Lizards in Scarves

Missing You, Let You Go: Sam Kaplan (1923-2011)

2012-01-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

Yes, she breathes. I'm still here. Just been AFK for most of the past year.

2009 and 2010 were tough years health-wise for me, and so I did very little writing and picture taking. Did very little, period, other than working on not feeling so crappy. Taking lots and lots of new thyroid medication and getting lots and lots of antibiotic injections got me feeling improved enough that in April 2011 I thought I detected light at the end of the very long, dark, twisted tunnel I'd been in.

Well. We all know what that light means, don't we. Just how bad the effect of train vs. you depends on how big that damn train is and how many cars it's pulling. Mine was large enough to knock me into 2012, where I'm feeling pretty much like I did in 2009 before all the thyroid tweaking and antibiotic injecting.

What happened was I found out my dad, Sam, was having some problems handling activities of daily living. I started helping as much as I could given the distance, living 400 miles apart (though, here in California, Northern California is worlds apart from Southern California). I had been trying to get him to move up here for years. Finally, he said yes. Woo hoo! For a variety of (health and financial) reasons, though we talked fairly regularly, we'd only seen each other twice since I moved up here almost 19 years ago. We were both pretty excited at the thought of actually being able to spend time together.

It became apparent, however, that something was off. In talking with a friend of mine who saw both of his parents through increasing dementia, it became clear to me that my dad was in the early stages. Like many so afflicted, Sam was generally able to cover it up, so long as you didn't try to deal with business/financial issues, or question them too closely about all those changed doctors appointments, and different answers to the same questions. It is easy, I found, for someone with stage 1-2 dementia to sound perfectly normal on the phone.

(Though some people with dementia don't like the phone, and develop what appear to be rude or abrupt phone manners, which can be the result of their suddenly not remembering who they are on the phone with, or what they were talking about, so they don't say much, or abruptly terminate the phone call. This is more common as the person moves into stage 3-4 dementia.)

It became apparent that I needed to get down there and see for myself what was going on, how he was actually functioning on a daily basis. L.A. being too far for me to safely drive, and not having flown on a commercial airline since I became chemically sensitive to fragrances and other chemicals in 1990, I didn't know how I was going to accomplish that...until my friend Karen found herself off of work (due to her own tough year).

Karen had been talking for years about flying me down to L.A. in her plane so I could see my dad, but the timing had never been right for such a trip. Not until May 2011. God was apparently laughing at someone else's plans last summer, as this was the beginning of a couple of amazing months. Amazingly stressful, amazingly exhausting, amazingly productive, all due to my having some amazing friends without whom I would not have been able to get through the summer, let alone the rest of the year. I'll spare you the amazing narrative and just touch on some highlights.

I found my dad to be quite ill--dehydrated, anemic and malnourished. There were weeks of Meals-On-Wheels food packs in the fridge, and the cupboards, fridge and freezer were full of food, but Sam was not eating much more than cranberry juice, nuts, fruit and crackers, and too little of those to maintain his normal weight. He hadn't gone to the doctor in over a year, and had refused entry to the social worker I'd previously asked his doctor to order to get an assessment in January 2011. So, while I was there, I make an appointment for us to see his doctor. I got one for late afternoon on Friday of the week I was there.

The rest of the week was spent going through Sam's Stuff. I don't think he'd thrown out a piece of paper, magazine or junk mail since the early 2000's. He also never met a mail order catalog that didn't have at least three things to buy, especially if there were "twofer" offers. He like giving things to people, so he bought all kinds of stuff that was just everywhere, jammed in amongst the bags and piles of papers, in closets, drawers, under furniture, on every horizontal surface... He also apparently couldn't pass up freebies ("Free, with your subscription to/order of [insert cause/magazine/company name here]"). Clocks, flashlights, key chains, tote bags, little toys, big toys, gimme hats and windbreakers, throws. OMG. The worst of it, though, was all the paper.

Karen flew out two days later, leaving me in L.A. to continue clearing out all this stuff, after she spent a day and night helping me sort through things while we chatted with my dad. Karen also got to meet a couple of my friends, Suzan and Beverly. Suz and I have known each other for 40 years, Beverly for almost 25 years or so. Beverly was working to meet some crushing deadlines, so we didn't get to spend much time together but she did take care of housing and feeding me while I was there for 8 days. Suzan, once she realized I'd been working through my dad's stuff till 3AM every morning, came to help and worked with me through the same grueling hours I was.

Suzan picking up the reins on the L.A. side of things. See? Amazing friends.

So, Friday at the doctor's office. The doctor asked my dad how he was doing. "Fine!", my dad replied, as always, "Just fine! Couldn't be better."

"How's your lightheadedness?" asked the doctor. "Oh, fine, fine, it only happens once in a while," my dad reported.

"Only every damn time you stand up and sit up!" I rather vigorously interjected. (Later, when reading through my dad's medical records I collected from his L.A. doctors, I read something in his cardiologist's report that just cracked me up: "The patient has a delightful disregard of his own health history." My dad, no matter how bad things were, no matter how much pain he was in, was always, always, "I'm fine! Couldn't be better.")

So, I filled the doctor in on what I'd directly observed. My dad's best and oldest friend (in years, not age, though that, too), L.M. was there, too, and filled the doc in on what had been going on that she observed and my dad told her over the past year. The doc drew blood for tests, and we arranged to have a home health care agency start doing assessments to see what type of support he needed.

That was on Friday. Karen flew me home late on the next Monday. On Thursday, the doctor called with the test results: as we suspected ('we' being L.M., the doctor, and I, not my dad, of course, since he was "Fine!"), it looked like he had colon cancer again, almost 14 years after he had surgery, chemo and radiation for colon cancer, when he was 75.

The doc wanted my dad in the hospital for further testing, so I spent the weekend and the following Monday morning convincing Sam he had to go in for the tests so we could see what was going on inside of him. His friend Doug picked him up and got him checked into the hospital.

(Highlights, Melissa, highlights!)

He indeed had cancer again. This time, along with another section of colon and some lymph nodes, they also took out his spleen. Fortunately, the kidney was okay, and the pancreas was okay for now. As weak and debilitated as he was, given the extent to which the cancer had infiltrated, if they didn't operate, he would have been in excruciating pain within a few weeks, and dead soon after. Given the type of cancer (hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer [HNPCC], a.k.a. Lynch syndrome, which also affects everything else in the abdominal and chest cavity, and, in women, the ovaries and endometrium), we knew it could return somewhere else, likely the liver or lungs, anytime in the next 12-24 months.

Having been through chemo and radiation before when he was still relatively strong and healthy and it having then totally kicked his ass, he opted not to do chemo this time 'round. No further surgeries or treatment, either, when/if the cancer popped up again.

While I'd originally thought my dad would be able to live in an Independent Living apartment, once I'd visited him the first time, I realized he needed assisted living. After talking several times with his very nice GI doctor, I decided that he needed to come stay with me for a couple of weeks once he was discharged from the skilled nursing facility, so I could assess his actual functional capacity once he'd healed and detoxed at least some of the anesthesia.

Great idea. The only problem is that my home was looking more like an episode of Hoarders than a place to house not just one sick person (that would be moi) and a lizard, but also my dad who probably needed to use a walker all the time as he wasn't too steady on his pins.

I needed to declutter and reorganize. Fast. Of course, if I'd been able to do these things to begin with, things wouldn't have gotten the way they were. When your executive and other frontal lobe functions are screwed up, figuring out this stuff isn't easy. Thank goodness for AF once again. That is, Amazing Friends. Karen, Juliette, and my neighbor's girlfriend, Cathy, dug into my garage first, clearing it out and sorted everything into Toss, Recycle, Donate, Give Away categories, leaving a much smaller pile of Ask Melissa things for me to go through. Once that was done, Karen organized and stabilized some shelving units I already had, and she and Juliette organized all my emergency supplies and nonperishables.

Next came a couple of rooms, both of which had become warehouses for all my herp care & keeping, herp rescue, herp rehab, herp society, knitting, CND support, and school stuff: books, journals, magazines, supplies, newsletters, etc. Also a wonderful Cargo for Conservation box from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service that I used to use in education programs. And boxes of various herp and wildlife artifacts (owl pellets, anyone? Anyone?)

I gave a ton of herp books and herp artifacts, and the Cargo for Conservation box (with USFWS's approval) to some friends at the Northern California Herp Society. My neighbors' kids got lots of the kid-suitable stuff, as did Children's Village, who also got most of my art supplies, including hundreds of rubber stamps, and an electric keyboard.

And thank heavens for Craigslist! While I love the local Freecycle lists, it does take time and effort to list things and manage their distribution. Cathy took photos of the stuff on my driveway and created a Craigslist posting. All but a few things were gone by the end of the following day. When I dug out another stash of several hundred books--reference, science, herp, curriculum, my master's program textbooks, etc.--after my NCHS friends had been and gone, I posted their free availability on CL in the early afternoon, and they were gone by sunset. Yes, I'm sure that lots of my CL stuff has ended up being sold at flea markets and in used book stores and online marketplaces, but if I could have done it myself, I would have. I was just grateful to have the stuff out of here so I could start rearranging things so my dad could come stay until we found him an elder care residence to move into.

Suddenly (well, over the next couple of months), the guest room, living room and dining room reappeared. Mike (my Cyclura lizards, for those of you new to my blog), of course, was fascinated by the whole thing - people coming and going, whole new territories to explore and incorporate into his existing territory (the rest of the house), new-to-him furniture to crawl under and reorganized stacks of things in the not-for-Sam-rooms to climb on. I'd hear Mike in the early mornings, taking time to explore before he trotted down the hall for his bath, and again in the late afternoons when he typically goes walkabout before going to sleep. Treppie (my desert tortoise) was also busy exploring everything, especially all the 'new' floor space.

Karen and I took a commercial flight to L.A.. Beverly picked us up at the airport and took us to pick up a small rental truck. We met Suzan (and some fellows who work for the delivery service she uses to do all the heavy lifting and stowing) at the apartment, and got all my dad's clothes and things packed up and on the truck. Fast forward a bit again, and Doug drove my dad up here.

Sam enjoyed meeting Mike and Treppie (and some of my two-legged friends), and they enjoyed meeting him. Mike and Treppie would hang out with Sam in the dining room. Treppie's new favorite place to sleep was under Sam's bed. Mornings were enlivened by Mike and Sam trying to occupy the guest bathroom at the same time.

Sam ended up hospitalized with pneumonia five days after he got here. As I read through the hospital medical records the day he was discharged, I found something in the radiology report that indicated to me that the cancer was likely already in his lungs. The hospital ordered a home health agency to work with Sam after his discharge. We were well cared for by a wonderful team from Gentiva. I couldn't physically handle all the caregiving, so Sam got excellent care from CNAs from At Home Nursing. (Both of the CNAs got their training at the local American Red Cross chapter, which totally rocks.) We met with an oncologist, who ordered blood work and a CT. I knew before the CT that cancer was present, based on the CEA test result. I decided not to tell him until after the doctor told me the results of the CT scan, which he did after the CT was done a week or so later.

All too soon, we met the kind folks at Heartland Hospice.

Through it all, whenever Sam talked to his friends and to the home health folks, he assured them he was "Fine! Couldn't be better." He knew he was dying, as we were able to talk frankly about what was going on. He was ready to go, wanted to go, he told me, and after his granddaughter and her family came to visit, he started slipping away.

Two days later, Sam died.

In the days following his death, Treppie and Mike roamed the guest bedroom--Sam's room--and Sam's end of the dining room table, and then the rest of the house, looking for him.

I was going through a box of Sam's papers last night, and found a little piece of paper cut years ago from a newspaper. It was folded up and tucked into a stack of his museum and theater membership cards. I have checked online to see if I could find the author's name, but found only "author unknown". Those of you who knew my dad will probably see him in this; I certainly do.

Miss Me, But Let Me Go

When I come to the end of the road and the sun has set for me, I want no rites in a gloom-filled room - why cry for a soul set free? Miss me a little but not for long, and not with your head bowed low. Remember the love that we once shared, miss me but let me go! For this is a journey we all must take, and each must go alone. It's all a step on the road to home. When you are lonely and sick of heart, go to the friends we know, and bury your sorrows in doing good deeds. Miss me but let me go.

When I am able to, I will take my dad's ashes back down to L.A. and put him in the crypt with my mom, next to my sister's, just down the way from his parents.

Sam & Sue Kaplan
Union Service Plan Pharmacy
1964

Samuel Kaplan
1923-2011

(I recommend the following resources for anyone dealing with family members who have or whom you suspect have dementia: The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementias, and Memory Loss, by Nancy Mace, 5th Ed. (Hardcover from Amazon; eBooks: Kindle; Nook), and a website for those dealing with Alzheimer and other dementia and memory loss impairments: Caring.com.)

For those for whom an LIS blog entry would not be complete without a photo of Our Boy, here's one taken today, at age 14 years and 4 months of age (since I didn't post on his hatchday last September). The look on Mr. Grumpy's face is because he continues to hold me personally responsible for the shorter Winter days and cooler temps which prevent him from sunning in front of open windows and doors.

Mike
01/19/2012

Happy Hatchday!

2010-09-12T13:43:00.001-07:00

Thirteen years ago today, a teeny lizard was hatched who, two and a half years later, became known as Mikey.

Here he is, shortly after I got him in May 1999, sitting in the palm of my hand:

And here he is today, getting ready to shed:

I do not know what possessed him last night, but at 11PM, as I was about to go to bed, he climbed down from his bed, where he'd been sleeping for several hours, and started wandering. When I picked him up to put him back to bed, I realized he was quite 'full', and remembered that he hadn't pooped in the afternoon. I put him in his potty place, and eventually he let go with the second of the day's deposits (enough poop for a medium-sized dog, plus several ounces of urates). Then, instead of going back bed, he decided to eat again. After scarfing down another plate of food, off he went, roaming, trying to find a place.

Couch? No. On the lovely soft pillow under my desk that Stacy gave him? No. Please, Mike, on the couch? No again. Back to his own bed? Nuh-uh. He came down and roamed some more. Under the chair in the living room (as I enticingly held up the skirt for him to make it easier for him to crawl under there)? No. Under the living room couch? Nope. Back to his bed I put him again. Down he came again, as I wait to see if any of the still-up neighbors have called the police about the suspicious flashlight beam moving around in Melissa's house (because Melissa didn't want to wake up the tortoise or turtle who share the ig room with Mike). How about the den couch (third time's a charm, right?)? No way.

Apparently, deep in the part of the lizard brain known as Haven't Annoyed The Mommy Enough Today, we kept this up for over an hour. Well, Mike kept it up while I followed along, periodically rounding him up and putting him to bed in the ig room.

Now seriously past the time I needed to go to bed, I turned off all the lights and put him on the den couch again, covered by the flannel blankie his Auntie Juliette gave him, and I went to bed, only to have to get up again 20 minutes later as I hear the sh-sh-sh-shhh sound of Mike's tail coming down the hallway towards my bedroom.

Up I get, throw on a robe to protect my bare legs from said tail, and off we go to the ig room and his bed for the fifth? sixth? time in the past 90 minutes.

A half hour later, the sh-sh-sh-shhh of his tail is masked by the klump-klump-klump of Mike's feet as he comes tromping down the hallway. (It is fascinating how Mike can move soundlessly down the hallway, and what noise he chooses to make when he chooses to announce his approach.)

As the ambient room air temperature was within the okay range for him, I decided I'd give up if he chose to sleep under the bed, so I just lay there, waiting to see what he would do. He navigated around the furniture and shoes and stuff in the dark, went under the bed, and after moving around a bit under there, slept under the bed, with just his head sticking out from the corner of the bed, the dust ruffle draped around his neck.

Happy hatchday, brat!

New Scented Yarn is a Baaaaad Idea

2010-08-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

An open letter to Lily Sugar'n Cream upon learning about their new line of fragranced Sugar'n Cream yarn:

"Introducing Lily Sugar'n Cream Scents. Your favorite yarn, now available in your favorite scents! As you knit and crochet with the yarn. the scent of your choice is gently released. Lily Sugar'n Cream Scents is created using micro-encapsulated essential oils, which are thought to reinforce harmony and well-being of body, mind, and spirit. From Vanilla, to Lavender, to Camomile, the capsules release gradually - as you knit and crochet, and later after your project is complete. adding a pleasant aroma in your space. Lily Sugar'n Cream Scents are perfect for scented sachets, gifts and special treats for yourself."

Dear Lily,

I just found out about your Sugar'n Cream Scented yarn.

This is a spectacularly BAD idea. There are more people in this country who are chemically sensitive to fragrances than there are people with diabetes! For all of us who are knitters and crocheters, you've just made it that much more difficult to go shopping in stores or even buy by mail or over the Interet, as the latter two purchases, though nothing scented was purchased, the yarns will have absorbed fragrance from being stored in the same rack--even just in the same room--as the fragranced yarn.

You should have done your research first and not jumped on the Glade-Febreeze "everything's got to be perfumed or there's something wrong with you" bandwagon.

Not So Sexy: Hidden Chemical in Perfumes and Colognes

What's That Smell? Hidden Fragrance Found in Cleaning Products

EPA Design for the Environment Program Criteria for Fragrances

Navigating through life is already hard enough for chemically sensitive people. You've just made it increasingly unsafe for people like me--knitters and the people we knit for.

Melissa Kaplan

---
If you'd like to write your own letter to Lily, here's the link to their Contact Us page.

Where has the time gone...

2010-07-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Been doing too much for the past too many months, resulting in a not unexpected crash. My hands and arms have been bothering me a lot, so much so that I haven't been knitting as much, and most of what I have been doing is on larger needles and worsted weight yarn: a couple more shopping bags, towel, and, just finished yesterday, a cozy for my new Nook, which will enable me to read many old (heavy) favorites and occasionally new books without putting more strain on my limbs and digits.

Here it is with my Nook:

While I have not been able to consistently upload the various free ebooks I've been able to download, I have been able to upload to the Nook some of my photos for screensavers and wallpapers. The grayscale photo seen above is from this original photo I took several years ago at the Muir Wood headland:

I recently joined Facebook to be able to keep up with some friends' activities. I've been posting some of my other recent photos there. The photo albums should be accessible to people who are not my Friends, so if you're on FB yourself, look me (well, my photos) up.

Fomenting Ferment

2010-02-06T19:35:00.000-08:00

Nothing much to report critter-wise, but I have been brewing up some things... Check out my Fomenting Ferment post on my other blog.

While the tortoises have been hibernating, Mike has been...Mike. Superciliously soaking up what sun there is, deigning to allow me to run his baths, he is his usual self. Except that as the days slowly get a bit longer every day, his nostrils are just starting to show the faint rusty tint that heralds the coming breeding season. That and he's starting to check out my shoes again. He bit me four years ago, and two years ago. I'm hoping to not complete the pattern by getting chomped again this year.

Just in case you were looking for a photo, here's our boy...

Waiting...

2009-12-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

(Click for larger image)

Waiting for a new post?

It's been a rough half-year for me. Well, for just about everyone, but on top of the economic and related societal stresses has been worsening health issues for me. Some are better, but what is still impaired is my ability to read and write, so I have been doing very little of either one.

Mike is fine, the chelonians are hibernating or brumating, according to their nature, and I'm just trying to get through the cold, gray, still gluten- and dairy-free days.

