Trish Knits.com

Tag: cat

  • Monday, Monday

    Monday, Monday

    It’s just another Monday at the House of Day. I don’t have anything knitting related to share today; I’m still working on the shawl project, and trust me–it looks exactly the same as it did a few days ago. I spent most of the weekend at home except for a few errands on Saturday, and I have very few stitches to show for my down time. Some weekends are like that, though.

    This is testing week at BoyZilla’s school so he doesn’t have a lot of homework. Which, yay! is a break for Mom and Dad! So, how was he spending his time? He asked me if he could play games on my computer after dinner, to which I agreed, for a time limit of 30 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, though, I could hear that he was no longer on the computer. THIS is what he was up to:

    My boy, the filmmaker
    My boy, the filmmaker

    That’s him, trying his hand at stop-motion film. He’s got his Lego characters set up in a scene, and he’s moving them ever so minutely and taking frame by frame photos with my husband’s camera. He’s written a script, too, complete with shot and camera directions. I love it when he decides to express himself in such a productive and creative way. I love watching him learn like this. It makes me wonder, when I watch him write stories, or draw, or now, try his hand at movie making… at 9 years old? What in the world is this kid going to be? I think it’ll be amazing to watch.

    It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with Zöe, the cat. She just had her 19th birthday about two weeks ago, and she’s doing amazingly well:

    19-year-old kitty
    19-year-old kitty
    Kitty Glamor Shot
    Kitty Glamor Shot

    Not bad for 19, eh? She’s doing great. I’m kinda sad to admit that she is much happier being an only cat since our other one passed away six months ago. She eats very well, is still playful, and is way more talkative now that the other, more boisterous kitty isn’t around to overshadow her. I’m sad, knowing in hindsight that the presence of the other cat might have made her unhappy for a full 17 years, but glad that her elder years are so happy.

    Like I said, it’s just another Monday. Thank you for indulging me by peering into our little slice of life this evening. I’ll be back on the knitting soon. I promise.

  • (Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday

    Sock in progress
    Sock in progress
    Look, Ma! It matches my nails!
    Look, Ma! It matches my nails!
    The look on Zoe's face proves how much she loves having her picture taken.
    The look on Zoe’s face proves how much she loves having her picture taken.

    That is all.

  • Avoidance…

    It’s been a long couple of weeks at the Casa de Trish Knits.

    Tegan
    Tegan
    This is the blog post I hoped against hope I’d never have to write. And yet, daring to hope such a thing is useless in its pursuit, because, as you know, mere humans do not possess the power to stop the circle of life from turning. On Monday October 11, I lost my best friend. Not a friend who had ever shared a gab session about what we saw on Oprah the other day or one who shared complaints about kids, job, or the husband. In fact, this friend had not the capacity to ever speak my name.

    And yet, she was the true-bluest of friends, in every sense of the word. She rarely left my side, even in my most private of moments when I would have locked the door to keep the kids out, but not her. She gave freely of hugs, complained loudly, and often, and shared my interest in yarn and writing creative Facebook status updates (especially when I was on deadline and trying to code web pages instead).

    She was a true lover of cheese and of warm, sunny spots on the rug. Empty boxes were a favorite distraction, and climbing. WAY high, to tallest place she could find, only to cry because she could not get down again. Very demanding of my full attention was she, and, at the same time, she asked nothing of me. Not much more than a safe home, good food (including the occasional steak!) and lots and lots of hugs. All were so easily given.

    On the last morning of her life, when she was moving so slowly and refusing her breakfast, I took a brief nap before a noontime errand. Though she could barely move by that time, she climbed up, so she could whisper into my ear one last time.

    She was begging me to let her go.

    And so I did. With a heavy heart and many tears I held her as she breathed her last on this world. Knowing that the last touch she would feel was mine brings some comfort, but the hole left behind in my heart is enormous. I hope that someday soon I can speak her name with smiles and not tears .

    Tegan Sleeping
    Tegan Sleeping
    Tegan.

    I’ll miss you.

