Labradorable

I Finished One Sock and I Need a New Project

I have survived the first of the Celtic Braid Socks.  The joy I felt at binding off the top of the sock (and feeling that I had finished one sock at long last) was tempered by the realization that I had the afterthought heel left to knit. 

The photo at right shows the needles all queued up and ready to go for the afterthought heel, waiting for me to rip out the waste yarn.  I'm not terribly enamored of this style of heel for two reasons.  First, I don't like the way it looks.  Second, I don't like the fact that it gives me two more ends of yarn to weave in as part of the finishing process.  One of the joys of sock knitting (for me, at least) is that minimal finishing is involved.  I don't mind kitchenering toes and weaving in the last end of yarn, but more than that makes socks too fiddly for me.  The other possible reason why I might not like the afterthought heel is that it doesn't look too comfortable.  However, I can't speak from experience as these socks are not for me. 

I'm thinking of taking a break from this pattern, but I'm afraid that if I do I will never go back and knit the second sock.  I have a good excuse for taking a break in the Tour de France KAL, which starts in two days. I am a green jersey knitter in the TDF KAL, which means that I should be knitting something of average difficulty for me, but I should be knitting it quickly so that I am done before the end of the KAL, which is three weeks long.  Based on the time it took me to knit the first of the Celtic Braid Socks (11 days), I should finish the second sock and start/finish a second pair of them.  That would work, except for the part when I fly into a homicidal rage and injure someone with my needles. 

This ennui about my TDF KAL project is getting worse as the 5th July start date grows ever closer.  I suppose if I had an organized stash, it might be easier for me to choose something.  I know, if I documented my stash on Ravelry, that would help, too, and lots of people could peek into my stash and come up with ideas and things that I probably would not have figured.  Instead, here I sit at the computer on the evening of 3rd July, thinking that I should buy new yarn for a new project. . . nevermind the fact that it could not possible be here in time for the 5th July start because tomorrow is a federal holiday and there's no mail delivery.  And, well, at this point, most yarn shops are closed, too.

I'm wondering if I could get away with knitting two pairs of socks for the TDF KAL.  I know there are people who can easily knock out a pair a week, but I am not one of those people.  Plus, I am not inclined to pick a plain stockinette or ribbed sock pattern.  I'm thinking two pairs of lace, cable, or twisted stitch (or a combo of those) socks during the three week KAL.  I could also knit DD's Harry Potter sweater.  What do you think?  Is the sock idea a cop out?  Any suggestions for two sock patterns that would keep me on my toes knittingwise for three weeks?  I *do* have sock patterns I like queued on Ravelry.

And, now, because it is Thursday (and I know this for a fact), here's this week's Dogs on Thursday.  See how patiently Loco is waiting for his blueberry pupcake?  I made them last night.  The plan was to make them earlier in the week, but there was a run on blueberries at the grocery store.  I did finally find them at a different store, but that store didn't have guava jelly or empanada wrappers, so I went to yet a third grocery store today.  And the only empanada wrappers they had were "con color" and I don't like food with unnecessary colorings, but I sucked it up and bought them because I just could not bear to visit four grocery stores in as many days.

But, getting back to the pupcakes, Loco likes them a lot.  You know who else likes them?  Me!  They are somewhat bland but they are so good.  I usually share the pupcakes, half for Loco, half for me.  He has accepted this arrangement, probably because he's not aware that this is food meant for him.  He most likely thinks that I am being extraordinarily generous with my food.

Yuck!  I know some people are thinking that.  But these pupcakes really are good.  No one else in the house will try them, but that just leaves more for Loco and me.  The ingredients are: flour, milk, oatmeal, blueberries, baking powder, canola oil, honey, eggs, and sour cream.  It's the same stuff we eat on a fairly regular basis.  If I can get myself organized, I will get a copy of the recipe to Paula later this week so that she can put it up on Dogs on Thursday next week.  I did not make the recipe up, but it's similar to many other dog muffin or pupcake recipes.  I often get several recipes together and mix and match ingredients to synthesize them into one mongrelized recipe.

I might make more of these pupcakes.  I had no idea when I was making them that I'd like them so much.  I did freeze some for the future, too.  However, it will also be nice to have some fresh pupcakes ready because on Saturday we'll be welcoming a new canine addition to our family.  I am going to be getting up early in the morning so that I can be on the road to get this new dog back home in time for DH to see him before he goes to work. 

We did go to visit the dog earlier this week, and the 250 mile round trip to see him and return home turned into a six hour ordeal, thanks to interstate highway paving, two accidents, and a thunderstorm.  And I will confess that I was also partly to blame for the delay, as I decided to stay very hydrated due to the hot weather, so we had to make bathroom breaks.  Loco was with us and he appreciated the chance to get out and stretch his legs at each potty stop, too. 

