It's been ages since I've posted about all the cats, so this is way overdue.

Time to "fess up: we have 12 cats, and since we've been a couple, that's an all time low.  We've had as many as 16 cats at one time, and while 12 cats are still too many (4 or 5 would be ideal) I don't like the process of having fewer cats.  

I love cats because they're independent, but they also love their people (or their person).  They are quirky, funny, egotistical, elegant, curmudgeonly, snugglebugs with amazingly individual purrsonalities.  My cats loved me when I felt no one else did, they made moves and life changes much easier, and they provided amazing support and inspiration to Mr. Ken in his stroke recuperation.  There were times when he remembered amazing details about the cats, and couldn't remember names of family members.

Here's our crew:

Sweetie

Sweetie is our oldest cat; she'll be 15 on July 28.  She's lived with me since January 24, 1994, the weekend after the Northridge earthquake in the LA area, and has her own room.  At least, she believes it's hers.  She doesn't like to be held and rarely sits on laps.  We'd lived together for 10 years before she slept on my lap.

GreyGuy

GreyGuy is 10 1/2.  He's the only kitten we have from Sylvia's feral litter and is a sweetheart.   His tail is malformed: you can feel the bones curled in the end of his short tail like a little club.  Our vet tech says this is a Bay Area only birth defect, but we love it and he wags his tail constantly just like a d-o-g. 

Maynard

Nipper

Nipper (also known as Nipper-who-hates-us) has no use for people.  She hisses and growls at us and has ever since she was a tiny kitten.  She will take treats from my hand as long as there's no eye contact.  The vet says she has an overdeveloped sense of self.  She looks a lot like her mother, Sylvia.

TeddiGrrrl

I apologize for this terrible photo og TeddiGrrrl.  She's a lovely dilute tortoiseshell cat, and is rather shy about having her picture taken.  In almost 10 years, this is the only photo I've taken where her face is somewhat visible!

Murphy and Live Wire

Murphy is one of the 2 surviving tabbies from this litter.  He's a clown and is into absolutely everything, is fearless and gets into trouble when he can't get down from places he can climb to, and is just a love.  (LiveWire's info will be included with Smokey's; they're siblings.)

LittleLion

LittleLion is the largest of Sylvia's offspring at 18 pounds (the others weigh-in at 14 to 16 pounds).  He was bottle-fed as a kitten because he failed to thrive, weighing only 7 ounces when the others were almost a pound.  He has 1 tooth (a lower canine) and loves to sit on my lap while I knit, never ever touching the yarn.

Smokey

Smokey and LivWire were feral kittens our vet was raising.  Mr. Ken wanted them as a wedding present!   Smokey has the most unusual fur.  It's white at the skin and charcoal at the tips, and reminds me of tarnish on silver.  She's sweet, fierce, absolutely fearless and small.  

LiveWire is one of 2 cats that go outside.  He loves to sleep in the grass or chase lizards and is learning to hunt mice.  He and Smokey are 8 years old. 

SparkPlug

SparkPlug is a mightly hunter.  We found him in a neighbor's tree Thanksgiving weekend almost 8 years ago.  He patrols part of our neighborhood and keeps it free of gophers, mice and other vermin.  His purr is the loudest and deepest throaty purr I've ever heard.  He comes in at night when called, and loves Mr. Ken best.

FullHouse

FullHouse is 4 years old, and he's my baby.  He loves "nursing" (we call it schlurping) on my robe every morning.  We found him outside a Chinese restaurant (Full House) filthy, flea-bitten, sick and near death at the ripe old age of 5 weeks.  The merchants had heard him screaming at the top of his little kitten lungs for hours and we really thought he'd have to be euthanized.  A couple of weeks of antibiotics, good food and mothering from Sylvia, and he was fine.

Clawdette 

Clawdette is 2 years old, and is our smallest cat at 7 pounds.  She's fierce, funny, playful and crazy.  She also climbs walls.  I found her wandering in the main street of our little town, following people and looking for all the world like she'd been dumped.  She'd like to rule the household!

See the bright blue sky?  There are about 340 wild fires still burning in CA, but that's down from the 1400 of last Friday, and the wind has shifted so the air is much cleaner.

