I made this scrumptiously soft shrug for wearing at a festive family gathering last weekend. So, of course, the house got so hot, I could only wear it for a couple hours. But I did wear it to work yesterday and got lots of compliments.
It's made from JoAnn Sensations Angel Hair in "berry" - which is not at all what you would expect. It's an orange with a great deal of hot pink and yellow shot through it. With a smidge of purple. Very pretty, but it doesn't photograph accurately. The photo below is a little more accurate.
It's basically a tube with the arms crocheted in the round and the body back-and-forth. The trim around the body and sleeves is v-stitch in the round. I made the sleeves a little too long, but only for things like washing dishes and such.
It's a very warm yarn and simple to work with. I got it on a super-cheap sale the day after Thanksgiving, but I think it's worth getting even at near-full price. This took about three full skeins, which at full price would have made it about $17. I think I probably paid less than $10. And I still have enough left to make something else. :)
You know, I've got that pendant you got me hanging on the DVD cabinet. That's not why I was thinking about you. I just never told you that. But every time I pull out a DVD, whether Dogma or Shakespeare in Love, I think of you.
But I was just thinking about you tonight. Your fire. Your spirit. Your goddamned fucking love of life. Your dammned irreverence. I think I may be glad you never had a blog. You would have been arrested in a week. :)
I think you would have liked Green Day's newest CD. I think you would have been totally fucking appalled about what the government has done lately. I think you would have loved Lost. I think you would have been a human Secret Paw. I think you would have laughed your fucking ass off at The Stupidest Angel.
Thanks to my lovely mother, I have a nice new wrap for the holidays. She gave me a gift certificate to The Yarn Shop for x-mas and with it I bought the yarn to make this wrap. It's Reynold's Blizzard, very possibly the softest thing I have ever touched (except, perhaps, for a bunny). It's 65% alpaca and 35% acylic, and it's absolutely delightful. I love it. Thanks, mom!
Yeah, the wrap is a bit on the airy side, but I wanted to make full use of the four skeins I got. It's just a basic net pattern with shells as a border. It's about 18" wide and maybe 4' long. And since Blizzard is a super bulky yarn, it took me only about 3 hours to stitch up with a 10.5 mm hook.
If you can, just pet this yarn. You'll thank me for it!
Today I ended my relationship with a dog rescue organization that I had volunteered for for some time. I sent a letter to the board, explaining my reasons, and I hope that they will take some of my comments to heart. Since we got Kaylee from them, and I believe in their mission, it's very hard, but I just couldn't work with them any more.
While the organization (which I will not name) has the best interests of the dogs at heart, I do not think that they are spending the donations that they receive wisely. While I would (and have) spend just about any amount of money on my dogs' vet bills, unfortunately, it's different in rescue work. In rescue, triage is important to save the greatest number of dogs. I think that spending large amounts of money on futile treatment for borderline cases is not the best way to be a steward of donated money. Nor is it the best way to save the greatest number of animals. It's harsh, but that's just the way it is.
And there's some other stuff, including raw diets for foster dogs and the use of untested and unproven alternative therapies on foster dogs that I just couldn't countenance. Do what you want with your own dogs, but foster dogs aren't yours - they're someone else's. They just haven't met them yet.
So, I'm kind of bummed. But I'm going to use my time off over the holidays to find a new group to work with. Start fresh. That's what the new year's all about, right?
Well, we spent two hours at the vet's last night (most of it waiting for bloodwork to be done), and the upshot is that Kaylee is doing very well. She's gained five pounds and is now at 37.5 pounds. We're going to try to get her up to 42, where she's at her best. Luckily, she loves loves LOVES the venison & potato restricted diet (Royal Canin/IVD) she's on, so she's eating like a little horse. And she likes banana chips and dried apples for treats, both of which are a good hypoallergenic choice of treat. She misses her cookies, though, so I'm going to try to mess around with some potato flour and see if I can come up with something she'll like.
We've messed around with her meds and started her (this morning) on Imuran to help with the inflammatory bowel disease (the link has an excellent section on IBD in shar pei). It's an expensive medicine, and I have to wear gloves to give it to her, since it's so strong. But it lets us taper down off the prednisone, which is very good, and we should be able to taper the Imuran down, too, after a month.
We're still giving her the supportive medications for her liver, especially since Imuran can be hard on the liver. For that, it's Denosyl, Actigall and Marin. She hates the Marin, since it's a gigantic tablet, but she'll let me shove it down her throat eventually. And since we're now only giving one med that can't be given with other meds or food (the Denosyl), we're able to get up at the decadent hour of 5:30 a.m.!
So all in all, she's doing as well as can be expected, maybe (knock on wood) a little better. I'm pleased!
And this time it's a proper sweater, not like her jacket.
Like her previous sweater, I used Paton's Melody, but this time in a blue/green/lavender verigated. In retrospect, I should probably have chosen the blue as an accent color, as the green pushes it just a touch toward harlequin, but hey, she's mostly colorblind and it's certainly very warm!
Since she's been sick, she gets cold very easily. I had bought her a sweater a few weeks ago, but (happily!) she's gained enough weight that it's a little snug now. With the below-average temps we've been having lately, she will really be able to use it on our 5:00 a.m. walks.
And, tomorrow, she goes in for her re-check and medication tweaking, and I'm going to make her wear it there so she can get ooh-ed and ah-ed over. :) -------------
Don't read Terry Pratchett? You should. Because then you'd know why we put up a Hogfather's Grotto display in our front yard over the weekend.
