Today we have progress ... Roy is eating! Of course, he is 1) not eating in the kitchen and 2) not eating on a cat plate, instead preferring a nice dinner plate and 3) eating thinly sliced free-range no-salt turkey from Whole Foods, a mere $9.99/lb.

Which of course begs the question ... is Roy really sick or JUST NOT SPOILED ROTTEN ENOUGH?

Thanks for the kind words, Roy and his person are very appreciative. (Soba is wondering where her g-ddamn fan club is however and plotting ya'lls death.) Roy is still sort of falling over from time to time, but manages to work up enough strength to scratch me baldheaded twice a day during what we lovingly refer to here as OH GOD I HAVE TO GIVE YOU THESE ANTIBIOTICS PLEASE STOP HURTING ME.

I have to go now, his water dish is getting tepid. Thank you.

P.S. Yes. In my mind, crazy runs a spectrum, one end being minor (freak outs, PMS, oddities) and the other end being "wears a bra on one's head, speaks into a Pepsi can and directs traffic in her nightgown." I may have possibly seen that kind of crazy when I was about seven years old and apparently? Made a colorful impression on me.


 

Gangs of gun-toting women ... coming soon to a city near you!

Just a few things real quicklike on today, a Monday, possibly my first day not at work in weeks, and also ... I am going to really, finally Do It.

(It = laundry.)

Up 'til now I have been using the paleolithic method of laundry, where the heat and pressure from the top of the pile cleans the clothes at the bottom of the pile. No diamonds emerged, but the socks did band together and try to stage an insurrection.

Scary times here at Mount St. Washmore.

Then yesterday I broke hermitdom for a meeting of the Forces That Be -- Shannon, Karman and Jennifer came over to watch obsessive news coverage of the situation down south, drink beer in the middle of the day and formulate a disaster plan of our own.

Now, ya'll know that I'm a fan of disaster preparation (I have an earthquake kit of really startling proportions) and I have all these far-fetched plans about how to get me and the cats out of this city in a caravan of crazy cat ladies and fellow knitters should something bad go down.

But when the New Orleans situation became dangerous, and those folks down in three states were left without food or water or protection for five days, I started to think what would happen... what would really happen if some big catastrophe shook the Los Angeles area, which is pretty much teetering on lawlessness even on a good day.

Anyway, you can kind of see where this is going, with me and Shannon being the girliest of girly girls, and also possibly OCD and CRAZY, so here we are talking about owning GUNS and how we will be just like Brenda Lee Johnson from The Closer (I LOVE THAT SHOW, SHE TALKS JUST LIKE I DO) or that movie with Drew Barrymore where she plays the outlaw/hooker/cowgirl and none of us could remember if that movie had a happy ending, but we are sure it probably did.

And the irony is that here we have two lesbians, one southern fried divorcee and one Northern-Cali law student (who is opposed to the gun ownership issue, but agreed to take a gun safety class with us just in case) and we're going to be toting guns and forming a ... a gang, a militia of sorts, to protect our:

1. Cats
Which are NUMEROUS, since Shannon and Karman have 4 cats, I have 4 cats, and Jen has 2 cats. No math needed here. Us = one big herd of felines.

2. Yarn
NO PATONS UP COUNTRY WILL BE HARMED. BACK AWAY FROM THE YARN OR I WILL SHOOT.

3. Wine
See point #2, substitute "pinot noir" for "patons up country."

4. Dignity
Listen, no one is coming near this cookie without buying me a nice dinner and probably bringing me flowers. So I'll be damned if you're getting some just because we're having a natural disaster. BACK AWAY FROM THE COOCHIE OR SUFFER OUR WRATH.

So! Recap: If there's ever a disaster in Los Angeles, me and the girls will be holing up here at Chez Uterus with 10 cats, all the wine and water and chocolate one can store, and wearing our guns in hand-knitted holsters (of course mine will be felted as it is made of 100% wool Patons Up Country from my massive Yarn Survival Kit). We're still having an ongoing debate about whether or not cigs can go in the Disaster Readiness Supply Kit. But we will be armed, and dangerous, and willing to exercise our right to the second amendment and if ya'll don't believe us, we have a girl soon-to-be-lawyer here to INFORM YOUR ASS.

