More on snow, and other things.

So, yes, we survived the snow.  (Actually, it has snowed considerably in the last few days, in addition to last week's dump.)  I suppose the most outrageous thing was that our post office was closed last Wednesday.  The United States Post Office.  Not that it mattered much, because they couldn't deliver my mail anyway.

 

Under that awning is my front door and mailbox.  Didn't get cleared until sometime Friday. Good thing, too, since I don't know how I could have gone another day without my pile of superfluous Eddie Bauer catalogs.

I realized it's been a while since I last dealt with that kind of storm - offhand, I can't recall the last time I had to undertake lots and lots of serious shoveling to pull out the car, but it happened a few times a year when I lived in Boston.  Oh, well, it's colder here. 

And speaking of shoveling, there's no way I could possibly handle it right now, physically.  Fortunately, my sister is here to very generously take care of things like that.  Which requires some explanation in the way of general update.  My Sister the Blond Artist is living with me for the next several months.  This was planned before I discovered that my entire body was going to be down for maintenance - she was needing a home base for one of those transitional life-gap phases, and a way out of an untenable work situation - but, given the timing, having her here has been invaluable to me.  She's taken over most of the food-related tasks and anything with the potential to involve physical labor.  

And she brought with her a fourth member to round out our little household, the Most Handsome Mr. Bakerloo.

. 

It took a while, but he and Lexi have been able to negotiate a delicate truce.  Mostly.  He's younger and very playful.  Under the influence of string, he can sometimes be persuaded to do backflips in full layout four feet off the floor. 

.....

Overall, things are...difficult, right now.  Sometimes exhausting, frustrating, worrying, overwhelming - physically and emotionally, sometimes both.  At times, I think the only thing that keeps me from dissolving into a bout of panic is the fact that I have too many feelings about too many things to know where to start.  

It's going to be ok, one way or another.  I really do believe that.  But it's hard to be here, now.

The Bowl that was Super

For some reason, the game had a hard time holding my interest.  I don't watch much football - I do like the game, but apparently not enough to spend any time on it.  I kept feeling the urge to simultaneously do other things, like crochet, read a novel, or search for old episodes of What Not to Wear on the web (can't explain that one).  My only clear game memory is of looking up sometime during the third quarter to discover the Saints were up by 5, which was puzzling at the time.

Halftime was kind of sad.  Did anybody else think Roger Daltrey looked like something that belongs in Vegas?

Flipping channels before the game, we stumbled on Animal Planet, which immediately engaged the roommate's attention.  So, yeah, we did have to watch some of the Puppy Bowl:

A Superfluity of Updates (Part 2)

5. Zeitgeist Photos:

Neither Belgian nor Polish.  I am Siamese, if you please.

Love the tongue.

6. Fashion Anecdote:

I went to the Escher-Maze Mall (it's right across the street...) Friday evening and, in the course of 30 minutes, was mistaken (by other customers) for an employee in three successive stores.  I don't know why.  I was there because I had determined some time ago that I ought to acquire an additional coat, and to diversify my outerwear in general.  I've been living in the Lands of Emphatic Winter since I was 18, and it finally occurred to me that, just as it doesn't make sense to try to wear the same clothes at 20F as at 60F, it doesn't make sense to try to wear the same clothes at -20F as at 20F.  I'd been putting it off for a while, but realized that if I didn't move soon there'd be nothing left in the stores but bikinis.  The problem was finding something that didn't have a hood trimmed in that German Shepherd-colored acrylic fur.  I did buy something down and purple and quite warm.

7. Current fascinations:

• The nature of joy (theologically speaking).
  
  
• Scientific Literacy and Innumeracy (Stay tuned - E-week starts on February 14. Which is also Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, Presidents' Day weekend, Mardi Gras weekend, and the second full day of the Olympics - so very many things to celebrate!)

8. Mostly inexplicable subjects of recent dreams:

• Getting fired.
  
  
• Laundering twinsets (with disastrous results).
  