After having a wonderful week in June with Sidney while his folks were on vacation came the horrible news on July 5 that he died during the night. We are still grieving, for he filled a lot of space in our lives. At some point, I'll figure out how to put together a slide show with my favorite photos of him. For now, here's one of them, one that captures his joyful spirit:

This one, taken by Karen when she and Sid camped out under the plane at Orcas Island several years ago, seems to capture the essence of the emptiness he left behind:

Sidney, 1999-2009

The Tragic Face of Tortoises on Crack

2009-06-26T17:05:00.001-07:00

I hit my local drug pusher today, the produce department at Raley's. Between the cauliflower, cabbage, and crack, I completely forgot the other C: collards. Treppie started marching around the kitchen, then doing his annoyingly annoying attention-getter: scratching at the storage drawer under the oven. He will pace back and forth, making that (did I mention annoying) clangy scratching sound for hours unless I deflect him by putting him outside or....drugging him. With crack.

Uhm, in case you haven't read my other posts referred to tortoise crack, I am actually talking about that sugary goodness others know as corn on the cob.

Mike is still spending some time most afternoons exploring the couch and throws. Yesterday, he was on the couch when Karen stopped by to pick up some things. She sat down next to him to visit with us for a while. When she'd been sitting there for 5 minutes or so, Mike started bobbing at her because, can you imagine? She wasn't paying attention to him! The nerve of some people! So, she started petting him. As long as she pet him, he didn't bob at her or give her Stink Eye, the fading gleam of which can be seen in this photo:

Someone I know, a Canadian who became a U.S. citizen last year, just bought his first house (well, he and his wife did). I thought I'd knit them a little something. I came across a website that had designs for wash/dish cloths among which were a maple leaf and a U.S. flag. "Poifect!" I thought. However, I'd stayed away from knitting these types of 'embossed' patterns before because my brain just couldn't track the different instructions for each of the inside design rows (the space between the side, top and bottom borders).

So, before leaping in to make the CAN/US set of cloths, I thought I'd try one of the patterns first and make myself a washcloth. I grabbed the dwindling ball of leftover discontinued sky blue Cotton Ease, and made myself the Liberty Bell. I found the pattern easy to read and make, and whipped it out in one evening (if your evening ends around 1:15 in the morning).

Unfortunately, my gauge is really tight, so instead of making a 9" x 9" cloth, mine came out 8" x 8". Which is fine, but I wanted the larger size for these gift cloths. So, I added 8 sts, 2 each on the side borders, and 2 each to both sides of the inside space, and I worked two more rows on the top and bottom borders (and realized after I was done that I should have knit 3 more rows instead of 2, as the finished cloths are somewhat rectangular rather than square), and ended up with cloths slightly bigger, 10" x almost 10".

I decided to knit the leaf and flag cloths in red, figuring it was a better color for dishcloths than white, which could start looking grungy without being occasionally bleached, and blue seemed silly for a Canadian maple leaf.

These patterns were designed by Emily Jagos, and can be found at her Designs by Emily website.

(Looking at them, you can tell how much my gauge and consistency in making well-formed stitches is affected by the amount of pain, range of motion, and function (or lack thereof!) of my hands on any given day - these cloths were knit on three consecutive days, one cloth a day. Check out the samples on Emily's site - nice and neat!)

Now, back to work I go on a kitchen towel...

Wherein Mike finally realizes...

2009-06-21T17:10:00.001-07:00

...if the couch is good enough for Sidney to sleep on...

...it's good enough for Mike.

I heard Mikey moving around at his usual time this morning (~0630 hrs), but never heard him come down the hall to his bathroom or make a circuit through my bedroom. I got up to investigate and found him snuggled under the handknitted throw (my one and only entrelac project), which lives on the couch, on top of which is a 'sheepskin' blanket I keep for Sidney when he's here. I left it folded up on the couch figuring Mike would spend some time investigating it, which he has, daily, since Sid went back home last week.

Guess which one of us does not miss Sidney?

Backtrack...and Update

This is what I actually saw when I went looking for Mikey in the late afteroon Saturday, after I got back home:

He had gotten up on the couch and inserted himself under the knitted blanket. I covered him up a bit more, and since the night was mild, let him sleep there. The next morning is when I found him with his snout poking out, after he wriggled farther across the couch during the night.

Yesterday evening, he was kind of wandering around the house more than usual, ending up i the kitchen about the time he would normally head up to his sleeping area to sack out...but he just sat in the kitchen, body facing his room, head turned around to look at me. It being a warm day, and he being pretty warm himself, and the night promising to be (uncomfortably) warm (for me), I decided what the heck, give the boy a thrill...and so I put him inside of Sid's sheepskin blanket, so he was nestled between the "fur" layers, snug as a bug in, uhm, a blanket. And there he slept all night, getting pets from me through the blanket throughout the evening, just like Sidney does when he's here.

During the evening, he turned himself around in there (he always does a 180 degree turnaround during the evening, no matter where he sleeps), so he was facing the other way when he poked his head out in there morning, continuing to sleep there until I dragged his spoiled butt out of there at 11 AM.

This afternoon, he climbed up on the couch and onto the coffee table and wing-back chair. I shoved the table against the couch and chair some years ago because in his travels across the table, he's always disperse to the floor things on the table that I wanted to stay on the table (it being a sort of an extension of my filing system and knitting projects baskets).

I used to keep the pretty giraffe afghan Juliette knit for me across the top of the chair, but Mike kept trying to climb it, resulting in both him and the afghan going sliding, another reason for keeping the table shoved up against the chair (less risk of a forcible tail separation that way). Today, the lovely black afghan she knit for me is there, here providing a soft perch from which Mike can decide which way he will get down that will cause me the most aggravation:

Who, me? You talkin' to me??

Indeed.

Time sure flies...

2009-06-06T10:58:00.001-07:00

...when you have a life. When you don't, it c r a w l s. In other words, I can't believe a month has passed since I last wrote. Still battling various bugs, one of which caused a horrendous bout of bronchitis which, I was dismayed to find last night, is starting to rear its ugly head again. Fie! Be gone! Yes, well, that was far more cathartic than effective. By doing pretty much nothing, I am hoping to stave off a full recurrence.

On a far brighter note, the end of May saw the beginning of an extended stay here of my favorite goddog (okay, only goddog, but, still), Sidney! We haven't had a good long visit in quite a while, something we've both missed, though I have to say that it hasn't bothered Mikey one bit.

Though, truth be told, after a couple of days of getting used to a moose in the house, Mike starts to enjoy it, since Sid is still very nervous around Mike and freezes when Mike approaches if he isn't able to run in the other direction from where Mike is. Mike takes that as Sid's recognition of Mike's Supreme Allbeingness, which goodness knows Mike doesn't get from me. When even the big tortoise contests Mike's right to rule the feeding station, Mike is happy to subjugate anyone who spends any time in this house besides the usual crew of freaks, er, me, the tortoises and the weeny turtle.

Speaking of whom, Tobago was itching to get out of her enclosure the other day, so I took her out while I cleaned up a bit, letting her hang out with Mike:

Needless to say, I kept an eye on them, in case Mike decided to vent his ire against Treppie, with whom he jousts at the feeding station, by dumping it on Tobago, who wouldn't hurt a fly. A snail or mini-crawler, yes; fly, no. Alas.

Sid spends some of his time here outside watching the tortoises carefully, making sure they don't try to escape from their shells. When he's not doing that, he is on watch for the rat that has taken up residence in my yard, which I discovered when the whole ears of corn I put out for the tortoises started disappearing.

For a year or so, there was a cat--feral or just someone's outdoor cat--who spent the nights sleeping on the lounge chair on my patio. I didn't mind her there, and during the cold, wet winter, I put out some food and water for her on days when she didn't leave her roost. She stopped coming after the first time the new neighbor's dogs broke through the fence into my backyard, something they've done repeatedly over the past year since they've lived there. Before then, my backyard was a rest area on the local cat highway, with many cats making their way through my yard, hanging out and sunning themselves, like this one, whom I called Scairdy Cat because s/he always fled when any of the other cats came around:

Anyway, Sidney is a renowned ratter, so I was counting on his ratting skills to nail this sucker. To date, it's Rat 1, Sidney 0. ::sigh::

Sidney watching the tortoises:

Sidney is showing many signs of age, including not demanding to play as often or as long as we used to. Now, our mornings go something like this:

6:30 AM - Sidney lets me know that Mikey is up. When Mike makes it into the hallway, I get up, run his bath, pick him up and go through our morning bath ritual before putting him in the tub. While he soaks, I let Sidney out, clean up Mike's poo, and make Sid's breakfast. Sid and I go back to our respective beds until

9-9:30 AM - As Mike nears the end of his bath time (he usually gets out of the tub about the time his heater's timer goes off), Sid lets me know that it's time for me to get up to take my meds and, more importantly, stuff one of his hollow cow bones with peanut butter.

The rest of the morning is spent with Sid excavating peanut butter from the bone while Mike dawdles over his food and eventually makes his way back to his room. Sid helps me eat my breakfast, and helpfully cleans Mike's leftovers and any other leftovers if the tortoises have been inside that morning.

The rest of the day is spent with Mikey getting periodic visits and cuddles from me in his room, where he can also glare at Sid who comes in to see what's going on (and maybe there' will be food)(or petting). The day is also punctuated with Sid helping eradicate the household population of grapes, and the occasional almond from my trail mix, or a peanut I hold back from the squadron of scrub jays that come around a couple times a day.

Sometimes Sid goes into the backyard alone, sometimes with me. Sometimes he watches the tortoises, sometimes he annoys the dogs next door (which I wouldn't worry about other than for their ability to claw their way through the fence to get into my yard).

One foul day, while I was watering my fig sapling that had a couple of ripening figs on it, Sidney ATE MY FIGS!!!!! Bad dog! There were fewer treats that day, and I intend to exact revenge on his mom's fig tree when hers come into season late this year (that is, if Sidney and Ginger have left any within reach - damn dobies can jump and harvest anything within my reach!)

Here's Sid tuckered out after cleaning all the peanut butter ouf of his bone. And not just any peanut butter, mind you, but the organic fresh ground (when she bought it in March, at least) peanut butter from Oliver's.

Sid's age is also showing in his reluctance to lay long on firm surfaces. So, he came not only with three containers of peanut butter and two bones, but also a large dog mattress for the floor, and a "sheepskin" blanket, sheet, and two pillows. I, ahem, also have a "sheepskin" blanket, so that's under there, too.

I had plans to take him to the dog park, and to the pet store so he could pick out a treat, and even cleared all my emergency/disaster response stuff out of my back seat so he'd have something more comfortable to lay on instead of the cargo area. (Spoiled? My goddog?? Nevah!)

Okay, so Mike's letting me know that it's time I talked about him. Hear his chin banging on the window sill as he bobs his head? Oh, wait, he's doing that because he sees Sidney outside.

Anyway, I took these photos last month, but never got around to sharing them. They are something only an iguana lover will appreciate: seminal plugs!

Mike had been cranky for a couple of days. Karen was over and had been petting him, and noticed that his hemipenal bulges felt more bulgy than usual. The next day, he deposited these plugs. Here's a close up of one of them:

Fascinating architecture, eh? And no wonder male igs get a bit testy (ar ar) when these things have built up, solidified, but they haven't yet been able to expel them. For those new to them, check out the article on seminal plugs at my site.

Because I had to suspend the treatment for my Bartonella flare in order to deal with some other health issues, my hand and arm hurts too much when I knit socks for me to be able to work on them. I wanted something rather mindless but useful, but wanted a break from kitchen towels (of which I have made 11 of the planned 30), I decided to make another market tote bag, and try to figure out a better way to finish the top, since I wasn't happy with the way I faked the tops of my first two.

Despite knitting them with two strands of worsted weight cotton held together and using size 10.5 needles, the bags still take 15-20 hours to make (I really need to time it to see for sure), so they aren't something particularly salable, unless someone wants to pay through the nose for a reusable handknit tote bag.

Here is a photo of the two new ones I finished - the green/white one is folded over itself so you can see the blue/yellow/white one beneath:

The bottom of the bag is knit in garter stitch, then stitches are picked up all around the rectangle and knit in the round for 3 inches before changing to the pretty (and expandable) faggot lace stitch. Because it is knit in an endless round rather than back and forth, the 'ribs' of the pattern are diagonal, instead of vertical as they are when knit back-and-forth. Here's a close up of the outside of the bag ('right side' of the st):

And here's what it looks like inside:

I did manage to work a couple of days of role play at the public safety academy. Driving up there the first morning, I noticed some hot air balloons in the early morning sky. After the morning's briefing, we role players and evaluators headed out to our assigned places at the other end of the campus, awaiting the first of the day's recruits to be dispatched to our locations. Since the campus is surrounded on a couple sides by farms and ponds, there's always a lot of birds around, so I always pause to look...and look at what I saw:

One of the balloons was still aloft when the morning winds faded away, and so they had to come down rather abruptly:

They were able to avoid landing in the big body of water that is on the other side of that grassy berm, just visible under the horizontal line in the photo that is the shade cover over the PSA parking lot:

But since the berm is angled on the other side, too, they risked being toppled into the water. They were able to get enough lift to bump their way up the top of the berm and down on our side with the help of a some folks who either scrambled over the fence or jumped out of the basket:

It was hard for me to see who scrambled to help, as I was actually rather far away:

And that concludes our program for the day. Sidney, having supervised me making lunch, is now resting before he goes on leftover/plate cleaning duty after I eat said lunch.

It's MAY???!!!

2009-05-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

Good grief! It's amazing how time flies when you're lost in the haze of acute illness.

Yes, I'm always sick, but sometimes the chronic stuff flares into acuteness, and opportunistic things take advantage of the whole situation. That's pretty much what I've been dealing with since December: painful and brainfoggy flares of Lyme and Bartonella, gut infections, acute muscle spasms, and now a whalloping case of bronchitis. Spending much time zoned out from pain, fever or side effects of drugs. Blech. I didn't get into "recreational drugs" in my teens or twenties because I hated what they did to my head the few times I had to take similar drugs for medical reasons. I don't like the side effects any more now, but it sure beats the alternative.

So, there's not been much in the way of knitting, or picture taking, or writing. I thought I'd do a sort of catch up post, of the things I've been intending to write about. and fill some of the space with some photos.

I have been doing some knitting, completing a couple of kitchen towels for me and one for a friend, along with a matching washcloth that I used to wrap a cute soap in for her birthday. I also knit a week's worth of washcloths for baby who should be making her world debut within the next couple of weeks:

I knit a pair of socks for myself out of the worsted yarn I dyed a couple of years ago, using a sort of progressive vat dye (dunk the yarn in then immediately pull some out, and keep pulling some more out every 15 min or so, the result being shades of color:

I knit a pair of wrist warmers for Rose, using Cascade 220 Superwash in a lovely teal. I also knit a sock in Cherry Tree Hill's Sockittome Country Garden. I was going to use it to make a pair of Kathleen Taylor's Simple Stripes Fair Isle socks, but needed a gem-tone color infusion for my soul, so the yarn is going to be just plain (Jaywalker) socks instead. I also started (and finished) a sock using the yarn I originally dyed as a gift for my niece (part of my sneaky plan to try to get her knitting again), but didn't gift it as it didn't turn out the way I wanted, and so I overdyed the whole mess in blue, giving me a yarn with some deep blues and a variety of nice-to-yucky (to me) greens (excuse the blurry photo - gots me a bit of the shakes, I do):

In April, Karen had to fly to another town to get her plane's avionics looked at because the company here totally flaked on her. Having nothing to do (well, unable to do much of anything), and not having been terrified in quite a while, I went with her. Shifting weather fronts made for lots of turbulance, the day was overcast and sort of bleak, and watching Karen work her cobbled-together radio as she communicated with the various towers and such was, er, interesting. A few of the photos I took that day:

Part of the mothballed fleet off Mare Island:

Infineon Raceway:

The wetlands along Highway 37:

The Napa River running out into the San Pablo estuary, alongside the aforementioned wetlands:

After some lovely summery days and working on conserving even more water as we head into mandatory conservation season, we actually started getting some rain yesterday in most of the Bay area and points east. My rose bush, which had been covered in blooms, looks a bit beaten down this morning:

In context, however, despite the overcast, everything is looking pretty happy with the rain:

Speaking of conserving water, I finally found a siphon that works for me, for transferring Mikey's bath water into buckets for use in my yard, to water the plants that need assistance throughout the summer: my fig trees, jasmine, rosemary, lavender, and mint. I got this beauty at one of my favorite places to browse and shop, Harbor Frieght.

To water my pots of succulents, and my lemon balm and chives, I use cooking water used to steam veggies.

Treppie, who is still a bit out of synch after having come out of hibernation too soon due to the unseasonally summer weather we've been having since February, wandered over to my desk to see if I could do anything to make the sun any hotter on a cool day earlier this week.

Tobago is in her typical Spring "I want to eat every worm in the world" mode:

And, Mike is....Mike. Getting ready to shed, checking out my shoes to check my pheromones, and actually being very good about not waking me up for his baths on morning's I've finally been able to sleep.

Here's sprawly boy asleep last week:

I also helped do moulage for a drill at the local airport for fire departments who will be called on to respond to airport disasters to assist the airport's own fire department. For those who are not squeamish, you can see some of the photos of victims and the rest of the exercise in the Kodak Gallery Photo Album I've created.

I just added a couple of product reviews to my Miscellani blog, one on Get Serious Products stain remover, and the other on shipping reptiles and other stuff via UPS - at about 30% off - at ShipYourReptiles.com and AllProShipping.com.

Now, off I go for some long-overdue hot tea...

The weather outside is...

2009-01-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

...still abysmally not good. Oh, sure, it isn't -36 F with windchill, and going to the grocery store isn't an expedition requiring acute survival skills as it is in Nunam Iqua, Alaska, but it is still down to freezing or below at night, and far too sunny and warm (60s and sometimes 70s) during the day, making for another year of drought and requiring even more drastic water conservation measures than the last two years. I expect we'll see more mosquitoes as, with the winter season still upon us, people are not dumping out standing water (I won't even mention all the scummy mosquito larvae-infested pools littering the cityscape as foreclosed homes sit empty and untended) and a boon for the ticks and their larvae, increasing the amount of tickborne disease as well.

Oh, quite the happy camper I am! Okay, out with the grump, in Mike!

Still on the cold weather theme, I pulled out some older photos and took a few new ones.

Here he is modeling the cotton scarf I made for Robin, fisherwoman and writer for Western Outdoor News. She currently spends most of her time in Baja, writing about the local sportfishing, so she doesn't actually need the kind of clothing we need up here during the winters (her usual daytime garb is tank top and shorts grrrrr...), so I knit her this scarf for those "cold" mornings fishing in the surf.

I hate hats. Well, more precisely, I hate wearing hats. Nonetheless, I do bow to common sense and wear one when it gets really really really cold. For me. Here's the one I knit in Fiamma Stampato, using my friend Juliette's small hat pattern. The hat really isn't as small as it looks here - I folded it up a bit to fit on Mike.

Speaking of Juliette, here is a remarkable example of true friendship. Juliette has been knitting for 45+ years, and owned a local yarn shop for 10 years until she retired a year or so ago. Juliette's color preferences are vivid greens (from chartreuse to deep forest), oranges, reds, yellows, and purples, and prefers them several or all together in one garment. Juliette knows my favorite color is black, and so, over the course of a year, she knit me a black blanket, using two strands of black cotton.

If you're not a knitter, you don't know that black is difficult to knit in general, unless you have a very bright work light. If you're not a knitter, you don't know how heavy a blanket knit out of one strand of worsted weight cotton is, let alone one knit with two strands held together. So, an all-black blanket for someone whose brain, eyes and hands are happiest when knitting bright, vivid colors was a labor of the most heart-felt kind.

