Happy Mother's Day

Around here, most people know that when I say I'm going to do laundry, it's really a euphemism for "I'm going to Mom and Dad's to love on my kitty."

It hurt more than I can say to leave him behind last October when I moved out, but between student loans, illness, and random acts of God that keep happening, paying the pet deposit has been been out of the question and adding another $25 to the rent could be the difference between buying food one week or paying the electric bill.

Since I moved out, Hermes has been even less affectionate than he was before, generally running away whenever he sees me. Therefore it's been a while since I've been able to get a picture of him. This blog has been sadly kitty-free for the last few months.

But I guess that even he thought Mother's Day deserved a little respect (even if my
only "child" is furry and has four legs). He wound up on my lap no less than three times through the day and spent a total of about an hour getting lots of love and attention, and he even purred loudly enough to be heard from arm's length (normally the only way to tell that he's purring is to put a finger under his chin and feel around for a vibration).

My laundry is clean, and I am now covered in cat hair. It's a good day.

Okay, so I lied about the knitting content.

It works!! So now I'll just stick the typewriter posts in as scans, and you can skip down to the knitting bits if you so desire. Just click on the images to make them bigger/readable.





Since the ribbons got here about two weeks (!!) before I was expecting them, I don't have a lot to say on the knitting front. There just hasn't been time for much because of the holidays (probably could have finished that sweater front last night if I'd had my knitting at the hospital. Darn). So, even though it's typewriter related and not knitting, here's a kitty fix for you. Hermes love the cover almost as much as I love the typewriter. Now that Henry is working, Hermes decided to get to know him a little better:

The Eyes Have It.

Conjunctivitis, that is. My poor baby had to go to the vet today. His eye has been runny all week. I knew he’d have to go to the vet, but was trying to put it off until I had a paycheck in my hand. Then this afternoon I noticed that it was swollen. No more procrastination. My vet is a saint and took a post-dated check.

It has been a Week here at chez KnotMagick. I’ve been picking up hours at the Discount Retailer, even though I wasn’t set to officially start back until Sunday. I ended up calling in sick though, because on Saturday night I had an allergic reaction to a granola bar I brought as a snack for my break. Why do all health food companies find it necessary to add soy to all of their products?

Anyway, my throat swelled up--not enough to merit a trip to the ER, thankfully, but I ended up staying in bed until 1 the next afternoon. I’m pretty much back to normal now, but I had a moment of panic when the vet gave Hermes his antibiotic, then handed me the box and told me to give it to him twice a day for a week. If you’ve never given a cat meds before, then let me tell you, it’s a very messy process involving claws and teeth. It took me, a vet tech, and the vet to hold Hermes down so that ointment could be applied to his eye (another fun chore I get for the next seven days). But the antibiotic he gave me was amoxicillin--along with it’s sister med, penicillin, these are the two things I am most allergic to. I informed the vet of this, and he swapped it out for Liquid Gold, which is what we call penicillin substitutes around here, since a one week supply for a human runs upwards of $80. Thankfully, both prescriptions plus the office visit only came in at $55, which, ironically, is the cheapest vet bill I’ve had since I got him.

I’ve had kitty on the brain lately. If I wasn’t living with my parents and their dogs, I’d be tempted to get him a sibling (actually, I’m still tempted, but I like my head on my shoulders and I’m pretty sure my dad would kill me). Alice and my friend T keep telling me I need to make a Hermes comic strip, so while I was sick that was exactly what I did. He’s just such a character, I’m surprised it took me this long. I’m looking forward to spending time with him this summer. I’ve missed the furry little demon.

Click for the big version.



On my ipod: You Can't Always Get What You Want--Glee Cast
On the night stand: Death du Jour--Kathy Reichs
On the needles: random crochet hat and Mystery Project #1. Little to no progress on either.

Bits and Pieces of Happiness and Yay

*cough* Ahem.

So. I didn't move quite as quickly as I planned to. I blinked, and now suddenly two weeks have gone by. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

In other news:



I hit fifty thousand words this week on a story! First time ever! I'm very proud of me. Especially since it looks like I'll top at least 60K before this story runs it's course. Up till now, my longest completed story was only about 41k, and I had an in progress that was about 46k but has been stalled for a few months. Landmarks like this make me feel like I'm actually a real writer and not just some half-assed amateur.

Also, this picture reminds me of Hermes, whom I'll get to see in just over a month. Yay! *happy dance*

Work on my thesis is about to begin in earnest, so I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing from here on in.

I have been knitting, but I haven't been photographing. I will post about that sometime in the semi-near future, though.

Now that Cassie 2.0 is almost finished (but still in need of a better title than "High School Never Ends"), I'm going to start looking for a beta reader for Life is a Zoo and see if I can't bulk that up a little bit. I want to get that one up to at least 60K before I start submitting it, and I need an outside opinion as to what might be missing that I can add.

This is a little bit random, but I need to get off and get back to my thesis. I went and took the last two days off because the thought of studying the chemical composition of linen for another three to six hours made my brain explode, so I really need to get back to it now. Nose to the grindstone and all that. Which makes me think...



...that maybe I need to spend less time on ICanHasCheeseburger.com. It's a poor substitute for my kitty, but it does cheer me up.

In Control?

So Alice and I met with the representative from the Italian Consulate this morning, sighed our paperwork, and then mailed everything out for approval by the consulate (whose nearest office is in Detroit).

I get really nervous when I don't know exactly where my passport is, and I have a very good reason. When I was first getting my passport, back in spring of '07, I was applying in order to go on my 3 month internship in Montreal. I sent out everything, paid the $90 fee to have it expedited (or rather, mom did), and then waited. Within the allotted time, a bright, shiny passport arrived in the mail, with one teeny tiny problem: It listed my birthdate as June 24, 1937.

Now I know I might not be the prettiest girl at the ball, but 1937? Really? Do they even double check their work at the federal government (wait, don't answer that. Silly question).

Needless to say, I had to send it back. By this time, it was getting awfully close to June 15 and my departure date, but according to the website (at least at the time, I don't know about now) they don't want you to call about the status of a passport unless you are traveling within two weeks. So I waited. And then I called. I called every day for five days (sometimes twice) only to be pawned off from one person to another, told that they couldn't help me, and that no, there was no way of contacting the specific office where my passport was located. In face I was told: "They will get to it when they get to it. It might take months." When I continued to demand that I get my passport--I was traveling in just over a week, had paid the extra fee, and the error was theirs--the manager cut me off with a "Thank you for calling" and hung up.

Did you know that when this sort of situation arises, that the only recourse for a citizen is to contact a local state rep/senator/congressman and ask them to light a fire under them?

Thankfully, my family was on speaking terms with most of them for Ohio.

Two days before I was supposed to leave, it finally showed up, with not so much as an apology or the promised reimbursement for shipping.

So, yes, I am a little touchy about my passport in general, and especially now that I have just over 4 weeks to get my visa.

But, this means that everything I have control over so far as payments, paperwork, and the like is now taken care of. All I have left is packing and finding a temporary home for my kitty, who seems to be the only one in the house with any semblance of control over the situation (little trouble maker that he is) (Why does he have to be so darned cute?).


He's so cute when he stalks inanimate objects...