Because we! are prepared!

And maybe just a tee tiny bit CRAZY.

P.S. Also, when Did Anderson Cooper become SO HOT?

 

Oh, I forgot to tell ya'll I got attacked by nature this past weekend. This happens more than you may think, hence my total avoidance of nature. I mean, I love to appreciate the outdoors, mostly while watching the Travel Channel or looking at it from the safety of a climate-controlled vehicle. But to just turn me loose in nature is a bad, BAD idea. I may not return.

My family knows this. They have known me long enough to understand that nature is trying to kill me. I'm not sure when nature started hating me. Perhaps it was in the thriving metropolis of Comfort, Texas when I SWEAR to God I got bit by a snake on my pinkie toe. My bare feet were hanging over the side of a drainage ditch that my brother Guy and his friends were fishing in when suddenly OWWWWW and bloooood on my tooooeeee....

[Author's note: Yes, there are many things wrong with this scenario. File "fishing in drainage ditch" under "Stupid shit kids did in the '70s that should have killed us but didn't." The '70s were a different world, weren't they? We used to do things like ride bikes with other kids on the handlebars and we all thought it was just good, clean fun. ("Hey, ride me on the handlebars! Me! me!") And our parents were just slap happy to have us out of the house so they could discuss who shot J.R. or something.]

Anyway, my brother said I got bit on the pinkie toe by a snapping turtle, although I could have sworn it was a snake. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Waaaah I. got. bit amgonna DIEEEEE from a snake. (CRY CRY TEARS CRY)
Guy: It wasn't a snake, it was a snapping turtle! And if you tell mom I'm gonna throw you in there with him! So don't you dare tell!

To his credit, he and his friends did haul me back to the house (on the HANDLEBARS) and wash off my toe in the bathtub and put some Bactine a Band-Aid on it.

And while there is some debate in the family, I completely blame nature for the worst hair cut I ever had. We were in the car and I was chewing gum, and I meant to blow a bubble but the window was down and the wind -- which is the powerful and evil hand of Nature -- pulled the gum out of my mouth and deliberately, totally, into my hair.


At least I have an excuse for the bad hair.
From Left: Brian, Guy, me with bad haircut after gum incident


Or maybe nature was just testing me then but truly started hating me the summer my parents sent me off to summer camp. I LOVED summer camp. Except that on the third day of camp we had a nature walk to gather materials for a nature collage and all the materials I gathered happened to be poisonous, mainly poison oak, ivy and sumac. And I had poison ivy so bad it covered the inside of my ears, folks. No lie. And I missed the rest of summer camp because I was stuck in a bathtub full of Calamine lotion.

Or maybe it was the time nature froze my street and I broke my ankle on an ice puddle. Or the time nature gave me hives. I don't know what I did to nature, but it was apparently really, really bad. Because now nature wants me dead.

So, anyway, on Sunday I was sitting on my patio and I was smoking (Dad: I was reading great literature NOT smoking) and minding my own business and out of nowhere, completely unprovoked, a wasp attacked me. Nature stung the base of my neck and then went down the back of my shirt, where it bit me again and as I was pulling him out, he stung me on my hand. No lie.

Then I called Jennifer because she is my friiiieeennndd and will feel sorry for me.

