Tempest yarn, closeup

Originally uploaded by moria

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a photo, so here’s a closeup of my Tempest handspun, hand-dyed yarn from Folktale Fibers. It’s my second in the three-month Vegan Yarn of the Month club.

Sadly, there still don’t seem to be any vegan spinners in VeganEtsy, though you can usually find vegan one-offs among conventional Etsy spinners. If I ever find the time to learn to spin and do it well enough that others might want to use my yarn, then maybe I’ll sign up with them. (At least there are plenty of amazing crafters and artists already with VeganEtsy [see blogroll for link], including some kick-ass knitters. On the nights I’m not knitting or reading, I’m generally on the computer, poring over all the cool stuff on offer and trying to restrain myself from buying more stuff while I’m still decluttering my tiny little flat.)

Anyway, both the dogs continue in their campaign to convert my flat into Chez Pee. I am trying to hold onto some shreds of sanity by reassuring myself that, in the current real estate market, I probably am into negative equity anyway, so it’s not as if they’re damaging the resale value much. If you are looking for hot stock investments, may I suggest Bac-Out as a product likely to experience increased demand for a while? We’re certainly zipping through bottles of it like hell on a jetski, at least.

On a more positive note, Nigel seems to be slightly more tolerant of Moliere, though you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for the increased tolerance. I suppose it’s hard to enjoy hanging out with someone who pinches your cheek between his teeth and then tries to drag you around like a giant stuffed toy, and then looks baffled when you yell at him. It is important, though, not to distribute full-sized chew toys to each of them at the same time. Nylabone-type things sawed in half and distributed, one half to each dog, seem to be acceptable, but woe betide you if you give an entire chew toy to each dog: Nigel wears himself out trying to corner the market on chewies, and makes a racket yelling at Moliere the entire time. I’m not sure why cutting the chewies in half means that Nigel doesn’t do his “cranky dragon amassing a hoard of treasure and flaming everyone who gets in his way” impression, but whatever.

All that aside, at least it was a pleasant weekend. My mom came up on Friday and we spent the day toddling around the shops and, for both lunch and dinner, going to the Soul Vegetarian near my place. (I ate way too much both times, but that’s easy to do because the servings are huge, the food is great, and I tend to get overexcited by being able to order pretty much anything on the menu and consequently order freakishly large amounts of food.) Saturday was the obligatory “get at least a couple of errands done” day, though I never did get around to clearing off the kitchen counters so I can start cooking again; Sunday, however, was spent watching a metric tonne of DVDs — well, four: the first disk of Extras, Pan’s Labyrinth, Watermarks, and Hitchhiker’s .(Netflix will probably have a heart attack and/or network failure when they get the first three DVDs back; I have an appalling habit of letting my rentals lie around and collect dust for months, and now they get all three back at once? Shocking. [The copy of Hitchhiker's was my own.]) The DVDs allowed me to get about 24 rows done on my Giselle sweater, which is something in the neighborhood of maybe 7000 stitches, I think. Only about 22 more rows, and I’m done with the body, and ready to start the sleeves and edging. No way I’ll get that done before Ravelympics, but at least the end is in sight.

There are two other projects that I want to finish before Ravelympics, but one of them depends on my getting the third and final skein of yarn delivered in a timely manner, and its dyelot not being too different from the other two skeins’. The cupcake hat, though, I seriously will finish in an official manner: all that I need to do is finish the second crochet flower decoration, then wash and block it. I will do it, seriously — but tomorrow. It’s gone 9:30 at night, and I just can’t face crochet at this time of the evening.

I could probably get in at least one more row on Giselle, though. . . .

My dithering, however, comes from having to pick a single project. I seriously doubt that I could complete several items of any size, and certainly not a sweater — I’m still plugging away at my Giselle sweater, which I started in, oh, late April (I’m well past the waist, though). Something akin to this Lace Ribbon scarf would be doable, or possibly an Ice Queen cowl, but maybe they aren’t enough of a challenge. If I really concentrate on just one project, and knit evenings and lunch breaks, knitting goes reasonably quickly; it’s mainly when I get distracted by books or have five other projects calling for my attention that I wind up taking for-bloody-ever to finish something. (Or when I screw up and have to frog repeatedly, but we won’t mention that.) Maybe I should try to do both? I have some lovely light-fingering hand-dyed bamboo yarn that would be good for either, or both . . . which reminds me that I really need to update my stash photographs, because there’s probably 10 different yarns that I haven’t yet listed. Oops.