  
• Rear-ending other cars at stop lights every day for a week.
  
  
• Sleeping for six months straight, then waking up to discover it's suddenly August.
  
  
• Earning a second bachelor's degree entirely by accident.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas

Despite being incommunicado, I've been thinking of my blog friends and sending happy holiday thoughts. Barely checking email  or the rest of the web, though, so insert all appropriate belated greetings here.

I've taken off an entire two weeks for the sake of mental and physical health, and it has been glorious.  Lexi and I spent a whole week over Christmas in Rustingham with my parents and My Sister the Blond Artist, so I missed the great midwestern snow-in. I enjoyed napping extensively every day, and Lexi enjoyed the assortment of laps, and the fireplace, which she misses dearly, especially since it was 3F here this morning.

Phineas can't have all the cute kitty photos.

 

All these pics are from Chicagoland, since for some reason all the photos I took in NY were with MSBA's camera, and she hasn't sent them to me yet.

A few other highlights:

• Unlike the occasion of my last trip home, in August, none of the crazy parishoners stalking my father staggered into church falling down drunk and covered in their own vomit on Sunday morning.  I  suspect there are people who imagine the ministry as safe and boring.  That's so cute.
  
  
• Oh, oh, oh, how I miss Wegmans.  Like I can't even tell you.
  
  
• Also, Tim Horton's should really expand farther in the U.S. 
  
  
• Ohio must be in the middle of a rest stop renovation project, because the Ohio Turnpike has both the worst and the best travel plazas I've encountered in memory.  Seriously - one of them even sold me bland Cinnabons. How do you even do that?
  
  
• Best present: This clock, whose glory cannot be conveyed photographically, made by my amazingly talented uncle.  

He also made this sleigh tea light stand/Japanese vase several years back.

I may have mentioned this fall hasn't been a great one health-wise.  We're heading in the right direction, and mostly free of aches and pains (being able to use my hands more is good), but I'm still feeling kind of ick if I try to do much more than sit around.  But feeling good enough to be tired of doing nothing is a good sign.

Wishing a new year full of health and happiness to all my dear friends!

Look, more kitty.

And Lexi wishes a belated Meow-y Christmas and Happy New Year to: Micky, Sylvia, Megumi, Priscilla, Baker, Archie, Jacob, Phineas, and her favorite cousins, Izzy and Pippi.  And to Betty and Cora, even though cats rule and dogs drool.

Toothless

Well, almost.  Took Lexi in for oral surgery today. :(

I'd known already that she was missing some teeth, and that dental problems are often an issue for purebred cats, but it turned out she was already missing 15 (that's, like, half of them) and they had to remove most of the rest.  More dramatic than we were expecting, but according to the vet, "She must have got her teeth from the wrong part of the gene pool."  Just brought her home after work, but she seems to be ok - active, and so far not to bitter about being left with the scary vet people.  And she dove headfirst into the dry kibble, which is probably a good sign.  Because of the jaw shape, Siamese don't chew their food very much in the first place, so she may barely notice.  Giving her pain shots for the next four days might not be a lot of fun, though.

Picture is from the summer, btw, not today.

Miscellanea. Cold Miscellanea.

1. It's cold, and getting colder. There was a noticeable temperature drop over the 45 minutes I was out for lunch. (Lunch was soup. Warm, but not terribly filling, to be honest.) Forecast high tomorrow is -3F.

The cat is also cold, and has been experimenting with the best ways to take advantage of baseboard heat.

No, my Christmas tree isn't still up, I took that last month. Speaking of Christmas, she was thrilled to discover this newfangled gadget called a fireplace while at my parents' house in NY.

There actually is a fire in there, you just can't see it. Her latest move has been attempting to share my pajamas in the middle of the night. It may be kitty sweater time.