The time in the car was productive knittingwise.  I finished the body of the Celtic Braid Sock but couldn't bind off because I didn't have the I-cord bind off instructions with me.  I could see DH looking at me out of the corner of his eye as I muttered and cursed and pawed through my knitting bag to see if I had just misplaced the instructions.  We were still an hour (which stretched out into two hours) from home when I hit the dead end on the sock, so I know he was a bit worried about my demeanor for the rest of the ride home.  When I started to repeat to him that we absolutely needed to stop at the next place that sold dark chocolate, and they'd better have clean bathrooms and unsweetened iced tea, dammit, I knew he was thinking that perhaps he'd drop me off and leave me there.  But then I triumphantly reached into my knitting bag, held something up, and said, "But I brought another knitting project with me just in case I hit a dead end with the sock!  I'm okay on the chocolate now, but I do need some iced tea, and a bathroom."  The fact that I actually worked on my extra knitting just this once will forever justify my packing extra skeins of sock yarn in my suitcase even when I am only going away for the weekend. 

Creeping Towards Sanity

I know my grasp of reality is tenuous at best on a fairly regular basis, but lately I think the connection has been more faulty than usual.  I blame the rain.  We're having another rainy day.  I've lost track of them now, though I am very much aware that today is Saturday and it's time for Saturday Sky.  See how grey it is at midday?

I did eventually realize (perhaps after being reminded by somebody) that my last post was posted on a Tuesday but was written as if it were posted on Wednesday.  I had no sooner adjusted to the correct day of the week when I had a phone conversation on Wednesday afternoon with someone who closed the call with, "See you tomorrow!"  I had plans to see her on Friday, so she really threw me and I had a moment of complete and total confusion before I finally, timidly, said, "Isn't today Wednesday?", fully expecting that I was date challenged once more.  Fortunately, she was the one who was confused, so I am in good company and feeling a bit more connected with reality.

You'd think I'd be spending more time knitting because of the rain, and it's been somewhat true.  I've sort of lost enthusiasm for the Celtic Braid Socks.  I'm also now feeling the pain as I see lots of Summer of Socks 2008 participants having finished one or more socks in the one week since summer began. 

Here's where the sock stands today, about halfway done.  I am not knitting on gauge for this sock.  My gauge is off.  That said, I'm not 100% sure of the correct gauge for the sock, as the pattern merely states 28 stitches to 4 inches. . . horizontally, vertically, or both is not specified.  The author of this pattern must be a very, very loose knitter, because she used size 0 needles to get a sock to fit a US 10 1/2 women's shoe size.  I am usually a midrange knitter who usually gets gauge on the recommended needle size, and I have a size 8 1/2 foot, so I am knitting with size 0 needles.  I have been knitting away and the sock does fit on my foot, but when I got to the heel placement for the afterthought heel, the sock was at least an inch too short.  The afterthought heel instructions in the pattern didn't make a lot of sense, and it was after 10:00 at night (and beer had been consumed), so I put the sock into timeout and worked on another UFO for the rest of the night.

Today I got some very, very helpful afterthought heel advice from Karen, so I figured out how I'm going to make the heel work.  I also decided to try the sock on DD.  It's a pretty good fit, just a little too long for her, so this sock is now for her.  It does fit on my foot, and I could have knit more length in the foot before I started the heel, but I was also concerned about how the sock was going to work with my high arches and didn't want to go crazy tweaking the pattern.  I thought about frogging the sock and trying again with size 2 needles, but it looked so good on DD and she was so thrilled about me knitting socks for her that I decided to keep on keeping on and gift it to her.  I feel a little bit crazy about knitting such labor intensive socks for an almost seven year old, but this way I can salvage what I've already knit and look at it as a learning experience. 

I've also been cooking during our rainy weather, but not too much -- let's not get the impression that I like cooking or am good at it.  I ran out during a break in the rain the other day and cut some rhubarb and made sUsAn's Rhubarb Crunch.  It is *so* good.  I highly recommend it.  My kids won't eat it and DH only likes rhubarb a little bit, so there's plenty for me.

I decided not to bake Loco a cake.  We went to the dog bakery to get him a birthday cake, but the owner wasn't there and she's the only one who can decorate cakes.   So, we got him a pupcake for his birthday, as well as an apple pie, cheese cake, and quite a few other delicious treats.  We came home and sang Happy Birthday to Loco.  I think he found it incredibly frustrating to have us all standing around him, crowding him, serenading him off-key with a song he didn't understand.  Dogs, labs especially, aren't really enamored of anything that delays eating, especially anything as pointless (to them) as singing.  Loco stood and looked at us all as though he couldn't believe we were wasting so much time when what he really wanted was to immediately commence the eating of a treat.  I'm glad we didn't put a candle on it as we had planned, because he made several attempts to liberate the pupcake.  This is the only photo I got of him with it -- it was impossible to get it anywhere near him without him attempting to snatch the pupcake out of my hand. 

