Those Cats

8 things about Mayhem

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Brenda tagged Mayhem for the seven (or eight) things meme. I know, I know – lots of people have tagged me. I’m sort of meme-adverse and I’ll just apologize in advance to anyone who tags me. But Brenda made a very good point that I have 100 Things about me, 25 Things about Chaos, and even 5 weird things about Chaos… and nothing for May! Oh dear. Bad kitty mom.

1. Mayhem is a chewer. Chew chew chew. Fortunately, she doesn’t chew on power cords (much) and has only chewed on books that I own. I’m pretty sure that the library frowns on fang holes in paperback covers…

2. Mayhem believes herself to be the dominant kitty around here. Chaos does not agree. There are some rather spectacular disagreements about this. None of these disagreements has changed her mind.

3. Mayhem likes to sprawl froglike underneath the kitchen chairs. I think it looks like she’s been squashed.

4. Mayhem has the softest fur I’ve ever petted. Her tummy is particularly soft. This results in me snatching her up to rub her tummy more often than Mayhem feels is appropriate.

5. Mayhem doesn’t purr very often. She purred a lot when she was a wee kitten, but at some point she started to only purr when “nursing” from Chaos. Since Chaos has her mostly “weaned,” she rarely purrs anymore. This makes me sad.

6. Mayhem likes to be near me and almost always follows me around to see what I’m doing.

7. Mayhem is fascinated by water. She likes to lounge about in the bathroom sink. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a white bathroom sink free of black fur when you have a sink kitty?!) Sometimes she falls into the shower with me. She doesn’t stay long!

8. Mayhem is indefatigable when playing fetch and her favorite fetch toys are little furry mice that rattle. None of her mice have tails – she either eats the tails off (see #1) or I cut the tails off so as not to add to tail collection in her stomach!

“This is an exceptionally nice nip toy! Mmmm…. nip.” -Mayhem

Contests, Randonymity

Goats and llamas and cats, oh my!

52 Comments

Ok, now that we gave Jeanne a little break (and besides, she’s asleep on a plane to Miami right now anyway), we can get back to my last few pictures from Shepherd’s Harvest. I present the baby pygmy goat:

Apparently, when he’s fully grown, he might be knee high. Awwww…. I wonder if the cats would notice him? Can you litter train goats?

Besides all the goats and sheep that are part of Shepherd’s Harvest, there was a second, simultaneous event going on at the Washington County Fairgrounds:

Sort of boggles the mind, doesn’t it? What sort of magic do you suppose llamas do? Coin tricks? Levitation? Sydney, as the only magicians I’m aware of reading this blog, could you or Rick help us out here?

While we all wonder about that, let’s move on to what you’re totally waiting for – baby llamas!!

At that point, Jeanne pulled me away from the pen, because apparently the mama llamas were not happy with my picture taking…

Wow, talk about baleful stares… Thanks for the heads up, Jeanne!

Here’s a little prelude to some kitty photos you’ll see next week.

“Hee hee – maybe I can eat off this mousie tail before Mom steals the tail from me!” -Mayhem

Have a great weekend, everyone! I am heading “up nord to da cabin” with my brother and SIL. I’ll try to get caught up Sunday night…

Contests, Randonymity

In which I attempt to catch up

44 Comments

Nishanna is having a contest for her birthday – leave her a joke, a funny haiku, or anything else to make her smile and you could win a skein of Schaefer Anne. Leave your comments by 11:59 pm EDT, May 21.

Ali is having a summer knitting goals contest – you could win copies of her tank pattern and some Blue Sky Organic Cotton to make it with. The contest runs through the end of May.

Hee hee – apparently I’ve traumatized poor KitKatKnit for life…

Ok, I’ve been getting some grief (*cough* Jeanne *cough*) about how long I can possibly drag out Shepherd’s Harvest. She must think she’s in Groundhog Day or something. Anyway, I’ll give her a break today (no one wanted to see a baby pygmy goat/kid or baby llamas anyway) and turn to some thank yous.