The reason I’ve been dithering for a couple of weeks, though, is that I really, really kind of want to make a lacy shawl thing, probably something akin to this Woodland Shawl. One of the hand-dyed bamboo yarns is a dark purplish black that would look great in that pattern. Hmm.

Okay, given that I’m stymied by my inability to decide, I’m going to ask for a vote. I’m pretty equally torn between the projects, so if the poll is decisive, I will abide by the results. If you think I should attempt two or more projects, please vote “other” and specify your choices in the comments. If pictures of the relevant yarns I’m considering would be helpful, let me know. And, finally, if you really could not care less about the knitting thing, please bear with me: I’m sure there’ll be another ranty post along soon. (I’ve added “updating my blog” to my Chore Wars adventure page, to encourage more frequent posting. Hey, if it works for mopping the floor, maybe it’ll work to get me posting more often again.)

Voting will close at 6:30 PM EST on next Monday, which is, um (checks iCal), August 4. I think. That will still give me plenty of time to join the relevant Ravelympics event (Cowl Jump, Scarf Stroke, or Shawl Relay), pick a team (possibly Team TARDIS?), and get in some training (i.e., swatching). :-)

Basically, there is too much crap going on, and not enough time to deal with it all. The dog situation is slightly better — at least, Nigel seems ready to kill Moliere slightly less often than he did previously — but it’s still not great. Moliere has added book destroying to his already impressive repertoire of peeing randomly, savaging yarn, obsessive human licking (er, obsessive licking of humans, that is), and driving Nigel insane, so a crate was added, which led to my first neighborly complaint of canine noise. (He was nice about it, but still not a good thing.) Thus far, Moliere has continued to resist the idea of his crate as his own special room, preferring instead to yip constantly. Anyone in my building during the day Monday will probably be driven insane.

Nigel continues to have accidents most weekdays, but at least those are easily spotted when I return home and there’s a spot on the rug that goes squish.

On the positive side, I have confirmed that hydrotherapy helps a lot when my stomach starts trying to kill me. If I act quickly enough, a hot bath or shower actually makes the pains go away reasonably soon. (Possibly more evidence that it’s stress-related.)

I also note that I need to trim my fingernails, because I’m making a lot of typos. If I’ve missed cleaning up any, please blame the nails, not me. Really. Honestly.

Oh, yes, and the situation with my grandmother has entered another weird phase. Nothing life-threatening, but just enough melodrama to drive us all insane. (Example: calling my parents or me sounding oh, so sad and saying that she needs us there right now, and then, when we either arrive or get the message and call her back, she doesn’t remember calling us.)

On another positive note, I have managed to channel most of the stress into reorganizing, cleaning, and decluttering my flat, which sorely, almost achingly needed it. The main room is, well, not organized, but is a damned sight better than it used to be, although I must admit that the kitchen is now a disaster zone. Oh well. I’m trying to tackle it at least a little each day, and tracking my progress on Chore Wars. It’s only been a couple of weeks now, and I’m already a third-level barbarian. :-)

Heaven knows what the neighbors think, with all sporadic racket, yelling, and occasional sobs and/or shouts of “No licky!”

The food situation has gotten worse, too. The first week, I was able to feed them on opposite sides of the kitchen; now, Nigel has to be in the kitchen (with extra treats like a splash of hemp milk, to make it more tempting) with Molière in the bathroom, on the opposite side of the flat — except that Molière stops eating if I get out of sight, and comes to investigate what I’m doing, so Nigel winds up yelling at me for guarding Molière’s food and not letting him steal exactly the same kibble as is in his own bowl from someone else’s bowl. This evening, in fact, he had to go into time out because my hands-on-hips, “I’m not going to take that crap from you” intent stare (which is usually bloody effective, astonishingly enough, and is copied from Victoria Stilwell) didn’t work, and while I was putting him in isolation, he bit me. Didn’t draw blood, but I’ve got a red raised area on my wrist that is still quite sore.

Yes, I’ve tried shutting the bathroom door to keep Nigel out while Molière eats, but that makes Molière think he’s being put in time out, and he throws himself bodily at the door.

I don’t know what to do. They were supposed to be settling in by now. I can’t tell whether it’s a dominance issue — and if so, which one is dominant? Nigel is more assertive over food, but he’s a beagle; on the other hand, he yields pride of place on furniture without a whimper, and hasn’t slept on the bed since Molière arrived. As an experiment, I kept Molière off the futon all day today, to see whether Nigel would take up his previously accustomed place, but no dice.

Nigel’s stomach and kidneys are still wonky, despite medications. He’s had accidents for the past five days. The stress doesn’t seem to be doing my stomach any good, either, though I’ve managed to avoid any major episodes; still, I’ve had mild, maybe half-hour episodes of pain most afternoons this week.