And Happy Birthday to FullHouse, who is 4 today!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Clawdette! 

She also likes yarn, and has ever since I've known her.  She doesn't chew it, or slobber on it, or eat it, or decorate the house with it (not that I know any cats that do any of those other things - RIGHT!), she collects it.  Really.

When Sweetie and I finish our daily TV viewing (Perry Mason reruns if you must know) and I move to the office to work, she yowls and fusses loudly.  This is funny because she has the sweetest little voice and tiny little purr.  Then, when I don't come back so she can sit next to me with 1 paw touching, she heads off to get her yarn of the day.  She carries it back to where she plans to nap, and lines it up like kittens in a row, and then sleeps with it.  

Awww. 

She's not finished organizing it yet, but she's resting from the effort.  That cake of yarn in the back is 8 oz of Opal Handpaint sport weight, destined to become a shawl, and that's a lot of yarn for a small cat to carry.  (I just checked again and she's got 7 skeins, balls or cakes of yarn on her pillow.  She's sound asleep, snuggled with her yarn kittens.)

For the record, she loves Mr. Ken.  Of all the men I dated, he's the one she picked for her very own.  She helped nurse him back to health, and she comes when he calls her.  She won't, however, sit on his lap.  Mine is the only lap she'll occupy, and usually for just a few minutes at a time. 

There's no reason for the photo, except I finally was able to catch him at rest.

As far as Stitches West posts, this is definitely saving the best for last!

First, the yarn from LaLana Wool in Taos:

Sample skeins of Forever Random Fine in "Dream Time" and  Forever Random Worsted in "Iced Tea".  (That's a little sample skein from SWTC hiding with them.)  I talked with Luisa Gelenter about substituting colors on a pattern.  She says call, and they'll work it out with me!  Yippee!  I've loved Sonoma Spring Cantata forever, but cannot wear pink.  I want to substitute peach and yellow for the pink, and it will be lovely!

And, truly the best:  enough yarn for a pair of socks for Mr. Ken, spun and dyed by Dez Crawford for her Knitting Asylum Yarn label, and designated for him.  

I've mentioned before that he's not a fan of hand knit socks, so I generously offered to take this off his hands and knits socks for me.   No go.  He wants warm socks to wear at night knit from this beautiful yarn. 

Sweetie loves to sleep in confined spaces, like many cats - or at least most of ours.   Here she's checking out one of the cube sections I installed in the fabric / yarn / reading / guest room last January:

  She's also a fan of sleeping on the heater vents, which doesn't sound comfortable to me but the cats all love them.

Here she is, helping Mr. Ken's socks stay neatly organized:

  You can't tell from this, but he has no handknit socks.  I've knit 2 pair for him, but he's asked me to reuse the yarn for socks for me or someone else; he's not a fan of handknits.  So sad.

FullHouse, however, appears to be quite enamored with this sleeve from Sensational Shirttail:

Here's another view:

I've heard that cats love lanolin because it reminds them of Mama's tummy.  This yarn is full of lanolin, and all the cats find it very interesting, but none so much as my poor, abandoned-when-he-was-a-tiny-baby-cat. 

For complete info and before and after pics of Joan's hats, check out her blog .  

This is my hat before felting, regular ruler for scale:

It is enormous!  I put it on, and it completely covered my face and hung to my shoulders! (No photos of that, thank goodnes!)

We used my top-loading washer, set to hot wash / cold rinse and a small amount of detergent.  The hats were put in a pillowcase cover that closes with a zipper.  That was a very good thing.  These hats were incredibly sheddy.   Every time we checked them, we also pulled out bunches of  fuzz.  I'm glad that didn't go into my old pipes.  Half way through the first wash cycle,  I threw in a couple of old  towels because the felting didn't seem to be happening.

At the end of the first wash and rinse cycle, Joan's pink-toned hat was done.

Cute!  There's a photo of her wearing this hat on her blog.

The other hats were beginning to shrink some, but not at the alarming rate we'd been warned  to expect.  I let them complete another complete round of hot and cold in the washer, and they were perfect!

