Because I haven't posted any cat photos for at least a week...

Just hand over the can opener, and nobody gets hurt!

Out with the old and icky

I have decided that it is time to replace my laptop. Not only does the battery hold no more than 20 minutes of charge, the hinge doesn't work very well, meaning that the screen will fall flat if it is open to an angle > 110 degrees. Plus I only have 1% of the hard drive space available to me*. And a crack appeared in the battery casing some time during our trip. I guess that 5 years is a long time in computer years. Actually, my laptop froze up while I was customizing my new Dell - serves me right for clicking on the "show me more details" regarding the $20 messenger bag. Lord knows, for all the other options, I basically went with whatever The Gambler suggested. Even when I reassured it that it would not become landfill fodder (it will spend the rest of its days in the condo so that I can look at Xrays in the middle of the night), I had to remove the battery to power it down. We ended up having to re-enter everything on The Gambler's laptop. And the mystery plant is no longer - I was seriously having visions of it going all Little Shop of Horrors on me and reaching out to grab my ankles one day. It is now off to weed heaven wherever the City of Toronto takes its yard waste - maybe it will be reincarnated as biodiesel. To be honest, I suspect that it will figure out how to make it into garden compost, and pop up all over the city next year. But not in our yard ! After exorcising ripping it out, I planted this lovely Prairie Tulip. Isn't it nice and benign looking? Speaking of lovely, the first Close Your Eyes and Think of England sock is looking good: Because the pattern is very stretchy (at least partially because I suffer from purl-stitches-that-follow-a-knit-stitch-are-loose-syndrome, and each pattern motif is flanked by purl stitches), I plan to knit it further up the calf than I usually do. At this point, I have 17 grams of yarn left, so they certainly won't be kneehighs on me. But I am holding out hope for a bit more than halfway up the calf. *This is my excuse for not downloading any of my pictures from my camera since we got home. Thank goodness I can upload photos from my Blackberry to Flickr.

Stuff you find on The Internets

Methinks wearing these shoes would lead to turned heads, but not admiring glances... Someone please convince me they are kidding.

Horticulture is my blind spot

I'm hoping that someone can identify this plant for me. Specifically, I am wondering if it is a weed: We had our front lawn replaced with a rock garden and some perennials last fall. The Gambler thinks that this is something that was planted, but I really don't think so (we didn't do the planting). It is creeping along the ground in a very weed-like manner, and there is no sign of any type of flower. It actually looks kind of sinister with its thick red stems - I have visions of it reaching out and grabbing my ankles. I have tried various "weed identification" websites to no avail. And if I enter "weed black spot" into Google, I find all sorts of useful information about how to deal with a fungus that affects marijuana plants, but I am no further ahead in figuring this thing out. Even if it's not a weed, I really don't like the look of the thing, but I hate to rip it out if it is just in an ugly duckling stage.

Signs of the Times

Then... ...and Now.

Link of the week

Website Blog (Thus far, knock on wood, neither The Gambler nor I have left anything of significance behind during this trip. Other than our optimism about English weather, that is.)

clap clap clap

Polite Applause is done. Blocking will have to wait. And because I have finally finished knitting this shawl I had intended to use on this trip, the weather has finally turned sunny!

When the owners are away...

...the cats will nap. (Many thanks to Glenna for taking care of them last week, and for sending me the photo) Wi-fi access has been either dodgy or overpriced, so The Gambler and I instead resort to checking for Wi-fi signals with our Blackberries as we wander about. Which keeps me up to date on my emails, but not with blog posts.