Before I knew she knit a blanket for me, in our conversations, she had mentioned knitting a cotton blanket, and the sewing in of all those ends. Sewing/Weaving in ends is not a favorite activity for either of us, because of the various musculo-skele-tendonal problems we both have in our hands and fingers. Cotton, being slipprier than wool or acrylic, requires some stabbing through the strands to anchor the ends (two ends for each ball of yarn, of which there were 18 or so in this blanket) so they don't pop out and unravel during use or washing.

It wasn't until I offered to work on some of the ends for her that she confessed that a) the blanket was all black, and b) that it was for me! So, now I have the blanket and all the ends to weave in! Here's a close up of the pattern, an interesting sort of basketweave or brick pattern:

As for HRG (His Royal Grumpiness), he is finally becoming resigned to my bedroom being off limits for, well, bed. He figured out last year that he was no longer allowed to sleep in my bed since he got rather too possessive of it, so he took to sleeping under the bed. During the summer and early fall heat waves, that was fine. During nights cold enough to hang meat in the house? Not. Testing the waters, he still tries to go in the bedroom every afternoon, but I head him off at the pass. Or, once I tire of doing that 10 times or so in the span of an hour, I close the door. I have to close the door when I leave before his usual mid-fternoon perambulation time, else he'll go in there and plant himself right smack in the middle of the bed UNDER the bed, requiring maximum amount of effort from me to get him the heck out from under there.

You shouldn't think the poor boy has only a plank or something to sleep on. Nooooo. Along with his towel-over-heating pads-over-throwrug, he also has a variety of pillows and fleece blankets for covering. Here are two of his four pillows, one of which is actually a folded up blanket that used to cover a much smaller Mike. The socks (knee-his I made in the Jaywalk pattern) are now used to put between his chin and the metal window sill, when he falls asleep at night with his chin there.

Nonetheless, I know this is where he dreams of sleeping: back in his bed...

Spoiled.

I thought I'd take some just-Mike photos, and found him sprawled on my old body pillow. I gave it to him a couple of years ago, the very first time I went away for a couple of days, thinking the smell of me might help reduce his stress level. Well, I think what actually reduced his stress level was having his friend Martha come over a couple of times a day, to bathe him, feed him, pet him, and bring him nasturtiums to munch on. I take comfort in the fact that he does use my, er, his pillow. (Note: while it looks really dark outside of the direct sun coming in the window, it wasn't really that dark in there when I took the photo.)

Here's a bug, or tortoise, eye view of Mike. For those who haven't seen the photos in my Spring doth creep... blog last April, here's what it looks like to be one of my tortoises when Mike's around:

And, today's close-up:

Does this make my nose look big?

And back, sort of, to the HRG. While I was taking the photos, Mike was just fine. As soon as I stopped and lowered the camera, he charged towards me and started bobbing, and even gave me an open mouth threat. For those not conversant in iguana, that can be roughly translated to "Get out of my space or I shall draw blood!"* So I quickly raised the camera and switched it to video...and of course he immediately stopped bobbing and just stood there, posing. Brat.

* An astonishing number of people think iguanas (and all non-venomous snakes, for that matter) don't have teeth. They do. I have a lovely photo at my Iguana site's Green Iguana Teeth page, in which you can clearly see their teeth. Cyclura iguanas like Mike are similarly well endowed. Mike has bitten me a couple of times, just in the past 2 years (August 2007, October 2008 - warning: graphic photos), thanks to the onset of his annual breeding seasons and adolescent stubbornness. Ah, the joys of living with large, intelligent, pheromone-sensitive lizards!

Someone Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the New Year

2009-01-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

And we know who, don't we? Yes, Mr. Mike crankily head bobbed me the moment I walked into his room on 1 Jan. He has been ticked off at me most of the winter, due to my usual winter habit of withholding the sun from him and making the skies all gray and low. He didn't care that The Mommy was also cranky, back in December, when his heater malfunctioned and I had to go buy him a new one.

He's been a happy camper most of the last week or so, since we've been having unseasonably warm temperatures, even breaking a record for a daytime high. We've been in the 60s and 70s most of the past week or so, including a summery 76F. Nights are still chill, down into the low 30s, so there's still plenty of heat augmentation going on in the lizard room.

Both my Bartonella and Borrelia are in flare, as long-undiagnosed (and hence untreated tickborne infections are wont to do) and have been since late summer last year, with symptoms getting increasingly worse. I haven't felt like reading, which for me is a major red flag that something is seriously wrong. Even audio books are difficult to impossible to listen to, with even favorite authors being uninteresting to listen to. The last time I was like this was when the infections flared big time in 1991-1992; the time before that was when I first got bitten, and was bedridden for 8 weeks. No interest in reading was how my parents knew I was really sick and what raised the red flag for them, since I have been devouring books at an unnatural pace (or so it seems in a world where fewer people seem to read books) since I was 7 years old.

Along with all that brain fog comes the pain and range of motion impairments caused by both the infections. Bartonella seems to particularly love my right shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers, resulting in being unable to knit socks or anything else with fingering weight yarn. Even dk and sport weight yarns (slightly wider in diameter than fingering, for you non-knitting types) have become difficult to knit with any preciseness and evenness, so I had to set aside the last pair of soldier socks I was working on because the quality was not what it must be for the kind of wear that our men and women in the service of necessity impose on them.

I've been pulling worsted weight yarns from my stash and knit a couple of scarves and arm warmers and, to help keep my right wrist and hand more comfortable, some therapeutic wrist warmers.

I bought the last 6 skeins of Tahki New Tweed at a sale several years ago, 3 skeins of blue and 3 of green. I knit some of these warmers with both colors. They are for wearing while I am out of the house, as they are a lovely mix of merino wool and silk. (Ifinished this one last night and haven't woven in the ends yet.)

as opposed to the acrylic and wool, and wool and acrylic blend ones I make to wear at home, since they tend to get some hard wear when in contact with lizards and get pretty thrashed from being worn in bed with all the flannel bedding.

Old remnant yarn pulled from my stash:

And some Wool-ease yarn left over from the Fibonacci project:

One feature of this round of brain fog is that I seem to be unable to knit anything but the diagonal eyelet pattern for scarves (as the blue Vanna yarn one immediately below), and the mock cable pattern for the arm warmers and wrist warmers.

No matter how many other patterns I try, I end up ripping everything out. It would be quite frustrating if there was something I had to knit, and for my attitude in general about 'frogging' (derived from 'rip it', meaning to unravel the yarn and wind it back into the ball): I long ago started referring to the ripping back (sometimes completely unraveling the piece and starting all over again) as zen knitting. I knit to knit, not to get a finished product.

For example, this diagonal scarf and mock cable arm warmers. I'd actually bought this yarn (KnitPick's Swish Bulky) to make a shrug to wear at home, but I wasn't getting the gauge despite, yes indeed, casting on and knitting several inchs of 25-30" wide fabric before frogging it all and trying again on different sized needles. I finally gave up and decided to make a scarf and warmers out of it.

The scarf was cast on, knitted for several inches, even more than one skin at one point, before being ripped out and started over and over again, in many different patterns. I actually completed an 8 ft. scarf in a sort of modified old shale (AKA, feather and fan) pattern, wore it a few times, and decided it really wasn't what I had envisioned (didn't lay right, didn't look right), and so I ripped it all out. Deciding not to fight the inevitable, I started over again, using the diagonal eyelet pattern, and the scarf worked up like a dream. Lesson: never argue with yarn and force it to be what it does nto want to be.

And then there is the ripping done by someone else. In this case, Ginger, Sidney's adopted bratty mouthy (red dobie) sister. (Karen reminds me that I found Ginger online at a dobie rescue, and so partially if not damn near fully responsible for all the problems the sweet girl causes. I apparently was not sufficiently upset when Ginger ate the heel and part of the foot out of the very first sock Karen was learning to knit. So, on New Year's eve, Ginger started eating one of my favorite thick, merino wool wrist warmers:

The back view:

The palm view:

And, no, I cannot make a replacement because the yarn isn't available anymore, so I will have to make a whole new pair. And since the economy has tanked my already meager discretionary funds, there will be no more new yarn purchased in quite some time. From here on out, it is strictly knitting from my yarn stash.

Speaking of forcing yarn into what it doesn't want to be... Here is some lovely yarn Phyllis gifted me several years ago, purchased on her trip to Nova Scotia where she visited Knatolee, another (wacked out) friend of ours. I wound up a hank of it and tried various things, but it just didd't want to be that. So it sat in my yarn room until a couple of weeks ago when, still wanting another shawl to wear at home, I pulled it out and started playing with it. Here is what I got:

On New Year's Eve, I went to Karen's to work on some computer stuff and to quietly see in the new year. While working on the stuff, we also also sacrificed a bottle (or, uhm, two) of holiday cheer to see us through the drudgery of figuring out alien blogware. This may explain the laughter in the background of the following videos, taken of Ginger getting introduced to and trying to eat the Red Dot.

Ginger & The Laser Light, Part 1 (Wherein Ginger meets the Red Dot)

Part 2 (Wherein Ginger gets better at getting the Red Dot so we up the game)

Part 3 (Wherein Sidney gets frustrated and cranky)

About the tape around Ginger's head: She cut her ear somehow, and kept flinging blood around. After a trip to the emergency vet at 4AM, Karen and Ginger were not even out of the vet clinic's reception area before Ginger had flung off the bandaging they had applied, making their reception area look like the crime scene at Karen's house, with high velocity spatter all over the walls, ceiling, furnishings, and floor. They found the only way to keep the ear from flapping around and breaking open the stitched-up laceration was to just tape it to her head. The tape is now gone and the ear well on its way to being all healed.

And, finally, the end of the page. Here's a quick shot of Mike, who was staring at Ginger's handy (er, toothy) work on my black arm warmer when I was shooting the photo.

A quick note on the Red Dot... I found an inexpensive laser light sold as a pet toy rather than as a presentation pointer. I bought it for the latter, and it's been quite useful. NYE was the first time I tried it as it was intended as, despite the illustration on the package, Mike was not in the least bit interested. The product is called Laser Chase (marketed by PetSport, Pittsburg, Calif.), and was $4.99 plus tax. As with all laser lights, they should not be stared out or aimed at the eye.

Fibonacci Strikes, er, Stripes

2008-11-10T19:50:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I got it into my head that I wanted to do something using a Fibonacci sequence of stripes. One small problem is that, besides some of my socks, I don't wear stripes. I also didn't want to mess around with having to weave in a bunch of ends.

In walked serendipity. Well, more precisely, I received an email from a colleague, Mary, who asked if I'd knit her daughter a pair of socks or something in her high school's colors. Since I can't knit anything with fingering yarn at this point, I suggested a scarf and hat, and maybe some wrist warmers. Her daughter is on the school track team and loves to go to football games, so having some warm things to snuggle into would be nice. The high school's colors are black and orange. I finished the four pieces (scarf, hat, wrist warmers) on October 30, so she had them in time to wear to school on Halloween. I shot this photo while Mike was asleep, just before Mary picked them up.

The scarf has two repeating sequences at the ends, and a shorter sequence in the middle, separated from the end sequences by 11" of black. Visible in the photo is the center sequence and one of the ends. I used a variation of the scarf's end sequences for the wrist warmers. The hat came out looking like a more intricate stitch was used than was actually used. I did the entire hat in K2, P2 rib, but on each row where the color was changed, I did a mock cable instead of the plain the K2. I

I have enough yarn left over to make a pair of leg warmers, so those are on the needles now. The yarn used for all of the pieces is Lion Brand's Wool-Ease, worsted weight, in Black and Sienna.

Winter approacheth, and so it's time to make my winter house socks. This year, I wanted to knit tabi socks, socks with a separate big toe, like mittens, I keep pairs of flip-flops by my front and backyard door for when I have to run out for something (when I'm not wearing my Wellies duct taped to my pant legs during tick season). It's a hassle taking off the socks and puttingthem back on again, not to speak of my feet getting cold, which means all of me gets cold and miserable for hours until they warm up again. So, here's my first stab at tabi toes, on anklets made out of Red Heart Classic in the Mexico colorway.

On Thursday morning, I was at the backyard door, making the clucking sounds I'm using to, er, condition the scrub jay and her young-of-the-year (who have been hanging around my yard since the little guy fledged earlier this year) to come for some peanuts in the shell. Instead of two scrub jays, I ended up with these:

Meet Spike (l) and Tweedie (r), two of the three dogs that live next door to the south of me (Georgia, whom you've met before, lives on my north side). Spike and Tweedie are experts at dismantling fences, resuling in my newish neighbors having to do a lot of fence repair.

I'd gotten to know the dogs over the summer, not in person, but over the fence and between the slats. Spike is very protective, and starts barking as soon as he hears me in my yard. So, I talk to them, going up to the fence, and every so often when I'm at the fence talking to them, cookies fall from the sky into their yard! (Unlike Georgia, they will eat broken cookies, so I arm myself with 2-3 pieces before going out in back.)

Anyway, when I called the birds, two muzzles poked through the fence, pushing a board to the side. I closed my screen door and left the area. When I came back, I found both of them staring at me. Oy.

My neighbor's wife didn't give him the message ("Hi, your dogs are in my backyard because they knocked two boards off, and it's okay they're here except they're going over and hassling Georgia, whom I'm afraid will come over and things will get very ugly very quickly if she does"), as I found out the next morning when I found three dogs in my yard - Spike, Tweedie, and Tweedie's mom, Nala. Sigh. Saturday, the fence got fixed. Back to cookies falling from the sky.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, so Mike and I would like to take this moment to remember all of our veterans, and those who will someday be veterans themselves.

If you'd like to do something to support the troops this holiday season, check out the following websites:

Gifts To Soldiers (Army & Air Force)
AAFES.com - Phone Cards, Gift Cards, and Gift Certificates
America Supports You - find homefront support groups in your area

Tabi Socks Update: I finished the pair of tabi socks that were OTN. Also in Red Heart Classic, I made them longer, in K2, P2 mock cable rib. I need to finess the shaping of the 4-toes so that it doesn't look so boxy...

It's Bleeding, er, Breeding Time Again, v2008

2008-10-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

I've been having pain and mobility problems with my right shoulder/arm/hand, so I haven't been able to do much in the way of blogging, photographing or knitting. Mike's breeding season is late this year due, I believe, to the altered natural photoperiod conditions caused by months of heavy smoke from the dozens of wildfires north and east of us that blazed away during the summer. He is also shedding again (just starting his third shed in 2 months), the days really are getting shorter (my fault), and the nights have gotten cool enough (also my fault) that I won't let him sleep under my bed any more. Overall he has gotten a bit, shall we say, cranky, and he's taken to pooping in places I don't want him to poop

So, like many times before, I gently slide him back into the kitchen and block his passage into the den, either by holding paper towels down as a visual barrier, or with my feet as a rather more substantial barrier. Usually, after a couple of minutes, he either sighs and lifts his hips and starts going, or I pick him up and take him into the tiled front foyer, where he will generally start to poop after being put down.

With my arm really hurting, and at 22 lbs and the maneuvering required to put him down safely without shredding the skin off of both arms and hands, I decided he could darn well stay and poop in the kitchen. After five minutes of him trying to get past the paper towel and foot barricades, he took matters into his own hands. Well, mouth.

Having been to the ER several times during the years for iguana bites, the last couple I have dealt with on my own - they were not down into tendons or bone, there were no flaps of skin waving in the breeze, and I was able to get the bleeding stopped in a reasonable period of time after cleaning out the wounds.

It is a great idea for pet owners (and gardeners, for that matter) to keep their tetanus shots up to date (authorities dither about whether you should get your boosters every 5, 7 or 10 years; I do 5-7, as in case I do get infected, I'd rather have more immune response (boosters closer together) than less (10 yrs apart).

For those who live with other adults who don't get freaked out at the sight of blood, getting bitten like this means help is right there. If one lives alone, as I do, you need to have back-up plans: friends or family you can call who aren't going to be freaked out by the sight of blood all over the place, who have keys to get into your house, and know a modicum of first aid so they can either deal with the wound themselves (if appropriate) or get your wounded appendage secured for the trip to the ER.

Which brings up the matter of first aid kits. First aid kits need more than small box of band aids in assorted sizes and a tube of antibiotic ointment, and a small bottle of Betadine or hydrogen peroxide stashed in the medicine cabinet or under the sink. Keep first aid kits and things like large bottles of antiseptics (chlorhexadine gluconate [Hibiclens is one of the human equivalents of the veterinary Nolvasan, which is chlorhexadine diacetate] or povidone-iodine [brand name Betadine, which is available for both humans and animals, both of which require dilution]) in several places--kitchen, bathrooms and iguana room (if it is more than a few steps away from the other locations) as well as in your car.

That lesson didn't sink in after Mike bit my ear in August 2007. Then, it was easy enough to keep one hand clamping paper towels around my ear as I went out to my car to get my excellently stocked FA backpack. So, there I was, a week ago Saturday, with my foot bleeding a lot, stuck in the kitchen, with my FA backpack in the car and the gallon of Betadine in the guest bathroom - both across the house, across lots of carpeting.

I did hop into the guest/iguana bathroom to get my jug of Betadine, but knew I couldn't hop out to the garage to get the FA kit, back into and across the house to the kitchen. I hopped as far as my desk, propped my foot over the wastebasket, realized that the two neighbors I would have called had moved away, and I didn't know the new ones well enough to know their blood exposure limits, so, I called Karen. Not only does she have first aid training, the only thing that grosses her out is squid tentacles (which I adore, especially crispily fried), and she has keys to my house, seeing as how she is my power of health care attorney and empowered to take care of and rehome my animals if I die or become incapacitated. (For those of you who still have not made such arrangements, what the heck are you waiting for! Go read my Advance Care Directives page. Now. This blog will be here when you get back.)

Karen arrived, set up a bowl of hot water and Betadine for me to soak in, got my FA backpack out of my car, got a towel for me to use as a sort of blood soaker-upper and sling so I could make my way into the kitchen, and grabbed my camera to memorialize the event.

When I was able to see the wound on top of my foot more clearly, I sent her into my back room to get a new (still wrapped in its blister pack) 60cc syringe from my yarn dyeing supplies. I didn't have any sterile water, so I used a dilute solution of Betadine to flush the one deep part of the wound, which can be seen in the lower right quadrant of the following photograph (you knew there would be photos, didn't you? Rest assured - I have not posted to gorier ones. :)

Bite Day - Top

Bite Day - Bottom

While I was thus engaged, Karen went through my FA backpack and pulled out the triple antibiotic ointment, a pack of 4x4 gauze sponges, a roll of gauze bandaging, and Coban (the human equivalent of Vetwrap, though not so colorful), a stretch water-resistant over-wrap that sticks to itself. About the only time Karen gets to practice her first aid is at home or in the class she has to take every couple of years to keep her certification current, so I was happy to let her get some practice.

Karen's stellar bandaging:

I have been soaking daily in hot water to which I've added grapefruit seed extract. I used Betadine the first couple of days, but between the reddening of my skin due to the heat and the Betadine, I couldn't really tell how the wounds actually looked.

Day 5 Bottom:

Day 5 Top:

Yes, that is redder than I would like. And you can see the yellowish bruising that is hovering just beneath the surface of the skin between and outside of the bite ring I did, on day 1, put myself on 100 mg doxycycline BID for 10 days, which I keep on hand in quantity in case of tick bites and for when my chronic neuroborreliosis decides to get acute again. So, I did the same this time, bumping the dose up to 200 mg BID (because I've been trying to igore the fact that my LD is getting acute again). I happen to have an appointment tomorrow with my osteopath for my shoulder/arm, so I will show her my pretty bite and see about getting a more appropriate antibiotic for it.

