Busted!

We got a notice in the mail today from Toronto Animal Services. At first I thought they were referring to the occupant of our carport, but then realized that they meant our contraband cats. Greedo had no idea how they knew about him. Somerset thought that maybe she could just blend into her surroundings. Given the amount of cat hair on our furniture, it's surprising that she wasn't successful.

Maybe it is a cat pillow after all...

Flair is so versatile! I am about to finish the second sleeve; then I will be ripping back the first sleeve because I discovered 2 mistakes - I missed a decrease, and there's a small hole where I created a stitch. Neither are visible to anyone but me, but that hole will drive me crazy. I am also debating whether or not I should rip out the bottom few inches and reknit due to the visible colour change: Of course, there's also the issue of the colour change at the top of the garment: And this happened despite alternating skeins! It's not a dyelot problem - this yarn has no dyelots, but there is some variability between skeins in terms of colour distribution. I thought that I had balanced them out, but apparently there were a few skeins which were significantly lighter than the others. Hopefully the overall variegation of the yarn masks it somewhat. By all rights I should have finished knitting this by now, but I took a short hiatus to knit this: The pattern is Molly ; I picked it up this fall when I was in Vancouver. The yarn is Estelle Arequipa. I knit an extra repeat of the lace trim at the start; I am happy that I did, because I think that it would look a bit skimpy otherwise. I'm giving it to The Gambler's Mom, who also has a fairly broad forehead.

Slow news day

Nope, nothing of note happening today... No siree Bob.

Canada Day* DIY blog post

In May, I pledged to post at least one photo every day in July. Sadly, I have been stuck in the hospital for all but about 2 days of the last 2 weeks. I have been relying on cat photos emailed to me by The Gambler to maintain my sanity. They were taken with his Blackberry and uploaded from my Blackberry, so the resolution is not the best. I loaded the photos into a draft post last week during my very brief break. My intention had been to complete the post at work. Sadly, blogger is now considered a "social network" by the hospital, so it is blocked. This post is being written from my condo on my old laptop - we picked up an Internet Stick so that after a long day on call I can see what Knitpicks has on sale check patient Xrays and test results that were processed after I left the hospital. Sadly, I don't have the time/creative energy to come up with witty captions for the photos. Feel free to post your captions in the comments. A B C D *I realize that the post and the photos have nothing to do with Canada Day. So here is a link to a recycled photo - fireworks seen from our house in Kelowna on Canada Day 2006. We love Canada - socialised health care system and all!

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

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

Rejoice!

Somerset is home! The wrap is complete!! I didn't have to drive in to work today!!!

Home Alone

The Gambler is in Las Vegas. Somerset is at the Vet Hospital radiating. This was the sight that greeted me after the first day Greedo spent all alone: I was worried that you'd never come back. He's been moping around all week; turns out that he really misses Somerset. He's even eating a bit less than usual. This weekend I was on call in the ICU, and both Friday and Saturday I didn't get home until 11 PM - I felt so bad about him being alone for 15 hours that I slept downstairs on the couch with him both nights. But The Gambler comes home tomorrow, and Somerset should be home on Wednesday. ******************* Last week I did a bit of catchup blog reading. I saw several posts about cooking or baking. Now that I work full time and The Gambler doesn't, he does most of the cooking. I still do some meal prep, but it's often more assembly than cooking per se. Last Thursday I got home from a conference and realized that I needed to get meals ready to take with me to work. And the fridge was pretty bare. So I put together something I thought I would share with my readers: This is an order of Pad Thai (from my friendly neighborhood Thai restaurant) combined with a bag o' spinach and some veggie ground beef substitute. The orange stuff is shaved carrot. Heat it up in a skillet for 10 minutes, and you've got enough food for 4 meals. I took this along to work to spice it up. When I ate it at home, I chopped up a tomato and mixed it in. If we had frozen broccoli or cauliflower I would have added that too. It's no culinary feat, but it's tasty, and far more nutritious than straight take-out.

Speaking of knitting...

