PSA

Barring a miracle, I won't be around for a bit. It would seem I have a dead laptop. Maybe this way though, I'll finally get a little knitting done. I hope to be back online, soon. Really soon.

We Swears It, Precious

I didn't touch a thing and my formatting is all screwed up when viewing my blog with Firefox. With Safari, it hasn't changed at all. Is it whacky viewing it with explorer? I tried the usual trick of publishing something, and still, no dice.

Ah. Forget it. I'm going to bed and maybe by the time I wake up, it'll repair itself. The hospice phones have been burning up the wires for a couple of days. It feels like Friday already with more than half the week yet to come. I'd better go sleep fast.

Feebies

The feds are once again digging up a wooded lot in Detroit. Now this news flash could mean a lot of things, but to those of us who recall the 70's (and why wouldn't we?), speculation has it that they're once again looking for Jimmy Hoffa. The search warrant is sealed and the FBI is offering no information (and who could blame them-they come up empty like Rivera always did), which only adds fuel to the speculation fire. The last Big Dig was on a suburban Detroit horse farm three years ago.

I'm curious, how much money do you think they've spent on searching for this man? Do you think it's worth it, or are there better ways to spend this kind of money?

As an aside, for some reason, I can't stop humming songs from the movie, Dirty Dancing. I'm going to miss that man.

A Weekend of Nothing was Plenty

Drops Studio free headband pattern knit from my handspun. It was going great until I kitchnered it inside out. This is one of the things I'm donating for that benefit this weekend. I don't know if I have it in me to fix the problem. Maybe. We'll see.

I've had one long, lazy weekend. There are things I needed to do that didn't get done, but I did get caught up on some things.

I'm all caught up on Top Chef. I'd fallen behind these past couple of weeks, so I'm thankful I did get that accomplished. I like this show and find myself amazed at the talent out there. I'm rooting for a showdown between the two brothers. That family must have some amazing holiday meals!

I also watched an episode of Housewives of Atlantic City. The only reason I did this is because the remote was 6 feet away and I was too lazy to get up to change channels. In the past, I've tried watching these shows (HW of NY, and OC), and I'm at a loss trying to understand them. While I'm sure this show has its fans, to me it's a waste of air time. I'd rather watch Tom Colicchio.


While it was a laid back weekend, I wasn't completely unproductive. There was no spinning circle this weekend, but I did have a fellow spinner come by to pass some quality spinning time on my porch. We walked to the yarn store and I bought some hand cards, which until now, I haven't really needed, and she showed me how to use them. There are no more excuses for failing to spin my friend's dog's fur.

The offending fiber is on the top bobbin. Don't let the pretty natural colors fool you, this has been hell to spin.

I still haven't spun Boomer's fiber because I'm having trouble with the blend (amongst other issues). It can't be spun alone because it's too short and I'm trying to stay true to his colors. He was a Newfie, and while in the big picture he appeared black like a big old wooly bear, he had a lot of grey and brown in him, too. I bought some dark natural alpaca and had some dark BFL. The blend of the three is fairly close. My problem though is working with this stuff. I itch like crazy after about an hour of spinning. It doesn't matter if I'm carding or spinning the fibers, everything itches. So yesterday, I carded outdoors for two hours then spun the rolags. This yielded only half a bobbin before I had to stop, shower and take a benadryl. I can only think it must be the dog. I have to get this done! I may take it up to the shop to use the drum carder so I can finally get this project behind me.

Oh sure, it's pretty, but I abhor those sleeves. It's painful to think how many times I've knit them. Third times a charm.

In addition to spinning Boomer, I finished my swatch for the knit along, spent a fortune at the yarn store, knit a headband and dragged out Sara's sweater. I put it on the model so the unfinished sleeves can taunt me into action. They need to be ripped out and redone.

Pass the Smelling Salts, Stat!

This is beyond disgusting, but THIS is what I found in the basement today when I was fiddling with the circuit breaker. Never mind that I had a house with only half the power on today, what's disturbed me most is that I'm apparently sharing my abode with these things (it's the second such creature I've found this week). Now don't make fun, because to me, it's so distressing, I can't even post the picture on this site to look at for days on end. If you're brave, you have to click the link. If you think you'll puke, don't look. I won't hold it against you because I would NOT click that link myself.

I'm telling you, this BEAST was gigantic and apparently carried its own luggage. When I smashed it with the closest thing to me, a giant suitcase, many tiny relatives tried to high tail it out of my way. They were smashed, too, although I had to change weapons to get to them. The mop came in handy.

Generally speaking, if you have more than 4 legs, you aren't welcome in my home. Ditto that if you have wings and a stinger.

Do you know what kind of beast this is? It's a wolf spider, and damned if it doesn't carry its offspring right on its body. Don't think that didn't surprise me. I thought I was watching the movie, Arachnophobia. Really.

