etc.

You know, I live under this illusion that my librarian friends and acquaintances don’t read this blog, and that my personal & crafty friends and acquaintances don’t read my library blog. This illusion came crashing down last week when a librarian acquaintance (one I only know online) remarked that I haven’t sewn anything in ages. “Yea, true” I said, and then, “Wait. How do you know?”

Indeed, nothing has been sewn in ages, nor has there been knitting. The two on-going scarves I recently mentioned are just that, on-going. A row here, another there, and yesterday I found myself thinking, what sort of misguided illusion made me think that knitting a ribbed scarf with lace weight yarn was a good idea? So there we are then, another illusion, similarly misguided. It will be a great scarf when it’s done, circa 2008.

But, now here’s something relatively interesting: we had a lovely weekend. We tend to stay close to home on the weekends, the mister enjoys decompressing with rented films, and I tend to spend most of the weekend with my laptop upon my lap, reading, writing, grading, &c. We did some of both this weeked, but we also ventured further afield, for a trip to Niagara Falls for Cirque Niagara (which was wonderous), and then yesterday for a birthday meal with my family (which was delightful) in honour of the mister. Yes, it was feast day of the mister yesterday, and he got to spend the entire weekend calling all the shots. For him, shot-calling usually results in plenty of downtime on the couch, no chores, and a big Sunday breakfast (which he cooked. For me!). Happy birthday, mister man. You’re my favourite.

To-day is the first of 14 days off and I am tempted to draw up A Plan. You might remember that the last time I had A Plan, I was gravely unsuccessful in pulling it off, so this time I will resist temptation and use my time as the need warrants. I may or may not wake up early everyday and work out. I may or may not spend every day pulling together course materials. I may or may not work in some afternoon craft time. I may or may not read for pleasure. I may or I may not. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?

In much more interesting news: my sister and her mister have started a blog! A food and wine blog, to be sure, which is already filled with delectable recipes, tales of travel, and words of wine! You would do well to pay them a visit. Early & often!

Two of my very favourite things are black & gray. And here’s a bonus shot of my favourite black, because she’s notoriously difficult to photograph and I’m tickled that I managed a decent picture of her.

And now, rather than link to the same thing as yesterday (and the day before), here are a few of my favourite pictures from color week thus far:

• colorweek::white, by mommycoddle
• magnolia brown, by martha snail
• brown, by Max Arlo, Superhero
• white barrel, by Bella Dia
• brown, by SouleMama

To-morrow, blue. And more favourites.

Sebastian loves loves loves his perch by the kitchen window, especially in the early evening, as the sun goes down. To-day I went over to administer a little chin scratch and he immediately collapsed onto his back and gave me his “I’m going to need a tummy rub” eyes. The camera was nearby.

• I would like another cat (a third!), a brand new, squeaky kitten, but the mister is quite firm on this point. So are the existing cats, they won’t have any part of it. Damn them.
• I am knitting the exitsing cats a blanket, one they will have to share because, while I have good intentions and plan on knitting two, I know that I will make it to the end of the first and say to them, “there isn’t a chance I’m making another one of these, my dears; you will have to share.” I’m using Lion Suede (in ecru), which is a heavy, soft, chenille-like yarn, which isn’t tons of fun on the needles, but oh! the feeling of the knit fabric between my fingers, it’s delightful. I think the cats will enjoy it, even if they have to wrestle for it.
• I’m weary to-day. I’ve been weary for a few days. I am ready for Spring.
• At the moment, my teevee roster includes Lost, Veronica Mars, Project Runway, The Sheild, Battlestar Galactica, and 24. As you can see, it’s a pretty substantial roster, but I hardly ever talk about these shows at all here. I’m not sure why that is, exactly, except that I watch most of this teevee peripherally, with my laptop on my lap, while I do interwebby things. Like right now, for example, I am blogging while Jack pulls out an arrow from the shoulder of an “other”. If you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about; it’s not quite worth explaining, so my apologies to non-teevee-viewers.
• Last week, I bought an issue of The New Yorker. I haven’t bought The New Yorker in ages, months, maybe years, and all of a sudden I feel like I need to incorporate some decent vocabulary into my regular communications. Words like vernal and behest. Anyway, decent vocabulary aside, there is a very good article by Malcolm Gladwell that deals with how to solve the problem of homelessness rather than manage it (which is what most cities do) using power-law theory. As Gladwell says, the theory is economically sound (it costs less to rent homes for the homeless than it does to run shelters and provide other such services, including health care) but morally problematic (giving a free apartment to a homeless person is not “fair” when there are plenty of people who are not homeless but living below the poverty line & struggling to make ends meet). We have a dire homeless situation in this here city, and I have no good ideas on how to solve it, so I’m always keen to read what others have to say on the subject, even if I have slight philosophical reservations with their solutions.