Once he got the pupcake, he took it into the family room, because it's better to eat something messy on the carpeting versus on a surface that the cleaners (that would be DH and me) can more easily tidy up.  Like most other kids his age, Loco ate the frosting first and then ate the cake.

The second photo shows Loco actually taking the pupcake from me.  Never fear, my fingers were not harmed and there will be no disruption to my knitting.  There should be plenty of knitting going on this evening, but I don't think I will make the knit one sock in one week goal.  I started the Celtic Braid Sock last Saturday evening, but evening is rapidly approaching and I have 70+ rows to knit.  I'm going to get moving on it, but don't expect miracles.

Before I close, I wanted to mention a swap that I've signed up for, my first swap in a long time.  You have to be a Dogs on Thursday person.  DoT will be celebrating its one year anniversary next month.  I can't believe it's only been one year.  I've met so many wonderful bloggers through DoT.  As for the swap, I couldn't resist after seeing the photo of Elise with her ears flapping in the wind -- so cute!
 

Into Every Life a Little Rain Must Fall

It's been crazy rainy here of late, complete with thunder and lightning.  Yesterday, the kids put on their bathing suits and ran around in the rain (between bouts of thunder and lightning, of course). 

My outdoor knitting corner has been vacant for the past few days as a result of the rain.  I don't actually mind the rain so much now that I am not working.  If I don't have to deal with Boston commuting traffic and the havoc rain wreaks, and if I don't have to get all dressed up and go out in the rain, I am actually quite fine with it.  DD and I spent some time last week weeding and planting more flowers outside, so the rain will be lovely for them.  However, some of us would like the sun back so we can spend more time outside.

Like most labrador retrievers, Loco doesn't really mind going out in the rain and getting wet.  What he doesn't really like is that he cannot go out and lie on the porch.  If the weather was nicer, this is what he'd be doing:

Unfortunately, for most of the past two and a half days, he's been cooped up inside with the rest of us.  He's been good company while I knit, but I can't say he's enjoying himself too much.  I think that today, the boredom has gotten the better of him.  We had a nice morning, but the afternoon has been gloomy and rainy, and he's been reduced to this:

The poor thing!  He had his birthday this week, too, and we didn't do anything fun due to the rain.  I was planning on taking him to the dog bakery to pick out some treats, but I'm really not keen on wet dog in the car unless absolutely necessary.

I did talk to DH about getting another dog and he is actually amenable to it.  It's been about two and a half months since Beast died.  It's still difficult to think about him, but I think we've all been missing having a second dog around the house.  And, being the resourceful individual that I am, I found a couple of suitable candidates for adoption.  We're not looking at getting a puppy or a young dog, but someone who would be Loco's peer, agewise.  This has a bit of symmetry to it, as Loco should be getting a new dog right after his birthday, and we originally went from a one dog household to a two dog household just after Beast's birthday, way back in 1996.  (Oh, that explains my e-mail address for those of you who are in the know!)  Other than the two periods of one dog house that we've had after one of the dogs died, we've been a two dog house ever since. 

Now that I've said all that about dogs, I'll likely have nothing canine related to report tomorrow for Dogs on Thursday.  But, many people won't read this post until Thursday, so I will be okay.  Here's a Wednesday Sky shot.  You can see the raindrops coming down.  Yes, they were that big.  Some places in New England were expecting large size hail, but we haven't seen that yet.

I've been in the house a lot, working on my new socks.  I must confess, when I first started this sock, I was a bit discouraged about it.  The pattern is available for free on the internet, and it's written by a Finnish blogger.  I think it's a lovely finished product, but there are typos in the pattern as well as places where it wasn't completely translated from Finnish to English, so some of the knitting has been slow going.  Still, it's free, so I can be patient about the issues I'm having with the pattern.  I was a bit worried that instead of Summer of Socks 2008, I was going to end up with Summer of Sock 2008 because I was only going to be able to manage the knitting of one sock during these months.  Fortunately, the rain has kept me inside a lot and that, along with the satellite tv blackouts we keep having due to the cloudiness of the sky (usually a negative, but I'm thinking of it in a positive way for this purpose), has given me quite a bit of time where I can sit with the pattern and the sock and really concentrate on my knitting.

