Minimal Cat Talk. It's Safe To Come In.

First and foremost, a smack on the forehead to me and a thank you to all the brilliant readers out there who said, “You dork. Just remove the hair trap when you get out of the shower!” So simple a solution, and yet so elusive for me. I’ll blame it on the depression. (Hey, this depression thing could come in handy!)

Since I had to retrieve the hair trap four times this morning during the mere fifteen minutes it took me to get ready for work, it is now temporarily elsewhere, out of reach of the bad, bad kitties.

(Only other cat note of the day, for those of you who are sick of reading about B & J: Although no serious harm was done to cat or human, I have learned that you can’t see black cats in the dark. Oh, and, so far, Benny has remained off the kitchen ceiling.)

As if the Blanket Squares of Universal Love and Support (all of which I got to hug in a big pile on Monday so I can tell you personally the current count is 44 and they are all gawjus) weren’t enough, unbeknownst to me (well, beknownst now, since I’ve had this for a few weeks) while I was at the funny farm, the Ferals were working on this gift for me, each person knitting a few inches of it:

Although the color of the photo is pretty spot-on, it doesn’t do the look and feel of the wrap justice. The unique dark- and light-teal variegation and subtle thick-and-thin of the yarn make it look as if it were knit out of sunlit tropical sea water. And talk about soft and warm! Fuggedaboudit! And it’s long, so you can grab the ends, wrap them around yourself, and snuggle in. Janine, who participated in making it and bestowed it upon me while I was staying with her, will tell you that I didn’t take it off for hours, and even wore it to the in-patient hospital session the next day. The weather’s a mite warm these days to do much snuggling in it, but I think we will become inseparable come fall and winter.

Thank you, Evelyn, who, as I understand it, spearheaded this, and all the Ferals, for this remarkable, unexpected and comforting gift, and the sweet card!

Despite the one vote from my sister for my second choice, "Honora"—to which I gave a lot of weight and thought—the winner is "Maisie". It just fits.

The pattern for Maisie comes from the book “Compassionate Knitting,” a copy of which now resides on my bookshelf (purchased through Alibris, with more paid for S&H than for the actual book; go figure). To be honest, unless I had seen a finished doll in the flesh—or in the stitch, as it were—I wouldn't have been tempted to knit one because the photos in the book are small and vague and all about twee angels and fairies and I’m not into the twee. But Maisie just cries out for a companion (no, not that kind), so maybe there'll be a Honora or a Paloma after all!

The interesting thing about the doll pattern is that it’s knit flat and shaped. The arms and legs are then rolled into tubes and seamed on the bottom and inside, respectively, and the body is rolled into a tube and seamed at the back. The head is knit by picking up stitches around a hole worked into the body. Heck, even I could do that!

Lastly, a picture sent to me by Big Sister of my nephew and the family dawg, Tanner, watching TV. I love this.

While Nephew's look of rapt attention is genuine, and Nephew most likely will stay put, don't be fooled by Tanner. He's on the lookout for anything vaguely animal-shaped that appears on the screen, at which point he will leap up and try to bite it, the net result being the loud clank of dog teeth against the glass and an unsightly trail of dog slobber. Needless to say, Big Sister and Brother-in-Law try to discourage this.

Nothing Much Here For Dog Lovers

Things have improved on the Benny-the-Biter front. Not so much biting happening, mostly because my solution has been to skritch him more, not less, but I have discovered that he’s just a toothy kind of fellow. Even when he rubs against your leg or arm, purring his fool head off, at about pass #4, you feel some hard enamel being introduced into the picture, a definite side-of-tooth scrape, like the first swim-by of the "Jaws" shark, in miniature. This I can live with.

Saturday I figured they’d settled in enough to introduce catnip into the picture (I waited for a while because I thought it might be counterproductive to have Benny on Valium and catnip, the cat equivalent of uppers and downers. Besides, I didn’t want to impede his ability to operate heavy machinery). They completely blew it off:

“Oh, look. What did Mommy bring home?”

“Looks like a tiny, fake burlap bag of flour.”

“Smells like it has something in it, something leafy.”

"Edible?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Huh.Let’s run up the Spiral Staircase of Kitty Joy and see if the crows are sitting in the tree again.”