Here's the first "glamour shot" of my completed hat:

Looks pretty good!  This is a good representation of the colors too.

This is the almost complete version. I've made the brim a bit wider and smoothed out some of the bumpy areas.

Stats:  We used the Fiber Trends Felt Hats with Brim Variations leaflet, AC-1.  We used the wide brim variation for Joan's blue hat and my hat.  Joan used the narrow rolled brim for her pink hat.  The wool yarn for the blue and gold hats is MartiFil Stripe; Joan used a MartiFil mohair for her blue hat and I used some stash mohair for mine.

Now it just needs to get dry so  I can wear it!

While waiting for felting to happen, Joan took this lovely photo of GreyGuy.

He's helping me decorate the mantel for Thanksgiving!

When I woke this morning, there was a cat sleeping under the covers with me.  Given our cat population, that's not totally unexpected, but it has been really warm lately so I was rather surprised.  When I saw that the cat was Sweetie I was stunned!  She used to sleep under covers with me all the time, and when Mr. Ken and married she stopped, even though she loves Mr. Ken to distraction.  Perhaps, 2 years after Sylvia's death, she's finally taking her rightful place as Queen Cat.

Maya is not doing well.  She continues to lose weight, and isn't eating much.  The vet and I have exhausted the options - no more tests to run, no more guesses about what disease is causing her problems - and continue to concentrate on treating the symptoms.  I don't know how much longer I can watch her waste away, but I will not do anything rash.

My plan for this weekend involves lots of knitting, but it's so hot that I'm having a hard time with doing it!  Perhaps I'll work on small pieces that don't drape over my lap!

We're having a barbeque tonight with Geoff, and Will and Joan.  They're all fun, and I'm really looking forward to it!  It's the first "party" we've had this summer, and it will be warm enough to really enjoy the patio.

Have a good weekend and enjoy your holiday!

So, random thoughts it is!

1.  While skimming through the new Knitters last night, I saw a name that practically lept out at me:  mine!  I was quoted in the Anne Claxson column which gives technical tips from the posts of KnitU.  I vaguely remembered that post too, from at least 2 years ago.

2.  Tourists are the lifeblood of San Francisco, and for that I love them.  I do wish, however, that a family of tourists would pay attention while using mass transit, and not block both the stairs and escalator while they try to get their group together.  Thank goodness for Labor Day; most of the tourists are gone after that!

3.  Clawdette got out again today.  It was hot; she was glad to get back in tonight, and is now sleeping soundly with the other cats.  

4.  When we first moved to this house, and when Mr. Ken first came home from the hospital, Sweetie spent much of her time on the bed in the master bedroom.  Then at some point she moved into the guest room / knitting studio and it became "Sweetie's room".  In the past couple of months, she's moved out of her room, and in the past week, she's moved back into the master bedroom.  I don't know why, and she's not telling.

5.  Happy 24th anniversary to my older-younger brother and his wife!  I'm so happy for you, and wish you many more happy years.

6.  Happy 22nd birthday to my oldest niece, who is a new bride and college senior.  We're proud of you!

7.  Finally, happy birthday (I'm not putting an age here) to Mr. Ken's older sister!  We'll see you in a couple of weeks.

8.  I'm ready for Autumn.  I want to plant perennials in my garden, I want to start tearing out concrete and bricks.  I want to plant more daffodils.  I want it to rain for days.  It's been too dry here this summer, and everything is looking dusty and dry.  Part is illusion, and part is due to the watering we do with soaker hoses; the leaves never get washed off and they are cobwebby and messy now.

9.  I should be exercising with Mr. Ken right now, but I'd be sick.  Heat is not, and never has been, my friend.  I grew up in the high deserts of West Texas and New Mexico, and was never comfortable with heat.  Somehow that shouldn't be right, but it is.  After my sunstroke / heatstroke when I was 16, my heat discomfort got even more so, and I fell madly in love with fog and San Francisco.

10.  Sewing - and wanting to sew - is beginning to nip at my brain.  My fabric stash no longer eclipses my yarn stash, but I have enough fabric and patterns to sew a new wardrobe.  Perhaps I should focus on the almost instant gratification, and work on the alterations and mending first.