So, here's what I have so far.  I'm on row 70something out of 170something rows, so I'm making progress.  This is my first sock with an afterthought heel, so I will be learning something new with this sock, which is always a plus.  This is also the first sock I've ever knit on size 0 (2.0 mm) needles.  I think that it's also the first toe up sock I've knit using waste yarn to knit a little tube on which to knit the sock, but I can't remember for sure.  In any case, there are some firsts with this sock, so it's keeping me interested.  I still think I might cast on for a simpler sock to have for knitting when I can't concentrate or don't have room to spread out the pattern.  (Can anyone say Stitch N Pitch is coming up in another week and a half?)

Now, for the details on this sock.  The pattern is Celtic Braid, by Tuulia Salmela, and can be found here.  The yarn is Patonyle from Patons Australia, in color 1003, which I have dubbed Cream.  According to Ravelry, Patonyle is discontinued, but I think they will be making more of it.  This is my first time knitting with it and, although the huge skeins remind me of Opal yarn, this is much softer than Opal.  I think it's perfect for this project.  It's showing the stitches very nicely and it's easy on my fingers for all the cabling.  Plus, for those of you who recall my two sad Socks That Rock stories where I ran out of yarn on the toe of the second sock, there is *plenty* of yarn in this 1006 skein to knit two socks, 409 yards to be exact.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is actually more yardage to the skein than it states on the label, though, as even after I've knit this much sock, the skein doesn't look any smaller.

I'm going to finish this post now, as the thunder and lightning are making me a bit nervous that we are going to lose electricity.  I don't know if I can knit this by candlelight, but I'm not beyond giving it a try!

Where's Loco?

He almost blends into the sand, doesn't he?  We took Loco for his first solo trip to the beach the other day.  We were supposed to go last week, but the nice weather didn't coincide with our schedules.  He enjoyed the beach, but he did not swim.  He did, however, get his feet wet:

I swear, I have the only labrador retriever on the planet who doesn't like to swim.  Still, he enjoyed running on the beach, to an extent.  He decided on his own that he'd had enough of the sand and he ran up the stairs to the sidewalk that borders the sand and walked along there.  He had a good time, if only because it was something different.

I had a good time, too.  I knit My So-Called Scarf in the car on the way there because my current project is a bit too complicated to knit on the go.  Here it is:

That's the back of the Debbie Bliss Pure Silk Lace Shrug.  That piece, and one of the front pieces, are done now.  I need to figure out how to block them, and there aren't any suggestions in the pattern book or on the yarn label.  This is 100% silk yarn, and the pattern is lace and cables.  I'm of the mind that steam blocking would be a disaster, so I'm thinking wet blocking would be the answer.  However, I'm worried I might be missing something.  Does anyone have any suggestions or words of advice?  Thank you!

I have some advice on working with this silk yarn.  At the left, you can see what the lovely center-pull ball that I wound looks like after I've been knitting a bit.  Sometimes, I was spending more time untangling yarn to knit than actually knitting.  That got my wheels turning, and I decided to knit the next ball from the outside in.  Voila!  No time wasted untangling yarn.  So, even though the point of using the ball winder is to have a center-pull ball, sometimes it just makes sense to knit the yarn up from the outside.  And I also have to relay a tip from Cookie on winding slippery yarn on your ball winder -- she puts a knot in the end of slippery yarn so that it will hold tight when she starts cranking.  I never would have thought of that on my own.

Finally, I have a meme, shamelessly stolen, from Stephanie.  As you may have noticed, I've had much more time for reading lately.  I was going through this meme for the fun of it, without thinking I'd post it, when I realized that the next book I'm going to read is on the list.  I think this list is accurate, but I also think that I have read some of these books and forgotten about them, so perhaps I have read more.  And you? 

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (have it at home, might read it)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair

The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations

American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Always the Last to Know

Last night, after completing yet *another* knitting project (That's three in three days, not that you'd know from reading here. . . yet.), I decided to reward myself with the pleasure of winding the yarn for my next new project.  I'm knitting with Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, which I bought a couple of years ago.  It comes in really beautiful, tightly coiled skeins.  In does not wind beautifully, however.  For one thing, this 100% silk yarn is very, very slippery.  I couldn't even get it to stay in the notches on my ball winder for the longest time.  Then I realized something that probably is known by every knitter who owns a ball winder, and perhaps by some who don't.  Can you see what I finally saw?

I've owned this ball winder for probably four years and never, ever noticed this before, even though I have wound many, many skeins of sock yarn on it.  One of the notches at the top is deeper (and gets narrower) than the other.  If you put the tail end of the yarn in the shallower notch, a slippery silk yarn will fly right out as soon as you start cranking the handle of the ball winder.  If you put the tail end of the yarn in the deeper notch, it will hold when you start to wind the yarn.