2. In other news, I have done a little bit of Making of Stuff. Scarves, specifically.

These were done as a part of the Special Olympics Scarf Project, in which knitters and crocheters were invited to make scarves in the official Special Olympics logo colors for competitors to wear during the 2009 opening ceremonies. I have a weird fascination with charity crafting, despite being skeptical of the underlying philosophy (the issue of the man-hours vs. significance of accomplishment). Regardless, I like them occasionally as an excuse to try new colorways and/or patterns. For anyone interested in the technical, the one on the lower left is hdc 2 strands; the bottom right is sc back loop alternating colors (reversible crochet? nifty). The top, inexplicably, is granny squares. I hate making granny squares, and I hate SuperSaver (the authorized yarn - it scratches and squeaks), so I don't know what I thought I'd enjoy about the two in combination.

3. And speaking of scarves, I got something immensely awesome from friends for Christmas. No photo, because it doesn't really look like anything, but it's this. A microwaveable scarf. Detatchable grain-filled inserts that heat up and keep you toasty. It's getting heavy use this week. Combined with this - another Christmas present and really, really, Really, REALLY fabulous - I can be in my own rather icy little heaven.

WT for the Feline-Americans

My parents came to visit me this summer and became infatuated with my cat. Well, perhaps that's overstating it, but certainly they were approval-seeking in the way one does with animals and very young relatives with whom one wishes to cuddle. Anyhow, I knew I'd lost them when, mere weeks, nay, days after meeting her, they bought her a present for my birthday.

Before you suggest it, no, I don't think it's transference of some longing for grandchildren. On the contrary, I think they've embraced the fact that both of their children are entirely too stubborn to get married as reassurance that they're not old enough to be grandparents. As My (little) Sister the Blond Artist is nearly 26, this is obviously not true; additionally, by the unfortunate sociological standards of Rustingham, New York, where they live, they're plenty old enough to be great-grandparents of a fourth-grader. (They're under 55. It's just that kind of town.)

Cuter than a grandchild, and no diapers!

All that to say that dear Lexi has been invited to the family estate for Christmas. Though we haven't traveled together for any such distance, her temperament has settled such that I don't foresee it being a problem. In preparation, though, I did buy her a collar and ID tag, figuring I'd better give her a little time to get used to wearing them. And with that last idea, I was decidedly on target. Two problems:

1. She's very small, even for Siamese, who run lean. I'm not sure of her exact weight, but it's under seven pounds. I thought I might have to go back to the pet store for a kitten collar, but the one I bought adjusts down just small enough.
   
   
2. She is also, by vehemently held personal conviction, a nudist.

She was not enthusiastic about this collar idea. Not at all. After a great deal of vigorous head-shaking, she tried to back out of it by marching backward around the entire navigable perimeter of the apartment. In the coup de grace, she managed to slide her jaw under the collar, but then couldn't get it any farther off, and so was wearing it as a gag. This was a crisis. I was on the phone with my dad at the time, and had to tell him, "Hold on, the cat is ramming her head against the wall." (I did manage to adjust it down smaller after that, so I think we can avoid that problem in future).

Pictured: Cat, Torture Device.

Fortunately, we've had better luck since then, so I think that in a month we'll be all set to drive across Ohio.

Somebody Loves Me

Time and string toys heal all wounds.

Yes, pet me. Let me sit on your lap. Let me follow you around everywhere. Let me sleep in your bed curled up against your chest. Let me drink your tea. Let me sneeze in your face. Let me knead you incessantly - ignore the claws, please. Look into my beautiful blue eyes.

We just cuddled through the last installment of Pride and Prejudice on PBS. She likes to rub against Mr. Table - I figure it's the smooth texture. She likes to sit under the Big Shelf. Heaven help me the next time I need to sit without someone in my lap.

On second thought, perhaps a trial period would be wise.

This is my new (provisional*) roommate.

Her name is Lexi, and she wants me dead. Sigh.

*Where she came from is a long story, but the person who had her before suggested a trial period. It takes them a while, and we're definitely still in the wait-and-see phase. She's pretty, though.