  • It’s OMG Hot!

    No joke, this is the real temperature today.
    No joke, this is the real temperature today.
    This was the actual temperature, in the shade, on my front porch this afternoon. 102.9 degrees? Okay, I think I’m completely sick of summer. It was the kind of day when I think it was actually too hot to go to the pool and go swimming. In fact, even as I write this at midnight, it’s still 85 on the thermometer. You gotta love the swampy mid-Atlantic in July.

    You know? I think I was the only person not complaining about the snow when it was falling back in February. Of course, I didn’t have to shovel it, and I was perfectly cozy in the house for two weeks with my knitting and hot chocolate. Now, it’s too hot to knit, too hot to cook, too hot to eat even if I did cook. It’s basically hot, pissy, sweaty, hot. This fat girl’s so over it… so wanting to declare that it’s Ice Cubes Under the Armpits Day, and not come out again til Fall.

    Who’s with me?

    I think our cat, Zöe, has the right idea.

    It's a great day for a cat nap.
    It’s a great day for a cat nap.

    So, I had an adventure this week. My faithful old computer, which admittedly had been on its last legs for some time.suddenly died. It went swiftly in the end, leaving me dumbfounded and without saying goodbye. Not even a too-highly-paid-for-not-much-real-help Geek could make anything happen. So, I had to get a new PC, in a hurry. I prefer to take my time, spec out what I want, and wait for the UPS truck. Usually consumer retail is giving up too much in performance for my taste, but this time I had to make do with something off the shelf. I chose an HP machine that wasn’t going to break the bank, and at the same time, had most of what I wanted.

    Got it home, set it up, upgraded to Windows 7 Professional, and all was well as I went to bed Thursday night. Then Friday evening when I got home, my daughter turned on the PC and nothing happened. I called HP, who literally instructed me to take it all apart, take the chips out, and unplug all the components on the inside, one by one. After two hours and much cussing by my husband, HP could not identify the problem. They said I could send it in for service, but why would I want to do that, when I could just take it back to the aforementioned retail store?

    New Gateway Computer
    New Gateway Computer
    So, Saturday morning early, DH and I went to the store to return the HP. Not wanting to jinx ourselves, this time, I came home with a Gateway. It’s got an Intel Core i7 processor, and a GB of video RAM, so I think it’s a pretty good machine. I guess time will tell. Gateway markets it as their PC for gamers, and it has all of these annoying red lights, and a blinky white strobe, And it’s shiny. Weirdly shiny. But hey, if it keeps me in business, then I’m good.

    Luckily I kept my data files on external hard drives. Except for my Outlook data files, which means I’ve lost all my contacts. That’ll take forever to fix. Wish me luck.

    Anyway, so that’s what’s happening here in Hades. I hope you’re cooler than I am, wherever you are.

  • Not Yet!

    Next week is my birthday. It’s not one which some would call a, “major birthday,” but for some reason I’ve been having a hard time with the very idea of it. I guess, technically, one could be no more squarely in the middle of middle age as I am, officially, right now. I think I fear getting old. I don’t think the prospects of aging gracefully are looking too good for me right now. But, this depressing little digression is not the point of today’s post.

    For the longest time I’ve always had trouble saying what I want for my birthday. Sure, I usually come up with something, but it is a question I dread from my loved ones each year. This year was no different, but then last week it hit me. One of my favorite things that I own is my digital camera, which, literally, gets nearly daily use. My camera is a really nice one, but now it is a few years old. And, the technology has improved a lot in the last few years. So, even though it feels frivolous, when my husband asked me this year what I wanted for my birthday, I told him that I’d like to upgrade my camera.

    He readily agreed, and three days later, voila! Amazon delivered.

