Kiss My Knits!

I’m sorry to report that our cat, Nerys, passed away last night.

I came home last night at about 7. Shortly after that, the cat started to dry heave. I followed her around to be sure she was okay. She was rather shaky on her feet. I took her to the vet, who wanted to watch her for 72 hours. Their initial thought was a stroke, since they spotted a blood clot behind one of her eyes.

I got a call from the vet at about 2am saying that she’d had a seizure and asking for our permission to treat things more aggressively, which I gave. But apparently it was all downhill from there, and Nerys passed away at about 4am this morning. We’re still waiting for a full report, but right now it appears that she had renal failure which led to hypertension which led to seizures. She may also have had a brain tumor or some kind of lymphoma, but we don’t really know yet.

The vet did everything she could, but to no avail. It seems pretty clear that it was just Nerys’s time to go, and that even if they’d been able to revive her, her quality of life for her remaining six months or so would have been unacceptable. She was 17 years old and had lived a good life.

The past couple of days I’ve had to take some photos for an upcoming trade show. I prefer to do these things outdoors, as I like natural light. However, depending on what I’m shooting, I don’t always want direct sunlight, so I sometimes drag our light tent out on the sidewalk to diffuse the sunlight a bit.

This isn’t always a walk in the park. It’s winter, which means it’s freakin’ cold out there, so I’m bundled and restricted in my movement. It’s windy, so the tent tends to blow about, which means I have to contort myself to keep it on the ground and still keep the object in the viewfinder. At times I am completely enveloped by the tent while people pass by and ask what I’m doing. I think but do not reply, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m playing twister on the sidewalk in 40 degree weather while being eaten by a white nylon tent.”

My exertions over the last two days have made my thighs and rear ache. Yet another reason I need to find time to step the exercise back up. There’s a “wintry mix” in the forecast tonight, and my upside to that is that with the precipitation, at least I won’t be out on the sidewalk shooting balls of yarn tomorrow.

I’m up rather earlier than I’d like. I got to bed late and planned on sleeping in, but the rain knocked out some of our TV channels and Em got me up to try to fix it. So I’m up and rescanning the channels into the TV, just in case that helps.

And since I’m up so early, let me share this gem from Craig Ferguson’s Late Late show.

Comedy gold.

We put our Christmas tree up yesterday. Em wants to guess what her presents are, but has informed us that under no circumstances are we to actually TELL her what’s in them or let her know if she guesses right.

Today we’ll be doing our annual Christmas cookie bake up at my aunt’s house. It’s always fun. We glop powdered sugar frosting on sugar cookies and sing Christmas carols. The rain will definitely not keep us from that.

I should probably not post while I’m this sleepy, since I’m probably not making much sense. So this is me, in my fleece polar bear jammies, signing off.

ETA: resetting the channels worked, so it was worth it. 🙂

Earlier this week my boss, who is a Yankee, bemoaned the lack of snow in these parts. He told me if I could just go ahead and put “make it snow” on my to-do list, that’d be great. And so, I actually did write “snow” on my to-do list.

Snow is in the forecast this weekend. Some friends who were up earlier than I was say that they saw a few flakes this morning.

If it snows this weekend, I will cement my reputation as the best employee ever. Everybody drink a cup of hot cocoa and make it snow! (Europe, you’re excused, you’ve done enough.)

Have a great and snowy weekend!

Em loves this Slinky. Well, loved. It does get tangled. Up until now we’ve always been able to unwind it, but this was beyond repair.

This time, she became extremely frustrated and refused all help. We decided to leave her to her devices.

The slinky was untangleable. She got frustrated. She started slinging it around. It hit the telescope. The telescope fell on her foot. The fall dented the telescope and cut her toe badly. She bled like a stuck pig and understandably began yelling. We put one bandaid on, and then another after that one soaked through.

She’s finally calmed down. We’ll get another Slinky. But hopefully there’s a lesson learned.

Oof, what a night.

I’m down with a cold, but will do my best to rally to go out with the husband and daughter tonight for trick-or-treating.

In the meantime, a little Halloween goodness that blaueteufelin posted. Take it away, Anthony Stewart Head!

There’s an item that’s been on my wish list for a long time. I needed a pick-me-up a couple of weeks ago, so I ordered it. It arrived last week.

Behold! The finish line doormat! When I put it on my wish list, I thought it would be great after a run. Now I think it’s just great because it is a reminder that yes, I am done with the many many tasks of the day and I am home. I have made it through another day. I win!

I wasn’t home when it arrived, so my husband dropped me a line asking what this giant box was on the doorstep and whether our daughter could open it. I told him what it was, and they opened it.

He wasn’t kidding about it being an enormous box. Seriously, Amazon? You had to kill an entire tree to ship me a doormat? With a box that big, it’s easy to see why Em was so eager to open it. Still, Mr. Tvini says that she looked disappointed after it was open.

It went something like this:

Dad: But Mom told us what it was – a doormat.
Em: Yes, I know. I just thought it might be something cool.

Sorry, kid. At least the cat enjoyed it.

It’s way past time to go to bed. There’s another race to be run tomorrow, and that finish line is still a long way off. Night!

I have no idea why these geese decided our yard was a good grazing spot. We don’t usually get visits from waterfowl.

I do, however, know why Mom stopped by. She had a little something for me.

When our power went out last week due to a power pole falling onto a truck right in front of our driveway, we hightailed it to my mother’s house so Em could get her homework done and we could have all the comforts of modern electrified life. I brought my leftover lunch from work with me so I could eat it for dinner and not have to open the refrigerator door to store it.

My mom brought the container back to me with my name written on it in permanent marker. She did ask before marking it.

I love this. I may be the only person at work whose mommy has labeled her lunchbox with her name. You can bet I’ll smile when I use it. Thanks, Mom.

After a very long dry spell, we finally got some rain today.
Hopefully my daughter and husband are doing all right at the Festival in the Park.

This little friend spun a web high above my car last week. Fine with me if it stays there. If we zoom in and bump up the contrast, we see…

…many, many mosquitoes. Each one caught in a web isn’t biting me, so go to town, giant spider.