Oh, and Molière has eyedrops now, to treat an infection the vet thought they had cleared up while he was still boarding. That’s at least five minutes, three times a day, of wrestling with a squirming dog who really, really hates eyedrops and is one of these days going to fling his little body in the wrong direction and impale his eyeball on the damned eyedrop dropper. Explaining rationally that I know it sucks but that it’s necessary, and will all be over soon if he’ll just stay goddamned still for thirty freakin’ seconds, does not seem to be causing the necessary neurons to fire in his little coconut head, because he still fights me with every fiber of his being. As it is, probably half the eyedrops have missed their mark because I can’t immobilize him, and I’ll probably need a refill to finish the course of treatment.

I really, really wish I hadn’t taken in a second dog, but it’s too late now. I’m stuck, and I’ll have to figure out what to do, even though I don’t think I’m up to handling this. I keep telling myself that I had a lot of the same frustrations when Nigel was a puppy, and that Molière is still quite young. That doesn’t help so much, though, when it’s the older dog who’s apparently sulking because he’s ready for the house guest to go home.

Working theory number one: no more dogs on furniture. I hate the thought, because it makes me sound like a total dog nazi, but everything I’ve read suggests that it’s a big dominance issue for dogs. Possibly Nigel thinks he’s being forced off the furniture by the newcomer, and is acting out because of it?

Working theory number two: take Molière out on his own, for a few minutes in the evenings and longer periods next weekend, and put in some serious one-on-one training time. He’s young and not hugely bright, but concepts do sink in eventually: he knows his name now, he remembers that “sit” means “put your butt down on the floor” and not “lick my hand all over, please” about 10% of the time, and it only took about five million instances of me saying “Get off the bed” and plopping him down on the floor for him to learn what that meant (though he’s still not sure about whether the instruction applies for more than four seconds). “No licky,” though, still apparently translates in his head as “My sunscreen tastes really good; here, slurp it all off!”

(On the up side, though he can’t distinguish between “toy” and “not toy,” Molière does stop chewing, worrying, or disemboweling things when I tell him that the shoe, throw pillow, and yarn are not toys. On the down side, as I was typing that, I realized he was idly chewing the leg of the side table. Yes, the dog has chew toys, and soft toys that he’s finally realized are in fact toys; it’s just that everything seems to be fair game until explicitly ruled out. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to want to eat yarn, but so far he’s disemboweled and seriously tangled about $20 worth of yarn. [And now he's just been trying to chew another leg of the side table, apparently on the theory that if the upper left-hand corner's leg is verboten, then maybe the lower right-hand corner's leg is okay to gnaw like you're a beaver.])

The idea behind the training is to get him to listen to me more seriously, so that when he’s overstimulated and playing too roughly with Nigel, maybe he’ll actually hear and heed my telling him to back off and settle down. That way, I won’t have to intercede when play gets too rough, nobody will have to go into time out with quite such frequency, and I might actually be able to relax a little bit in the evenings, instead of wondering when the next canine wail or bellow will come.

Third plan: sedatives for everyone! There must be some sort of doggie Valium, or maybe doggie beer. Barkweiser, perhaps, or the microbrew Sweet Woofer Ale?

Maybe we’re not all completely doomed. I just wish things were going more smoothly. There’s so much more smoothness that could be had, and I would like just a little of it, just a little tiny bit. . . .

Molière — the Dog Formerly Known as Gizmo — is nice enough, but we’re all still adjusting to each other after a week. (One of my neighbors, who does small-dog rescues and has her own permanent dog, says it generally takes them about two weeks to settle in with a new rescue.) It doesn’t help that Molière, well, just isn’t that bright. For instance, he’s just now discovered the mirror, and the fact that there’s another dog in it; he’s spent the last five minutes growling and occasionally barking at the weird-looking intruder. (At his age, Nigel had completely sussed out what mirrors could do and used them to get a better view out the window from the comfiest spot in the room.) My attempts to reassure him that he’s only seeing himself have had less of an effect than I might’ve hoped.

We’re still trying to get across the following points to Molière:

On the up side, he’s a very nice, friendly little dog, albeit one who is as dumb as a box of rocks. He seems to like Nigel and plays pretty well with him, though occasionally he gets a little rough and Nigel has to do his cranky-old-man yell to tell him to back off. He’s also figured out — mostly — that he must sit before the leash goes on and we go outside; this rule was instituted many years ago, when I realized that, unless I asked him to sit, Nigel would caper around joyously at the very thought of going outside, and it would take five times as long to actually get ourselves outside because I couldn’t hook up the leash on a constantly moving target.

