Kitten, Thy Name is Grendel Marie!

I finally named the kitten, in the way I generally do. I just try on a bunch of names until I start using one name, which in this case is Grendel Marie. Why Grendel? Well, because she's a little monster, and Marie because it suits her. She's already incredibly bold for a feral cat. My landlord stopped in yesterday morning, and she took a quick look at the open door, and made a run for it. She also is very demanding in what she wants. This leaves me to believe that when I get her full trust, she will be demanding. She will be whiney, she will be THE queen in her incredibly small domain, and expects to be treated so. She's not especially feminine, and rather clumsy. She's going to be a cat that has one person, and that one person will defend her even as she's clawing up the furniture, and beating up the dog.

What else- we went on our annual staff outing at work. We did the Art Crawl. It's cool- about fifty artists open their studios one weekend a year, and visitors can go from one studio, to another looking at art. We saw about 10 artists, with the best being in Milan. I bought my very first piece of art- a photograph of some sort of Prairie Plant. As soon as I get it framed and Matted, I will post a picture of it.

My newest knitting project is Socks! for my friend. I promised her a pair in July, and am now finally getting around to knitting them. The biggest problem with socks, is that once one is made, its hard to get started on the second. Fortunatley, the pattern I am using is easy, and I am using a larger needle size.

In Honor of International Talk like a Pirate Day, I Give you Pictures.

Lessons In Felting. This is a pre-felted cat bed made with found yarn at the Salvation Army. It knitted up really quickly, and the stripes actually look good.







This is the cat bed after felting. I put it in the washing machine twice, and now I got a nice warm cat bed that will hopefully be used by cats. I still have intentions of giving this one to the Winona Humane Society for their annual silent auction. The colors in the photo really don't do it justice. I do have enough yarn for another one, but I will do it a bit differently. The brown yarn kind of overtook the color, so I will do two rounds of one color, and than two rounds of the brown. It should give me a wider stripe that is brighter.

This is part of my baby shower present for Emily. I knitted it all by myself using yarn that I hand dyed earlier this year. I feel a little bad about giving her something 100% wool that needs to be handwashed, but a hat and mittens should stay clean enough that they will never need to be washed. I really like making baby stuff. Its easy to knit up, and it only takes a few hours to make something like a hat and mittens.


After dropping the kitten off at the vet on Monday to be fixed, I get a call saying that my cat is actually a female. Huh. Who Knew? Okay everyone- You can now laugh hysterically. In my defense, I really do know the difference between boy cats, and girl cats, but seeing as how I really can't get close, and that she has patches of different colored fur right where testicles are normally found- You can understand my confusion.


It turns out that Al is 100% Healthy. No FIV, No Earmites, No Fleas. I have no idea how I managed to be so lucky. I'm still a little worried about worms, but at this stage of things, what one cat has, the other cat has, and worms are easy to cure. Al came through surgery wonderfully, besides the sudden change in sex. I really haven't decided on a name for her yet, although in this blog, I'm calling her "Al", at the Vet's office, she is known as "Lucky", and when I talk to her, I call her "Kitten". I kind of like Grendel, but I am also favoring Gina, Gracie, and Alice. Poor Kitten. She's going to have some sort of personality disorder by the time I settle on a name.

Ahoy Matey! Its Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Argh All Ye Land Lubbers- Go out and Celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day!- Pillage the office next to yours, Annoy Your non celebrating co-worker with nonsensical pirate rantings, or better yet- sing some sea shanties, all day long! ♫- YO HO HO and a bottle of rum and sixteen men on a dead man's chest! ♫ Keep in spirit of the season! Go and Celebrate your pirateness!

Kittens are Crazy

People who intentionally get small, cute, kittens are completely insane. Kittens are trouble. They are either sleeping, playing, pooping, eating, or playing. They torture the big kitties, they torture their humans, they don't stop, Ever! I really can't wait for the kitten to grow up and just learn to sit still.

Of course, they are cute. Even when hissing at you. It's getting better though, instead of 10 times a day, it's down to two, and I can pick the kitten up with no hysterics. Bentley I think likes the kitten, mostly- although this morning, the kitten was feeling frisky, and wouldn't leave him alone. There was growling, and general unpleasantness, but I brought out the feather on the stick, and the kitten and I played for what seemed like an hour. He just wouldn't Stop! What else for kitten news. He weights about six pounds, which makes him around six months old. I made a vet appointment for him- to be fixed, shots, and all sorts of unpleasant blood tests. I feel kind of sorry for the little guy- except that I will be a much happier person to know he's healthy, rather than just assume it. I still miss Ollie. I hope he comes back soon.