See you this weekend, with knitting progress photos! 

 1. List the different places you've lived. What is your favorite?

This is a loaded question!  Before graduating high school I lived in 6 different towns, although I lived in one of them (Roswell, NM) twice. My Dad was in the oil business, and they tended to transfer employees around almost like the military.  Here’s that list:  Roswell (where I was born), Kermit TX, Artesia NM, Hobbs NM, Roswell (again), Midland TX, Tucumcari NM.

I went to college at Texas Tech in Lubbock, and then spent 10 years in Las Cruces, NM.  From there I moved to San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Jose and Fremont, where I now live.

My favorite?  San Francisco, without a doubt.  I do love my district of Fremont (Niles) but the reality that I can live in Niles and work in San Francisco makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world!  It’s a 45-minute BART ride to SF, and we do it often.

2. Tell a little more about the "super slow" workouts you and Ken do.

That is not a term I'm familiar with.

Super Slow was invented (and trademarked) about 20 years ago by Ken Hutchins.  The basic idea is to use the heaviest weights you can for about 7 or 8 exercises.   You lift for 10 seconds, hold for 3 and then lower for 10 seconds.  The goal is to fatigue a muscle group completely in less than 3 minutes; if you can do more than 2 ½ minutes the weight is increased.  No sets, practically no sweat, and a session takes about 20 minutes, once or twice a week.  (As an example of the heaviness of the weights I use:  300+ pounds for the back press, 250 pounds for the leg press.  Ken uses 520 pounds for the leg press!)

Ken was referred to our trainer, Gary (who was first and foremost a physical therapist),  after orthopedic surgery on his arm to un-fuse the radius and ulna (which grew together while his wrist was immobilized after his stroke – the left wrist was shattered in the motorcycle accident caused by the stroke).  As his arm became better, Gary began working with Ken, creating a modified version of Super Slow he called Super Slow Rehab.  He helped Ken regain his ability to balance, walk more smoothly, walk faster, re-learn riding a bicycle, drive and perhaps most important, regain his strength.

I watched Ken for almost 2 years, and then realized that I could also use some strength training!  I’ve never had the patience for weight reps at the gym; it takes too long, and I never saw any results.  It’s the hardest workout I’ve even done, and one I hate to miss!  Ken's been training with a Super Slow master for7 years; I've been training for 5.

3. What is your favorite type of fiber to work with? (yeah, that's a

recycled question, but I'm running out of ideas)

Wool of some sort, without a doubt!  I’m working with a merino-cashmere blend right now that’s just about the most wonderful thing ever, and alpaca is quite nice.  I’ve been knitting with some Brown Sheep Country Classic (which I fear may be long-discontinued) and it’s so soft and squishy I almost moan with pleasure every time I touch it.  Merino is very good.  Alpaca Silk is wonderful and soft; I'm practically drooling on the sweater I'm knitting! 

I understand that Corriedale is wonderful, and I have some in stash, but it hasn’t made it into the rotation yet.

Cotton and silk are at the bottom of my list (well, so is most acrylic, although I use it when it’s the best choice for the item) because they are hard on my hands and don’t have the elasticity of wool.  Cotton blended with wool can be lovely to knit.

I find that some of the “popular” yarns leave me somewhat underwhelmed.  Noro Kureyon comes in beautiful colors and isn’t too bad to work with, but I can’t wear it next to my skin.  Same with most Shetland wools and Reynolds Candide; I love the garments, but need a layer between the wool and me.

4. What is the main responsibility of your current job? Do you write

instruction manuals, or help the users of software products? (Be as

obfuscatory as necessary about the specific location).

Neither.  I’m a senior technical project manager at a large public utility.  I work with groups or people within various parts of the company who have an idea or need for a specific product, and help to refine the idea and define it into something that is doable.  I gather the necessary groups of people together – business analysts, technical analysts, software or hardware engineers, designers, web designers, quality assurance testers, delivery experts and others – and create something.