All this is not to say that having that knowledge made the winding of this yarn any easier.  My skeins have been wound into a lot of small, lavender birds' nests.  I'm really, really hoping that I will be able to knit without them turning into tangled clumps of yarn.  I won't be surprised if that doesn't happen though.  Last night, DH came home from work at 11:30 pm and found me in the kitchen, untangling yarn and muttering, "Knitting is my hobby.  It brings me joy.  Knitting is the new yoga.  I feel relaxed and renewed.  Knitting is my hobby.  I like to knit. .  ."  You get the picture.

And DH must have taken pity on me, because today he offered me the item at the left.  If you think that looks like a chocolate Easter rabbit sans head, you are correct.  My darling spouse gifted me with the rest of his Easter rabbit today because, to quote him, "otherwise, I'm just going to throw it out."  Well, *that* makes a girl feel special.  With Mother's Day only a few days away, I'm on the edge of my seat anticipating what wonders await me from him. . . maybe he will give me candy (or coins) that he finds in the cushions of the seats of his car. 

Mother's Day weekend won't completely suck, even if my spouse fails to deliver.  I am planning on going to the New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival on Saturday.  Last year, I had my plans all made when I sprained my ankle badly and ended up on crutches.  This year, I'm being a bit more last minute about it, though I'm going to have to bring the kids so I can't be totally spur of the moment.  Is anyone else going on Saturday?  I haven't read anything about it in blogland or on Ravelry, but then again, I'm hopelessly out of the loop on these things.

I leave you all with Loco, enjoying the lovely spring weather on a visit to my outdoor knitting spot.  He can't come to NH S&W, but we've got a very special excursion planned for him for next week.  It's something he will enjoy.  I'm not using some sort of special code for going to the vet's office.  I will bring the camera and take photos for next week's Dogs on Thursday.

Completing the Circle

What goes around, comes around.  I complained about my mother's poor driving skills yesterday and the gods exacted their revenge on me today.  I took DS out to dinner tonight and couldn't find street parking, so I had to park in a garage.  The driver who attempted to enter the garage before us was having all sorts of trouble getting in, and she was getting really angry about it, so I moved into another lane and zoomed right into the garage, feeling quite superior, really.  As soon as we got into the garage, DS started to ask me about pushing the buttons on the garage elevator, which he loves because its exterior wall is glass so you can watch the street as you ascend or descend.  I got busy talking to him and I started getting annoyed that everyone in the garage was driving in the wrong direction.  That, combined with the lady who couldn't get *into* the garage, had me feeling like the superior driver that I like to think I am.  That is, until I noticed that I was the one who was driving against the flow of traffic.  All of the yellow arrows on the garage floor pointed in the opposite direction from the one in which I was driving.  I was mortified.  And this garage has angle parking, so I was at the wrong angle to pull into a space.  Finally, I found an empty spot and backed in at the proper angle.  I figured that on the way out, the garage would be less crowded and I'd have room to make a wide left turn and align my travel direction with the arrows.  And I was right about that.  But I've never done anything like that before.  I am appropriately humbled.

My driving mojo might have been off today, but knitting mojo was right on.  I started the second Conwy sock today while listening to an online lecture and I finished the cuff before I had to put it away.  I also started to attach the second sleeve to Childhood.  This cardi is at a difficult point to photograph because of the hood and the unsewn seams.  However, since it last appeared on the blog, I knitted the button bands and the hood, sewed the button bands and one sleeve on, and sewed in some other loose ends.  At this point, I only need to sew the other sleeve on, finish seaming, and get the fasteners on the front bands.  It's been a gorgeous week here, too warm for even a cotton sweater, but next week we should be back to normal, slightly cooler temps and DS should be able to wear this, so I will soldier on, even though that sock is calling to me.

Finally, I've got a little Dogs on Thursday photo for the first time in a long time.  This is the Beast.   You can click to make the photo bigger.  We picked up his ashes today.  I remember the first time I saw one of my pet's ashes.  I was surprised that they looked like sand and not like fireplace ashes.  Beast is in a convenience urn while we attempt to order him an urn like the ones our other deceased pets have.  I put a tape measure in the photo so you can see how big the convenience urn is.  Beast weighed 80 pounds when he died.  The cremains of cats and small dogs are returned in convenience urns that are almost the exact same shape and size as a Big Mac box from McDonald's.  Let me tell you, *that* was a surprise the first time I saw it. 

After we picked up the ashes, DH took me out to lunch before he went to work.  I brought the urn into the restaurant with me and put it on a chair at our table.  I couldn't bear to think about leaving Beast's cremains in the car.  We were going to stop at Target on the way home, but when I told DH that I hoped they didn't hassle me about bringing the urn into Target, he said he didn't need to go there as much as he thought he did, so we'd just go straight home. Hmph!  Imagine, being embarrassed that your wife wants to bring your beloved dog's ashes into a store instead of leaving them in the car.  As if that's the worst thing I could do to him!