As some of you may know, I've been doing a lot of thinking 'n stuff about emergency preparedness, especially as the process relates to those who are not able-bodied and not always able-minded. Vulnerable populations, be they frail seniors, people with severe physical impairments who have been marginalized due to our deteriorating health care and social services infrastructure, and those of us who are impaired physically and cognitively by chronic illness, are so overwhelmed at even the thought of what it takes to get prepared to survive in the days and weeks following a disaster, or just don't have the wherewithal to do anything for themselves.

I was in the overwhelmed category. But I took some classes, did some reading, did lots of thinking. Slowly, both due to my functional and financial limitations, I have been building my FA and disaster preparedness (DP) stashes (the latter including food, water, clothing, bedding, toiletries, lanterns, radio, cell phone & ham radio, alternate power sources for recharging these devices, etc.).

The various disaster preparedness checklists are there are too generic for those of us in many of the vulnerable populations category, and the disability-enhanced ones focus more on hearing, sight, and chairbound disableds. So, I put together a checklist for people like me, with rather more explanation then the shorter lists, and breaking out some areas that most people don't think about. I've uploaded it in PDF format and linked it to my Emergency Preparedness page: Melissa Kaplan's Personal Emergency Planning Checklist for People & Pets.

I also created a one-sided page of all my critical information that I or someone would need if I couldn't access my computer, external hard drive, or backups on my thumb drive. (Ya'll are backing up your own computer and critical files regularly on multiple devices, at least one stored somewhere else, aren't you?) If someone gets their hands on it, it won't do them any good if they are looking for my birth date or social security number (and Medicare number, which is the primary insured's social security number with an alpha suffix). If I am incapacitated and can't give that information myself, that's why I have a POA for health care - she has that info and can give it to the appropriate party.

Whether you live alone, or with a partner, or have kids, this type of preparedness is something that must be done. Katrina illustrated all too keenly how important it is to keep this kind of essential information quickly accessible so you can grab (if it isn't already on you) and go. People didn't learn - with Gustav and Ike, shelter workers and all the agencies who are trying to help those who lost everything are hampered by the fact that once again, huge numbers of people fled without essential information, or even essential needs (like the mother who remembered her cigarettes, lighter and cell phone, but not her child's insulin and supply kit).

The lesson I learned from this bite is that I will be putting together large ziplock bags (the 2.5 gallon bags are a knitter's best friend) of the sponges, wraps, ointments, and antiseptics in each of my bathrooms, the kitchen and at my desk.

And buying a bigger microwave for Mike.

(Just kidding!!)

People who do not keep large, potentially dangerous, reptiles are horrified by Mike's having bitten me, and don't understand why I don't get rid of him. I don't because I accept and understand that fact that I am living with what is, not matter how tamed and socialized he is, a wild animal--and intelligent wild animal--whose actions and reactions will at times be stripped of the civilizing influences brought about by living in captivity. This is just as true for Mike, who is the captive bred offspring of generations of captive bred progenators as it is for the imported wildcaught and "farmed" animals sold in the pet trade.

And, speaking of our boy, Mike's 11th hatchday was on September 12. I measured him a week or so later, and discovered he's grown another inch SVL and VTL, making him 22" SVL and 52" STL. Happy birthday, brat!

I don't seeeee you

I've had this large crockery bowl down for 6 months or so, for the dogs when they come over. Mike discovered it one day, and now this is the only bowl from which he'll drink.

UPDATE October 23

As you can see, healing is progressing quite nicely. I stopped wearing any bandaging around the house, though I do wear one on the longest/deepest gouge when I wear shoes when I go out, as that helps protect the gouge from being gouged more by the shoe when I bend my foot.

HRCAS (His Royal, Cranky-Assed Self) taken a couple of hours ago, before he went around the house, climbing all over and behind things, toppling my box of to-be-recycled paper and plastic, and trying to force himself into the two rooms that I keep closed off to leezards. His face is starting to shed again, while his tail is still shedding from the last shed, and, yes, breeding season, while not as intense as last year, is still contributing to the wunderlust and crankiness.

The Lizard King: A Review

2008-08-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't a retrospective of Mikey's life. It is my review and thoughts on reading Bryan Christy's book, The Lizard King: The True Crime and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers (Twelve Books, 256 pgs. ISBN: 9780466580953).

Several years ago, my favorite crocodile researcher, zoologist Adam Britton, wrote in an account of one of his adventures snagging giant crocs for his research on crocodile reproduction, "He can't have liked me – he didn't ejaculate."

If this is how love is counted 'twixt animals and the humans who study them, then by all counts, animals must love Bryan Christy who, in the course of researching the subjects covered in his book, was "bitten between the eyes by a blood python, chased by a mother alligator, sprayed by a bird-eating tarantula, and ejaculated on by a Bengal tiger."

It certainly isn't love that drives the smugglers and the people who unknowingly (wink wink) buy the smuggled animals, be they the importers like Crutchfield and the Van Nostrands (both in the past, of course), or the people who buy the CITES I* "captive bred" animals from them.

Herpers are people who keep herps. The words comes from the Greek word herpeton, meaning "creeping thing," the root of the word herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians. There are, generally speaking, four types of herpers:

- the cool crowd who want a herp, usually a large reptile, just because it will make them look cool to their friends and associates. The "cool crowd" ranges from boys who want to enhance their social status to drug dealers who want to look tough while discouraging any thoughts of being ripped off, to those who buy an animal to coordinate with their latest home or office makeover;

- the hobbyists who are interested in the animals themselves, often getting into the scientific and behavioral aspects of care and keeping, many loving their pets as much as the furred and feathered set love their dogs and cats and psitticines;

- the breeders, too many of whom are interested only in producing the latest flavor of the month—colors and patterns not produced in the wild—with complete disregard for the recessive traits that tag along with these highly inbred morphs, leading to too many early and needless deaths from failure to eat, congenital heart defects, etc.;

- the collectors, out to top the other collectors by having the most unique, rarest, or as Christy puts it, "the reptile addict's progression—bigger, meaner, rarer, hot" (the latter term referring to venomous animals).

There are still too many hobbyists buying animals about which they know nothing. While there is more quality information easily available now, too many people are looking into the suitability of a particular type or species and its care after the herp has already been languishing ("It's so tame!") for weeks at home.

(It strikes me that I am using the phrase "still too many" too often in this article, but that is because too little has changed in the many years I've been involved with herps and the fallout from the "still too many".)

Collectors have no interest in breeding or biology, only in displaying so that others may covet. They don't care about what their predations have done to the ecosystems their animals were yanked out of or how many animals died along the way. While some proudly show their possessions that were legally (wink wink) acquired, others keep the illegal ones hidden away, whispering about them to those close associates in the know, everyone grinning at fooling the uninitiated by their talk of "Halloween gecko" or whatever pseudonym they've come up with to 'launder' their possessions when talking where the uninitiated may hear.

Little has changed in the pet store industry, despite the trade publications and the Internet: too many stores still provide little or no information to their prospective buyers, and what they do is still mostly wrong. Importers and dealers still push sickly imported animals, and pet stores still accept them, pushing the animals out the door as quickly as possible so they can die on the customer, after the purchase of the nonreturnable enclosures and other supplies, of course. After all, they're "just reptiles". If they really mattered, had intrinsic value, they'd cost more to begin with, wouldn't they.

Christy wrote, of the USFWS** agents attempts to get federal prosecutors to enforce the domestic and foreign wildlife laws that were on the books relating to animals smuggled into the U.S., "There was no room in a prosecutor's day for a Pine Barrens tree frog." That widespread attitude affected how those at the state, county and city levels--wildlife officers, humane officers, and prosecutors--did their jobs protecting wildlife

(Why else would my local humane society's humane officer repeatedly ignore complaints about the horrendous conditions at pet stores in his jurisdiction? When confronted, he admitted that only when all the reptiles and amphibians were dead would he consider that there might be some violation of the state animal laws (which in fact cover all species of animals sold in pet stores).

In 1992, Tomas Medina was arrested in Miami for smuggling reptiles (described in Chapter 1 of The Lizard King). Four years later, when a USFWS inspector spoke at a California herp society meeting, smuggling animals was still an easy, low risk way to augment your income when compared to smuggling drugs. Sixteen years later, there is still too much cargo, living and otherwise, coming into this country, for the too few inspectors and customs agents to check a meaningful sample of the daily incoming shipments, a situation made worse in the aftermath of 9/11.

In The Lizard King, Christy describes the mindset of animal smugglers in general, with the focus on Mike Van Nostrand, the man whose hugely successful legal reptile business was augmented by his equally successful procurement of illegal animals. Mike was even better than his dad, whose business he took over when Ray was sent to prison. Ray Van Nostrand got five years, not for the vast number of illegal animals that passed through his hands, but because he got caught dealing cocaine.

Christy writes, "…if you calculated the odds that an overworked customs inspector would catch you and multiplied it by the prison time you would do if you were caught, reptiles were a good bet. First, nobody got caught; and then even if you did, the penalty was not jail, it was a parking ticket. Snakes? Find a jury of twelve men and women in any state in the union that would sentence a man to prison for smuggling snakes. It was not going to happen. You didn't go to prison for what [Medina] carried in his suitcase; you killed it with a shovel.

"…Best of all, you weren't going up against the DEA or the FBI, you were going up against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Really. You would be stupid not to do it."

Hey, why not? Minimum security in federal prison: three hots and a cot, TV, a weight room, and free health care! Easy-peasy, Ray assured his son when it was (finally) Mike's turn to go.

While I personally would like to see more dates for the events recounted by Christy in his book to tie them to my personal herp chronology, he does a great job weaving together legal history with the often complex narratives of the biggest smugglers in the U.S., those who benefited from them and those who spent years going after them. The Lizard King is informative and often funny; even if you're not interested in herps, you'll find the book a good read.

Okay, so, while reading the book I sometimes felt that I needed to scrub myself down with a wire brush and rinse off with a high pressure fire hose before I would even begin to start feeling clean again. But I did come up with a way to punish those who do get caught without adding to our already overburdened prison population.

Some of you may recall that bags of cocaine were being fed to snakes which were then exported to the U.S. Christy describes the stake-out of a truckload of these snakes that was abandoned in the Florida heat by the drug/snake dealers. Well, instead of prison, I suggest the smugglers' and procurers' mouths, urethras and anuses be sewn shut and their hands and ankles shackled together behind their backs. Then, lock them in a container truck in Miami during the summer months. Choking on their own bile and wastes and unable to escape or call for help while they slowly rot away from within will barely make a dent in the accounts to be paid for the death and destruction caused by their greed. But it would be a nice start and is a better use of taxpayer dollars.

The Lizard King is, in his own mind and perhaps that of Bryan Christy, Mike Van Nostrand. To me, however, by the book's end, the real king was U.S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Chip Bepler, the man whose perseverance ultimately brought Mike Van Nostrand down.

Well, as down as it gets when you're just slapped on the wrist.

The slippery, slimy underbelly of the legal and illegal wildlife trade still flourishes. The players may change (or set up more layers of cut-outs), but everyday, animals and plants, many endangered or threatened, are smuggled into the U.S. and countries around the world.

Ask questions. Don't assume. And if you find yourself becoming complacent, read The Lizard King again.

* Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), Appendix I: Endangered; Appendix II: Threatened.

** United States Fish & Wildlife Service

More reviews of Bryan Christy's The Lizard King

You know it's hot...

2008-07-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

...when your tropical lizard forsakes his tropically-heated room (well, temperately-located room heated to tropical temperatures at great cost to The Mommy), and shuns even the flannel and down nest he so favors, to sleep someplace less bloody effin' hot! (I have lost track of the number of days we have been sweltering with days over 100F and nights not much cooler than 65F.)

In case you're sweltering, too, keep in mind that our critters also suffer from temps that are too hot for them. I have some suggestions (that do not include sleeping in the bottom of the bookcase) for herps that can be used for other types of critters, too, in my Microclimates for Your Reptiles article.

Note to self:

2008-06-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

Remember to keep Mike's claws trimmed.

Because Mike is usually completely relaxed when I hold and carry him, I don't notice when the sharp pointy extension that grow off the main part of each claw grows long enough to do some serious damage should Mike decide to dig in.

As he did the other night.

Our nightly routine has been long established. Most evenings, he climbs down from his basking area, makes one last pass at his food dish, and heads off to my bedroom, where he climbs up into the bed, secreting himself under the covers. There I let him stay until 9PM or so, when I go haul him out and put him back to sleep in his room.

He always reminds me of a very young child who fell asleep in the car or in the living room or wherever, whose mom or dad picks her up and carries her to bed, without the child ever waking up. Mike pretty much did the same, or at least faked it well, keeping his eyes closed and body completly relaxed, legs still down along side his body in the classic "swimmer" position.

Until a couple of nights ago. He was not just more wakeful, but cranky-wakeful, not happy that I was relocating him from the soft down and flannel nest that is my bed to his heated throw-rug-and-towel-and pillowed nest. When I went to put him down, he grabbed on to me, with the result that one of his hind claws scraped along my upper chest, from clavicle nearly to my armpit.

Interestingly enough, if you look closely just above the scratch (yes, it bled, and yes, it appears to be slightly infected, and yes, I'm taking care of it topically), you will see a white line that runs at a 45 degree angle towards my neck. That would be from a green iguana scratch many years ago. Thanks to the autoimmune craziness caused by multiple tick borne infections, I get some really interesting scarring...

Of course, with Mike, it doesn't really matter how well I keep his claws trimmed because I can't trim his scales. And I'm not talking about the sharp dorsal crest that runs along his back from his neck to the tip of his tail. No, I'm talking about all of his scales, except the ones on his head, gular skin, and upper chest. Here's what his scales do when Mike slides sideways off my arm:

So, how does an animal so well adapted to the sandy rocky debris-strewn ground Cyclura evolved in come to relish, nay, demand sleeping in a cushy bed? One of Nature's enduring mysteries...

You'll have noted the gap between my post on the murdered blue iguanas and this one. For quite a while, I could not bring myself to post my usual breezy posts, as the thought of what was done to those iguanas sickened me, as it still does. But as the people of the Cayman Islands are moving on, building more secure enclosures, increasing security, and raising money to continue the ongoing conservation efforts, so shall I.

Six Blue Iguanas Murdered

2008-05-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

I am taking a break here from my usual lighthearted take on life with my reptiles and assorted other creatures, so be warned.

The title of this blog entry is not a joke. It is the heinous reality discovered by a volunteer to came to work at Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park (QEII) early Sunday morning, May 4, 2008.

Those of you who know me personally, or who are familiar with my writings and points of view on the environment, animal welfare, and the necessity to protect and conserve endangered species can well imagine what I have to say about what happened this past weekend, and what I and many others would like to see happen to the despicable individuals who killed these animals for no other reason than to kill.

The loss of these animals is a loss to their endangered species, to the staff and volunteers and researchers who have lived with, cared for, and learned from them, and to the good people of the Cayman Islands and their supporters who are working so hard to regain lost ground and nearly lost species.

To read more about this, please visit the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme site (and make a donation, if you can), and the following news articles:

Six Blue Iguanas Murdered at Botanic Park

Police Hunt for Iguana Murderers

Now, excuse me while I go hug a lizard.

Added May 6:

Six critically endangered blue iguanas butchered in Cayman Islands breeding facility

Editorial in Cayman Compass

Cayman police probe killings of blue iguanas

Added May 7:

Probe into Giant Iguana Slaughter

Another Iguana Found Injured

Update May 14: Another of the attacked iguanas has died, bringing the number to seven, and two others injured in the attack remain in serious condition. More articles can be found through Google News

Special Online Chat: John Binns of the International Reptile Conservation Foundation and Fred Burton, founder of the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme, will be part of a special PetHobbyist.com chat on Saturday May 17, 2008 at 7 pm Eastern TIme (4 PM Pacific Time) to discuss the recent tragedy at the QE II Botonatical Gardens, the latest developments in the investigation, and how you can help BIRP recover from this tragedy and support conservation.

Spring Feed

2008-04-30T14:42:00.001-07:00

Well, Treppie has finally come completely awake, and is now eating like a, well, tortoise in April who hasn't eaten since October. Treppie's tongue, for some reason, fascinates me. He's this brown and black scaly guy with a crepey neck, making his thick, fleshy tongue rather startling when he sticks it out to grab some food. I hung around the feeding station trying to get a good, clear photo of it, but failed miserably. Here's just a tiny bit of it, seen as he takes come collard greens from my hand.

Here's another shot, this one of his handsome face, which looks considerably less grumpy than it did when there was a large, heavy, rude lizard sitting on him:

Here's Treppie last week, grazing outside, uploaded to YouTube, for the first time this year.

I realized, while in the market the other day, that Mother Nature has brought forth the tortoises from hibernation at the same time the Spring's first crop of corn on the cob appears in the stores. Here is Baby Atlas, enjoying tortoise crack, er, corn on the cob.

I find that I need several weeks for my hands and arms to recover in between knitting pairs of soldier socks for Socks for Soldiers. Knitting on small sized needles with fine yarn being out, I pulled out my size 7s and 8s and began knitting some blanket squares for the Sonoma Blanket Project.

As I was following the news story about the 800 chihuahuas that had been rescued from a hording home, and finding out that many of them were being cared for at a clinic where I know a vet surgical nurse, I decided to make some chihuahua sweaters. Thanks to my friend Phyllis who had a dog sweater pattern small enough to fit small dogs, I got a chance to start making some sweaters earlier this week. Here are the first two. The red one is finished, while the green one needs to have the tiny 'sleeves' added and be seamed:

It wasn't until I looked at the above photo on my computer monitor that I realized how small the sweaters looked compared to Mikey's hind foot! These sweaters are about 10-11" across, when laid flat like the green one. Here's the green on laying on Mike's back:

As I sat down at my desk this morning, preparing to start my day, I looked around and realized that knitting has the potential to take over my life:

There is the stack of dog sweaters, washcloths for the SFS program, a stack of folded blanket squares for the SBP, a knitted ball I made (so I could help out a friend who was trying to knit one), the blue cozy that holds my little digital recorder, and behind the lacquered cat box, a wrist warmer I wear most mornings when I need to do a lot of mousing. Behind all that, next to the speaker, are small balls of yarn leftovers, my double pointed needles (in those nifty tubes from Nancy's Knit Knacks), a small collection of my straight needles, some little containers knitting supplies, paperclips, nail buffer (can't be snagging our knitting, can we), patterns, and what every well-equipped desk needs, my police/fire scanner and flashlight.

What!? You mean you don't??

Spring doth creep on tiny tortoise feet

2008-04-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

While the rest of the world celebrates the vernal equinox as the first day of spring, around here, the first day of spring is heralded by the first clement day one of the chaco tortoises scratches at the back door to be let outside - and chooses to stay outside because it isn't frickin' cold or raining.

This year, Baby Atlas (now about 25 years old) was the first to want to go outside. The chacos don't do much in the way of venturesome climbing (well, clamboring over rocks and hillocks and such), necessitating me to always pick them up and put them down, a sort of aerial tortoise transfer bypassing the step from the house to the back patio.

Four years ago, I slanted some old fence boards from the step to the patio, and "drove" them up and down it in the effort to get across to them that they could use it to walk up and down rather than wait for The Mommy Airlift Service (TMAS). Last year, they finally got it, and Atlas, at least, remembers how to use it (well, to not freak out about the slant and the scary space in between the two boards)!