For example, one of the projects I’m now working on is taking an application one of our groups uses on their desktops and moving it to the Internet and making it interactive with the customers.   When it’s complete, customers will be able to register for a program on-line, progress will be tracked on line, and the analysts here will be able to do their work and track the progress real time.  My job is to plan this and make sure we meet the plan, the budget and any deadlines. 

5. (There HAS to be a cat question...) How many different cats have

you had over your life, and which one was most memorable and why?

I’ve had 8 or 9 dogs (which I actually prefer) in my life.   Because I lived in apartments for many years and prefer large dogs, instead I had cats.  I’ve had 32 cats and they are (in order): Katze, Muezza, Nefer, Esmerelda, Hammurabi, Sam, Athena, Pandora, Freyja, Myrddin, Hades, Tang, Sweetie, KittyHawk, Maya, Athena, Sylvester, GreyGuy, Critter, Maynard, Murphy, Nipper, TeddiGrrl, Little Lion, Buster, Funny Face, Live Wire, Smokey, Echo, SparkPlug, FullHouse and Clawdette.  The oldest cat was Tang (20), followed by Echo (19) and Freyja (17). 

They’re all memorable in some way and I can't pick just one.

Sylvia choose Ken to move in with (she was feral) and once she made that commitment, she never went outside again.  She had 2 half-grown kittens with her, and soon presented Ken with 6 more – 5 survived.  She trained her kittens well, and as new cats were added to our household, she “adopted” them, trained them in the rules of the household, and made them her own.  She loved Ken back to health after his stroke, slept with him, and found me on more than one occasion when he’d fallen or needed help.  Friends have told us they think Sylvia was part human and part cat. 

She hated dogs, loved people and children and was a joy to be around.  She was also beautiful.  She was a long-haired tuxedo cat who, from the back, seemed to be wearing white pantaloons.  Her fur was always pristine and she never, ever had mats.  She died suddenly almost 2 years ago while recuperating from dental work at the age of 9.

1.  Maya is doing well again.  I don't know how many of her 9 lives she's used (at least 3, I think) but once again she's eating her pumpkin glop like a piglet and has regained enough muscle, fat and strength to jump up to the kitchen counter again.  (Yes, I try to keep cats off the counter, but you and I both know that cats do whatever they want when we're at work.)

2.  Mr. Ken and I played all weekend.  We rode BART to San Francisco to pick up some stereo equipment he bought on Craig's List, then decided to find the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory Outlet Store that I see twice daily on my BART rides.  We found it and bought lots of wonderful chocolate at seriously discounted prices.  My kind of outlet store!

3.  I have to be in Sacramento tomorrow for a series of meetings and I'm taking Amtrak.  I love taking the train!  Unfortunately, I just finished the front of the Shapely Tee, which means all my current knitting projects are too bulky or unwieldy to take with me.  I'll be forced to start a new project or unearth a UFO that's portable; I cannot waste that 5 hours of travel time.  Stay tuned!

4.  We had a lovely dinner last night at a favorite bistro-cafe-type place.   The food was good, the service excellent, and we closed the place down even though we weren't drinking!  Nice...

I'm off to help Mr. Ken make cookies for his office.   Will there be knitting updates tomorrow?  Who knows! 

It rained while we were running errands Saturday, but mostly stopped when we were done and home.  Sunday was the kind of day we live here for: warmish, clear and beautiful.  Today is nice too, but tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy and cool.  This is February or March weather!

In knitting news, the fronts of Kenobi are finished and blocking.  See?

  As you may be able to tell, this does take agressive blocking due to the difference in gauge over seed stitch and stockinette.  This may make for an even more assymetic sweater than planned, but that should be fine.  I love the i-cord front edges!

I've started both sleeves, after juggling the numbers to make a sleeve that I'll like.  As designed, Kenobi's sleeves are too wide for me; I'd be dragging through my food or whatever.  I edited them to have closer fitting cuffs and a more extreme increase rate so the sleeve cap fits properly.

And for some reason it seems to be time for all the cats to try out the felted cat bed.  That's odd, because we've had it around for over a year, and it's been mostly ignored.  The cat it was made for crossed the rainbow bridge at least 18 months ago, but it's suddenly a hot property.