Here's the last photo of Beast, just before we took our last trip to the hospital:

Today we got a sympathy card from the hospital.  I would like to share with you the quote printed inside the card, and then some quotes from the many doctors and technicians who wrote personal messages on the card.

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle easily and often breached.  Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still live no other way.  We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."

-- Irving Townsend

"We are so sorry for the loss of your Beast.  He was such a trooper and has surprised us all!"

"Beast was such a sweetie.  Always tail wagging.  I'm happy I got to know him."

"Beast was a lovely dog."

"He was a very sweet old gentleman."

"I will miss his cute face and happiness."

"He was a special guy...our friend with blondish highlights.  We will all miss him here.  I have always admired your commitment to him. . . I know much you miss him and how important he was to you -- that bond will last forever."

"He was such a special dog and will be sorely missed.  You did everything you could for him, and may you feel peace in knowing this.  May all of the happy memories of him live on forever."

I have to say, I lost two other pets at this hospital, and this is the nicest sympathy card that I ever received from them.  Part of it is because they knew him for longer and he was a very regular visitor after he got cancer (versus the other two pets, who died after very brief hospitalizations), but part of it also was because of his sunny disposition, no matter what the circumstances.  The Beast is well and truly missed.

And It's How Long Until Mother's Day?

Mother of the year I am not.  Last night at 9:00, I pulled into McDonald's to get the kids their crappy meals for dinner and I was dismayed to see that the restaurant was dark.  Fortunately, the drive through was still open, so they got their meals and were in bed by 10:00.  I know that's horrible and late for a 4 and a 6 year old, but there's a reason for the madness.

The Beast came home last night.  We're thrilled to have him home.  I wish I could say he felt the same way, but he really doesn't feel well.  We don't have a complete diagnosis on him yet because for some reason it has taken days for the radiologists to write the report on his CT scan, but he's got laryngeal paralysis, an issue with his gall bladder, a collapse of the dorsal membrane on his trachea, and, of course, the coughing and vomiting.  Since he's been home, he's vomited up every thing he's eaten (and all of his meds).  After he vomited up his dinner and evening meds tonight, I came to the realization that he may be near the end of his road.  He's clearly miserable and the status quo is not compatible with prolonged life.  I talked to the vet and I've got to go out again tonight (but this time I fed the kids first) to see if I can buy some foods that the Beast might be able to keep down.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some dark chocolate.  In fact, I just had some.  I have to keep up those seratonin levels.   Usually just a little helps, but I might stock up on more when I'm at the store tonight.  It makes sense to be prepared. 

Let me say that the following is not something that I am considering doing to my dog, but the darker the chocolate, the higher the level of compounds that are fatal to dogs, and I like my chocolate *dark*.  A few years ago, I was in the waiting room at the vet's and there was a woman feeding an elderly labrador retriever dark chocolate.  I was horrified and curious, so I asked her about it.  It turned out that she was there to have the dog euthanized and it was tradition in her dog loving household that the dog's last meal be something that they never, ever would have allowed the dog to eat but for the unfortunate circumstances.  It worked for me, and the dog seemed pretty okay with eating the chocolate.  I don't know if I'll be sharing dark chocolate with the Beast, even when his time comes.  We always tell him he's chocolatey enough when he begs for chocolate.

I have been knitting.  This is my car knitting.  It's My So-Called Scarf, knit with Schaefer Esperanza in the Katharine Hepburn colorway.  I've had this yarn sitting in my stash for a few years and I was looking for something easy to knit while traveling to and from the hospital with Beast.  From Monday to Wednesday, I travelled 240 miles on my various trips to and from the hospital.  Although I only knit for half of those miles (as I was driving the other miles), I made some progress on this scarf.  The only thing is that the ball of yarn doesn't look any smaller to me, so I am thinking this is going to be one very long scarf.  I felt a little guilty about starting yet another project that I have no intention of finishing any time soon, but this will at least give me a good, portable project for those times when I cannot concentrate and/or don't have the ability to lay out charts and other things in order to knit.  It's not exactly portable like a sock.  A lot of sock projects can be tucked into a medium-sized purse and surreptitiously carried about, waiting for knitting time to present itself.  However, given the size of the skein and the fact that this is going to be a bulky, long scarf, it's not going to be hiding anywhere.  Still, even if I just reserve it for car rides with DH, it fulfills a knitting need.

I've got one more new project that is also portable.  It is appropriately from Knitting on the Road, and it fits quite delightfully in my new knitting sack.  I am feeling a bit guilty that I haven't finished the cardi I am knitting for DS -- all I need to do is block it, knit the button bands, partially assemble it, and knit the hood before it will be ready for final finishing.  I *could* do it, but I haven't done it.  It's a curse.  I've got brighter and shinier new knitting interests and I have left the cardi behind in the dust, even though I know how little would be required to finish it and how I need to finish it before DS has grown too big to wear it.  What I need to do is devote one day to the cardi and see how much I can get done.  I think it's entirely possible that I can get enough done that I will be so close to finishing it that I will be motivated to push through and complete it.  So, I just need to pick a day.  And I am procrastinating on that point.