That's Death there, in the sleigh, with his four hogs (Snouter, Tusker, Rooter & Gouger). We're still working on finding a Death of Rats, and without him, Quoth, the raven, decided to stay inside on our mantel. I'm not sure Evil Pixie Albert will ever make an appearance - the sleigh is just too small.
My job is that of a "communications coordinator," which tells you absolutely nothing about what I actually do. I work for a voluntary professional organization, and almost every mass communication that goes out to our members, I have a hand in. I do the weekly newspaper, the website, brochures, ads, etc.
I'm not professionally trained in graphic design, but that's what I do a lot of. And I take professional pride in my work, which is, frankly, pretty good. It's my job to make us look professional and competent, and I do that by consistant, logical design; professional content; strict application of style guides; and tons and tons of proofreading.
So what do you do when you're aked to make changes that degrade the quality and professionalism of your work?
I had my review this week at work, and I was told, basically, that I should just do what I'm told (while being told in another part of the review that one of my best contributions to the company was being an innovator - sigh). I have no problems with making changes that make the product better, but what about when it makes it worse? Saying no makes me "inflexible and unapproachable."* But saying yes makes me a doormat. And I don't want my name associated with crappy work.
So how do you handle that? So far, I'm trying "In the spirit of being flexible and approachable, I disagree with that change because..." But I think my bosses are going to become quickly unamused with that particular phrasing.
The only thing that keeps me at this job is the incredibly cheap health insurance, and that's going to change early next year. Maybe that's a hint to look for something else...
*I have "a bad attitude." Why, yes, I do. Stupidity and incompetence makes me have it. Get rid of those two things and I won't have it anymore. Until then, though, learn to live with it.
Me first: my doc isn't worried about my nodules, but is going to send me to an endocrinologist, just to be safe. Of course, I won't be able to get an appointment for two months, so it's really no big worry. In other words, I'm fine.
Kaylee: she's not so fine. The biopsies confirmed that she has IBD, which we had figured. So she starts on a novel protein diet (to minimize the allergic component of the disease) and we're going to fiddle with her drug regimen (to minimize the autoimmune component). That's actually the good news. The bad news is that she has moderately severe amyloidosis in her liver. It's better than in her kidneys, but still not good. There's no cure and it's fatal eventually. And there's no guessing how long it will be. So we're going to make the most of however much time we have left. Kaylee will be even more spoiled than she is now, if I have my way!
On the plus side, Kaylee's eating much better and playing with the other dogs and her daddy. She's even not complaining about being crated until she gets her staples out, which is nice!
(the dollie is now headless, thanks to Indy)
She seems happy, even if she looks like a totally different dog. So we're just going to have fun until it's time for her to go.
First of all, the scan takes two days. I show up on Thursday at 8:45 a.m. at OSU Medical Center, Doan Hall, 2nd floor. My primary care doc's staff told me it would take all day, so I've taken the day off work (for the second time), packed a book and some crocheting, and I'm ready to be bored out of my skull.
And I'm hungry. No eating after midnight the night before. I'm not a pleasant person when I'm hungry. They didn't say no drinking, so I had a diet coke. Me with no food and no diet coke is not a happy thing, so I hope they know how lucky they are.
I get called back, and after a long list of questions, they pull out a metal (I'm guessing lead) container and drop a red and white capsule into a cup. I'm not supposed to touch it (why, I'm not sure, since it will actually be inside me), but I swallow it down. Then they tell me I can leave.
What?
So, yet again, it seems like my doc's staff was "misinformed" (as they claimed last time), and I just have to come back in six hours. Sigh. I took the day off for this? But, well, I took the day off, so I use the time to finish my holiday shopping and just generally fuzt around without going home. For six hours.
I go back at 3:00. They take me back and point a machine at my knee and my thyroid, three times each, to test the amount of radioactivity taken up by my thyroid. It takes ten minutes. I go home.
Still no superpowers. But I figure they'll take at least 24 hours to manifest.
I go back on Friday. I get the knee-and-thyroid test again (my uptake is "about thirty-two-ish" according to the tech, whatever that means). Then, I get to lie down on a gurney that's directly under a very cold draft as they position what appears to be a very large, heavy metallic funnel very close to my neck. I hope it's securely attached to the arm that's holding it to the rest of the machine.
This is the point when they tell me each picture will take ten minutes and I need to have four done (because, according to the tech, not only do I have a nodule, but I have "a bunch of bumpy stuff on the sides"). I should have peed before I laid down.
So, for the first picture, I try to sleep. No luck. I have to pee. The second picture, I try to figure out what to make for dinner. The fire alarm goes off. "Good," I think. "I can use the bathroom before I leave." No such luck. The alarm stops. And I can't decide what to make for dinner. And did I mention I have to pee? The third picture, I figure out what to make for dinner - a potato, sweet potato & cheese tort-like thing. Still have to pee. The fourth picture, I stare at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over before my neck totally freezes in this highly-uncomfortable position. Ow. Ow. Ow. Funny, this has taken my mind off having to pee. Ow.
Yay! Done!
The tech goes to have a doc look at the scans. Then comes back for my paperwork. Then comes back with the doc, who is no older than twenty-five. OSU is, after all, a teaching hospital. He palpates my neck, then tells me he'll talk to his attending (see? Baby doc) and send the results to my primary that day. Peachy.
So I leave, waving to the firefighters standing around as I go. I will be so disappointed if my superpower is supressing the urge to pee. Because I don't have to go anymore.