Birthday of Roman emperor, Hadrian, William Congreve, Edith Wharton, and my sister. Happy feast day to you, sisterfriend!

There are six blooms on my amaryllis plant, such a spectacular splash of red in the kitchen that I do not mind at all that all six blooms arrived a month late. It’s a hardy bulb, this one; I will tend the drying and forcing this year, and be sure to provide a progress bulletin in ten months time. Brace yourselves.

I am in the mood for good prose. I have just read A Complicated Kindness, which was very good prose (and I will tell you more about it soon), so away to the library to rummage for more.

Feast of King Ceolwulf, 8th century Northumbrian king of whom little is know, other than the fact that Bede dedicated his Ecclesiastical History to him. Also, feast of a certain martyr called Peter of Castelnau who, on this day 797 years ago, was assassinated by lance. And birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Artistotle Onassis, Margaret O’Brien, and my grandma. Of all the birthdays and feasts celebrated today, I will be celebrating my grandma’s the hardest. Happy day, Nan!

We have a formidably large Webster’s volume on one of our dictionary stands in the Reference area, and I only just noticed that the thumb tabs (the ones that indicate the start of a new letter with a little concave semi-circle in the paper. Do these things have a name?) are completely worn out from use. Oddly, this made me happy to-day.

Also to-day, as I left the house and locked the door behind me, a longhaired tabby kitten came up behind me, all furtive and slight of foot, rested her two front-paws on my right leg, and meowed furiously for 6 minutes. We became fast friends, that little tabby and I, so, of course I asked the mister if we could keep her. Before he could answer, our man Sebastian offered up a resounding “no”.

And, finally, to-day I subscribed to ReadyMade. They tell me that my first issue will be posted on Febrary 3rd, but I am hoping that they were pulling my leg. Oh ReadyMade, you kidders!

Did you sashay your way into 2005?

We played Scrabble and I narrowly beat the world’s ultimate Scrabble ringer, my grandmother. She outscored the rest of us all evening and it was those final two rounds that did her in unfortunately (I closed out the game with a “V” and a “D” and a couple of vowels, oodles of possibilities). Of course, I took more pleasure in beating the mister, whose two consecutive New Year’s Scrabble victories gave him swashbuckling bragging rights in 2003 and 2004. Guess who gets to hotdog in 2005?

And, where are you J.D. Salinger? Happy birthday, I hope you, too, get to hotdog this year.

I was supposed to do a bunch of things today. I was supposed to finish writing an article that’s due next week; I was supposed to write up a proposal for a course I want to teach; I was supposed to update a blog I’ve been neglecting; I was supposed to start working on two book reviews that are due next month; I was supposed to whip up some jewellery for someone; I was supposed to test out a couple of sidebar panels for work. All a bit ambitious maybe, but I would have been happy to have made a start on just a few.

So Instead of doing all the things I was supposed to do, I ended up doing a lot of hand-ringing and teeth-gnashing and tear-drying and nose-blowing. You see we spent about 5 hours convinced that one of our cats had gone missing. We have a set of doors in the basement that leads out to the carport and on good days like today, we like leaving one of them open with the screen pulled across to let some fresh air into the house. The cats like hanging out at the screen (they’re indoor cats and live with a wide-eyed reverence for The Outside) and we usually let them, they’ve met several neighbourhood cats there and, thus far, the experience has been agreeable for everyone.

At one point during the day the mister went down to the basement for whatever and called up asking if Heidi was upstairs with me because the screen was open and Sebastian was skulking around but Heidi was awol. After a furious hunt through the house, we came to the conclusion that she must have slipped out, which is completely out of character because she’s easily the world’s most timid creature, but there ensued the hang-ringing and teeth-gnashing &c. Turns out she was in the house all along, the mister found her pussy-footing around upstairs hours later, so all that anguish and regret and sorrow for nothing, we should have known she didn’t have it in her to confront The Outside head-on, and thank goodness for that.

Ever experienced a whole range of emotions, from abject sorrow to overjoyed relief, all within the span of a few hours? Well, instead of picking up on all the things I was supposed to do, I’ve spent the last few hours recovering from this. That and smothering the puny creature while giving thanks that our house won’t be overrun with mice after all.