This is Maynard trying to fit into the cat bed:

And deciding to stretch out a bit more:

  Maynard's a big boy!

He weighs about 15 pounds, and he's not our largest cat.

On a serious note, my thoughts and prayers are with the everyone at Virginia Tech and in the surrounding area, and with the families and friends of those killed or injured today.  I remember how safe I always felt in college, and cannot imagine what it must be like to have that safety shattered.

Clawdette is settling in nicely.

She's so little - still at 5 pounds and between 8 and 9 months - for a mostly full-grown cat.  Of course, most of our other cats are behemoths weighing between 14 and 18 pounds, so even an average-sized cat looks small to me!  (To help visualize her size, those tiles are 15" square.)

Here's another view of Clawdette, lounging in the felted cat bed I knitted a couple of years ago.  (The pattern is free at wendyknits.net, and is one of the better uses ever for fun fur and the like!) 

I'm always happy to see a cat in the catbed, because none has claimed it.  Instead, whichever cat finds it generally claims it for a nap - perhaps a day or 2 - and then another cat takes a turn.

See?

That's Smokey in the cat bed, and GreyGuy next to her, completely oblivious.  Smokey is the next smallest cat, but at 9 pounds, she certainly fills up the cat bed! 

Our seder last night was lovely.  For once, I didn't make too much food, and it was a nice change.  Joan and I knitted afterwards, which was perfect.  (You'll know, if you celebrate, that we did an abbreviated seder.  A complete seder takes 4 or more hours, and Mr. Ken doesn't yet have the patience for that.)

I bought some new knitting books from Edward R. Hamilton, and the new Vogue Knitting.  Lots of inspiration, even if nothing really rings my bells at the moment.

Cats are all fine, although Maya isn't doing as well as she could.  Clawdette is charming and stubborn, and everyone adores her - humans, that is.  The other cats tolerate her.

For some reason, everything feels sort of BLAH today - me, Mr. Ken, the weather, work.  I'm sure it will be better tomorrow, and just to make sure, I'm off to have a passover appropriate cocktail of some sort while I concoct a proper passover dinner.

Cheers! 

Unlike much of blog-land, I don't mind if it's dark in the morning when going to work; I live for the daylight at the end of the workday.  That's extra time for deadheading roses, weeding, planting, harvesting and other forms of gardening, taking a walk downtown,  or any number of other things better done with some natural light.  We get up early enough that it's usually dark or just barely light when we leave for work in the mornings, but usually we do get home in time to enjoy some of the DST light.

That said, sometimes it takes a week for me to adjust to the new time, although it's usually more of an issue in  autumn when we go back to regular time.  

Still, I didn't sleep well last night and am tired this morning.  That's less the fault of Daylight Savings Time and more the fault of a certain wonderful and very willful cat, SparkPlug.

SparkPlug is one of 2 cats we allow outside.  Generally he comes when called, and on the rare occasions when he doesn't, he shows up at the door before we go to bed.  Last night he didn't, and I woke every 90 minutes or so, put on my glasses, robe and slippers, and checked the doors and places on the patio where he sometimes sleeps.  He finally came in at 5:30 when Mr. Ken got up with the alarm.

There must be something in the air near solstice time that affects Sparky; the last time he did this was the night before we left for Texas at Christmas - December 23 or so.  We worry about him, although I suspect he uses the cat door and sleeps in the shop.  There are foxes, coyotes, owls and hawks - and probably other predators - as well as 60 pound (per the vet) raccoons, skunks and opossums roaming our neighborhood. 

Tonight I plan to do some celebratory weeding! 

Maya's been put in jail - confined to quarters - admitted to kitty intensive care - since Sunday afternoon.  She'd decided not to eat her pumpkin glop, and the resulting digestive issues were more than I could handle.  She was also losing weight and looking a bit ratty too.  Since her return to the cage, she's eaten 3 bowls of pumpkin glop, and her system appears to be settling down again.

That's the upside.  The downside is that she hates me; refuses to even look at me; doesn't want me to touch or pet her.   She sleeps with her back to me.  I am crushed.