I'm never going in that basement again.

Now pass the emesis basin. I think I'm going to be sick.

Riding the Fence

Since Father's Day, Mr. Larger Than Life has been doing a slow, downward spiral. Although he's not circling the drain just yet (medicalese for get ready to call the code), he is requiring more attention these days. In between episodes of feeling poorly, he's just as mean and wretched as ever. What do you do with an 81 year old man who is too ornery to live with, but unsafe to live alone?

When he had his emergency embolectomy in June, he told my husband he was afraid to be alone. Since that time, either my husband or my son has stayed there with him. They aren't allowed to open windows to let in the breeze on a balmy summer night. MLTL gets chilled. **At this point, if you cross your arms then briskly rub them, you'll get an idea of the visual cues that go with his complaint of being cold.** It doesn't matter if it's 90 degrees in the house, if the window is open, he'll take a chill. And we won't discuss cooling the house on a 98 degree day, either. Rather than put on a sweater, he makes them swelter. According to my husband, last night, he turned on the heat and set the thermostat to 75 F. Add that to the high humidity and the night was unbearable, but still, he is unwilling to compromise to make his guests comfortable. He nitpicks everyone to death: you dirtied a glass, you're using too much paper towel, you eat too much, your shower was too long, blah, blah, blah. Yet, he doesn't want to sleep alone in the house, eat alone or live alone.

Impossible to please, it takes a saint to live with this man, but he isn't safe to be by himself. He leaves doors unlocked, garage doors open, stove burners lit and water running (except for the shower which he steadfastly refuses to use--it'll be three years in November since he had one). The other day, my husband and son left his home and MLTL came out on the front porch yelling, "where are you, where did everyone go?" They were in the car, close enough to touch the man and he couldn't see them.

This hasn't stopped him from driving and I don't know what to do about that. Part of me wants to report him and part of me realizes that even without a license, he'd probably still get behind the wheel of a car. Lately, he's back to driving downtown to the casino every day. When he cracked his noggin, fractured his skull and survived his subarachnoid hemorrhage three years ago, he'd been going to the casino every single day. He never talked about his losses, but a review of his bank records showed withdrawals of hundreds of dollars every other day for months from the casino's ATM. After his accident, we went to pick up his car at the casino where even the valet staff knew his name and asked after him. In this manner, he's pissed away his retirement savings--in a way, pouring money down the drain. Interestingly if I were to tear up a 100 dollar bill of his in front of him, this man would scream at me, but he sees no problem gambling it all away. Not only do we worry about his gambling problem, we worry he'll be mugged on his way out of the casino or at an ATM. He's a sitting duck and way too blind to see it that way.

After his head injury, his behavior has worsened, and aging hasn't made him mellow. He has no social brakes and blurts out inappropriate things at the unsuspecting public. Since he can't hear himself, he's loud when he does this and has caused complete mortification of family members in public with him. One of these days, he's going to insult the wrong person and get himself clobbered for the effort. Nobody is safe from his verbal assaults that come out of the blue. He had some sort of run in at our dentist's office and "really let them have it." This is code for saying he screamed at some poor girl at the front desk and now can't return there. Ever. Too bad for him, he was in need of emergency dental care this week and ended up seeing someone who fleeced him. The next time I see my dentist, I have to find out what really happened there.

I keep telling myself there is no way on God's green earth that I could live with this man, but if we don't do something, he'll hurt himself or someone else. What if he leaves the burner on when my son or husband are there and burns the house down? I'd never forgive the old goat.

If I cave on this issue and either take him in, or we move in with him, I'll need to start a bail fund. Even if he didn't live forever, a month, a year or two would seem like forever. Sheesh, even dinner with him seems like eternity. I just know I'd end up braining him with my niddy noddy and probably by the end of the first day.

I'm crazy to even be pondering this, but damn it, I want my family back. I'm not liking this split life we're living so MLTL can be looked after. The burden of the past few years has been tremendous and has fallen primarily on my husband's shoulders. I feel badly for him and feel like I should be doing more to help out. I know it isn't easy for him or my son. In the past I've told my husband that if MLTL were to lose his tongue become incapacitated, I'd be happy care for him, but now I'm wondering if I'm wrong about this stance of mine and the time to act is now. If he were a kind man, there'd be no question about what to do, but believe me, if anything, I've understated how horrible he can be. I can positively guarantee that he'd charge us rent to take care of him. Oh. No, I'm not kidding. He absolutely would.

Obviously, I need to be talked off the fence. I would be insane to even consider living with this curmudgeon, wouldn't I?

Photo: Google Images

Y oh Y oh Y

I think he's missing more than a Y....

I may not be good at punctuation, but I do know how to spell.

In addition to his C, he may be a few more letters short of a full alphabet.