Atlas rambled around the patio for a while...

before heading off into the wilds of the weedy yard with the encroaching masses of honeysuckle.

In March, I was asked about a fleshy protrusion that had suddenly appeared--and was then withdrawn--from the back end of a sulcata tortoise heretofore believed to be female. I related the remarkable appearance and size of the male tortoise reproductive organ, and referred the tortoise mom to my article on Hemipenes. The problem with getting photos of them is that they tend to appear when there isn't a camera handy, and disappear by the time one risks breaking one's neck getting a camera to the scene.

Well, a few days later, not only did Atlas extrude his for the first time that I've seen (he's been with me for about 10 years), but he kept it out (Baby Exhibitionist, he is) long enough (no pun intended) for me to race to the other room and get back with my camera.

Oh! And those tiny tortoise feet? Here they are:

Spring's arrival requires confirmation, and thus was it confirmed yesterday when Treppie, my 14 year old (captive bred of captive bred parents) desert tortoise emerged from his hibernaculum (this year, under my bed) and trundled his way into the den, where he planted himself by my chair, awaiting TMAS to take him the rest of the way into the Iguana/Tortoise room. After warming up the rest of the day and night, he trundled into the kitchen this morning for a nice long drink, his first since last November.

While Treppie was sucking in his 3rd bowl of water, Mikey came down from his basking/lounging area, ready to start his morning with a poop, feed, and bath. Ah, yes, another sign of spring: males jousting for dominance at the trough! Because Treppie is just waking up from his long slumber, he wasn't thinking fast enough to do his usual trick: plant his body over the food bowl and continue drinking, thus assuring no one else can eat, even if he himself isn't eating at that time.

Mike, having been subjected to being shut out of the food bowl back when he was just a wee little thing when he first came to live with me, knows how to get even and take the offensive. First, you walk on the tortoise...

...and then stay there, making your point...

...and then add insult to injury by attempting to squash the tortoise while you eat.

Treppie uttered a few hisses, which bothered Mike not at all, so I intervened and separated them.

After taking a few bites and then stepping in the food to spread it around, Mike walked off to his bathroom to await TMBS (The Mommy Bath Service), and Treppie eventually resumed drinking.

Ah, Spring!

So much knitting, so few words...

2008-03-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

While I am still pretty much feeling crappy and the part of my brain that does things like write and create verbal and written constructs has taken a prolonged A(bsence)WOL, about the only things I am up to doing are knitting and listening to audiobooks.

And so, apart from a whirlwind (and snowy) trip to Tulelake (thank you, Jim, Karen, Ginger and Sidney!!) to roust some of the winter cobwebs and look at hawks, eagles, owls, arctic birds, and lots and lots of icy snowy fields, I've been spending most of my time knitting and listening.

Here are a few photos to catch you up...

Some February 2008 photos taken around Tulelake and the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge, and the roads north of the refuge:

Iced canals

Nearing sunset...

This is the most snow we have seen in the three winters we have been going to Tulelake...

Tundra swans flying over the yard as we were getting packed up to come home...

Shot through the windshield heading southwest on Highway 97....

What the heck are these plants? I have several - very alien looking...*

A lone female bufflehead...

Rangers estimated that there were over 400,000 swans wintering in the Tulelake and Lower Klamath refuges this year. I think we saw almost all of them, the following being only a small slice of the massive flocks...

A couple of Canada geese who found one of the few snow-free areas to forage...

Here there be eagles. We saw ~60 of them roosting in a line of trees bordering one of the exit roads out of Lower Klamath...

Ah, the knitting stuff! A pair of black armwarmers (KnitPicks' Sierra, in 'Coal') I knit up in a cable-and-broken-rib pattern; I knit this both at the same time on 2 circular needles):

Because it's hard to see the detail, I photographed them using the Document setting on my camera - it washed out the color, and makes it easier to see what's going on.

Here's Mike in the red cabled Mondial Gold scarf I finished, like the armwarmers, just in time for the trip:

This was Ginger's first road trip. She handled it very well. Okay, so being cabled to the back helped restrict her range, but she she still managed to snuggle with her mom:

While Sidney didn't have the back seat all to himself this time, he really didn't suffer as much as the look on his face here:

I finished another pair of Socks for Soldiers, this time using on of the new Army-approved colors, KnitPicks Swish DK, in Moss:

One of the ways to make sure our sock legs will fit the generally muscular military calves is to slip the socks over a 2 litre bottle. I happened to have a bottle on hand, so:

I really do buy yarn from other places, but I sure to love KnitPicks! The following is the cuff to their Girl's Best Friend Anklet sock pattern which for some reason caught my eye and made my fingers itch to knit. The decorative cuff was fun to knit, so I've already ordered yarn in a different color to make another pair. I hope the eventual recipients enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoy making them!

And, that's it for now. See? Knitting, not so much the words...

* My friend Karen (the brain and heart behind the SonomaBlanket Project I've previously written about) identified these alien stalks as great mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and kindly pointed me towards a couple of sources, AltNature and Wikipedia. I have no recollection of plants like these lining some of the canals from when I was up in Tulelake during the summers of 1990 and 1991, but I was more focused on birds at that point, that and trying to stay out of the stinging nettle that continues to maintain a strong presence up there. Thanks, Karen!

Mini Road Trip

2008-01-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Sunday was a rough day for me - lots of pain, things flying out of my hands, pretty much at the end of my ability to endure things as they are. I was rather grateful that the usual Sunday knit-together with Karen, her MIL Jean, and friends, had been canceled because Jean was sick and I was just not up to it.

Karen and I decided to just go find a park where we could sit and knit and catch up with each other, but it was cold and windy, mostly overcast. Karen arrived with Sidney, leaving Ginger at home, which was good (for me, probably not so much for Karen's husband!), as I felt unable to deal with her puppy craziness.

Karen proposed just driving for a while, which was fine with me. The road unwound beneath us in the direction of Calistoga Road. I mentioned the local Petrified Forest. Karen had never heard of it, so we stopped and moseyed through the gift shop located in the former owner's house:

The gift shop has lots of fossilized things besides wood, including what looked like a, well, freeze dried or taxidermied cat, laying on the bottom shelf of large pieces of petrified wood.

Turns out that the cat is very much alive. One of the many pet cats dumped in the forested roads near the Petrified Forest, this pretty fella spends the days inside the gift shop, but since he's not housebroken, has to stay out side at night. He apparently drives the shop workers crazy in the early morning hours as he yeowls and berates them because they don't open the door to let him in--and out--and in again--and out again--until he's finally done and settles in for a prolonged snooze. As you can see by the pieces of wood on the floor, the cat has trained the humans to move them off the shelf so he can plaster himself against the heater vent. Good kitty!

Not being my usual together self, I forget where I took the following photo, but I believe it is looking across the road from the Petrified Forest gift shop & parking lot.

As we left the parking lot, I asked her if she'd ever been to the Old Faithful Geyser, down the road a piece from Calistoga. She didn't realize we had one of those, too, so there we went to read the posted history there and see the seismograph readings recorded for events close by - and far away, including the recent volcanic eruption in Colombia. As we left, I took a photo of the sky south of the parking lot.

Off we went again, heading northeast through Napa towards Lake county. We pulled off at a turnout to let Sid stretch his legs a bit. There was a creek running by,

but the bank was too steep for Sidney to get down and back with a sore leg (hurt when playing hard with Ginger the other day), so he read the news, watered a couple of plants,

and accepted some nonpetrified wood to chew on as we headed back to the car and the Sonoma County line.

We pulled over one more time, so I could get some photos of the moon hanging over a craggy bluff.

While making a pit stop in Calistoga, Sid and I stayed in the car. Here you can see that Sidney still harbors some separation anxiety when Karen leaves him behind. (He had been dumped at the pound TWICE before he was a year old because he was "incorrigible" - what is it with people who get animals for pets and expect them to be naturally tamed and obedience trained?!)

Got back home after dark to find the moon framed between the mimosa and plum trees bracketing my driveway:

Not a bad way to end what had promised to be a really bad day.

Cozy Crazy

2008-01-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

Well, okay, some friends would make the argument that that the title of this entry should more appropriately be "Crazy, Period" (or, in deference to our Brit friends, "Crazy, Full Stop"), but even I will admit that my penchant for knitting bags for my electronic gear is, well, let's say, borderline.

Some of you may remember my iPod schmiPod post wherein I revealed my new ham radio and ham accessory cases. Well, there is now a coordinating cozy for my new(remanufacturered) Nokia cell phone, the headset for the Nokia, and for the DC power cords for my 10,000,000 spotlight, which lives in the back of my truck along with my other emergency stuff. Here's a photo of all but one piece in the technocozy collection:

The missing piece is this bag, made to hold my wireless mouse and its base station, and my spare hub, so I can take my ergo mouse with me when I need to work on someone else's computer for more than a few minutes.

You can see closer photos of the ham radio case and accessory bag in the iPod schmiPod blogentry, so here is a closeup of my cell phone and headset cozies:

And my googoogoogly-eyed spot and its cords cozy:

So, there I was, kicked back working on a scarf, watching Stargate Atlantis, sipping on hot tea poured from my thermos, when it hits me: hot tea will stay hotter longer if the thermos were better insulated!

Since the thermos isn't that high tech, and I don't have to dig around for it in the dark interior of a purse or car, I decided to save the rest of my favorite technocozy yarn (Red Heart Grande, color: Wow) to knit the mag mount antenna bag (still on my to-do list). Instead, I pulled out another, less jarring bulky yarn that has been lurking in my stash. Alas, the label was gone, so I have no idea what it is.

Voila! The unveiling of the Thermos Cozy, or, as some prefer, Thermos Sweater (though I think Thermos Tube Top is probably more accurate, since there are no sleeves or armholes):

Note how nicely the colors of the thermos cozy and it's matching coaster blend with the Wraith's complexion. So, there I was, using my clad thermos when I realized that there was quite a bit of heat escaping through the top of the, uhm, top. Fortunately, I still had some yarn left over, so I knit a cozy cap for the thermos:

I never said I wasn't wacked, now, did I?

Off to do some therapeutic knitting: a sock that's been OTN for too many months... But before I go, here's the Mikey pic for the day:

In with the new, and still with the old...

2008-01-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

Still muddling through one of the worst years I've had in a while, I've not been doing much in the way of writing, or photo taking, and when I do take photos, I don't seem to get around to editing them. Ah, well, c'est la guerre, as we used to say at home.

Mike is doing fine, despite feeling severely deprived because he is not allowed to sleep in my room or under my desk or the living room couch because the nights are too cold and I can't afford to heat the whole place to tropical temperatures just so he can sleep wherever he wants. In his book, that makes me the baaaaaad mommy.

Every afternoon, somewhere between 4:30 PM and 6 PM, Mike heads out on his afternoon ramble, cruising through the living room, checking the front yard if the front inner door is open, then through the den and into the hallway, his chosen destination being either the bathroom and bathtub for another bath, or my bedroom to hunker down for the night.

On too-cold days when I know I will be gone into or past that time, I now close those doors so he can't get into the bathroom or bedroom. When I don't, and am not home to pick him up and carry him back to his tropical-temperatured room, I will come home to find an igcicle in the bathtub or under my bed. The former is not a problem in terms of picking him up and taking him back to his room, but moving the bed is not easy for me - and of course he positions himself dead center underneath it, and tries to move in the same direction the bed is moving in an attempt to stay under there (and piss me off) as long as possible. So, I close the doors:

(sorry for the blurred image)

If I am not home when he does this, he has taken to letting me know quite clearly how he so does not appreciated being foiled in his attempts to go where he wants to go, his becoming an igcicle apparently bothering me a lot more than it bothers him. This is what he does: he plants himself flush up against the inside of the door leading from the house to garage:

This night, he managed to knock some things down to increase the hazard to me. Keep in mind that the hallway is completely dark when I come home, so unless I remember to look, which thankfully, thus far, I have, I could easily go sprawling face down in the hall. That would garner no sympathy from the boy, of course, who probably would not bestir himself to give me anything more than a sleepy Stink Eye.

. . .
I have been doing some knitting, finishing up or completely ripping out several projects. Tracfone had to send me a newer cell phone due to network changes. Unfortunately, the case I had for the older phone is too big for this one, and the headset doesn't fit the new phone. So, I knit a phone cozy and a little bag for the headset.

I got enough of this yarn (those of you with good memories will remember that I knit a cozy for my ham radio and a bag for its extra battery and car charger) to knit a bag for the ham radio's mag mount antenna, and I'll knit a bag for the various charger cords for the phone, PDA, and my 20 million candle power spotlight (MCPS).

(That sound you hear is my mother yet again rolling around in her crypt, moaning "Where did I go wroooong?!" because we, uhm, diverged on the path of what's important to us individually, and not just because she's dead and I'm not. I am much happier in a hardware store than a department store, among other things, but, I digress.)

Lest you think my 20 MCPS is an affectation, I've actually used it, once to charge my cell phone, and one to find a pill that managed to bounce the length of a teeny slot between two file cabinets, ending up against the black back panel of my desk return. My 21 LED flashlight didn't pick it out, but 10 of my 20 MCP did! ::happy dance::

No, seriously, it hadn't already occurred to you that I am weird? Lizards in Scarves? Eggs in Hats? Lizards period??? Okay, you had me worried there for a minute...

After finding a wonderful website that calculates crown decreases and other increase/decrease knitting things, I finally finished the hat I started for me niece almost 3 years ago:

I knit a couple of Checking On The Colonel hats designed by Kim of Woven~N~Spun, and with the leftover yarn, I did my first neat (as in not puckered and icky) stranded hat. Here, Karen very nicely put it on so I could take a photo of it when I visited her the other day:

The wavy green and white thing behind her is the feather-and-fan cotton throw I knit her a couple of years ago. Now that I have taught her to knit, she has to knit her own from here on out.

Last winter, I knit me some mock cable fingerless mitts. This winter, I knit a scarf to go with it. Here Mike models the scarf:

There is a very sweet, crafty young lady named Jessica who gave me a gift at a holiday potluck in December. I knit her a short spiral scarf, one that naturally spirals around, due to the way it is knit. Doesn't Mike look smart in it? ::snort::

I did finish a pair of socks for Socks for Soldiers, and started another pair out of the same yarn, Regia Stretch. Now, while I've always enjoyed knitting with Regia yarns, I really hated working with the Stretch. Last night, having knit past 8 inches on the feet of the second pair - that is, 22.5 inches on TWO socks, I gave up, something I rarely do.

I was so not happy with the uneven tension and how that made them lumpy and uneven, I frogged both socks and wound the yarn into balls. I will be rehoming them with someone who has knit with that yarn before, so they can make a pair of soldier socks with it. I hate giving up on them, after all that work (it takes 2 hours to knit one inch, longer to do the 2.75" heels), but if I wouldn't be happy wearing them for a few hours in my relatively comfy life, I sure as heck wouldn't inflict them on a soldier who may end up wearing them for weeks on end between changes.

The inflammation in my right hand is getting worse, and is exacerbated working with the size 0-2 needles I use to make socks, so I'm going to take a sock break, and finish some projects that are worked on larger needles. Like the tote bag made out of strung-together loops cut out of plastic grocery bags.

May this year be a better one for everyone...

Mike, May 2007

One of us feels crappy, the other one doesn't.

2007-11-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

I would be the feeling crappy one. Mike would be the other. It has recently hit me how unwell I have been feeling, increasingly worse as the year goes on and my viral load climbs. Borrelia was also increasing, but that seems to have subsided for a while as a result of the broad-spectrum antimicrobial I was taking for the viruses. I realize that the worse I feel, the less I write and shoot photos, and the less frequently I blog.

But, enough about me. Let's get to the more important part of our program: Mike!

He has been feeling heavier over the past several months, but I figured that was probably me feeling increasingly fatigued and weak. But, really, he felt heavier, truly. So I took a detour when getting ready to put him in his bath, and got on the scale instead.

He's 25 pounds now. Yup. Heavier. Maybe it's his jowls that added the 4 pounds...

...or maybe that belly...

He is also getting ready to shed again, and my hormones have apparently cycled into the "almost receptive to breeding" zone, so he's been hunching over my shoes and slippers a lot again, and tongue-flicking my feet for several minutes every late afternoon.

Many non-herp people ask me if Mikey (and other lizards--or reptiles in general--) can hear. I point out the tympanic membrane. Here it is in pre-shed state:

One of the joys of lizard parenthood is picking off the ear, eyelid, and spike shed when the skin is ready to come off. C'mon, ya'll, I know it's not just me who finds the concentration and focus relaxing and therapeutic, and the attention and removal of loosened skin that's been waving around when they move making for a a relaxed and generally contented iguana.

I have been doing some knitting around the enforced rest required by my right hand (my four usable digits now reduced by one more). I finished a pair of soldier socks out of a yarn I never thought I would hate: Regia Stretch. Love all the other Regias, hatehatehate their Stretch. These socks and extra yarn will be dyed black before being sent off to Iraq in a Socks for Soldiers shipment.

Underneath the socks is a tote I knit. I put the information on it at my new Ravelry page. I am going to make one in a red & black twist to carry my Red Cross stuff in.

I will end, for a change of pace, with a recipe. I love cranberries any time of year (and prefer them on hot roast turkey instead of gravy, and on cold turkey sandwiches), and I love pomegranates.

Cranberry Waldorf Salad
8 servings

12 oz package fresh cranberries
2 cups sugar
4 medium tart green apples
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup purple seedless grapes, halved
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/3 cup mayonnaise (optional)

Wash and pick over the cranberries. (I always have an extra bag or two of cranberries on hand, so if you end up picking out a lot of unripe or mushy ones, you can fill in from another bag.) Drain well.

Coarsely chop the dry cranberries in a food mill or processor. Stir sugar into berries; cover and chill for 4 hours or overnight in fridge.

Place cranberries in sieve and allow to drain well (takes 1-3 hours). (Save the resulting liquid to mix with plain soda for a cranberry soft drink, or, uhm, with some triple sec and tequila for a cranberry margarita.)

Mix the chopped apples, celery, grapes, nuts and mayonnaise together. Fold in the cranberries.

My changes: I made this the first time with 2/3 c. pourable Splenda, 1/3 cup sugar. I got lots of drained juice this way. The second time I made it, I made it with 1 cup Splenda, no sugar. Both taste fine. I had no tart green apples, just crisp Fujis, so I used those. No purple grapes, so I used the red/green seedless I had on hand. I also added a Packham pear. Finally, I mixed in seeds from a pomegranate for added crunch. Yum.

Sunrise, sunset...

2007-09-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

Of the two, I think my favorite is sunset. That could be because I've lived most of my life on the near the western edge of the continent, resulting in sunrises that filter over rooftops, often diffused through a marine layer. Occasionally I am somewhere more interesting for sunrise, such as Tulelake in February 2007, where Karen, Jim, Sidney & I went to see the bald eagles.

Unfortunately, the eagles partied too long and hard the night before and so spent the night in Dorris, California instead of flying back to their usual nighttime secluded roost in Oregon. So, there we were before dawn, waiting for the dozens of bald and golden eagles to fly out to their morning hunting grounds...only to see just a couple of goldens. But, while waiting, I did get some dawn shots:

The faithful assemble in the dark:

We look south across the valley the eagles would normally fly over to get to their feeding grounds in Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge...

And look vainly once again to the north, to the hills over which they were supposed to fly...