Clawdette was spayed today.  She's still quite groggy, and is sleeping off the anesthesia in the hall bathroom, using one of my sweaters as her bed.  She purred briefly when I let her out of the carrier, but I don't expect much more activity from her tonight, or even tomorrow.  Ever since Sylvia died after anesthesia, it's nearly impossible for me to let one of our cats out of my sight for a procedure, and I cannot relax until everything is back to what passes for normal around here.

Mr. Ken came home from work today, and went directly to bed.  He has a nasty cold and cough, and no energy at all.  He managed to avoid most of the sniffles I had during the holidays, and I just sorry he's gotten caught this time.  He'd warned me at noon that he wasn't 100% so I did manage to stock up on NyQuil and DayQuil.

I had jury duty yesterday.  The good thing is that this county does "one day or one trial" jury duty.  The bad part is that I spent the day waiting to find out if I had to go in or not.   "Not" was the result, which is good.  I'm done for a year, at least with County Superior Court.  The bad thing was the waiting, and not knowing what to expect.  What a waste of a day!

Finally, the group I've been working with has been notified that jobs are being moved to headquarters - 3000 miles from here.  No word yet on whether the people are being moved (or asked to) or if just the jobs are moving.  That's a real bummer; Silicon Valley is where innovation lives, and the weather is much better here as well! 

Tomorrow will be more interesting, and there will be knitting content and pictures! 

(Mr. Ken's been calling him Clyde - not that he's getting attached to the little fella or anything.)

Then the vet came in, and No Name Kitten (which is his official name of record at my vet) did the magic act for her and mooshed faces with the vet and was generally quite charming.  He let the vet check his little teeth, which aren't that little apparently, because he has a full set of adult teeth!  That puts his age at between 6 and 8 months.

(OK, so he's a little older than we thought, just very small.) 

The vet looked, and looked again, and looked from a different angle, and gave me the other news:  he's a girl.   

Now Mr. Ken is calling her Clawdette.

(I'm still looking for her person - we're pretty sure she was dumped - or I'll be placing her with Furry Friends Rescue because I really don't want or need another cat.)

We started the weekend properly by having a wonderful relaxed dinner with friends at one of the local funky and fun coffee house restaurants.  (Hi Joan and Will!)  It's a great way to start a weekend right! 

A week ago Friday Mr. Ken had announced that he'd decided to get out of motorcycle racing and motorcycles completely, and had listed 3 motorcycles - he wanted to warn me in case there was any interest!  Two were spoken for by Sunday night, and he made arrangements for money and motorcycles to change hands on Saturday.  That took most of the afternoon!  He appointed me banker and signer of documents, but I got little knitting done between signatures. 

That's OK.  He's happy and has lots of reorganizing to do in the shop.

It was a lovely warm day, so when I wasn't banking I was pruning and trimming plants.  In fact, I did some pruning that's so drastic I'm hoping the plants survive!  Had to happen though - they were encroaching on the walkways and such.  Both my green bins are full, and only 4 of the 90+ roses have been pruned.  I haven't started on the fruit trees yet.

While Mr. Ken volunteered for the Niles Canyon Railway on Sunday, I ran errands.  At my last stop, I was accosted by a kitten who seemed to be lost and almost frantic.  He followed people down the street, then turned back to the corner.  He darted out into traffic a couple of times, which scared me.  I called "kitty, kitty" and he came over to be picked up, trembling with fear or hunger.  A quick call to Ken confirmed that we should take him home and try to find his people.  

He's clearly not feral - he rode in the car with little fuss, he likes being held, he even he purrs like a fiend.  He tolerates the big cat cage (since we don't know anything about him, he can't mingle with our cats - too much chance of disease) and is eating like a piglet!  The trembles are gone too.

If you happen to live in Fremont or Niles, or know someone who does and is missing an adorable kitten let me know!  Here are some mug shots:

He's about 4 or 5 months old, with  black and white tuxedo markings, white whiskers, hazel eyes, long legs and tail and a loud purr and squeaky voice.  I'm becoming smitten, and I don't want another cat!  We haven't, however, given him a name, so I think I'm safe...