Sallee sent Chaos a very interesting mouse, which I can’t find to photograph. The front half is a regular brown furry mouse. The back half is a soft sparkly red ball with a little bell inside. Finally, there’s a stubby mouse tail sticking out of the ball. Initially, the kitties weren’t quite sure what to do with it, but they’re definitely playing with it now. She also sent some cute stitchmarkers. Thanks, Sallee!

MamaTulip sent me the book Boo because of the cover, disavowing all knowledge of the contents. Thanks, MT! Janet and I set up a little swap between ourselves and she sent me these fabulous cards (I’m not sure I can bear to use them!) and some lovely Hempathy, which I’m looking forward to trying. Thank you, Janet!

“Maybe if I hug this yarn, Mom will let me keep it.” -Mayhem

E and I set up a little cover cd swap and E included this gorgeous necklace in perfect Chris colors! Yum – thank you, E! RheLynn sent me a lovely artist’s card that she painted. Thanks, RheLynn!

“Are you sure that isn’t a cat toy?? Are you completely sure?” -Mayhem

And finally, Frarochvia surprised me with a package yesterday.

“Ok, almost got it…” -Chaos

“Hmm…” -Chaos

“Whatever, big kitty, give it up with the mysterious thing and let me see!” -Mayhem

“Mmmm… tasty box!” -Mayhem

“Yarn and chocolate. It’s always yarn and chocolate, isn’t it, big kitty?” -Mayhem

“You’re catching on, May.” -Chaos

Thanks, Fraro! Bib bib bib bib…

Contests, Randonymity, Reading, Tunes

“Oh, it’s just a harmless little bunny, isn’t it?”

48 Comments

Diane is having a rant contest. Share a good rant with her before May 31, and you could win some sock yarn!

An Aquarium Drunkard is giving away copies of the forthcoming Soul Sides Vol 2: The Covers cd. To win, answer the trivia question in an email before midnight PDT, May 19.

Anyone in the Twin Cities interested in going to see the National at the 400 Bar on Friday, June 8? Let me know!!

Reading Update
Setting up a new computer has really cut into my knitting and reading time! Hopefully things are mostly set up by now so life can go back to normal around here.
A Finer End and And Justice, There Is None by Deborah Crombie. Continuing on with the Kincaid and James mysteries – only a few more left!
High Profile by Robert B. Parker. Another combined Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall mystery. I’m actually getting frustrated with both characters at this point! Why bother continuing either series if these characters are just going to stay stuck??
The Accidental Florist by Jill Churchill. This most recent Jane Jeffrey mystery didn’t feel very mysterious at all. Actually, I’m really not sure why I kept reading the book. Not a series I plan to continue reading anymore…

Today’s Shepherd’s Harvest Cute Animal Photo
The sign on the cage reads “For your safety, no fingers in cages!” Oh no! Run away! Break out the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! 😉

“If you think that bunny is fierce, check this out! Rawrrrrgh! Are you running away yet? It’s hard to see with my eyes all squished up like this.” -Mayhem

Those Cats

Cat, cat, llama

65 Comments

I couldn’t resist this stuffed toy at Shepherd’s Harvest because… doesn’t every child need a stuffed llama?

[sounds of suspicious sniffing are heard]

[sounds of suspicious and somewhat puzzled sniffing continue]

“Ok, I give up – what is it?” -Chaos

*sniff sniff sniff* -Mayhem

“A llama. Sure we were going to be able to figure that out. In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t in the friggin’ Andes around here. Hmph.” -Chaos

*sniff sniff sniff* -Mayhem

“Come along, Mayhem. We have no time for this silliness.” -Chaos

Hmmm… What have we here? Could it be Chaos, returning to knock over the llama?

“Hee hee hee!” -Chaos

“That’ll show that llama!” -Chaos

Hmm, I wonder what exactly that will show the llama?!

Contests, Festing, Randonymity

The sweetness of the lambs

67 Comments

Once again, Claudia’s riding her tandem in support of the MS Society and giving away fabulous prizes to donors. For every $10 you donate, you get another chance to win.

HeidiHo’s friend Karen has two children with cystic fibrosis. Karen and her children are participating in the Great Strides walk this coming weekend. If you pledge money to support them and let Heidi know about it before Friday, May 18, you will be entered in a drawing for a skein of Scout’s yarn.