As I said, I have other interests.  And here is Conwy II, in that lovely Manzanita Shepherd Sock.  I'm loving this pattern for the second time, and I'm loving this yarn.  I don't know if I started with the evil tangled skein that gave me so much trouble when I was winding it.  I put that out of my mind when I randomly selected which skein to use first.

I'd like to say that this is the only other new thing that I have going on in my knitting life, but there are a couple of other new things.  I have acquired more yarn.  And I have done something else that might almost be called knitting.  But all that is going to have to wait for another day because I've got to take the kids to the liquor store grocery store now to buy some food for the Beast to try.  And, yes, I'm sorely tempted to replenish the depleted stock of Guinness in this household.  I don't think I've ever brought the kids into a liquor store before.  With my luck, I'll do it and run into someone who was at McDonald's last night at 9:00.  And if I'm lucky, DS will say something about how Beast (whose real name is a human first name, and who eavesdroppers may easily assume is a human member of the household) has been vomiting all over the house and even vomited in DS's room today.  That should make the trip more fun, the likelihood of one of the kids saying something like that to further tarnish my motherly reputation.

Drive By

I've got loads of e-mails to answer and lots of other things to get done, but I wanted to post, even a quick drive by post, just to say I'm alive and well.  One of the reasons why I haven't been posting (or knitting) is that I've been quite the social butterfly lately.  I'm going to try to keep that up, because I'm having so much fun, and because some socializing involves knitting.

I went to Sunday morning stitch n' bitch for the first time in eons and had a lovely, lovely time there.  I brought Gerbera but didn't get much knit as I spent most of my time trying to figure out where I was in the pattern.  Since then, I've only picked Gerbera up once, but I managed to figure out how to get over the distastefulness of doing the two color knitting in the round while doing sleeve increases.  I can't believe I didn't think of this simple fix before.

I put it on a circular needle and for some reason that's made it so much easier than it was on dpns.  The only drawback is that this is a 16 inch circular, so the sleeve top is bunched up and I can't spread it out for better viewing.  Other than that, it's made this part of the sleeve go much, much faster and I'm now almost halfway done with this portion.  Still, I can't wait to get back to the lacy part and get this sweater done.

I want to wear Gerbera this winter!  That might be difficult, as it's been in the 50's and 60's lately, almost springlike and very strange for the middle of January.  Coincidentally, I got a bouquet with a lovely gerbera daisy in it, which has been further motivation for the knitting of the sweater and a tantalizing hint that spring will be here before I know it.  (Okay, remind me of that last part in a few weeks when it is back to being freezing cold and I haven't seen the sun in days.)

Even though it's winter and it's our busiest time of the year at work (and I'm much more swamped than usual and working extra hours that I don't want to work), I have to say that my thought about making time to make myself happy in 2008 is working fairly well.  There are definitely days at work when I am stressed and unhappy, but I've been able to find little things that make me feel happier so that even when work has been awful, the day isn't a complete and total loss.

And, before the date changes, I have Dogs on Thursday photos:

Loco hardly ever sleeps with his tongue sticking out, so when he did this, I just had to get a shot of it.

And let's not forget Beast.  He's going to start his chemo again next week, hopefully.  He'll be having tests first to make sure that he's up to it after his recent bad turn.

That's all I've got for now, but I'm hoping to post over the weekend and to get back to people and to KNIT!  I know most people won't be reading this until Friday, so have a wonderful weekend.

Ultrasound Update

Beast had his ultrasound last week.  The fur on his belly had finally grown back in after the previous ultrasound (as you can see in this photo) and now he's clean shaven again, just in time for winter weather.  He doesn't seem to mind.

In fact, he's feeling pretty good.  The results of his ultrasound were mixed.  The mass on his adrenal gland (which we're not certain is cancer) is bigger.  The lymph nodes that had prostatic cancer in them are bigger.  But the prostate tumor is smaller, one centimeter smaller, and the oncologist is very pleased, as that's the most serious of his issues.  She said she could actually feel how much smaller it was.  So, chemotherapy continues, with another ultrasound in six weeks.

Although Beast is feeling good and we're seeing progress with the most serious of his health issues, he's had his fill of the hospital.  Last Friday, when I tried to take him down to the garage with me, he was quite willing to follow me until he realized that I was going to put him in the car, and he turned around and tried to go back up to bed.  I did get him in the car, though, and he was his normal friendly, happy self at the hospital.  He was even happy after his chemo.  As long as we're able to give him that quality of life, this is all worth it. 