“Okay, let’s.”

Oy. It’s a good thing I’m not trying to make a living pushing recreational drugs.

(Update: Sunday I learned Bennie doesn’t need catnip. He ran into the kitchen all coy and skittish and playful, so I shuffled after him, egging him on. He freaked at the shuffling, jumped on the stove, shot straight up again, pushed off the kitchen ceiling and landed on the floor. The ceiling, people. I kid you not. I stood there stunned, thinking, pretty much, "Holy crap.")

The children have also discovered that they can remove the hair trap from the shower (which, by the way, I have trouble removing) and hide it wherever the hell they please. Since I have old, wonky plumbing (no, not me personally, the house. You hush.), having the hair trap is very important, so showers now take twice as long as they used to: 15 minutes spent finding the hair trap, 15 minutes taking a shower.

And in answer to those folks who either (a) wondered, but in a nice way, why I got two cats when I can barely take care of myself right now, and one cat would’ve done just fine, thank you very much or (b) are now themselves considering getting two cats instead of just one, I present the following:

Emotionally, had a huge crash this weekend, one of those crashes your psychiatrist, various mental health advisors, and therapists warn you about. Very deep, very dark, very awful, and there was lot of what Oprah would call The Ugly Cry. For hours. Until my eyes felt small and dry and squinchy. And, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t make it to work. But I was rescued by my ever-vigilant guardian angels: Big Sister, Elaine and Leslie, and three people from work who called to make sure I was okay (in a good way, not in the “you're fired” way. Phew.)

By the by, I include this information about my personal drawma in the blog mostly for the folks who are going through/have gone through the same thing I am because this is all new for me and is different every day. I’ve had a lot of powerful and interesting dialogs with some of the blog readers and just want to be as open as I can about what I’m going through in case it can help anyone. Things are better; even on my darkest days, I don’t want to take an Unauthorized Leave of Absence, which is a step up, but still...

And, if I’m going to be completely honest about this, I will also confess that alcohol has been tempting me lately, just to make the pain and the depression go away for a few minutes, which is a very dangerous thing indeed, given my family history. Fortunately, I’m managing to ignore the call, and I don’t have any alcohol in the house anyway, so the threat is under control. However, it is very strange and very disturbing to be having these thoughts.

This is all so tiring.

Later this week, a picture of a beautiful "good-thoughts wrap" knit for me by my other guardian angels, the Ferals. I am a very lucky girl.

Of Nudity, Oil, Cornhusk Dolls, and, As Always, Knitting

Feeling very sad this week—not depressed, which is deeper and blacker and more nightmarish—but have just a general case of the weepy blues. I can’t quite tell which is worse. One feels worse but you can blame it on brain chemistry, and one is not as bad but is just a particularly painful and wearing ol’ human emotion that no Preciouses can fix. I’ve headed back to the gym to try to break through this but it’s sort of a vicious circle where you don’t feel “up” enough to go to the gym but you need to go to the gym to help yourself feel “up.” Let me just say, this sucks. All of it.

For the record, since this is a knitting blog, but I seem to have focused on mood swings and kittehs more lately, I am knitting. I’ve started my first “real” (meaning one that I think I will actually finish) grown-up garment, a seed-stitch bomber jacket effort in a heathered-brown Debbie Bliss 100% wool, held double. (I have noticed that the depression and lack of ability to concentrate has given me a severe case of startitis—something I’ve never had in all my years as a knitter—but I say, eff it. The depression has also made me a lot less ladylike.)

I present an uninspiring brown square, the back of the jacket:

Still on the knitting front, my new family keeps growing. Here is another addition, which was knitted and given to me by Janine’s sister Tori:

Love the outrageous sheep-fleece hair, love the fact that she doesn’t have a face, love the dress. The challenge now is giving her a name, something old-fashioned, something reminiscent of a cornhusk doll. I’ve come up with:

Maisie
Celeste
Piper
Honora (my Irish great-grandmother’s name)

And, for some reason, something not American at all, and something I'm sure no cornhusk doll was ever called: Paloma.

I’m leaning towards Maisie. What do you think?