Me: I just got stung by a wasp on my neck, twice, and on my hand and nature hates me and is trying to kill me.
Jen: Oh man, that sucks. Shouldn't you put something on it?
Me: Yeah! Like what?
Jen: Ummmm.... baking soda? Or powder? Or whatever it is you put in the fridge?
Me: Well, which one is it?
Jen: Well, which one do you have?
Me: Neither. Hey, I'm probably not allergic since I'm not dead yet? Right? Shouldn't my lungs be filling with fluid?
Jen: Definitely, the poison would have gone right to your brain.
(silence)
Jen: I just realized what I said. I'm probably not helping.
Me: You are the worst. friend. ever.
Jen: Maybe take some Tylenol? Or Ibuprofin?
Me: Isn't that what Tylenol is?
Jen: I don't know. So what are you going to do?
Me: I'm having a beer.
Jen: Ok, and take some Tylenol.
Me: I hate nature! Nature sucks! Nature can bite me!
Jen: And, in fact.... nature DID bite you. Ahahahahahahaha!
I really am a bad friend, I'm sorry. (Author's note: she did not sound sorry.)
Me: I hate you.


But apparently I am not allergic to wasps, since my lungs did not fill with fluid, even though the poison went STRAIGHT TO MY BRAIN. About ten o'clock last night I finally remembered what you are supposed to put on bee/wasp/hornet stings ... apply meat tenderizer! (I don't know if this is actually true, but please don't email me to tell me otherwise since I was really astonishingly proud of myself for having thought of this.) So I made up a paste of meat tenderizer and put it on the back of my neck, and it smelled like steak marinating. My cats started sniffing around, which freaked me out, since if the poison did go straight to my brain, and I died, my cats would not even wait for the Meow Mix to run out before they started feasting on my well-seasoned cadaver. And then I felt sorry for myself because I had to sit still with MEAT TENDERIZER on my neck because nature hates me and my cats are going to eat my dead body before I even get to go out on a date and maybe contract clapotis if I am lucky.

I managed, at some point, to blame this entire situation on Mr. X. It's amazing isn't it, the restorative and healing power of BLAME? And my magical medicinal meat tenderizer worked, I guess, since my neck feels fine, even though the poison has gone STRAIGHT TO MY BRAIN.

Because nature is trying to kill me. I swear.

I finally got new contacts that don’t spontaneously adhere to one another when removed from my eyes. These new ones can be worn for up to 6 days without having to take them out, so of course, I planned on wearing them until forced by gunpoint to remove them, but the contacts had other plans. I’ve already had three pairs in my eyeballs since last Monday and today my left eye is completely blurry. Which is great when your job consists of, you know, proofreading documents comprised of tiny type.

I’ve learned that although these contacts do not bind themselves to each other in compromising positions, I cannot rub my eyes ever when wearing them, as the contacts then get bored and relocate to inconvenient areas of my eye sockets to do further long-term damage to my vision. Also, it appears that they have enlisted the assistance of my eyelashes, as I have removed approximately 32,779 of them from my left eye.

I am becoming increasingly concerned with lash-baldness.

Turns out, this there's cool thing called "felting" that I've actually been doing for years.

Of course, my felting was entirely unintentional and was generally referred to as "fucking up." My felting (fucking up) occurred mostly with wool sweaters, though I do remember a lone mitten that was felted after my trip to Norway, and a wool hat that snuck in to the laundry between some towels and was felted into a cotton ball impersonator. Don't know what the towels were doing mingling with the outerwear, but I suspect he had something to do with it. Cat who digs in laundry.

Felting is the intentional shrinking and matting of knitted wool products, and it creates a lovely felt fabric that is smooth and sturdy and it can be shaped when wet (into purses and such.)

You knitter savants already know this, but I am a new knitter and this felting thing was a fascinating discovery. Had I known that ruining wool in the washer would be such a popular craft, I would have made something out of that matted fisherman's sweater in the 11th grade.

I also fondly recall a wool sweater vest (don't ask) that was ugly and loose... slutty me decided to wash 'n shrink it for a Catholic-schoolgirl-gone-bad vibe. However, having never before worked my slutty high school magic on wool I was not prepared for the tiny vestglob that emerged from the washer and dryer. Turns out, one must not dry the felted wool in the tumbler. You shape it and let it air dry.

Good to know.

Now that I have discovered felting is an actual desired result, I'm very anxious to try it. I am going to make the Kitty Pi.

Oh yes I am.

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