Poet Laureate: I'm sorry I was making fun of your hair. And to the rest of the world: Why can't everyone just wear name tags?

Tuesday Project Roundup: Use Your Imagination Edition

No pictures today, but this week I did knit baby booties (for my cousin, thank you; if I were to announce my own need of baby booties to the internet you can be sure the post would be titled “Oh Shit”) and start a tunic for me from an early 60’s pattern. The tunic fabric is this:

I’m also going to order this fabric to make a smock-like dress:

I think I’m liking head scarves. And juvenile prints.

And Then I Was Like, “Whoa”

And then I realized I had forgotten to post anything this morning and that people might think the stomach flu had won. It didn’t; I’m just catching up after missing Thursday at job #1.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I ended up taking a sick day yesterday, so if you were wondering where another "sad little blog post" (to quote Mr. Isbell!) like Wednesday's was, that's what happened.

2. The Tribune this morning wrote about Ralph "O RLY?" Becker's plan to create a domestic partner registry and included the best quote from Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan: "I just have to be certain we're not coming in the back door of the Amendment 3 [ban on gay marriage and civil unions]". The back door, Buttars? O RLY?

3. ..and that's all I have, I guess. Enjoy the weekend not having stomach flu!

A Story In Two Parts, Ending With A Beatles Song

First part: I went into job #2 during December and saw a business card by the cash register. It was a U of U card for a professor with a doctorate, Katherine Coles. Katy Coles! I had an intermediate poetry class with her at the U, back when I wanted to get a double major. I never really talked to her but remember admiring and envying her poems, her gray pants, her songwriting skills, her poetic dark straight hair that did what she wanted it to. (I still had long curly hair then. Or rather, the hair had me.) I looked around my second job during Christmas in retail hell, had a little moment of “Huh. Wonder where I’d be if I had pursued English to a doctorate level” and forgot about it.

Second part: I was reading the coverage of Ralph “O RLY?” Becker’s swearing in yesterday in the Tribune, and noticed that he read a poem from Utah’s Poet Laureate. Guess who? Katherine Coles. She’s written two novels and four poetry collections; she’s been published in the Paris Review and the New Republic; she’s a Utah Poet Laureate who can actually write, unlike the last one. (Check out the poem—very Mark Strand.)

I can’t really express my feelings about these two stories. (I bet Katy could!) There’s some “That could be me,” some “But I scorn the idea of a state poet laureate,” some “I have a glamorous ad job,” some “Well, it isn’t really glamorous but I bet professors don’t earn lots of money, either” and all sorts of things in between. You know the medley that ends side two of Abbey Road, with You Never Give Me Your Money, Polythene Pam, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, and Carry That Weight (“a long time”)? Oddly, that’s exactly how I feel.

Tuesday Project Roundup: If I Make Spring Clothes, Will It Be Spring? Edition

Here is the first project of the year, a light blue smock-like blouse. (Yes, the SLB reappears; I think I'll rock the materninty look again for spring and summer.)
I'm happy with it, and especially proud that I added the collar myself--drafted a pattern for it from instructions online, and engineered it into the body on my own.

It's less maternity-looking when it's on, because the armholes and bodice in the pattern I used (Simplicity 3778) actually fit very well. I just couldn't get a decent modeled picture because it was so dark in the house last night. I guess it's not really spring at all.

Can Someone Adopt Wilbur So I Don’t Have To Cry Into My Pillow At Night?

Petfinder.com is a tricky site for me: It’s good because I can find a kitty to adopt but it’s bad because I can find a lot of kitties I can’t adopt—such as Wilbur here.

DO NOT click here if you don’t want to read a sad story. There’s a sad reason Wilbur is wearing a t-shirt and special collar. There’s an even more sad reason I can’t adopt him: He has FIV and I know I don’t have the savings to cover the vet trips he would need. But isn’t he a handsome boy? Doesn’t he look like a good kitty? I’m tempted to donate most of my pet savings towards his care anyway.

I don’t want to put up a sad post on a Monday, so let’s focus our positive energy and the power of the Internet and see if we can find Wilbur a home. I’m sure we can. (And I have to make a new rule: No looking for pets online when I’m feeling weepy.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. What a nice burthday! Thanks, family! We all love champagne.

2. Here's a quote from the knitting book I got for my birthday, Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears, talking about the benefits of wool:
"It is true that a synthetic sweater can be washed and dried in machines, but to me this rather reduces it to the level of a sweatshirt. Washing a real sweater is akin to bathing a baby, and brings the same satisfaction of producing a clean, pretty, sweet-smelling creature."
(I like how "real"=wool in her mind, too.)

3. And speaking of wool, I have BIRTHDAY YARN to plan a project for, alpaca yarn to knit into a scarf for a friend, a baby shower present to finish knitting, a blouse to finish sewing, and another two planned out. I think I'm reacting against only making gifts in December.

4. And here's to a late birthday present: Obama bama, bo-bama, banana fana bo-bama, mi my mo-mama--OBAMA!

On This Day In History...

1521: Martin Luther excommunicated
1924: Sarcophagus of Tutankhamem discovered
1959: Alaska admitted as the 49th state
1980: Me!

It's my birthday. I plan to eat seafood.