On the kitteh front, unexpectedly, Benny has turned out to be a bit of a biter. He's very loving, follows me everywhere, is the first to get on the bed with me at night, and will lie draped in my arms and on my chest for hours, languidly relaxed and purring, but he’s also taken a nasty fanged swipe or two, and made painful contact last night. Not that it matters; he’s m’boy.

The cats have also discovered that the alarm clock signals kitteh breakfast. The instant the alarm clock goes off, Joon jams her nose on mine. The instant. Hitting the snooze button is unpleasant when you have to do it through a cloud of day-old, snot-imbued fish breath.

I have also noticed, ever since I got the cats, that, when I come home in the afternoon, the occasional ball of yarn is not where I left it in the morning. Do you think there could be a connection?

Spent Saturday with Elaine, Leslie and the lovely yet infamous Rabbitch. We had a nummy breakfast at a local Greek-although-not-really-since-I-don’t-think-the-Greeks-invented-Western-omelets restaurant, swung by Gasworks Park to watch a parade of naked bicyclists protest oil dependence*, and then headed to Weaving Works, where yet more slips of green paper were traded for yet more yarn.

Then the dinner with the women of OutVentures. I was nervous at first because I thought they’d be all, you know, cool, athletic, and snooty but they were great. Especially the hottie seated waaaaay at the other end of the table, whom I am artificially imbuing with greatness because I was never actually able to talk to her or catch her eye. Damn. There were 20 of us there and I happened to be seated next to a couple, one of whom owns a quarter horse, and we’re trying to make arrangements for me to ride it on a regular basis. This is very kewl since getting back in the saddle, literally, was one of the top goals I set when I was in the loony bin.

The biggest challenge of the night was remembering that, as far as I knew, no one there was a knitter. Very hard to do. If you could have seen inside my brain, you would have seen one half taken up with chatting and flirting, and the other half with saying, “Not knitters. Not knitters. Not knitters. Not knitters.”

*Or, as I called it, “oily pendants.” I will leave it up to you to decide what I meant. That, and I couldn’t quite figure out what nudity and dependence on oil had to do with one another but, fortunately, I had left my logical brain in my other pants that morning, so I let it go.

Friday Kwikkie

I am insufferably pleased with myself. I was asked out on a date. Yay!

…

By a man. Boo!

(That I met in line at the pharmacy while picking up more Preciouses. Which just goes to show, you never know.)

…

Who then immediately proceeded to remind me why I’m on not so big on the mens, by, despite the fact that I declined the invitation, pawing at me every way possible within the bounds of human decency: Touch the shoulder, touch the arm, take the hand, pat, pat, caress, stare longingly into the eyes, scootch in as close as possible, grab, grab, grab. Blech.

And then gave me his phone number and said if I did call not to worry if a woman answered the phone because it would be his ex-wife who was living with him because she had no home and no money and had nowhere else to go. The whole thing was a tad Jerry Springer-ish.

To his credit, though, he was clever enough to start the pick-up process by asking me about my knitting, and saying he bet I was really good at it (suck up, suck up, suck up), and I could probably knit just about anything (including socks—ten points to him for even knowing that. More suck up, suck up, suck up.), and how much he loved those “little blankets you could keep on the back of your chair and pull over yourself when you got cold.” Note to the men out there: Take a cue from this guy. This move works very well. I probably talked to him a lot more than I woulda if he hadn’t zeroed in on the whole sticks and string thing. It didn’t hurt that he was quite easy on the eyes, but there was still that whole Y-chromosome thing. Sorry, dude.

Cat update: Elaine and Leslie have a wonderful multi-story (by cat standards), carpeted, Jungle-Jim thingy for their two cats that Pyewacket loves to dangle dare-devilishly from with one claw, and I started thinking Benny and Joon needed one so they could live in a tree-barren yet still three-dimensional world. Then they discovered the spiral staircase. Problem solved. Commence the thunder of not-so-velvet paws, up, down, up down, up, down, up, down, peek coyly at Mommy through stairs, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, peek coyly at Mommy through the stairs, try to rake her skull with pointy claws when she comes over to see what you're doing, up, down, up down, up, down, up, down, take a nap on the upstairs bed, up, down, up down, up, down, up, down, demand dinner.