Molière also, shockingly, doesn’t like peanut butter, or bread, which meant that giving him his pills for his irritated skin (from the mats all over his body, and a flea infestation) was no fun for anyone. He also doesn’t seem to like the little squeaky carrot toy I bought him, and seems perplexed by the endless games of fetch that Nigel so dearly loves. (On the positive side, that means that he’s not trying to take over any of Nigel’s stuffed toys, most of which are almost as big as Molière is.)

On the subject of mats, the vet had managed to shave off all of them over the course of two days, except for three of his legs. I’ve got an appointment for him with a groomer for next Friday, but in the meantime I’m working on what’s left, snipping away. (I’m sure the resulting trim looks like crap, but the point is to demat the dog. Pretty can come later.) Last night, I finally managed to get the mat entirely off his hind leg. I tried to upload the photo and post it in the regular manner, but for some reason WordPress is ignoring my instructions to resize it and won’t let me post it as a thumbnail, so I’m just linking to it instead:

(Penny is provided for scale, and was not found embedded in the original mat.) If you click to embiggen the photo at the top, you can see one of the remaining mats on his forelegs; I hope to get those completely off this weekend.

In non-Molière news, we had a bit of a scare with Nigel’s kidneys (suspected glomerular disease, because his urine was foamy and had too much protein in it), but his bloodwork came back normal for kidney function, although his liver function was a little off again. Consequently, the vet doesn’t yet want to switch him from his sensitive stomach food to a kidney-protective food, but has given him meds to reduce his blood pressure and sort out his liver again. (We’re thinking that, although he seems quite happy to have Molière around, the stress of a change in his routine has thrown off his system again. His digestive system in general has always been a bit delicate and easily upset by changes.)

My own liver and other bits seem to be functioning normally, however, according to my bloodwork. Stomach biopsy from the endoscopy came back normal, all non-thyroid blood results normal; I’ve got an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday, to check out my gallbladder and various assorted organs in the region, but the GI guy seems to think my occasional stomach pain, vomiting, and general malaise is just one of those things. Well, technically, I think he said “stress-induced gastritis,” which is remarkably similar to Nigel’s stress-induced colitis. (Most dogs and their humans are said to start resembling each other physically; apparently Nigel and I resemble each other medically.) He hasn’t yet offered any suggestions for how to handle future attacks, but seemed fairly confident that at least it won’t kill me. (Though he didn’t say there wouldn’t be times I would wish it might do so.)

No big plans are made for the holiday weekend at Chez Moi. Basically, I hope to finish the cupcake hat for Christi and Jarrett’s upcoming sprog; maybe get a few more rows in on my Giselle sweater, which is now safely past the French cable waistband and moving on down the waist decreases; and maybe do a little baking and/or bookstore browsing. I’m hoping that Molière won’t be too freaked out by tonight’s fireworks; happily, Nigel’s hearing loss has meant that he hasn’t even noticed them the last few years, which has left him much happier and less stressed out.

He’s apparently about two years old, friendly but calm, and very sweet. I’m not sure what’s up with the pink skin around his eyes; possibly it’s because his hair is completely, horribly matted — worse than anything I’ve ever seen in my life, the poor little guy. The mats are all down his back, on his belly, on both ears, and seem to gather up all the loose hair around and pull it tightly. Despite the obvious neglect and probable abandonment he’s been through, he seemed very happy just to lie on the floor and let me rub his shoulders and belly.

I’m seriously considering adopting him, if he and Nigel get along. I’m pretty sure that Nigel would love to have a companion, and given the state of the real estate market, it’s unlikely that I’ll be moving to a larger place with a yard during his probable lifetime. A little dog like Gizmo, as they’re calling him, is about as big as I probably should go. He seemed pretty laid-back, which is definitely good, and I loved his little pointy ears.

The thing is, it’s scary considering adopting another dog. I’ve never had more than one dog at a time; what if I screw it up? What if the pack dynamics are horrible? What if there are dangers in my flat that I’ve never noticed because Nigel doesn’t care about them (e.g., yarn), but the new dog finds irresistible and then gets hurt? What if I decide later it’s all a horrible mistake, and I can’t deal with it? (There were times in Nigel’s puppyhood, usually when he’d just taken the sheets off the bed and torn holes in the mattress, that I was convinced the whole thing was the worst mistake possible.) Do I have the time to do this properly, and make sure both Nigel and the new dog get what they need? Can I afford another dog right now, one with an unknown medical history and ongoing grooming needs, with my medical bills and the possibility that, as he ages, Nigel will continue to surprise me with $1000+ emergencies?