Amy! had a good post about a knitting wiki – and do read the comments for a link to another one. Zenifer posted a nice list of one-skein projects. Vicki posted a list of triangular shawls organized by how many yards of yarn they use. Both things sound as if they would be great additions to a Wiki!

Yesterday I had the most amazing gluten- and lactose-free frozen dessert – Organic Rice Divine by Good Karma Foods (make sure your sound is turned down and that you have Flash installed). Click Products, then Pints. I tried Mudd Pie, which was very tasty (coffee flavor, with gluten-free brownie bits in it). But I am totally in love with Carrot Cake, which tastes exactly like carrot cake and even has bits of gluten-free carrot cake in it. I hadn’t had cookie/cake bits in ice cream or “frozen dessert” for over 10 years (since being diagnosed as celiac). Bliss.

Jeanne and I went to Shepherd’s Harvest on Saturday. We had great weather! I’m going to spread my report out over a few days and today is Lamb Day, featuring some pictures that Jeanne took of me. The little black lamb was a Shetland and the white lamb was an Icelandic. Aren’t they adorable?! (I don’t know how Jeanne always manages to get so much, um, chest in the pictures.) (Please note that the cats are taking a vacation day today. They’re just too hot to do much of anything – it was 92F yesterday!)

Contests, Randonymity, Tunes

First ever wireless blog post!

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Yay! I finally got all that geeky stuff configured so that I have a wireless network at home! In honor of that, I’m just going to blog with found photos in my unused photos directory, along with a few random thoughts from the week. You have been warned. 🙂

Dotty’s having a contest – guess how much she’ll spend at FibreFest today and you could win a mysterious prize (probably fibery). Remember that your guesses will be in Canadian dollars and guess before 11:59 PDT today, May 11.

I just discovered, over at Minneapolis F*ing Rocks, that today is the anniversary of the day that Minnesota became the 32nd state in 1858. MFR has a fun Minnesota playlist to download to celebrate, if you’re into music.

So quite the buzz about Ravelry, eh? Last week, when I caught up after getting behind on bloglines, it seemed like every other blog I read was talking about Ravelry. I started to feel like I hadn’t been picked to play kickball during recess. In fact, I left a whiney little comment about that at Jennie’s and Elinor took pity on me and sent me an invite. Thanks, Elinor!

Right now Ravelry’s in beta testing and is by invitation only (although you can sign up to be on the waiting list). I don’t have any invites to hand out, alas… But if you’re starting to feel left out, here’s an interesting article to read and think about – Ravelry’s a social networking site. So are MySpace, Facebook, and others. How well do these social networks connect? Are we building bridges between our social networks, or erecting self-contained silos? After the beta testing is over and Ravelry is free and open, will it be inclusionary or exclusionary? Inquiring minds want to know…

Anyway, since last weekend, I’ve been poking around Ravelry and checking things out. I like the integregation with our blogs, which are, with interactive commenting, a type of social network. I don’t like entering all of my project and stash and needles and such, when I already have all of that information on my own computer at home. Hopefully they add some sort of import/export facility for that, because I personally am unlikely to replicate my effort. I also am not as likely to include pictures, since Ravelry just uses Flickr as an image source. If they incorporate other image hosting services, sounds like it will be services like Photobucket. Doesn’t sound like those of us who host our own images and are happy doing so will be able to have images on Ravelry unless we start using Flickr, etc.

Ok, on to lighter things… Who’s going to Shepherd’s Harvest on Saturday? If it’s nice out, Jeanne and I will be there, probably late morning to noonish. If it’s raining, I’ll be there at around the same time. 😉 After my unsuccessful attempt last year, I’m not going to try coordinating a blogger meetup. Who’s good at that sort of thing?

Here’s a picture from 1996 that struck my fancy when I was scanning yesterday’s Colorado pictures:

I used to see that Starry, Starry Night VW everywhere! I loved that car – it made me happy just to see it.

And of course, we must end the week with a cat picture… *sound of rummaging*

“What? I didn’t do it! I swea… Oh, that’s not what you wanted? Never mind. No, I don’t have anything profound to say. Can I get back to watching the bunnies now?” -Mayhem

Festing

Estes?