The double-decker cat-loves continues. Last night, Joon climbed on my lap, fell asleep, and ended up lying on her back, head dangling, all four paws stretched out. Which is when Benny climbed on her stomach, lay down, and fell asleep, all four paws stretched out. Kitty sandwich!!

Cat-ching Up

Apropos of nothing, things have been a little weird here at work. Last week one of our employees won the million-dollar state lottery, and, quite unrelated but still odd, for the last two or three days all of our phone calls have been inexplicably routed to the company across the street. Time to check for a full moon.

After a long struggle involving four visits to the vet in six days; one overnight stay (for him, not me); some force feeding with, in the end, cat-food goo splattered all over the examination room floor, the examination table, the wall, and the vet’s coat; some Valium (again, for him, not me, which is good because I don’t think my body could handle any additions to my Preciouses); and lots of baksheesh, Benny is now eating like a champ, after not having eaten anything, except what was force fed, for eight days. In fact, this morning he raced into the bedroom yelling, “FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED ME, YA’ LAZY-ASS BIYATCH!!!” and he attacked the soon-proffered plate of food so hard it clanked against the floor. Let the bonding begin.

We also, somewhere along the way, had a massive fight, which he won by giving me six or seven deep puncture wounds in my palm. Having had cat-scratch fever once in the past, I prefer not to repeat the experience, hence a hypochondriacal application of antibiotic and Band-Aids. Note to self: Benny doesn’t like the sound of the hair dryer.

Other new-cat notes:

I never knew cat poo could be so thrilling. Because the cats haven’t been eating, there has a been a noticeable lack of kitty “tootsie rolls” in the litter box. However, yesterday, Joon sauntered in and made a lovely deposit and I was all, “Yay! Cat poo!” and then I was all clap, clap, clap with the hands, and then I was all patting the cat and telling her what a good kittywittywitty she was, and then I was all, “I am seriously pathetic.”

As much as I’d like to think I’ve lost inches in my chestal region, I knew I hadn’t lost quite as much as I thought when I found myself watching TV with one cat asleep on each boob. Along similar lines, last night Joon decided she wanted to sleep on my lap so she climbed into my lap, curled up, and nodded off. Enter Benny, who climbs up onto Joon, curls up, and nods off. Double-decker lap-cats!

I thought the reason Joon walked incessantly on my laptop keyboard was because I was at the computer and she wanted to get my attention. Until I was nowhere near the computer—I was on the phone, quite some feet away, in fact—turned around, and she was sitting squarely on the keyboard all by her lonesome. (There was an email open at the time she did this. When I went back to the email, the first part of it looked like this: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee.)

Upon taking a closer look at Benny’s half-white nose, I realized it looks less like a drunken attempt at shaving and more like he laughed until milk dribbled out of his nose, which is kind of ironic because, well, you know, cats, milk, all that good stuff.

The commenters who wrote about my needing a "cat fountain" are most likely right but, in a cost-saving measure, I've discovered that it's equally effective to fill the bathroom sink up half-way and twiddle my fingers in it to make a splash-y, fountain-y, yet free, water sound. I am instantly surrounded by cats competing to climb in the sink.

By the way, loved all the comments. Thanks to everyone, with an extra shout-out to Brian, Kristen's SO, for chiming in!

Mental-health-wise, the darkness is still lurking one millimeter under a veneer of “doing better,” and, unusually for me, I’ve found myself doing a lot of “retail therapy.” Bought lots of yarn at Black Sheep, bought lots of yarn at Weaving Works the week before, bought lots of yarn at Acorn Street just this Saturday, bought the Mason-Dixon book and a bright yellow tea-pot (to replace another one which, um, “accidentally” got broken. Hell hath no fury, blahblahblah.) at Village Yarn & Tea on, it must be confessed, the same Saturday. Other than that, my life has become remarkably busy. Joined this group as soon as I got out of the hospital, and am going to a women-only social on Saturday, and horseback-riding and white-water rafting in Eastern Washington later on. Went to a martini party last week and didn’t get home until 2, 3 in the aye em, and Happy Hour last night. Hey, there may be something to this singles life after all!

Photos will resume once I find the #$%^!@!# battery-charger cord for my camera.