    Canon SX20-IS
    Canon SX20-IS

    It’s the Canon PowerShot SX20IS Digital Camerawhich is an upgrade of my older camera. It has twice as many megapixels, can use a larger SD card, is even more light sensitive, has a longer zoom, has a hot shoe, and can shoot HD movies. Those are just a few of the new or improved features. I’ve liked this camera because even though it is a digital camera that can be used as a point and shoot, it does so much more, and allows me to make all kinds of adjustments for different photo effects. I especially loved that my camera was really light sensitive, meaning that I can take indoor photographs without having to use the flash very often. This is important for photographing yarn, as regular readers of this blog will know that I do quite regularly. I really don’t like using the flash because I love the effects of natural light and the prettier colors and skin tones that I can achieve.

    So the camera arrived yesterday, and even though it wasn’t my birthday for nearly a week, I had to open the box. My husband didn’t really expect that I would wait! He knows me too well. Much of the camera feels familiar, though it is slightly larger and considerably heavier. It has many of the same functions and works a lot the same way as my older camera, given that they are close relatives, and yet, I found myself getting frustrated with the minor changes and having to slow down on the learning curve. But, here it is only a day later, and I’m already getting the hang of it. I think I’m going to love this camera as much as I loved its predecessor. Here’s one of the first pictures I took with it:

    cherries
    cherries

    I keep thinking of the great Erma Bombeck, who wrote one of my favorite books of all time, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?. The cover of that book, when I had it as a kid, had cherries in the background.

    So then, to add to the birthday joy, my mother-in-law called this afternoon and asked if she and the F-I-L could come by tonight to celebrate my birthday, since they’re getting ready to go out of town. We had just been planning to have pizza and an easy night anyway, so I invited them to join us. She brought cake! It was my favorite cake from the local Amish market. And then they presented me with this:


    rainbow-y and pink yarn
    rainbow-y and pink yarn

    Yarn! Can you believe it? They went on a European holiday this spring, and while visiting in the Netherlands, they came across a lady selling yarn in a market. My mother-in-law said she saw the woman making a scarf with this very yarn and she thought it was neat and that I’d like it. She took a picture of that scarf in progress to show me. it sort of knits up in solid pink and rainbow multi stripes. I think I will enjoy knitting this!

    Of course, Tegan had to check out the yarn for herself:

    Kitty wants the yarn
    Kitty wants the yarn

    Finally, here is the first movie from my new camera. It’s nothing special, except that last week when I was at the Amish Farmer’s Market I fell in love with these really large wind chimes. They sound like bells, and are perfectly tuned to each other so that they actually make music when they move. They’re stunning.

    That, or I’m easy to please.

  • A Comfy Pillow…

    Tegan finds a comfy pillow
    Tegan finds a comfy pillow
    The sight of this photo is going to make cat lovers say, “awww!” But I know all you Yarnies out there are cringing.This is Tegan, my 16-year-old tabby, curled up on my desk. In a pile of Rowan Kidsilk Haze. My DH quipped that Tegan probably thought my mohair needed “mo’ hair” in it. But alas, this is a definite testament to the yarn’s softness, that she would choose it for a pillow. She’s still sleeping on it now, and I fear that her individually uniquely stripey hairs are now permanently entwined into it.

    Perhaps, in a weird way, this isn’t an entirely bad thing. Tegan is my little shadow and when I am home, she is rarely away from my side. It has always been this way, much to the chagrin of our other cat, but she is my constant companion. Many mothers I know complain that they can’t get peace, even in the bathroom, for their kids following them in there. For me, it’s the cat. She’s always on my desk pawing at me for attention, and constantly walking across my keyboard if I don’t respond fast enough (“fast enough” being a half a second shorter than, “now!”). Of course walking across the keyboard over and over again can cause havoc, especially when I’m trying to code HTML or something, and often I find myself saying something cross in exasperation.

    Tegan is getting older now, and she is thin and not in the greatest health. We do our best to provide for her needs as an elderly member of our family, but we know that the day is coming that I won’t have the constant meowing in my ear or the special coding generated by kitty paws taking yet another stroll across my keyboard. I know that I shall miss her terribly, but at least now I know that someday soon I will have a Kid Mohair wrap to snuggle up with and always remember her. And I am sure I’ll be forever finding tan and black individually striped hairs… and I shall smile when I do.