Once it got light enough to actually see Karen all bundled up in her PORAC blanket, I knew it was time for us to go load up on more caffeine and try to find some birds. Did I forget to mention it was about 20-25F that morning?

As we headed east along Klamath Falls-Malin Highway, then south on 39/139 to go back to Tulelake, it grew quite overcast and colder, and snowed before we made it across to 39:

I do take more shots of the sky during the day (see my profile photo, for example) and at sunset. The next two are the views from my front walkway:

These next two are from a friend's driveway, about 8 PM last Saturday. She moved to a mobile home park a year ago July, and has been too ill to get out of her home to see the spectacular sunsets taking place across the street from her. I happened to have my camera that night, and was able to take these photos:

It saddens me that this beautiful, restful scene is so close, yet for her, so far away...

Happy Hatchday!

2007-09-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

While Mike, hatched 9 years ago today, did eat the hatchday treat The Mommy prepared him (chopped sugar snap peas, peach, and collard greens) he indicated that there was something else he'd much rather have.

Now, I know that many foods on my iguana diet "No" list are okay in very small amounts once in a while, but, still. No. Not even for his hatchday.

Although, to be honest, a nice foamy Guinness with a cheese and pickle sandwich do sound pretty good right now...

Creeping Back...

2007-09-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

While there are worse things, not being able to knit or type is a drag for someone who does both every day. Thanks to some stupid programmers' ideas of how to make their products poorly, my right hand swelled up after doing a bunch of stock research using BI's Toolkit and Classic Plus programs.

For several days, I couldn't bend my middle and ring finger - and since my index finger doesn't bend due to one of the flexors being severed by an iguana bite a decade ago, that pretty much left me doing nothing but reading and figuring out how to ice the most affected fingers and parts of my hand that hurt the worst without triggering the Reynaud's pain in the rest of my digits and hand.

Hey! Boring my life is not!

Because my hand is still in not great shape, I wanted to schlep my cordless trackball mouse and USB hub to the Red Cross so I could more easily use the computers there. Well, I schlep enough stuff, and didn't want to cram my mouse and hub in my satchel, so I knit up a little mousie tote bag that I can clip onto the satchel with a carbiner.

Here it is with stuff inside:

Laid out flat:

Some of you may note that this little tote bag is knit out of the same yarn as my ham radio case and accessories bag (see iPod schmiPod).

Abruptly changing the subject... I love working on socks on doublepointed needles (DPNs). I use four needles: three holding the stitches, with the fourth working the stitches. The triangle formed by the three needles feels nice and secure, offering my fingers places to rest and support the work and needles, whilst my fourth needle flashes in and out until it, too, is part of the triad, the newly freed needle becoming the worker needle.

For me, making socks is as much or more about the making than about the having-the-socks-to-wear. Except when it comes to making socks for the Socks for Soldiers program. Then I want to get the socks out more quickly. That's why, during my down time last week, I decided to see if I could figure out how to knit two socks on two circular needles.

I watched Cat Bordhi's YouTube videos on making one sock on two circs, and read Sheron Goldin's 2 Socks on 2 Circulars online lessons, I got the cast-on figured out, and after trying and somehow failing to follow Cat's instructions, thus ending up with a lovely pair of double-Mobius bracelets (they certainly wouldn't be wearable as socks if I'd continued!), I ripped them out and tried again. I somehow assimilated enough info to be able to actually make some headway, er, cuffway:

It does look confusing, but I'm managing surprisingly okay for now. The sock at the lower right (#1) has already been worked, and I started working on the second sock. So, you basically work one half (or however you split the sts between the two needles) of each sock in each pass across the needle. When you finish that pass, you turn the whole assembly around, and work the other halves on the next pass.

I've ordered a couple pairs of KnitPick's new Options Circular needles (I'm not a big fan of needle sets), and will frog the single soldier sock I have OTN ATM when they come, and start over, working 2 at 1ce. The needles pictured above are 24" and 30" ones that I've had for years. They are really too long for me when working two socks like this, which is why I ordered 16" needles. With the longer needles, there's some time lost pushing the socks along the length and getting the strands of yarn for each sock clear of the various ends, something I anticipate will be a little less fussily time consuming when there's less extra cable length.

Just in case life wasn't interesting enough, I am trying to figure out what to do for Mikey's hatchday Wednesday. Please, no suggestions about sending him on a trip to the Cayman Islands (which is where the Cyclura iguanas are from). Given his preference for sleeping sandwiched between flannel and down, I don't think the boy's going to do too well hunkering down in the scree and decomposing organic matter trying not to get blown out to sea or dashed against trees and rocks during hurricane season.

Yes, spoiled would be an accurate descriptor...

You know you're loved when you find things on your porch

2007-08-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

Normally, it's tennis balls. That's how I know Georgia has been to my door when I'm not home or (horrors!) the door was closed and so I didn't see or hear here out there waiting to play or, better yet, race inside to check the Georgia bowl (which doubles as the Sidney bowl) to see if there is F U D in there, like chicken skin or chicken or steak or, well, that's pretty much it, as Georgia is a picky eater compared to Sidney who will eat anything that isn't raw garlic or lemon.

Occasionally, however, I come home to find other things at my door or festooning my front walk, like:

which is a headless cat (er, toy cat, not one of the Ragdolls or Scottish folds that Georgia lives with), and

which, in a sort of clever twist, is a bodily baby (er, toy baby, whose body presumably still resides next door along with the aforementioned cats and cat head).

For those who haven't yet met Georgia and Sidney, here they are. First Georgia, with her "Cookies now, yes? Oh, yes!" look:

And Sidney, my favorite happy picture of him:

And, for the lizard and knitting photo of the day, here's Mikey modeling this month's kitchen towels. The two on the left are Sugar & Cream and Lion Brand cottons, while the two on the right are in the last of the Cotton-Ease Popsicle Blue. I just found out that Lion doesn't make this color any more and hasn't for several years, which grieved me greatly...until I found a very similar color in their 100% cotton worsted.

And now, off for some garlicky chicken and more knitting a few more inches on the next pair of soldier socks.

Socks and Hats and Other Goodies for Soldiers

2007-08-13T18:56:00.000-07:00

Regardless of one's opinion about the politics and events leading to our servicemen and servicewomen spending long months in Afghanistan and Iraq, these men and women (some barely more than kids) are there, putting themselves on the line every day. Regardless of one's opinion about how well or not the military has equipped and supplied our servicemembers, they're out there the deserts and mountains, freezing winters and blistering hot summers. Here in California we joke about our seasons being flood, mudslide, fire and earthquakes. For most of those in Iraq and Afghanistan, the seasons are sandy, dust, and mud. Many are away from things like showers, clean/dry clothes, and communications with their stateside families for days or weeks at time.

There are many "support our troops" organizations that have arising through the years, each addressing sometimes different, sometimes overlapping, needs. I chose to become a small part of the Socks for Soldiers, a group started by servicemom Kim Opperman in Ohio.

The primary focus of the group is to knit wonderful wool boot socks for servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since it can be very stressful working on BBS (big black socks) (though not nearly as stressful as it is for the recipients of our socks), we can take the occasional break by knitting leisure socks (colors! patterns!) and washcloths.

Some folks who make hand-made soaps are donating their soaps, which Kim wraps in the washcloths.

Some of us are making wool caps, too, black ones to be worn when in uniform under their helmets, more colorful ones that can be worn during off hours and when sleeping.

Why wool? Because wool is better than cotton and acrylic at wicking away sweat, and doesn't get soggy or stretched out like wet cotton does. Acrylic is not only not was warm as wool and lacks wool's wicking properties, acrylic and other such yarns melt into the skin, severely worsening burns and injuries when hit with fire or red-hot shrapnel.

Those who can donate goodies they pick up locally and ship to SFS--drink mix packets and other snack foods, toiletries, paperback books, music CDs, crafting materials, etc. Kim packs these all up, sending boxes of goodies--all packed with socks, many containing hats and washcloths and soaps--to companies, chaplains, and about-to-deploy national guard units.

Over 2400 pairs of socks have been sent off today - but there is a waiting list of over 1000 names of servicemembers whose names have been sent in by command personnel, families, and fellow servicemembers.

In World War I, the Red Cross had a program called Knit Your Bit, where Red Cross volunteers and others produced a prodigious number of socks, sweaters, hats and more for servicemen. If you're a knitter, please consider joining SFS, reading through the New Members material in the Files section of the email list, and start making your first pair of SFS BBS. If you've never knit a pair of socks before, that's okay - you'll find yourself in the company of other list members who are knitting their very first pair, too.

If you can't knit, or don't have time to knit for SFS, please consider making a donation of money to help pay for shipping everything (SFS pays the going postal rate for shipping all its packages to military bases), and you know how expensive it has gotten to ship parcels) and buy the snack and other comfort items. If you have a large stock of snack or comfort items, SFS is a 501(c)3 nonprofit - just contact Kim (sockforsoldier-owner [at] yahoogroups.com) to find out where to send donations or to find out what's on the Wish List.

Here's a photo of the things I recently finished that will be sent off this week.

I am going to include a little card of support with each item, ones I got from my friend Martha, who is a talented paper and stamp artist:

As for the obligatory Lizard photo, here's the boy, wanting to know why I'm taking photos of stuff instead of spraying him with water and picking off some more shed from his head:

It's Bleeding, er, Breeding Time....

2007-08-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

...and the iguana is cranky beyond belief (my apologies to George Gershwin for rudely altering his Summertime lyrics).

Yes, folks, Mike has passed through that difficult puberty threshold into full blown hormonal adolescence. Plus, he's shedding. Iguana keepers know that that's when they'd most like to send their iguanas to a deserted island somewhere.

In my case, I'd like to send Mike and Treppie, my big desert tortoise, because it's thanks to Treppie that Mike was able to do what he did. (Well, that and the fact I'm fighting a relapse, and the big iguanids are great observers of their humans, and will have a go at them when they detect an opening.)

Mike's been giving me lots of open mouth threats lately, not related to colors or patterns, but possibly because my erratic cycle (please, God, send menopause NOW) has switched on to "permanent PMS" for the last couple of weeks (yes, I have been very carefully watching my diet to lower my blood sugar, but c'mon, at times like these, Trader Joe's Pound Plus Bittersweet Chocolate isn't candy, it's medicine!). Sometimes the open-mouthing is combined with lunging, so I've been very careful around him.

Today, after spending a few minutes sending Mikey into Nirvana by picking some of the shedding skin off of his face, I knelt down to reposition a small glass-and-metal table under Mikey's table, because Treppie is once again completely and totally certain that if he just tries hard enough, he will indeed prove that glass and metal are in fact permeable substances through which he can pass his 8 pounds, 13" CL x 8" CW self.

It was while I was down there that Mike launched himself at me and, thankfully (hey, let's be practical) latched onto my left ear. Unfortunately, I had just pulled the sides of my hair back into a clip, so he made more contact with flesh than he would have a short time before. So, there I sat, er, crouched, clamping his head between my hands in case he decided to shake or do some alligator rolls while still firmly attached to my ear.

I looked around the iguana/chelonian room to see if there was by chance any alcohol around, but there was not. (Note to self: dig out the "snake bite" bottle I used to carry with me when I did educational programs. [For those who do not know, the quickest and safest way to detach a locked-in snake from one's skin is to pour a little alcohol {preferably the drinking, not the isopropyl, kind} into their mouth, taking care not to flood it or let it flow down their trachea.] [No, I'm not nuts, just a former snake keeper who still has a fondness in her heart for Serpentes.]*

Not much anything else of use, either. So, there I crouched, the brat's head in my hands, waiting for him to get bored (or, hey! get a clue!) and let go. He repositioned his mouth twice, clamping down harder, before finally releasing me (and freeing a mouthful of hair, which I can ill afford to lose, thank you very much).

Fortunately, my external ear is intact. Mostly. I mean, both my ears need re-piercing anyway, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind...

Le Front:

Le Back:

The photos were taken a couple of hours after the bite. In the immediate aftermath, after washing it off, I clamped some tissues around the ear to stop the bleeding. While clamping with one hand, I dug through my CERT go bag and the crate of supplies under it only to realize that, oh, yeah, I don't keep much in the way first aid stuff in there.

Mind you, the realization hits after I'm digging through them with one hand while trying to keep from bleeding on the floor or, heaven forbid, any yarn!

So, still clamping, out to my car I go, and schlep in my actual FAK (a small duffle bag that, unlike my CERT bag, does not have a hard hat and assorted other tools in it, but does, for some reason, have both my CPR masks... Ah, well, better to learn that now than when it's really important...).

After wading through the CPR and N95 masks, I pull out the bag of gauze pads, happy to see that they are Kendall-Futuro's Curity brand, not Johnson & Johnson's, since I am mightily displeased with them at present. (Yes, really, these are thoughts that go through my head while bleeding and pulling out needed supplies.)

Now that I think about it, it's been ~12 years since I've been bitten by an iguana. Well, by anything with more than two legs. But, I digress.

My worst iguana bites were all from highly tamed and socialized iguanas. Two of the three were by breeding season males (my dear long departed Freddy, and now Mike). The other bite was from my boy Wally, who closed his mouth expecting me to have moved my finger away from it before his jaws made contact. Since I was looking in the opposite direction, and jerked instead of keeping still, the flexor on the palm side of my right index finger was severed, which keeps me from bending it at all at the first knuckle, and limits the bend of the second.

Other than having to remember to not clamp the phone to that ear or sleep on my left side for a while (and, oh, yeah, keep an eye out for infection), I got off easily (and so, presumably, did Mike - I'll have to check his basking area for seminal plugs or those lovely 'melted mozzarella cheese' deposits).

Ah, well, at least for a few hours I got to forget how miserable my allergies have been today...

* Several years ago, I wrote an Open Letter to Emergency Responders about detaching snakes without killing them.

UPDATES

Monday, August 13: It is three days after the bite. Saturday, Mike bobbed at me and did some lateral compressions, first thing in the morning. I'd given him the 'silent' treatment ever since the bite - no Mommy voice, no talking to him at all, though I did growl at him (I speak Dog, too, as well as a bit of Cat) whenever I saw him. Since I normally talk to him throughout the day and evening, my not talking to him, and only growling at him, was a clear change in my behavior. I began talking to him civily (not in the usual cooing Mommy voice) late Saturday afternoon.

Sunday, we interacted normally. No head bobs or lateral compressions. He had his bath, ate as usual, and generally spent a quiet day. Martha, a friend of mine who takes care of him when I am out of town, came over for a bit. She said she'd never seen him so blue and brown (happy with the attention, overlaid by breeding colors, which for him are a rusty brown).

Today was much like yesterday. No bobs, no presenting, with him staying in his room other than coming down to eat and making a circuit around my bathroom while I ran the bath in his bathroom. As usual, he got himself out of his tub when he was done, and went back to his room to bask.

As for me, no sign of infection, and the lacerations and punctures are healing nicely. I look forward to being able to sleep on my left side again, and to the end of breeding season!

Wednesday, August 15: There is no sign of infection on the ear itself - by contorting myself and using a hand mirror, I've been able to do a visual as well as doing touch checks daily. Today, the lymph gland right under the ear, where the external ear flap is attached at the bottom of the opening, grew swollen and painful to the touch.

Thursday, August 16: The swollen lymph gland is down considerably, and only hurts when I press hard on it. Mike, heading towards the den from the foyer, first walks, then lopes towards me as I am half-way across the room heading towards the hall. Fortunately, I was carrying a load of his towels to put them in the washer, so I placed them between me and his oncoming head, holding him down to keep him from getting to me. He grabbed onto the green towel, whereupon I picked him up and carried him to his room. After I put him down on his table, he dropped the towel and turned around and glared at me, as if to say he's getting ready for Round 3.

Our daily routine for the past year or so is letting him go into the bathroom when he is ready for his bath. That is either early-ish in the morning (~7:30), or late in the morning. This morning, I got him up at 7 AM and put him in the bath. He was distinctly not happy about that. Could that have compounded the hormone situation and resulted in his coming after me? Possible…

Update Friday, August 17: I didn't bother taking a photo of the front - aside from a pale yellow tint that matches the fading bruise on the back of the ear, and a small line of scabbing along a ridge, the front is virtually healed. The back is well on it's way, as well.

Final Update August 24: Everything is more or less back to normal (depending on how "normal" you consider life with a large lizard to be). No more challenges, no more lungeing,no more open mouth threats. For now. My ear is well on its way to being fully healed. There is one tiny area of scab and discoloration under my finger, and some residual redness where the teeth chomped through the skin. I've been sleeping on my left side and holding the phone to my left ear again, meaning the pain and tenderness are virtually gone.

Unintended Self-Portrait of the Artiste

This n' That

2007-07-04T14:27:00.001-07:00

Things being what they are, I alternate doing stuff with napping and knitting. Along with making some more baby hats for the hospital hat-mitt-bootie-blanket stash, I finished the following things in the last month or so:

Another pair of Socks for Soldiers boot socks, which I sent off with a previously completed pair of leisure socks:

Another of Sandi Wiseheart's Vine Lace baby cap (from Knitting Daily), along with a pair of mitts in the same yarn, for Trina's upcoming baby:

A soap sack (stuff here with a bar of shea butter soap) and washcloth for Loretta's 50th birthday (knit in Tahki Cotton Tweed):

Here's what the soap sack looked like before stuffing:

And, my first dish towel, knit in Cotton-ease:

I have decided to reduce my paper towel usage by knitting up 30-40 kitchen towels to use instead. I do not like washing kitchen towels with reptile towels or my bathroom towels, or with my clothes, and so I didn't like to use the washing machine (let alone dryer) to wash the few (5) kitchen towels i have. So, I have been using paper towels. But I hate the landfill aspect of it, not to speak of the other resource use involved in making paper towels, but I also didn't like the resource use of water and gas (for hot water and dryer) use of washing very small loads of kitchen towels.

I'm also not crazy about buying kitchen towels.

But I do like to knit. And I need to knit for therapy, physical and otherwise. So, of course! I'll knit dish towels! Lots and lots of dish towels! So, I am going through my stash looking for cotton and cotton blend yarns suitable for dish towelling, and will slowly acquire other suitable yarns to make more towels.

I am, uhm, also collecting the handled plastic bags that many stores many stores pack your purchases in. I am cutting them into loops and will attempt to knit a tote bag out the 'yarn' created by connecting the loops together into one gianormous ball of plastic bag yarn.

Yes, I am whacked.

Hey, baby...

2007-05-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

Since I made the first vine lace baby hat, I've made a couple more of them,and finished the little preemie blanket/burp cloth I've had on the needles for a while. That got me into making some more baby hats for the guild's Hospital Stash, finishing up the yarn I made the blankets with, and digging into some other rescued yarn from my community knitting stash.

Last night I started a coupl of baby mitts/socks. Apparently, I need a refresher course in gauge, or need to alter the pattern I'm using to make things a bit wider and shorter...

Mike, always the willing model, here shows off one of the baby hats. I first knit a garter stitch strip about 8-9 inches long, then did a sort of 3 needle bind off to graft the cast-on edge so that a smooth seam resulted. I picked up sts around one edge, and knit in the round for an inch or two before decreasing for a couple of rows. I then drew the yarn tail through the remaining stitches, secured the tails, and made and added the pom pom.

What a handsome boy! Okay, so he looks like a total doofus with that hat on, but I ain't gonna tell him that!

Puppieeeee!

2007-05-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

The problem that arises when you live with pets who are an integral part of the family is that it hurts so damn much when they die.