Work continues on the Zephyr Quilt Wrap: I'm a bit more than 75% done - it's portable, but not an ideal purse project - the colour changes (which keep it from being a mind-numbingly boring garter stitch effort) are a little bit finicky, but the biggest problem is that I have to take the stitch marker off at the end of each square, and I don't want to lose it! Work on the Wrap has been interrupted with some small projects: With the weather starting to turn cold, The Gambler needed something for his hands. He approved of the Knucks pattern. I used some Mirasol Hacho that I picked up last year. I had 4 skeins of the same colourway, 2 from one lot and 2 from another. I was quite surprised by the amount of variability in the colours between skeins from the same let, as well as within the skein itself - as you can see above, the blue didn't start showing up regularly until I got to the cuff. At The Gambler's request, I lengthened the cuff, and also knit the fingers longer - they just leave his fingertips exposed. I probably should have knit the pinkie shorter - I might just try to snip off the end and graft it closed. I christened them "Dedos", which is Spanish for fingers. A Spanish name seemed appropriate given the origin of the yarn. And since The Gambler decided to get a super short haircut just before the winter weather sets in, I used most of the remaining yarn to knit this - the pattern is called Jacques Cousteau, but I have christened it Juan Coustagua. 8 inches of 3 x 2 ribbing left me happy to get to the decreases! I have been wearing my own fingerless gloves alot in the last few weeks, but find myself wanting something that would keep my fingers more protected from the cold. The pattern is called Negative Space - but I have named them Hand Hoodies. I extended the palm so that it would cover the base of my fingers, as well as the "hood" so that it extends to my fingertips. They await an applied I-cord bind off. I'm trying to decide if I should go up a needle size as the pattern instructs. In order to fit my hands knitted them with US 10.5 (instead of the US 10 called for in the pattern) needles, so going up a needle size to a US 11 means a 1.5mm increase, rather than the .5 mm increase going from a US 10 to a US 10.5 (my kingdom for a 7mm Options or Harmony tip!) Finally, I started a pair of plain stockinette socks - I've got a 4 day conference next week, and wanted to have something I could work on to keep me from falling asleep as I listen to the speaker. Turns out, that they have knitted up fairly quickly. I haven't completely finished the first sock - there's still some ribbing to do; I went to see a 3 hour opera simulcast today, and in order to not waste good knitting time, I started the second sock. Luckily I have two 2.5mm circs. Hey! They match my catnip toy! This is some ONline sock yarn that I picked up at my neighborhood LYS - Passionknit. They moved to a new location at the beginning of September, and I finally got around to checking it a week and a half ago. I need more sock yarn like I need more stray cat hair on clothing, but I couldn't resist the combination of teal and lime green. BTW - do other people find that sock yarns that are sold in balls rather than in skeins don't get the respect they deserve? I once heard a knitter proudly announce that she no longer used with sock yarn that wasn't sold in a skein. You'd think that if it's good enough for Kaffe Fasset, it should be good enough for her. A few commenters have asked about Somerset - she's still flagrantly hyperthyroid: When are you going to turn down the heat? She's not going in to the clinic until Monday. Then the radioactive iodine is administered on Wednesday. It's after that that she's going to be kept in a lead lined box for a week. With no visitors. It's already breaking my heart to imagine it.

Somerset Update

We have decided to go ahead with the radioactive iodine therapy for Somerset. It turns out that it's quite the undertaking - the biggest part of which is the fact that she will end up spending 9 days at the specialty clinic - 2 days before the procedure (when they are assessing her), and 7 days afterwards (to allow her to excrete the bulk of the radioactive iodine). While she's in there we can't visit her, and anything that is with her will be disposed of because it will be contaminated with radiation. How come I have to go to jail when Greedo is the one who walks all over the kitchen counter while you aren't home? I feel horrible about putting her through this, but it turns out that the dose of thyroid medication that she can tolerate isn't working for her. So at least this will solve the problem, and will mean we won't have to torture her put ointment in her ear any more. In an attempt to make the whole ordeal a wee bit easier on her, I am crocheting her a mat: It's just row after row of single crochet using some of the leftover yarn that I used to knit Kitty Pi. I thought I'd try crochet since it's supposed to be faster - I actually quite like the fabric it makes. Of course, I'm not entirely clear as to what to do with the stitches at the end, hence the widening and narrowing of the rows. It is coming along very fast - I just started it yesterday. We take her in on November 10th, so I have plenty of time to make it a good size for her to curl up on. For now, we are getting in all the quality time with her that we can: Because for 30 days after she comes home, we are supposed to limit close contact with her, and wear gloves when we pet her. At least we won't have to keep Greedo away from her. Italy and Rhinebeck photos this weekend. I promise!