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So who’s going to the Estes Park Wool Market this year? It’s June 16 – 17 in Estes Park, Colorado. Cross your fingers for me – I’m planning to be there! (Shhhh… don’t tell the cats. Remember my thwarted plans last fall?!)

I love the Front Range area of Colorado, but I haven’t been out there since the summer of 2000, when I was in Denver for training and took a long weekend up in Boulder. I haven’t been to Estes Park since the summer of 1993. I’ll share a few pictures from that visit in a minute.

Although lodging with Margene and the Ewe-tah Girls fell through (booked up, alas), it sounds like I will be staying with Kristi and her husband in Fort Collins during the Wool Market. I hope Yarnivorous Lynne has moved to Fort Collins from Australia by then! I’m looking forward to meeting the mysterious Snow, Lisa, and hopefully many more knitbloggers. I’ll also be visiting Michaele in Denver for at least a day or two, probably after the Wool Market.

So, way back in the summer of 1993, a van filled with Forest Recreation grad students set out for a conference in Fort Collins. We definitely explored the area before and after the conference.

The obligatory visit to the Coors brewery in Golden.

A roadside coyote!

We were maybe not dressed appropriately for the hiking conditions…

Is this on the Continental Divide? I don’t remember… I still have that tie-dye tank top and those shorts – although the shorts are maybe too tight right now…

Rumor has it that May might be a Cheshire Cat in training. What do you think?

“What’s this about a vacation?! You can’t leave us alone, Mom!!! Waaaaah!!” -Mayhem

Knitting, Reading

In which I introduce a new family member

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Don’t forget to regularly check in on the Pet Connection Blog! Over 5500 products from more than 100 companies have now been recalled. Let’s not even get started on the contaminants being in the US and Canadian human food stream.

Reading Update
Kissed a Sad Goodbye by Deborah Crombie. Moving right along through the Kincaid and James mysteries.
Don’t Mess with Mrs. In-Between by Liz Evans. I’m reading these mysteries about British PI Grace Smith completely out of order – oh well… If you like mysteries with smart-alecky main characters, give these a try.

Knitting Update
Last Friday I accidentally bought a new laptop. Well, ok, not exactly accidentally, but close. CompUSA is closing its stores in Minnesota and finally dropped prices down to interesting levels. (Hang on, you’ll see how this relates to knitting in a bit.) One of the stores is about a mile from work and I wandered in over my lunch break to discover they still had a few decent in-the-box laptops for very good prices. Very good prices. So now in addition to my laptop “Kenshin” (more of a desktop, actually – poor Kenshin has so many things connected that it is not worth unplugging him to go mobile), I have “Rurouni.” (Rurouni Kenshin is an anime series about a wandering samurai named Kenshin – “Rurouni” roughly means “wandering,” which seems a very good name for a laptop.)

Anyway! I decided that I needed a laptop sleeve to protect Rurouni in my bag. I knew what I wanted and found it in AlterKnits, which was only the fourth book I pulled off the shelf – bonus!

I pulled out some Kureyon (color 81 – forest green, purple, black, grey, and rust) and cast on. It’s not much to look at yet, but when assembled and felted, it will stripe in the same direction as the bag above.

“Hey, big kitty, I think Mom is finally making us that cat bed!” -Mayhem

“Really? I’ll believe that when I see it, May!” -Chaos

Contests, Randonymity

Rainy days and Tuesdays…

38 Comments

Woolgirl’s having a contest – pick the yarn color scheme you like best and come up with a name for it before Mother’s Day. Two lucky winners will get skeins of the winning colorway.

If you’re looking for a knitting book review, check out the knitting book review list at Eclectic Closet! Janelle has reviewed nearly 40 knitting books and is always looking for ideas on other knitting books to review.

Jeanne offers more proof (with cat modeling) about bibs being the perfect baby gift.

Remember last Monday when I mentioned we needed more rain? Apparently I should’ve wished for world peace at the same time, too. (At least we’re supposed to have a few days of sunshine now!)

All the rain made May a little crazy.

“Oh no!! Big kitty, it’s happening again, only this time it’s my head! Help!” -Mayhem

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.