Sidney is slowing down, his muzzle whiter every time I see him. I'd been thinking about what Karen and Jim would go through when he eventually goes the way of all life, and decided they should get a puppy before then. I'd already found a dobie rescue in Northern California and tucked it away.

Coincidental to my musings on this matter, Karen and Jim had been talking about it, too, and had pretty much decided to get a puppy, too.

It isn't that getting another dog will make it okay when Sidney goes, but maybe it will hurt just a weensy bit less. Maybe. God, I hate to think about it and Sid isn't even my dog!

Knowing how busy Karen always is, I decided to help her out, so I went to Petfinder.com and started searching for dobies with natural ears in the region. I emailed several to her, those who get along well with children, other dogs, and cats. (Funny how "duly respectful of large lizards" wasn't one of the traits the various rescues and shelters listed...)

There was a pair of pups, littermates, a black and a red dobie, five months old. They had been through several homes in their short lives. Karen and the rescue folks emailed back and forth at some length over the period of a week or two.

Last week, the red female was brought to the Vacaville branch of the rescue last Monday, spayed and microchipped on Tuesday, and coming home with us (well, of course Sidney and I had to go, too, to check out the pup and let her check us out) by week's end.

Originally named Gretel, which suited her not at all, she is friendly, great with kids, great with adults, great with car rides, learning to feel comfortable and explore the back yard (she apparently wasn't let out very much), a little nervous at the airport yet, and totally knows what the toy box is all about!

Here is the newly renamed Ginger and Sidney at a nearby park. Karen linked their leashes together so that she wouldn't be able to run off without dragging Sidney with her. Since Sidney outweighs her by 60 pounds, that so ain't gonna happen. Sidney can always be brought back to us by our uttering the magic word (c-o-o-k-i-e), so we weren't worried at all.

In fact, the only time of concern was when she leapt up onto the picnic table and grabbed a bone-in chicken thigh off my plate. Karen held her jaws agape (er, that would be Karen holding Ginger's jaws agape) while I reached own her throat and removed the thigh.

(Not wanting to reward her, but hating to throw it away, I, uhm, pulled the meat off the bone and gave it to Sidney.)

Here is a shot of Ginger in her favorite place: in someone's lap! Yes, yes, we know, bad idea to encourage behaviors that are cute at 50 pounds, but downright uncomfortable at 110 pounds.

Karen & Jim are using a crate to work on potty training. The report I got last night was that Sunday was an accident free day. I'm awaiting a report about today.

A closing shot of Sidney and Ginger with a couple of kids were enjoying the dogs far more than they were the adults milling around talking about graffiti abatement.

Oh! Yes, Ginger has met Mikey, though I can't say the opposite is true.

Karen and Ginger drove me home the night Ginger came home with us. We let Ginger out into my backyard to explore and hopefully pee. Karen and I were in my side yard when he heard a huffing and whining. Neighbordog Georgia was on the other side of the fence, scenting Ginger and trying to get a look at her in the slivers of space between the fence slats. Eventually, we migrated down towards the front yard where Georgia and Ginger were finally able to see one another by climbing things on either side of the fence. Ginger bopped her paw on Georgia's head, something that didn't seem to bother Georgia at all (though Georgia did hold me up for leftover chicken and a tennis ball the next day, so what they say about payback being a bitch is apparently true).

Anyway, Mike was asleep when Karen and Ginger brought me home. After meeting Georgia and chatting with her owners, Karen and I went into Mike's room and sat down, talking while he slept. Ginger was nervous at first about poking her way through the plastic drop cloth that I have hanging from the ceiling between the ig/breakfast room and kitchen to keep the heat in the ig room, but her curiosity overcame her trepidation, and in she came. When she finally saw Mikey, she gave his snout a lick, bounced back to Karen, and bounced out of the room back into the kitchen, there just being too much far more interesting stuff to see and smell and taste and maybe there's a ball! or a cookie!

Okay, enough of the puppy stuff for now, other than to say, if you are looking to get a dog or cat that needs a home, go check out the rescues and shelters. If you are looking for a doberman or greyhound, contact DogWorks Canine Rescue in the Central and Northern California area, and the far too many other dobies, greyhounds and every other purebred and mutt imaginable listed on Petfinder.com.

Here's a great photo of both dogs, taken by Karen a couple of weeks ago:

When he's not in my bed...

2007-05-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

...he's in his own. Usually. Last night I came home from a meeting to find him sound asleep under my dresser. He crept out from under this morning just enough for me to be able to easily pick him up and put him in his nice warm bath. Spoiled? Nah.

Anyway, here's some pics from Monday night...

An ant's eye view:

A (low flying) bird's eye view:

Look at that manly jowl!

With a ruler, for perspective:

Change of Pace....

While I have been knitting squares for the SonomaBlanket Project and preemie blankets for the knitting guild's hospital stash, I've stayed away from other baby stuff. I did knit a little hat to match the last preemie blanket, but that's about it.

A couple of people (well, women) I know are expecting babies in the next several months. I was going to knit my usual hooded bath blanket, but then decided to try something different. Not sure what, but different.

I signed up for the new Knitting Daily e-newsletter from Interweave Press, and came across a pattern for Sandi Wiseheart's Vine Lace Baby Hat. I don't know why it attracted me, but it did, so I did. Here's my first one, being modeled by a naval orange since it wouldn't fit Mike's head:

The increases in the pattern rows, which are balanced by an equal number of decreases, makes a lovely scalloped edge. My brain just doesn't do lace, and while the last 8 even numbered rows are each different and so it requires a bit of concentration as you shape the crown, I find the first three inches to be rather rhythmic and relaxing, as I do the Midwest Moonlight scarf.

So, along with making some of these baby hats for the women I know, thought I'd make some for the hospital stash, too.

If you want to get the pattern, hurry up and sign up for Knitting Daily. The e-newsletter is free, as is this pattern.

Off to cast on #2!

Craving some Mike pics?

2007-04-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here are a few from the past week or so. This first one does have some yarn in it, but the posture is classic "Hey! Look at me pose!" Mind you, he was comfortably sprawled out until I came in and he saw the camera in my hand...

What do iguanas do for down pillows in the wild? Find a duck to lay on??

Here's Mike actually sleeping in his room. The fleece throw I got for $10 at Walgreen's. It makes it really easy to pet Mike without scraping all the skin off my hands. Mike seems to like it for his own reasons...

Here's a perspective shot. Mike likes to look outside the front door, but I don't always have time to stand there for hours holding him, so this chair has been put into service:

No, I didn't pose him - he had his nose stuck out from the covers at the foot of my bed. Stayed like this for hours until I pulled him out to put him to bed in his own room.

Nitey night!

More to dye for...

2007-04-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

For my third dye project, I tried doing a sort of progressive vat dye. My goal was to have the hank dyed from pale to dark blue. Unfortunately, I soaked the yarn over night in a vinegar water bath, so it took the dye up more quickly than I wanted. So there was more darker blue than light, but by picking out strands and varying the length they were in the dye bath, I did end up with varying shades of blue. For the last 8" or so in the bath, I added some black dye to the blue, and so got some very deep blue. The yarn is worsted weight 100% wool (another in the Bare line from KnitPicks.com). I dyed two skeins of it, so I think I'm going to make another Midwest Midnight scarf out of it. Here's the start of the dyeing:

As I lifted sections out of the vat, I draped it over the bowl to drain, coiling the far end in another container. Since I was using Jacquard acid dye, the vat, bowl and Pyrex baking dish are all ones from my To Dye box.

The finished product:

Here's a closer look at them:

Something is telling me to stick with 'my' colors - turquoise, teal, fuchsia, purple - so the next project was some more sock yarn to donate to the upcoming Sonoma County Knitting Guild's Sock Symposium raffle. I'll spare you all the in-process photos, and just go right to the final luscious yarn:

I made the stretches of color in this one shorter than the first yarn I dyed. There was quite a bit of blending of the pink and turquoise in a couple of places, adding a lovely dark purple-blue in a couple of places.

I'm itching to do another one. I thought I'd use 'my' colors, but do very short stretches of color. Because the inexpensive condiment squirt bottles I'm using tend to disgorge their contents when you tip it over and some liquid drips out between the top and bottle, I thought I'd buy some less cheap ones, or get some 60cc syringes and try them instead.

Second dye not so hot...

2007-04-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Emboldened by my first dye attempt, I waited patiently for the ochre dye to get here so I could dye some yarn for my niece, Soma. I'd decided on a sequence of five colors: two tones of sapphire blue, two of gold ochre, and white (undyed stretches of yarn). I applied them as follows: Blue dark, Blue light, Ochre dark, Ocher light, white, Ocher light, Ocher dark, Blue light, Blue dark, each applied for about 5 inches before stating the next color. This would have resulted on several colors appearing on each row, with a sort of mottled or zigzag pattern once knit up, rather than the spiral my first skein is making (where the colors were applied for stretches of 12-14").

In theory--on the kitchen counter--it looked good:

As you can see from the drying and hanked photo, not so good in execution, as the ochre capillaried across the white, and merged unevenly with the blue on its other side, leaving a yucky mess:

Ewwww. At least to me for whom oranges and golds are not in my preferred palate (my first skein most definitely is), and even though I love the deep sapphire blue, I didn't the greens.

Ah, well, live and learn - and dye again! This time, rather than scrap the 465 yards of sock yarn or send it off anyway, I ordered a gift certificate from Amazon for Soma (a book fiend like me, I know that it will be welcomed, even if not as personal as yarn dyed just for her), and overdyed the yarn. I pulled out the leftover blue solutions (one made with 1/2 teaspoon of the sapphire blue Jacquard powder, the other made with 1/4 teaspoon), poured it into the dye vat along with more water, vinegar and dye powder, and submerged the yarn.

I was so busy grumbling to myself about how the yarn turned out originally that I neglected to soak it once again in vinegar water before putting it into the vat. I don't know if that would have changed the uptake of the dye.

I brought the water up to under a boil, and let it steep until the water was clear. The result, once dried and wound into a cake, is sapphire blue and mostly two shades of green, depending on whether the blue soaked into the light or dark ocher. Here's the photo I took of the cake indoors under my fluorescent desk lamp:

Karen, who has been knitting for just a year now, and is still working on her first sock, decided to get in on the dyeing action, too. So, while my yarn was cooking in the microwave, she mixed up her dyes (Jacquard's Vermilion and Jet Black) and laid out her yarn.

A couple of days before, I unraveled a row of of sock in the Jaywalk pattern I'm hooked on (and that Karen is also making) and measured it, finding that it takes 41.5-42 inches to work one pattern row (*K1, M1, k8, double decrease (sl1, sl1, k1, pass slipped sts over), k8, K1, M1; rep from * to end three more times). Karen wanted one color a row, alternating black and vermilion, with a little white thrown in now and then to brighten it up a bit.

Rather than sequence dyeing like I did in both my skeins, she did hers this way:

I realized as she started applying the color that she could have vat dyed the yarn, using two vats at the same time, with the yarn in between them being the undyed 'white' yarn. Ah, well, next time.

We took care in wrapping it to keep the white yarn separate from the adjacent colors:

Even so, there was some capillary action, with the black and vermilion bleeding into the white.

(Sorry about the blur...) What is odd (and not easily seen in this photo) is that where the black bled into or otherwise came into contact with the intentionally undyed yarn, it didn't show up as black or gray. Instead, some of its component parts were present or absent, such as some milk chocolate brown smears that appeared in one area. Karen was so impatient to start applying the dyes to the yarn that she didn't do a great job of really getting the black powder mixed into solution, but still, the colors of some of the bleeds and contact areas were unexpected.

When I get around to actually knitting with my blue/green yarn, I'll post a picture here of what it looks like worked up. I rather like it in its current incarnation, but 'twill depend on what shades of green turn out to be most visible as it gets worked up into a sock.

Yesterday was a good day to dye

2007-03-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

My apologies to Worf and the entire Klingon nation, but apparently yesterday (last night, to be exact) was a good day to dye, because I did!

I've had several skeins of KnitPick's Bare yarns on hand for months, along with a dozen jars or so of Jacquard acid dye. I've been reading various blogs and articles on how to do it, but haven't felt up to the whole experience (clearing off enough counter space, gathering all the stuff together, working up the solutions--heck, deciding which colors to use!--and getting a skein re-hanked into a much longer hank.

The hanking I did several nights ago - set up a couple of chairs 7 ft apart and wound and wound and wound.

Last night I was restless for some reason, fidgety and not into knitting or reading. So, of course, what do I do? Dye!

::snort::

I used 1/2 teaspoon of the dye powders (Turquoise, Pink, and Lilac), each in 8 oz of water, with 6.5 cc of vinegar each. Well, and George's Aloe Vera Juice, whose gallon jug looks a lot like the gallon jug of vinegar. ::sigh:: Since vinegar is the acid that makes the dye penetrate into the yarn and set, thank whatever goddesses there are that I realized my oops before I started applying the solution to the yarn!

Here's the yarn right after I applied the colors:

Here it is wrapped in heavy-duty plastic wrap prior to microwaving it (the dye requires heat to set):

Here it is in the microwave (3 minutes on, 2 minutes off, repeated 5 times):

A lot of the turquoise fell out of the yarn and got into the pink, which helped tone down the freakish pinkishness of the pink. Here it is after rinsing:

...and hanging up in the iguana room drying over night:

...and wound into a hank tonight:

Excuse me while I go drool over the sink instead of my keyboard.

Some of the articles I read in preparation for dyeing:

Dye Fingerprint (knitty.com)

Real Dye Adventures (Dave Daniels)

Jacquard Acid Dyes

I bought most of the dye-dedicated kitchen stuff (bowls, strainers, measuring cup, tongs, wooden spoon, condiment squeeze bottles) at Cash & Carry, a relatively inexpensive restaurant supply house owned by the Smart & Final company, and threw in a large plastic mixing bowl, measuring spoons, and Pyrex baking dish from my existing kitchen stuff, and a 3cc syringe from my rehabbing days. The left-over solution I'm storing in some Ball glass canning jars. I raided my CERT go bag for the mask (must be worn when working with the powders themselves), disposable gloves, plastic trash bags, and masking tape. If you're looking for metal bowls and pots to do stove-top vat dyeing, be sure to check restaurant suppliers' used section as well as thrift stores and dollar stores (Big Lots, Dollar Tree, etc.).

And now that I've exhausted myself by dyeing, I think I'll go to bed and dream of other colorways...

Update: For some reason, I kept my yarn aside, and worked on several community knitting projects (blanket squares for Sonoma Blanket Project, a preemie blanket and cap for the guild's new Hospital Stash, and a couple of Socks for Soldiers). One friend suggested I save the yarn for posterity, but I finally decided one night to dive in. I pulled a just-started third SFS sock off the needles, and cast on my yarn. The 12-14" stretches of color are apparently going to create a spiral pattern (my least favorite, as it happens), as evidenced by the first 4 inches or so - here's what the 'front' and 'back' look like:

The colors, though, are still darned yummy!

Toolin' Around The Tules

2007-03-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

Tulelake, that is. Northeastern Siskiyou County is the land of big sky and big clouds, as can be seen of this shot over Tule sump (part of the Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge):

Karen, Jim, Sidney (AKA, goddoggie) and I went back up to Tulelake CA. We went last year in April, after the eagles had flown back north, at a time when there was a relatively sparse mix of laggard arctic birds and not quite time for the southern and sea birds to come up for breeding.

As I started resizing, cropping and compressing the photos from this 2007 trip, I realized that I hadn't finished doing the same on all the photos from last year's trip! Since I have about 500 more to go through, I thought I'd give you a preview, photos taken on the way up to Tulelake in 2006, on Interstate 5 and Highway 97. If you are like most people and have no clue where Tulelake (sometimes spelled Tule Lake, though I am not clear on the rules) is, here's a Google Map link, so you can check out the satellite views, too.

Tulelake Sunrise, February 17, 2007

Tulelake Sunset, same day

I have a photo album with some of the photos from the February 2007 trip. I will work on getting the rest of these, at least, processed before our trip there next year. Really! I will!

Actually, we have to go back. Last year, I taught Karen to knit on the drive up there and while we were there. This year, we got Fe Galeoto (of Fe's Bed & Breakfast) started knitting, so we have to go back and see how she's doing.

If you're going to be heading up to the area to take in the birds and Lava Beds, the place to stay if you going stay in the area is Fe's B&B. If you're going to be there for several days, or there's a small group of you, rent the vacation house: three bedrooms, two baths, kitchen and dining area (and piano, TV and VCR), and it's dog-friendly - just ask Sidney!).

Sidney hogging my side of the 'knitting' couch

Sidney in 2006, enjoying a walk in the Tule sump area, while the photographer shoots Sidney's tush.

iPod schmiPod, anybody can knit an iPod case...

2007-02-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

...but how many people make a ham radio case?

Besides me, that is.

This lovely cushy case is made with Red Heart Grande yarn in my favorite colorway. The pattern is simple: Sl 1, *K1, sl 1, rep from * to last st, K1 (worked on #13 straights and seamed across the bottom and up the side). The button loop is a 4 st I-cord. The button itself I found at Circle of Yarns, the very nice yarn store we found in Klamath Falls. If you're in the neighborhood, stop in and check out their yarns, and say hey to Jasper, the store cat. Oh, and to Lorena, too!

Here's a little bag (6.75" W x 4" H) I made a couple weeks ago, from the Lotus Purse pattern in Judith Durant's One Skein Wonder book. I used the Red Heart Grande (in case you couldn't tell!) and size 13 needles. IHmmmmm.... I suspect a bright blue or red button would look better. Well, the next time I'm button shopping. In the meantime, this purple one will keep the bag closed and my stuff from falling out:

I will eventually learn how to use my radio without committing all sorts of faux paws (a little animal joke there) (okay, very little), to augment my emergency response capabilities in case of local disasters. Thanks to the local chapter of the American Red Cross and ARRL for teaming up to make training and testing available to chapter volunteers.

Scaley Boy with Gauntlet

2007-01-16T16:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe "wrist warmer" is more accurate, but gauntlet sounds more manly, and my boy is nothing if not, well, lizardmanly.

Mike, like most tamed (not to speak of highly socialized) iguanas, loves getting petted. They relax into a sort of nirvana state, eyes closed, breathing slowed, some leaning so far over towards the petter that, if not supported, they will just fall right over. Here's Mike getting petted by my gauntleted hand:

A close-up of the pattern stitch (my version of a twisted rib) looks rather scaley, but stretches out into a more distincte columnar pattern when on the hand.

I drew a rough outline of a hand on a small piece of paper, and roughly noted the various dimensions of my hand. I then pretty much cast on and knit a swatch to figure out how many sts I needed, and then cast on for real started knitting.

I faked my way through the thumb gussett on the first one, and replicated the faking in the second one. Now that I am trying to write the pattern down for others to knit from, I find I am going to have to knit another pair in the same gauge and document it row by row for the gussett, thumb and fingers. Ah, well, not a bad thing to be forced to knit, all things considered!

Here's a parting shot of Mikey. If you look at the skin around his eye, you'll see that he is just starting to shed there. Which explains why he's been in such a weird mood the last couple of days. Of course, I probably didn't help matters much when I took a shower with him this morning.

Hey! I was doing my bit for energy conservation! It has been so frickin' cold here, and since I do not heat my house (my PG&E bill being high enough just heating the damn reptiles and Mikey's daily bath water), so it has been hovering around 44 degrees here during the daytime hours. That's not so bad when I'm all bundled up but it does make it extremely difficult to even consider taking a shower, no matter how hot the water. So, since Mike's bathroom gets heated up to 70 F every morning he's in there soaking, I decided it would take far less energy and time to just take my shower and wash my hair in his tub/shower enclosure.