In other news, I had to go up to Fergus Falls on Wednesday for a meeting. It went well, and on the way back, I stopped at the Salvation Army in Morris. I was looking for a wool sweater to desconstruct, but found something even better- A large amount of wool yarn- So for $2.00, I came home with 6 skeins of some brown yarn, a large amount of some weird bulky yarn with the name of "Europa" in colors such as not quite forest green, and not really goldenrod, but trys to be, and a bunch of Odd little balls of yarn, that may, or may not be wool. After knitting up a swatch of each, and than throwing it in the washing machine to see what would felt, I discovered that- The majority of the yarn was Bulky Wool. There was a few skeins of Acrylic stuff, that I think I will give to my Sister's Grandmother In-Law, who uses yarn like that. As for the wool yarn itself, I will be knitting a Cat Bed for the silent auction at my favorite Humane Society. My last one felted up nicely, but was too small. The one previous didn't felt up at all, which I though was odd. Now, I'm usuing yarn from a number of different places, so it should be interesting to see how it felts. I'm hoping that each yarn felts a little different, to give the cat bed some sort visual texture.

More Bad Poetry

Ode to Mr. Steve Irwen

You were the annoying guy on tv bugging the alligators
or was it crocodiles?

Always close to death, yet miraculously jumping out
of the way just in the nick of time.

Crikey! that was close! No lost limbs here!

You married that American girl with long blond hair.
That zoo you opened was pretty nifty,

Although I've only seen it in sort TV segments,
as I quickly flip past your hyper activity.

You have some children - brought criticism with
scandalous alligator closeness

Along the lines of Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears.

Many TV shows, a few Movies, and even late night talk show spots.
Made you bigger than life.

Love You, or Hate you, or Just General Confusion,
a World Wide Icon leaves this World.

On State Fairs, and General Weekend Madness

I really can't believe that today is Sunday, and in September. Time goes by too fast- it only feels like the beginning of of August. Its a long weekend, longer because I took Thursday, and Friday off.

I ran some errands on Thursday, and even opened a savings account with my bank for emergencies. Yeah Me! Friday I went to that Great Minnesota Get Together- The State Fair- The weather was absolutely wonderful, and I had a lot of fun. The best thing I had to eat all day was the Australian battered potatoes with ranch dressing, and cheese, Yum! My friend tried the hotdish on a stick, and I got to taste it. It was okay, although not great. I got a pronto pup, and cream puff. I believe I had a shaved ice too. I got a bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies for my gimpy sister (she had ankle surgery recently), and got a glass of milk.

The exhibits were pretty much the same as years past, although I don't know how the people with the high absorbency orange towels get to have three booths, in three separate buildings. I do have a critique of the U of M building. A few years ago they got a building all to themselves. Okay, fine. Makes sense. Sell some gopher tickets to unsuspecting people, maybe sell a few hats but they don't even have a presence in the education building, which is where most high school kids and parents go first for information about higher education in Minnesota! but the worst part is that the other colleges in the U of M system were not even present, besides a sign on one wall of the building- It was all U of M Twin Cities, and Gophers. NO Bulldogs, NO UMD, NO Morris, No Nothing! WTF! As an alumni of the UMD (that's the Duluth Campus for those not up on school nomenclature) I am offended! Doesn't my school count? What about those from Morris, or Rochester? If I wasn't familiar with the school system, I wouldn't know that these schools existed- The U of M state fair committee really needs representatives from the other schools when designing an exhibit like this..

There are two things that tied for Coolest State Fair exhibit- The Kashi Cereal Company was giving away free Cereal with Milk (well vanilla soy milk- but it was really good) After those greasy Australian battered potatoes, It really hit the spot. Kashi was also sponsoring informal yoga classes- Which was very cool. Montevideo really needs a yoga class. The other cool thing was the Eco Building- it used to be the Wonders of Technology, but now it is about living in a environmentally friendly way. I really like the rain catcher thing. The gutters of a roof funneled the water onto a piece of chain with square boxes that caught the water. The box would fell up, and overrun into the one below it. It had a gorgeous design, and slowed down the water. When I get a house, I will have one of these. The whole Eco exhibit was the coolest thing of the whole fair.

Well, I spent my Saturday running to Eden Prairie to pick up my cell phone which is where I left it. I stopped at the Local Yarn Store there, and got more yarn, Lamb's Pride, which is just awesome. Better than Pattons, and Better than Cascade. All the cars in the yarn store were either of the large SUV variety, or of the Lexus variety. I really couldn't afford most of the yarn in that store. Although, I loved all of it! The lamb's pride was reasonably priced. As for the yarn I bought- I'm hoping to turn the yarn into a hat and scarf, with possible mittens for the silent auction at the Winsted Library Book Sale. I started the hat yesterday, and even came up with my own simple pattern. I think I'm going to have a hard time giving this set away.

On Saturday, I also went out to eat with my Mom, and Grandma at Carlson's Apple Orchard. They have this little cafe type place, with only a few items on the menu, all very tasty. I got the roast beef and tomato pesto on foccacia bread, with chicken wild rice soup. Yum. Its really sad that its only open a few months out of the year as since this is really the best place to eat for about twenty miles around. My only complaint, is that its not quite apple cider season yet. I love Apple Cider. I can go through a gallon in about two days.