And let's not forget Loco.  He's doing great, though he really, really hates the subfreezing weather that has become the norm lately.  I guess he'll always be a southern boy at heart.

Both dogs walked the 5K on Thanksgiving morning.  I brought the camera, but it was foggy and rainy, so I didn't take any photos.  Because the ground was wet, no one who took extra bagels put them down, so it was slim pickings for the dogs after the race.  Beast ended up being more successful than Loco at scarfing down extra bagels, even though Loco has quicker reflexes.  I guess this is a situation where experience trumps physical ability.  Loco focused his bagel acquiring efforts on staring at people with those big sad lab eyes that say, "Feed me!"  Beast could have cared less about the people.  He kept his eyes on the ground, where he spotted and ate several bagels that had been dropped.  Loco was fortunate to have his photo taken for the local paper, but somehow I think he'd rather have had more bagels.

Dog Dog Dog

It's all about the dogs today.  Knitting resumes next post.

See the skinny dog?  This is not the way that dogs are supposed to look.  And you can do something about that.  Rebekah is having a contest for a very good cause, and an appropriate one for Dogs on Thursday.  She just adopted a dog from a local rescue organization, and serendipitously learned of a dog that they just took in who was abused.  Sugar Ray was abandoned in a house for six weeks without food and water.  He almost died, but he's been taken into rescue and is receiving the care he needs while the rescue pursues action against the person responsible for this.  Most, if not all, animal rescue organizations do not even begin to recoup their expenses in rescuing and caring for animals before a suitable adoptive home is found.  Sugar Ray is going to need a lot of care.  So, click over to his page at Hope Rescues, make a donation, and then let Rebekah know that you did so she can enter you in a prize drawing.

And here's the not so skinny boy.  He's not fat, either, but he's well fed.  And well loved.  It probably isn't that exciting for you, but the Beast is on my bed and I'm thrilled.  He hasn't been able to get on the bed in a long time due to his arthritis.  It doesn't bother him much because he likes to sleep in his crate, on a dog bed, or in DH's closet.  He has been on my bed twice in the past week.  The first time was on chemo day.  I was in bed with Loco and Beast climbed up.  I snuggled up to him and felt very depressed, thinking that he probably made the effort to climb up because death was imminent, but he stayed on until DH got home from work, when he jumped off and ran downstairs with Loco to greet DH and beg for biscuits. 

A few nights later, I went into my room and found both dogs lying on the bed.  Beast likes the top of the bed and often moves the pillows and blankets around to make a nest.  Loco prefers the foot of the bed.  That ratty, hairy blue blanket on the bed is there for a reason. . . Loco sheds like crazy so we quickly decided that we had to cover the bed if he was going to sleep on it every night.  He's managed to chew a few holes in that blanket, too, so I'm doubly glad that we put it on.  The last thing I need is him chewing a hole in something nice or a down comforter.  Fortunately, DH (who is the last one out of our bed) made the bed all the way (though messily).  A couple of weeks ago, he didn't pull the blue blanket and everything under it all the way and one of the cats puked on the blue blanket and on the bottom sheet and everything in between, which was really, really irritating for me to find when I got home from work.  I washed everything and gave DH a piece of my mind, so he's been good about the bed lately.  If you've got a puking cat like I do, I suggest you heed this cautionary tale and make your bed every day.

Last week, I was asked about whether we give the dogs supplements.  And the answer is yes, we do.  We always gave the dogs Mega Tabs from Drs. Foster and Smith.  They are an all-purpose supplement with brewer's yeast, which is thought to be a natural flea repellant.  We've never had a flea infestation, so I can't argue with that.   After we adopted a chocolate lab who came to us with cancer, we added Vitacaps, which have Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids, antioxidants, and zinc.  The idea was to hopefully prevent future cancer.  The immediate effect it had was on the dogs' fur, as they didn't get such dry skin and coat during the winter.  Seven years later, we lost the dog to liver cancer, but it's possible that his supplement mix kept him cancer free for longer than he would have been without it.  Beast is now on supplements for his arthritis, but I honestly can't recommend any particular product because I don't see a huge change in him based on any one product.  We still give him his supplements, though, because I'd like to think that they make him a bit more comfortable.  There are some arthritis meds that he cannot take due to the medication regime he's on for his cancer.

Other than that, I've got nothing.  The short week and my cold have kept me from making amazing progress on Gerbera, and I'm not going to trot out a photo showing one more inch knitted since last post.  I also must confess that I got a Flickr account and have been spending way too much time over at Ravelry.  I'm behind on e-mail and on knitting and I still haven't spent enough time in the vortex.  However, Thursday night is TV night, so I expect more visible progress will be made soon.