Resentful -

This week, all I have done is: get up, go to work, eat, fall in to bed. The only reason I am not in bed right now is that there was a meeting this afternoon and it ate into marking time which is now eating into sleeping time.

Oh, and kittens don't help with marking. They are downright disruptive. I turfed them off my lap in disgust, so they started playing 'Drop the mouse in the shoe and fish it out again'. They have gone mad. Pan has fallen out of his tree twice already.



















Comic relief is helping a little.

The large crochet blanket of enormousness -

I can't stop. Save me. I have been doing this while listening to the 'Protector of the Small' series written by Tamora Pierce, read by Bernadette Dunne.














The kittens like to sleep on my favourite shawl, when they are not sleeping on me. Wait till they find out about the electric blanket I bought on the way home tonight.

Melbourne -

Have I mentioned how much I love the light at this time of year?















This is in the morning light.

Poetry Cats -

I think I have settled on a name for the new kitten. So now we have Pangur Ban, named from an Irish poem written in Austria. And (with help from a friend in Canada who suggested 'siren'* (the same friend who suggested Pangur Ban) and a friend in Germany who suggested this name in particular) Lorelei, from a German poem.















I am getting pretty fond of them.

*Her: "What is new kitten's name?"

Me: "I can't decide. I was going with Digby before I met her. Jekyll was winning there for a while when she was swinging between 'get the f$%#k away from me' and 'oh ah, pat me, i love you'.
She has a distinct 'S' shape on her side - so I was thinking Sun Yi or Silk. Now I am thinking Magrat Garlik, with Maggie for when she is being particularly endearing and Rat or Maggot when she is being particularly foul."

Her: "Hmm, I like all of those. "Silk" is a particularly great name for a kitty, I think, though it doesn't really have the two-facedness angle covered.
What about Siren? Lovely to admire, but get too close and she'll rip your f*&$ing face off. "

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Moccasin Socks 

Arch-Shaped Stockings 

Ethnic Socks and Stockings Lecture 

Spindle Spinning Basics

Luminary Panel 

I got in to the Barbara Walker class - but the server lag meant that I got timed out - and they were gone by the time I got back in. I am trying not to be sad panda about it - I will get to meet Meg Swanson and Pricilla Gibson-Roberts

Granny Squares -

Actually, there are a few granny squares in my life, at the moment. I did these while I was home with the first part of the nasty cold that took out May. I listened to Tamora Pierce on audiobook and just went round and round and round. I have been thinking about a blanket like this since I got home from Tibet last year - inspired by the windows in the monasteries.














One of my friends told me she was going to stop reading my blog if I kept posting kitten pictures, but I am blithely ignoring her. (It is not that I don't love you, L, it is just that I think they are so damn cute. If it helps, you could think of them as puppies - they do play fetch after all).














They are growing so big. They are now as big as the cats we had when I was growing up and they are only 4 months old. I mean I read that Bengals got big, but reading about it and lifting them up... totally different.

Granny Square -

My single minded devotion to knitting, that lasted all though the hot summer when normally I turn to embroidery, has finally fallen and it can't get up.

In the last two months I have knit one baby jumper and have been otherwise entranced by what is now the biggest granny square I have ever seen. It is using up yarn so fast - which is the type of stash-busting exercise I need right now.














It requires no brain and keeps me very warm while I am making it. I am starting to feel like I might have forgotten how to knit...

The new girl kitten is settling in. Digby doesn't suit her at all. I contemplated Jekyll and Hyde, given her behaviour towards me. Sun Yi is the latest idea. She has a rather distinct superman S on her side, so an 'S' name seems suitable.














So I need a good 'S' name for a girl cat who sometimes snuggles me, some times tries to rip my arm to shreds.

Cough Cough etc -

Well, I seem to have been sick for most of May. Every time I've walked to work, the cold has settled into my lungs and I have gone backwards a little. So I've been driving to work and looking at the fog each morning thinking about how romantic the cemetery must look.

On Friday I walked and it was totally worth it.














I love this time of year. The light is so beautiful when the sun is out and foggy mornings always make me unreasonably happy. They remind me of being a little kid and walking down to catch the bus to school, stamping on the iced-over puddles and making dragon breath in the air.














Often the bubble taps would be iced over and wouldn't melt until morning recess. I love the cold.

A cat called Digby -

The last four days have been monumental. I feel like a couple of months have passed since the start of this week.

Digby has replaced Maisie and, apart from a few minor mishaps, has slipped easily into my life and has a firm place in my heart.














They are a soothing balm and bloody useful seeing as I *still* haven't got around to getting a heater.

Pippa May Cook -

Work has taken on a nightmarish aspect this semester.

I decided to go to a cafe I read about on breakfast out and try and catch up on work this afternoon. I was feeling so emotionally drained and sore of spirit that I thought I'd read Frankie and crochet for half an hour first.

The crochet blanket is slavish imitation of cosmicpluto and the food at Pippa May cook was sensational. I had the sweet breakfast crumble and, with a pot of bonsoy chai, it was eight kinds of delicious.















I am much revived.