The Following Day

I’m feeling decidedly strange today. I slept badly last night — I was too hot, my hip hurt, my back hurt, my skin felt itchy, I had many odd dreams. Not sick exactly, just uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s the stress left from yesterday’s trip to the vet. Did I mention that we upset one poor lady who was waiting for her cat to get some treatment? I unfortunately mumbled something about losing two cats in just over two weeks and she immediately wanted to know what happened. She ended up asking for a tissue to wipe her eyes, both in sympathy for what we were going through and in worry for her own cat. Oops. I didn’t mean to put it on her like that. But she asked. At least she didn’t have to pay $113 and have no cat to show for it.

So this morning I’m trying to see the positive sides of being catless. I don’t have to vacuum the crunchies and kitty litter off the basement floor several times a week. We can leave the bedroom door open at night when it’s too warm without having “let-me-join-you-in your-nice-warm-bed” meows coming from the basement door. I don’t have to pull a sheet up every day to protect the bedding from cat hair. The shredded upholstery on the living room and kitchen chairs can now be safely replaced. I can repair the claw pulls on the handwoven rugs and they will stay repaired. We can finally buy a new rug for the dining room without fear that it will become a scratching pad. We can go on vacation whenever we like without having to find someone to feed the beasties. There are upsides to this situation. But it’s going to take awhile to get used to the idea and to get out of our former habits. As T-Man calls it, The New Normal. Meanwhile I miss the old fuzzbutts.


I may have to babysit the grandkids later today so I’m going to try to get some more weaving done on the Circus Blanket. The end of the warp still hasn’t come over the back beam so there’s maybe a yard left. I’m running out of many of the colours of weft yarns so I’ll be reduced to weaving black, dark green and red at the end. If the resulting fabric is too long, I may be able to cut a small lap throw out of the most bizarre section. We’ll see. Meanwhile, while I have warp I will attempt to weave it up. No use wasting anything just in case I didn’t measure correctly. I’d rather have too much fabric than too little. Though it looks like an amazing amount woven so far, I lost complete track of the length somewhere back a couple of yards. I’d take a photo of the plump cloth beam but it’s too dark today to get a good shot.

Instead I’ve been knitting on the Stargazer Socks for something mindless and portable. Hmmm…maybe we should unvent a new acronym: MAPP = Mindless And Portable Project. One should always have at least one of those about. One never knows when one might be too brain-dead for anything more complex and the desire to go sit on the deck and knit becomes too strong to ignore. Too bad it’s sprinkling with rain right now. Oh yeah. Weaving first. Right.