Finally, I did get to watch some of the Super Bowl.  We have a reversal here:  I'm the football (and baseball and hockey) fan, and Mr. Ken is completely uninterested (except for baseball).  At the start of the game I didn't care who won - or so I thought - but it became clear that I was a Colts fan!  Who knew?  Probably because I remember when Archie Manning played for the New Orleans Saints, and I can't believe it's been long enough that I'm watching the children of favorite players now!

I'd planned to watch the game and make new hammocks for the cat's jungle gym, which I've been refurbishing.  That's still in process but like many projects of that sort, is taking linger than planned.  The cats want to "help", which doesn't, and it's harder to take apart than I remembered.  I'll post a picture of all 3 or 4 levels and the new hammocks when it's done.  Right now it's just a pile of 14" long carpet cvered tubes - 86 of them, a couple of yards of leopard print plush fabric and some black grosgrain ribbon.

On the knitting front, there was some progress.  I started a second sock of a plain and easy to knit-in-public pattern.  I worked on the front of multicolore.   I bought 3 skeins of yarn which will be felted, and soon I hope. 

It was however, the nap place of choice for Sweetie:

Just the right size for a fluffy cat, and it's right on her favorite heater vent too!

To the person who emailed me with a clearly "fake" email address:

I'm not giving up flying because Mr. Ken wants me to.  Indeed, he's my biggest supporter and would love for me to keep flying as long as I want.  If he were more interested in flying himself, or even flying with me, I'd consider it.  Unfortunately, he gets really motion sick and has never flown in a private plane. And doesn't really want to.

I'm ready to give up flying because of time.  Time I never have enough of, time I'd rather spend with Mr. Ken and friends or just at home by myself.  Time to waste without feeling guilty that my skills are getting rusty, which might lead to an accident (or incident) that could hurt someone - not just me.  (That's a pilots biggest fear: hurting someone else with one's plane.)

Mr. Ken has given up motorcycle riding and racing since his stroke.  I supported his efforts to ride again, and the race team we kept when he couldn't ride.  I've supported buying motorcycles and going to races because he loved it and it was a world where he belonged.  I really didn't want him to ride or race again, but I never told him.  He's now selling his last 4 race motorcycles and lots of the gear because he's decided that it's time to give up that dream and hobby. 

We'd both rather spend our time together, and not take unnecessary risks that might shorten it.

As far as cats Debby, yeah, there're 12.  I had some qualms about putting the feline households together, and the best way to introduce the prides.  In the end, due to time constraints and other stresses, I basically put both sets of cats in the new house, introduced them to the food, water and litterboxes and left them to their own devices for a day!  Not recommended, but it worked; probably because each pride could be self-sufficient, and because I was "familiar" to all the cats.  We had very few hisses, and not fights that I'm aware of.  The more cats you have, the easier it is to integrate another one. 

Our cats currently range in age from 13 to 2, with a cluster of 5 that will be 8 in January.   Sweetie is 13, Maya is 11, GreyGuy is 8, and FullHouse is 2.  SparkPlug, LiveWire and Smokey are 6.  Murphy, Nipper, LittleLion, Maynard and Teddi Grrrl are 7.

Since we've been married (6 years) we've lost Myrddin (in 2000, when he was 7), Freyja (in 2003, at 17), Echo (in 2005, at 19), Sylvia (2005, at 9) and KittyHark (2006, at 11).  We've also lost the lovely stray, Funny Face just a few months ago.  That's the hardest part of being owned by cats.

OKC:  Yesterday during lunch at the office, one of my co-workers saw me knitting the cuff of the yellow alpaca sock.  He came into the conference room we reserve for our lunch time "discussion" sessions and whispered "You look so calm, working on your knitting.  How do you do it?"  I broke out in giggles, and explained it was all an act - I'd ripped that cuff out 3 times since the BART ride that morning!  Sock is now progressing well.

Buoyed up by that success, today at lunch I tried to start one of the sleeves for the green sweater.  Cast on, joined, dropped a stitch in the first knitted row.  Did it again; twisted the join.  Lather, rinse, repeat - this time I miscounted. 

Tomorrow is another day!