For me, at least.

First, some back story. We have a cat currently, who is adorable and The Best Cat Ever (except when he takes my socks that I’m knitting out of the bag and wraps the yarn around the legs of the coffee table). We got him a year ago, and he was overweight and needed a family badly. Now, he’s not so overweight and has a family, but is a little bald on the back from chewing his hair off; apparently it’s a combination of flea allergy and anxiety due to not having any feline companions in the house. A week and a half ago, we applied to adopt a kitten named Blackberry, who was sweet and immediately won us over. We were supposed to pick him up on Saturday, but he needed to be neutered, so they had taken him away to do that, and we were told to come back on Wednesday evening.

This morning, I got a call that he had a heart attack when they were bringing him out of the anesthesia, and had died. So no Captain Blackberry Fluffypants for us. Apparently he had some other health issue that surfaced when they put him under for the surgery. It’s probably best this happened before we got really attached.

We’re going in on Saturday to look at Lenny, who is apparently of similar size and temperament. He’s a couple of months older than Blackberry was (Blackberry was about 8 months old, and Lenny is around 10 months old). I’m hoping he’s as wonderful as Blackberry and that Johnny Cat (our current cat) thinks so, too. Think very nice thoughts for us. If it works out, we’ll rename him Lemmy, after Lemmy of Motorhead. My mom doesn’t get it, but my husband thinks it’s hilarious.

ETA:

This is why he is going to be Lemmy:

Lenny the Cat (as a tiny kitten)     Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

It was meant to be.

I just wanted to mention that lace-patterned socks are The Perfect Travel Project. Seriously! They are! And how!

Here’s why:

1. They fit into your carry-on baggage, and you can fit more than one project easily without too much bulk.

2. They go fast, so you feel like you’ve made progress.

3. They are relatively easy to do brainlessly (most lace is ridiculous to do with other people around, but socks are easy).

4. The guy/gal next to you will invariably look over and remark something to the effect of, “Gadzooks! What tiny needles! Do you knit with them all at once! I could never do that – it looks hard.” Then you can feel proud about doing something that seems genius and entertaining, while your seatmate goggles at your skill and then falls asleep from boredom (not at watching you; more at not having something as awesome as knitted socks to work on while sitting on an uncomfortable, cramped plane ride. But perhaps that’s because the tiny seats have cut off circulation and he/she has passed out.)

I also bring along my iPod and cut out the chatter, because I’m not a social person.

Hooray for socks (all three pairs I haven’t finished).

Well, she wasn’t really a vampire. But she sure was cool.

Details here and more about her here.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs today, Go Fug Yourself, and go to thinking. The article in question was about the fact that there are no Golden Globes this year due to the writers’ strike, and therefore no red carpet fashion to look at. The mentioned that people are beginning to notice just how many people the strike affects, and that the high fashion industry is now impacted as a result. Not that they will be severely damaged, but it is a hit, since a major portion of their PR comes from celebrities parading up and down red carpets in the latest designs.

To make everyone incredibly incensed (and that’s not really my goal here, but it’s an unavoidable consequence), I’m going to admit that the writers’ strike doesn’t directly impact me, except that I’m going to have to wait even longer for the final season of Battlestar Galactica and I’m getting really sick of watching the same old Smallville reruns over and over again. Apparently the CW (or whomever produced the show) has negotiated something, because Smallville will be new starting January 31st, but the rest of television is mostly uninteresting to me at the moment.

So I wonder – what has the lack of new television gotten people to do? Have people started reading more? Is this going to be a boost for internet-based media? How will this impact the world knitting community (how many of us don’t knit because we can’t do it and watch TV at the same time)? Will it *gasp* force people to actually do things with one another? I’ve found that I’m listening to a lot more music, reading more books, and watching all those DVDs I hadn’t managed to get to before. I’ve seen three movies since the beginning of December! In the theater! That’s more than I watched all last year combined!

And even more amazingly, I’ve started a sweater, which was something I put off due to lack of concentration (because I was watching TV while knitting). And I’ve got a whole mess of projects in the ol’ queue, since now I have time to look for them.

I suppose you never really realize how much you rely on television until it isn’t there anymore, and then you’re forced to find other ways to fill your time. And I don’t even have cable.

My friend Wendi, who is awesome, knit this:

Bok, indeed. Holy crap.

And I have started the sweater that plagues me so, and so far it’s fine (with a whole lot of help from the Chicken Goddess, who is also awesome). And that is all.

A whole portion of a conference on guerrilla knitting (the portion is on knitting, not the whole conference):

 Write-up from the conference website

A nice write-up from BoingBoing 

And that’s all I’ve got. There will be an emergency session later to determine how to best solve my sweater problem.  (But not online; I’ll share details after the fact).

And I still have no photos. The camera hates me.

I finished turning the heel of my jaywalker sock ALL BY MYSELF (yay!), and then did some more rows of the regular knitting, and then attempted to start my Little Red Riding Hoodie, but am knitting it in Malabrigo, so it’s not the correct gauge, and when I looked at it and thought about how wide it really is, discovered that it would never fit around my midsection, so I ripped it all out. Three times. I have not cast on again. I think that I’m going to have to use another kind of yarn for the project, or find another project for the yarn I have, because the thought of figuring out how to make it work is making my brain hurt.

Any suggestions for nice, easy cardigans that button and are attractive and are knit in a yarn that is 4-5 stitches per inch on size 8 needles? Anyone? Bueller?  (though my lack of posting means that exactly three people read this blog and that’s hardly a representative sample). I could use the advice.

Oh, and Happy New Year. The husband was happy that I cooked dinner (I rarely do) and that I did four loads of laundry. Also, I watched most of Firefly (except the last three episodes), though I’m not sure he had an opinion about that except that he forgot how funny Capt. Malcolm Reynolds can be. The night before we went to a party wherein there were many tasty foods and drinks, and good friends, and it was nice and quiet and small, just like I like it. Jennie B was going to come, but she always gets the flu this time of year and so she stayed home with her tea and soup and boyfriend. To tell the truth, that doesn’t sound too bad, only replace boyfriend with husband and cat, and you’ve got it.

I’m not telling my resolutions for the year. I believe it’s like a wish; if you tell, it won’t come true.

Well, mostly. Sorry for the absence, folks; see, I mostly post at lunch and the past two weeks have been woefully lunch-less (I’ve been eating it, but while working on actual work stuff), and then I was in Arkansas where my parents have only dial-up. I probably could have made a post or two, but it would have taken until next week and I needed to turn off my computer before then.

Anyways. I’m back home now, and I have a new computer monitor which is larger than my TV (though that’s not too exciting, because my TV is tiny), and I have started the heel flap on my second Jaywalker sock. And I’ve bought 6 skeins of fabulous Malabrigo yarn in the Velvet Grape colorway. I will post photos of all of this (yeah, yeah) when my camera decides that the battery is not dead. Just FYI, the battery is not dead, but the camera thinks it is and I cannot, therefore, take any photos with the camera. Or remove them from the camera. Or do anything useful with it at all.

But there are socks, I promise. And they are awesome.