Too Much Water Flowing By

Geez, I haven't blogged since April! A friend in Denver emailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked what was up with that because she doesn't do Facebook. Hi, Cheryl!! I meant to get right to it after that but --- here we are.


The wedding happened, it was wonderful and could only have been better if more of the kids could have been there. I'm an old married woman of about 6 weeks now and it seems to be working. :o)

My knee surgery got pushed from June 16 to July 1 because my internist thought he saw *an abnormality* on my EGK and that had to be checked out. There wasn't one. So the knee is fixed but not entirely functional. First available appointment for physical therapy is July 23. At 7:45 AM. Wonderful.


Our eldest cat Aletia (who was David's cat originally) died of a stroke about a week ago. She was sitting on the bed with us and Neo and Yarrow around midnight watching a Teaching Company lecture (happened to be Anthro) and nibbling bits of cheese as we had cheese and crackers as a very-late-night snack. Out of nowhere she let out this horrible loud yell and alarmed all the other cats -- Mawr came shooting in from the living room and yowled back, the others sat straight up and their eyes got huge. We thought at first that she was angry because Mawr had come up behind her and she's never been real real fond of any of the other cats. David tossed a pillow down to scare Mawr off but she kept yelling/yowling and then just collapsed on his lap in a weird *broken* sort of position. He tried to get out from under her to get the phone so we could call the vet (who is a 24-hour vet) and she fell off the bed and onto the floor. She was conscious and she looked at us and moved her head. When I petted her she licked at her chin, and one hind leg seemed to have just a bit of movement, but that was all. The vet agreed it sounded like a stroke and said to bring her in. It didn't take him long to check her out and tell us she had very little chance of recovery or of any quality of life. We decided to let her go, and David held her. She would have been 17 in September. It was all over within a couple of hours, and it was very sad, of course. David had her since she was a small kitten, and no animal was ever given better care. We've noticed that Yarrow, in particular, seems to understand that David needs more cat-love now and he's spending more time sitting with him and rubbing his head up against him.

And that's how I happened to be on FB at 3 AM local time with Ethan, discussing removing the 1980s. And the *given* answer to "what was the Beach Boys' best album?" is ALWAYS going to be Pet Sounds, but I wasn't that crazy about it. It was okay. I do think their best song, or at least the one that has the best associated memories for me, is "Sloop John B."

Toward the end of last week I was developing an intense case of cabin fever, so David said we should go out driving around over the weekend and maybe have lunch or dinner out, and I could pick where. Oh, my goodness! I thought it would be cool to drive down the coast and maybe find a place in Half Moon Bay or maybe Moss Beach, but after considering, I suggested we make the drive down to Sunnyvale instead and hunt up the yarn shop of Scott's girlfriend.

Scott does my acupuncture and is quite a good friend, and he's always talking about Nathania's shop. So we went there instead, on Sunday. It was my first real trip anywhere since the surgery (unless you count the vet), but the knee held up pretty well and I bought some lovely yarn and three inspiring books, including one on knitting with beads, which is something I'm interested in learning to do.

Oh, and I've very recently become gluten intolerant, which is entertaining, and Nathania was able to tell us that Chipotle's menu is quite friendly for that (apparently spreading) condition, and there was a Chipotle a couple of blocks away, so we went there for lunch. No ocean views, but it was a very nice afternoon and I no longer want to shoot things, which was the whole point.

The first thing I want to do with beaded knitting is a pair of Halloween socks, knit in black with a crystal beaded web on one sock and a spider on the other.


Oh, for cute! I bought the pattern a couple of years ago and then maybe a year ago i bought a tube of beads and more recently I got some solid black sock yard when I was buying yarn for other projects. I figured I'd learn how to do it when the time came. And now, with a book about all sorts of bead-knitting, the time is at least drawing near. It took me two days to find the pattern, and really just a few minutes to find the yarn. Can't find the beads.

I'm SURE I saw them in the drawer of the nightstand, not all that long ago. Yesterday I spent the afternoon cleaning out that drawer in search of them, threw away a bag of junk, sorted the various pain meds. I found a tube of turquoise beads, a tube of tiny forest green beads, a tube of tiny black beads, several tubes of rub-on pain reliever left over from when I had chronic back and hand pain (thanks, Scott!), a small stapler, a box of small staples (not near the small stapler), four bottle of white glue, some herbal sleeping pills, three bags of cough drops, several sets of ear-plugs, a box of toothpicks (spilling), three pair of scissors, two tarot decks, three kinds of stevia drops, two art gum erasers, several small paintbrushes, half a dozen various pens, the UNO deck, my collection of Mother's Day cards, and a pair of comfy bedsocks.

No crystal beads. But I think they should have been silver, anyway, so now I must get *new* beads. :o)

Oh, well, it's not like I haven't got other knitting projects. Going to look for something I can make lunch of. Of which I can make lunch. I told David I could go live in the woods with the bears because I do very well on nuts and berries.