Knowledge is Power

Somerset likes being a well informed consumer. Hmmm - there's a 0.02% incidence of hair loss; maybe I can blame my shedding on the medication!

Bonus post!

I'm on call for the ICU today, and managed to get home at around 4:30. Since my last few weeks have involved staying super late every night, it's almost like having a mini vacation (granted, most vacations aren't at risk of ending suddenly when a pager goes off). So I feel bound to post more vacation photos. Our second day in Rome, we noticed these signs on the road to the Coliseum. We assumed that the run must have been first thing in the morning, since it was pretty hot during the day. But instead, it turned out that they ran the race at night. It turned out that the couple we were meeting for dinner had to wait a good 15-20 minutes for the pack to thin out so that they could cross the road. Pine Cone Court at The Vatican. That globe is titled "Beauty" - the big stone pine cone came from a fountain built by one of Augustus Caesar's generals. You have to wonder if someone intended that Beauty should seem so out of place here. So does this qualify as Holy Water? Door to The Pantheon - probably one of the most impressive buildings we saw. *************** Yesterday The Gamber took Somerset to the vet. Greedo thought it was safest to lay low, just in case. Somerset hasn't regained much weight despite being on the thyroid medication for almost 2 months. This might be partly due to the fact we can only give her 1/4 the dose, or she starts puking. It's a topical medication that we put in her ear - she doesn't like it, but it's better than trying to give her a pill every day. So the next option might be an iodine injection. Unfortunately, if we go down that route, she might need a daily dose of thyroid hormone. Which would likely be given as a pill...

It always seems like a good idea at the time...

This is Angelique. She's a year old, and is up for adoption. Anyone have experience with bringing a new nearly adult cat into a household with 2 middle-aged bordering on senior cats? Why wouldn't they want me as a little sister?

The cobbler's cat goes barefoot...

Somerset is the first cat I ever owned. When I got her, I knew nothing about cats - I remember that when I got her to my apartment, I was that she would poop in my plants. She was wandering around exploring the place, and about every 15 minutes I'd pick her up and put her beside the litterbox, just in case she had forgotten where it was. It was a huge relief when she finally used it I can't believe she thought I didn't know how to use a litterbox - do I look like a dog? Every so often one of the cats will have some weirdness going on, and I dutifully take them to the vet. This spring, I took her in because she kept sneezing, and when they weighed her, she was about 8.5 pounds. I was a bit surprised, because I thought she was closer to 10 pounds. I didn't think much of it until I came across their vaccination pamplet from March 2007, which was just before they made the move to Ontario. According to the pamphlet, she weighed 12.2 pounds. In a year, she went from this: To this: She's definitely less torpedo shaped now. I hadn't really noticed. Although in retrospect, she was easier to pick up, and didn't make the same impact if she jumped onto my lap. Otherwise she seemed to be fine - she didn't seem to sleep more than her usual 12 hours per day, she was eating, and she still liked to cuddle and play. If anything, she seemed a bit more active than before, and more chatty. So I deluded myself into believing that at the age of 11 years, she spontaneously changed her exercise and eating habits enough to lose about 30% of her body weight. Finally, I got around to taking the cats to the vet for this year's vaccinations, and the vet mentioned that she seemed to be a good weight for her size. I told him that she had actually lost a few pounds over the year. He did some bloodwork looking for diabetes, kidney failure, liver disease, and thyroid function. The initial thyroid hormone level came back right at the upper range of normal, so he asked them to do a second test on the blood that measured the amount of "free" thyroid hormone, meaning the level of hormones that were floating around freely in her bloodstream, as opposed to those that were bound to proteins and thus not doing much. It took a few days to get it back - they had to send it to a reference lab in Cleveland or some other hotbed of veterinary endocrine activity. Yesterday the vet called and went over the results with The Gambler - normal range is 15-55, and her level was 128.7. She's flagrantly hyperthyroid. So much for my clinical acumen. "La la la, my cat has shrunk to 2/3 of her former size but I don't really notice it." Now I just have to figure out how to get the medicine into her...