I drained out his bath water, and, uhm, sorta straddled him and did my thing. Since he's so long, his body was pretty much out of the way of my feet and shampoo and such. I was the only one at risk, taking care not to step on his knife-edged dorsal crest that runs down the length of his tail.

Once I was done, I got out and ran him another bath. A small price to pay for my not ending up with frostbite. Brrrrrrr!

The Scaley Boy

2007-01-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

I know it is difficult to get an accurate idea of just how big Mikey is from looking at photos of him with scarves and socks and things. I took a few photos of him recently for Mike's friend, Ed. Ed is Polly's husband, and is Mike's biggest fan. Ed doesn't remember my name, so when Polly is talking about me or I call and leave a message for Polly, we have learned to identify me as "Mikey's mom". Hey! whatever works, eh? Anyway, I took the following photos for Ed, so he can gaze upon the boy's countenance whenever he wants during the day.

Without further ado, here are some photos of Mikey, with a library book, and with my cordless phone. As of the last measuring and weighing, Mike is:

21 inches (53.34 cm) snout-vent length (SVL)
50 inches (127 cm) snout-tail length (STL)
23 inches (58.4 cm) girth (around widest part of body)
21.4 pounds (9.7 kg)

You can click on these and other photos in my blogs to see larger versions of the photos.

Here's a couple of Mike with the phone handset:

Here's Mike next to a "standard" hardcover book:

And just a nice head shot of Mikey. Note the whitening of the skin around his "lips" as he gets ready to shed that area:

First Pair of Big Black Socks is (are) Done!

2006-12-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

After my inauspicious start, I finally finished my first pair of BBS for Socks for Soldiers. Not even that, the socks survived their brutal machine wash and dry, in on regular cycle in hot water followed by a hot air dry. Whilst all this abuse of socks was going on, I had to repeatedly assure my own socks that they would never be so treated, and that this was for a good cause, as the U.S. military no longer allows washerwomen to accompany soldiers into the field to do their "smalls" in the nearest body of water. And, let's face it, when you're spending your days avoiding IEDs and automatic weapons fire, the last thing you probably want to be doing when you finally get some off time is delicately handwashing your own.

So. The socks are done and came out of the dryer feeling as nice and thick and wanting to be put on as they did when they went in. I made my sock band:

and wrapped the left-over yarn around a card to send along with the socks, along with a needle and some of the woolly nylon reinforcing thread. Here's another photo, this tie of the socks (I just realized you can't see the two BBS because I stacked them up to take this photo), along with the band and one of my own socks on top for comparison - it still makes me crack up at how big they are, and I didn't even knit the gianormous size!

Mike had already settled himself in for the evening when I took this sock photo awhile ago, so I spread a towel out over his tail to provide a plain background for the socks. Mike stared at me the whole time, perturbed that I was not taking a photo of him. So, here he is, Mr. Bah Humbug himself, on Christmas Day, 2006:

My thanks to Sandra David for the yarn I used to make these socks.

Some Fun Stats

Cost of Yarn: $21 +taxes and shipping

Total length of sock: 27"

Number of rows (11 rows/inch): 297

Number of stitches per row (excluding the additional sts around the heel gusset): 80

Minimum number of stitches in one pair of Size 9 BBS: 23,760

Number of hours to knit the socks: I didn't keep track! Knitting a similar pair of socks for myself (simple K1, P1 leg over 48 sts) usually takes me about 12 hours. I'd say the BBS socks took about twice that, not counting the time spent frogging and re-knitting on the first sock.

Whew! No wonder my hands and eyes were tired when I finished!

If you'd like to tire out your hands and eyes, too, for a worthy cause, please join Socks For Soldiers.

Socks for Soldiers, Part 1

2006-12-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

As in, I finished the first sock!!!!! Woohoo!

Of course, I have another sock to make to mate with it, but I am desperately hoping that I don't end up fighting my way through it as I did this first one, and that the remaining 1.5 balls of yarn behave themselves.

I've never had so much trouble with any of the socks I've made. And, I've never made such a BIG sock! Here's a photo of the complete BBS (big black sock) with one of my own socks on top:

One intrepid Socks For Soldiers listmembers waited until her family was asleep one night, and then pulled one of her BBS over a liter soda bottle to see if the sock, only 3.5 inches across the leg when laying flat, really would stretch to fit a muscular calf. It did, stretching to 13.5 inches! God bless K1, P1 ribbing!

My BBS is knit in Dale's Baby Ull, with black wooly nylon used to reinforce the heel and the entire foot, as well as the toes.

Without further ado, off I go to cast on the second sock!

Sock it to, uhm, whomever

2006-12-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

Helloo? Anyone there? ::tap:: ::tap:: Is this thing on?

Oh, hi! Long time no see! It has been over a month since my last post - and I just realized that I still have a couple more scarves to send off to OpGratitude!

I spent much of the month recovering from the October full of introductory classes at the Red Cross to learn about the different type of disaster response services they provide to the community (all free, and all paid for by donations, not by any local, state, or federal funding, with very little going to paid staff, as there isn't much in the way of paid staff, most of the day-to-day work, training and emergency services being provided by trained volunteers) and doing some volunteering myself.

I also got reacquainted with my inner drunk and scofflaw, doing DUI and traffic violation role plays at the Public Safety Training Center in November. For a couple of nights in December, our victims, er, recruits, er, students were park rangers who were completing a law enforcement course for rangers. I did drunk and stupid one night, but the second night I did high risk traffic stops, which involved three rangers and lots of weapons, including the gun (disabled) and knife (rubber) I got to stash in my car and on my person.

All I will say is that there are an apparently infinite number of ways to have your wrists cuffed that hurt! And, well, some ways that don't, or at least not so much, including the time I was able to get out of my cuffs while I was biding my time in the back of a patrol car.

I now have the reputation of being a pleasant drunk who slips her cuffs. Oops! Well, better they learn on me than make that kind of mistake when taking down a truly dangerous person.

Anyway, during this month or so that I've been not writing, I have been working on socks.

I finished these two, one a Regia stripe, the other KnitPick's Sock Memories in the Hawaii colorway. Needless to say, I will not actually be wearing them both at the same time:

I also went to work on my first Socks for Soldiers socks. SFS sends hand knit boot and leisure socks to our men and women in the service, mostly, at this time, in Afghanistan and Iraq. The boot socks have to be black, though a pair of white is okay only when worn underneath--and completely covered by--a pair of black ones. The black boot socks have to be BIG, both in the length of the leg and a little generous through the foot to compensate for shrinkage that will happen to socks washed rather less gently than us sock knitters at home usually wash our own. Black boot socks knit in finer (thinner) yarn can also be worn as dress socks. SFS knitters can also make leisure socks to send along for off-duty times.

Along with the sock pairs banded with size, fiber content, and optimal care information, we send along some darning yarn and needles, just in case. SFS's founder, Kim Opperman, also stuffs the sock boxes full of all sorts of goodies wanted by our servicemembers deployed far from the comforts of home, like toothbrushes, sunblock, lip balm, snacks, gum, instant drink mixes, etc. The SFS list has a wide range of men and women sock knitters on it, some brand new to sock knitting, others long-time knitters. Some have spouses or children in the service, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others, like me, just want to support the folks there on the ground, regardless of our political beliefs or feelings about what the Administration has or has not done.

If you'd like to help SFS out, check out the SFS site. No problem if you aren't a knitter: cash donations help pay for shipping the sock shipments, and donations of the types of toiletries and sundries (or cash to purchase them) included in each shipment are always welcome. You can contact Kim through the SFS website to find out more.

Anywaaaay.... Ya'll have some sense of how long I have been knitting socks, and how many pairs of socks I have knitted (rough estimate is 50+ pairs). So, plain, simple sock making is not difficult and generally no brainer enough that I carry a sock-in-progress with me whenever I go out. So I do not understand why knitting this one SFS sock has been such a hellish experience!

Forget that I had to rip it out and start anew 4 times - that was just a working out of gauge and fabric-feel. But between stitches getting weirded up (how badly can one mess up K1, P1 rib, I ask you?!) and the ball turning into the Ball From Hell, requiring SIX hours to untangle over the course of two nights, well, it is no surprise that I haven't even finished one leg yet!

That's as of last night. I actually stopped working on it for two nights because no matter how perfect the stitches were when I finished working on one needle, by the time I got around to it again (I use three needles, plus a fourth to work with), the last several sts on the needle were twisted, and managed to drop down several rows while I tried to correct them. After spending more time correcting than I was knitting, I decided the project needed another rest.

So I worked on some other socks:

Lest there be an LIS entry without a cute animal picture, here's one I took on the skid pan on one of my drunken nights:

Let's see how this rather light close-up looks:

And, finally, m'boy Mike. He has become resigned to the shorter days insofar as he no longer stomps into the bathroom and demands a 5 PM bath every night. But he is insistent on some cuddling every afternoon, something that has been hard on my hands. So I got us this lovely manly fleece blanket (2 for $10 at Walgreens).

Now, what's funny is that MIKE HATES PLAID. If he sees anyone wearing plaid, regardless of the size of the pattern or the colors, he freaks out. I don't know if the dark green on this blanket is dark enough that he hasn't really seen the black cross-striping, or in The World of Mikey's Brain, he is the only one who is permitted to wear plaid, but he hasn't freaked out when looking at it, nor does he mind me petting him through it, and he clearly isn't bothered about sleeping under it.

G'night, Mike.

Hello, SFS big black sock #1.

Update on SFS: I finally got that last inch done and worked the 2.5" heel and finished turning the eye-of-partridge heel! Whew! Only had to rip back once, when I was part way through the heel turn, when I found I'd dropped a stitch several rows back. Sigh. Tomorrow: the gusset!

Operation Gratitude

2006-10-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

Operation Gratitude has been active in shipping care packages and other things to our service members stationed around the world. (See Crazy Aunt Purl's blog about her visit to an OpGratitude collection & packing site in June 2006.)

New to their Wish List is an invitation for people to knit scarves for our service people. Not just ones to wear on duty (like Operation Home Front's Helmet Liners) but scarves for fun and comfort when wearing civvies. (For other off duty comfort, see Operation Toasty Toes.)

Anyway, here are the three scarves I'll be shipping off this week to OpGrat. I made the goldish moss stitch and wild black and orange scarf; Juliette made the green basketweave scarf. She gave me the black-and-orange yarn, whereas I gave her the green yarn; the green and gold (actually, two strands fo slightly different colors) were made from donated yarn.

All of which you could probably care less about, and just want me to get to the lizard part:

Freaky

2006-10-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is just learning to knit, and another friend has recently started knitting again after a lapse of several years, so I pulled out the tub of knitting magazines and pattern books and leaflets for them to look through. Many of the magazines and things were given to me through the years by other no-longer-knitting knitters, so some of them are rather like going through a time capsule, looking at the fashions and hair styles (and home decor) of 20-30 years ago.

Today, while overseeing Georgia, the dog from next door, exploring the living room, I spotted a magazine that I'd forgotten about. Measuring 13" x 10" in size, it didn't fit in the tub, and has been hunkering down on the dining room table amidst all the books from my long-ago collapsed 7-shelf bookcase.

The magazine is McCall's Needlework & Crafts, the Fall/Winter 1965-1966 edition, which sold for $0.75. One of the photos on the cover, otherwise adorned with angel ornaments, stuffed animals, tote bag, a mosaic rooster, and a man and woman wearing black-and-white intarsia and slip-stitch patterns sweaters, was this:

Now, lest you think that this was part of their Halloweend Costume Collection, let me say that there is no costume collection in here, Halloween or otherwise. In the magazine itself, this charming "Boys' Ski Mask" was paired with a Girls' Ski Mask:

They appear together on the same photo spread as these two rather nice Boys' and Girls' sweaters:

My guess is that the ski mask designer was into Carlos Castenada at the time.... (Uhm, for those of rather younger than I am, here's a hint: peyote.)

The Lizard That Ate Chicago

2006-10-17T23:47:00.000-07:00

Well, okay, so maybe that isn't one of my socks, and maybe the lizard didn't suddenly grow big enough to eat Chicago. Well, that is one of my socks - I knit a small sock to go along with the little sweaters to donate to CCI for their fundraiser holiday tree. I'm also playing around with trying to knit a driedl, and some Magan Davids, but I can't seem to get the tension to my liking, nor the increases (or decreases, depending on if I'm knitting from point to base or vice versa) to look neat and non-nubbed.

I cast on 24 sts to make the sock posing with Mike...think I'll do some 18 st ones. When I was making the one above, I found myself automatically starting to do the slip 1, knit 1 heel, but then I thought, heck, no one's going to be wearing this sock, so there's no reason to make a sturdy heel!

Hand-Dye, and A Missing Lizard

2006-10-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, Phina Borgeson, one of our knitting guild members, offered to teach us a bit about dying yarn. We met three times this year in the evening at Canine Companions for Independence (thanks to one of our members and her knitting assistance dog), so it was perfect being able to use their kitchen, with its sinks, stoves, and microwave.

Fortunately, not a huge group turned out tonight, and so there was enough time to not feel completely rushed as we soaked our yarns, and either dyed them a single color in the stove-top pots, or hand dyed them, painting on the dyes while the hanks lay in a Pyrex dish before microwaving them.

I took some photos of the others' yarns as they were painting and dyeing them, and I'll get a page up on them sometime this week or so, along with my transcribed notes from Phina's instructions, but I thought I'd post my hank here.

We were using Paz Easter egg dyes and vinegar. Here's my hand-dye using the turquoise and hot pink, all wrapped in plastic wrap before putting it into the microwave:

Once the water runs clear after microwaving for a couple of minutes, I rinsed the hank out under hot water, carefully squeezed out the remaining water, and here it is!

I didn't get the turquoise all the way down the 'stack' of yarn so there are some color variations, from a bit a of white showing, through different intensities of the turquoise. Where the turquoise and hot pink overlapped a bit, there are touches of purple.

My favorite colors!!!

Phina said that the best time to by the Paz kits are right after Easter, when they go on sale. She also recommends splurging and buying the 9 tab kit so you get the cool colors like turquoise. On the way home, I was envisioning color junkies lurking in dim alleys, swapping Paz tabs of colors they don't like with those who have colors they do.

So, I get home, and find Mike has left a calling card for me, letting me know that he got down and went cruising after I left the house shortly after 6 PM. I, uhm, stepped over it on my way to hang my hank of still-wet yarn in the iguana room and say hey to Mike...only to find he was not there.

When in my room changing clothes, I did check my side of the bed to see if there was a tail sticking out from under the body pillow. No tail. I checked in between the blue- and white-covered duvets to see if he was laying under the white one. No Mike.

Off I went to clean up his pile (my gawd can that boy poop!), and then look for him. Not under my desk, which is where he's gone the last couple of times he decided to sleep outside of his own room. So, I picked up a flashlight and went to check under my bed. Before I got down on the floor, however, I decided to check 'his' side of the bed, just in case... And there he was! Well, there his tail was:

I flipped back the pile of duvets to check on him, and he was still quite warm. Between the feather bed on top of the mattress, the flannel sheet and flannel-covered down comforter (the blue one under the white cotton-covered down comforter), he stays warm so long that it is detectable the next morning.

So, a productive day: I learned to hand-dye and pot-dye yarn, and Mike put himself to bed (well, into my bed) on the right side for a change!

Ah, the joys of boys..!

2006-09-07T20:16:00.000-07:00

Boy lizards, that is.

Here I am, kicked back in my chair, working on a sock, when what does my eye spy?

If you don't see what I see, on the edge of the green leaf, then you clearly don't live with boy lizards. Large boy lizards. Here's a close up:

Ah! Now you see it! A fresh (well, as of this afternoon) seminal plug!

(Hey! Did you know that when you Google "seminal plug" my page on seminal plugs comes up? Cool.)

(Of such little things are my days made.)

Mike is the only Cyclura iguana I have ever lived with. I have lived with many, many male lizards, including green iguanas, savannah monitors, Uromastyx, blue-tongue skink, bearded dragons, even a water dragon.

I have seen the occasional seminal plug from most of them, especially green iguanas during breeding season. But never, ever, have I cleaned up as many seminal plugs from any one lizard as I do from Mike. He produces two of them on average every two-three weeks. All large, fully formed.

Along with leaving me plugs, Mike does something else really well: Sleep. Apparently my monthly cycle has finally moved on, as he hasn't headed for my bed in the last couple fo days. I put together a little photo album of him sleeping and basking, in case you want to ogle.

Mike has been having a better month than I have. About the only thing I've been able to do is knit a couple of socks. Big whoop (other than the fact that I really like knitting socks and would go crazy(er) if I couldn't even do that.

Here's one knit in KnitPick's Dancing (cotton/wool/nylon/elastic, and it looks like they're out of the color I have, 23590). At the top of the photo you can see the Eye of Partridge Heel cheat sheet I made for myself (if you'd like a copy of the chart as a Word or PDF file, lemme know), and my new favorite sock needles, KnitPick's nickle-plated doublepoints.

I started the mate to the Dancing sock, but am taking it with me when I go out. At home, I'm working on my first pair of solid color socks (unless you count the little red ones I knit for some friends' cats last Christmas, which I filled with catnip for them). I thought I might get bored, but so far, not. Maybe because the pattern stitch (yes, Jaywalker again) is keeping me entertained just enough without being all absorbing. Or maybe it is the yarn: Regia Silk (55% merino/25% polymid/20% silk - and it's machine washable!), which feels very yummy as it moves through my hands.

This yarn comes mostly in neutral solids (I do have a skein of the blue waiting in my stash). They now have some 'prints' - self-striping - yarns in their Silk line, but none I particularly like. Ah, well, when I next need an 'amazing hand' fix, I have some Classic Elite's Inca Alpaca waiting to be made into winter sleep socks. Mmmmmmmm....

Lizard-A-Bed, Re-Redux

2006-08-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, well, I was going to make him sleep in his room last night, but he was so comfortable, and the room temperature was still within his range...so I left him.
He inserted himself into the 'guest' side of the bed again, but this time, when I checked on him, his head was off to the side of the bed, with his snout hanging over (a not uncommon iguana sleeping position). Here's what he looked like when I pulled the covers off of him:

When he was ready to start getting up this morning, he again came over to my side of the bed. He placed his right front foot gently on my left hand, and crouched there comfortably while I petted his head and neck for 15 minutes or so until I could get out of bed. No wonder it was more difficult for me this morning - he got up an hour earlier than he has the last two nights!

Me thinks the boy is getting a wee bit too comfy in my bed.

When I left him today to go to a meeting, he was still in the tub. When I got home, he was still in the tub. He had been out to eat a bit, but, still. Sitting in a cold tub does nothing for iguana digestion (or anyone else's, for that matter, other than cold water dwelling species of fish). So, after draining the tub, I wrapped him in a warm towel, and he remains where I put him: in his own room, in his basking area.

Now it remains to be seen if he stays there tonight, or sneaks into my bed again.

Here's the latest pair of socks I'm working on... I actually cast this one on, worked the first inch, and then set it aside to take with me next week to the "Introduction to Red Cross Disaster Services" class I'm taking, but I accompanied some friends to a doctor's appointment on Friday and had meetings both days this weekend, so I ended up taking it with me to work on.

I wasn't too crazy about this yarn--the way it felt--when I was working it first on the size 2 needles I started working it on several weeks ago, but I'm really liking it on the size 1s.