On the other hand, can I sit back and do nothing, if there’s a reasonable chance it could work out well?

This is bad timing. I’m leaving for the meeting tomorrow, and really should be asleep by now, but I’m too worked up. I don’t know what to do. The vet is holding him, though, and will give him and Nigel a chance to get to know each other. At least I’ve got a little time to decide, though I’ll hardly have a lot of mental energy to devote to the task.

(Access to the Internet will probably be spotty for a while. I’ll post when I can.)

The left image is, obviously, the before shot. Cheeks are pink because it was bloody hot, and though the car windows were down, I was at a stoplight and there was no breeze worthy of the name, and when it’s warm I tend to turn crayon-type pink.

Still getting used to the new length. What perplexes me, though, is the fact that hairstylists always twirl my hair around to form ringlets. Do I look like the type of person who should be wearing ringlets? Who am I, Shirley Temple? (At least she didn’t put seven types of styling gunk in my hair.)

(The GI guy has a tendency to shoot apparently off-topic questions at me out of nowhere: I was in the recovery room and kind of dozy, talking about my interior bits, and suddenly he started questioning me about my ancestry. Somewhat perplexing; it might help if he’d explain the reason for the question early on, but whatever. Oddly enough, when I replied, “General British ancestry,” he initially didn’t think that included Ireland, even Northern Ireland. Perhaps I should’ve been clearer and spoken geographically rather than politically, and said “All over the British Isles,” but I plead dopiness from the sedatives.)

Anyway, just because it’s been a while since I’ve posted a photograph, here are the stills from the procedure. You can see the ribbing in the left upper and right lower corner shots; click to embiggen, if you’re into that sort of thing. Anyone know any doctors or med students? Maybe we could play Snapshot Diagnosis; first one to pick the disorder that matches any eventual real-life diagnosis gets a pair of hand-knit wool-free socks. Anyone?

In the meantime, at least I’m doing okay. Occasionally my stomach kind of gently nudges me, as if to remind me that it holds the power of life and death, or at least productivity and lying in a limp puddle on the floor, over me, but no real pain, and only minimal nausea. It’s been a week of significant savings on the food front, as well as on the coffee beans and wine fronts, given that I’ve avoided all three pleasant occupations as much as possible through abject, cringing fear of pain — today I’m having my first cup of coffee in over a week, and am equally thrilled with the caffeine and the lack (so far) of negative consequences. Oh, coffee, how I’ve missed you. My appetite is even coming back a little, too, which is a pleasant surprise. I’ll probably hold off on reintroducing the wine for a while longer, because the thought still makes my stomach clench a little with worry.

Little knitting has been accomplished, because for a while there the very thought of yarn somehow made me queasy. (This makes no sense, but I chose not to argue with the body and its peculiar tantrums.) At least yesterday, after Cindy very kindly took me home and I crashed for a couple of hours, I got about 10 rows done on my sweater; I’m about to start the French cable for the waistline. There’s no bloody way I’ll get it finished before the meeting next week, which was my original deadline, but at least some progress has been made.

So, aside from the grisly photos of my interior, not a whole lot to report. I was hoping to have a firm diagnosis by now, but I’ll take what I can get: at least I’m functional, and doing reasonably well, and don’t apparently have anything obvious and life-threatening. It could be a helluva lot worse.

I have apparently flipped straight into middle age: a week ago I had no prescription medicines at all, taking only vitamins and an omega-3 supplement; now I have two prescription acid blockers, an antinausea medication they usually use after surgery or during chemo treatments, and a fairly heavy-duty painkiller, and will pick up the thyroid meds sometime today. The last is something I’ll probably be on for life. Hopefully, I’ll be able to drop the others, or at least not take them on a daily basis, if my probable ulcer responds to antibiotics. Otherwise, I’ll have to start looking for one of those pill organizers with the daily and AM/PM compartments that all the cool kids are carrying.

We’re still waiting for the blood test results for Helicobacter pylori, but the doctor I saw yesterday wants me to go ahead and schedule an endoscopy as soon as possible, to get an idea of what’s down there. Whee: my very first camera-down-a-bodily-orifice test. I’m thrilled.

Well, okay: the upsides are potentially pretty good here. I’ve had sporadic stomach pain of the “feels like someone’s holding my stomach and making a fist, and occasionally digging in with fingernails” sort since high school, and if I can get that under control, that’ll be a vast improvement. At least knowing what it is helps, too. And it’s probable that getting my thyroid hormones back to normal will help with energy levels, and will almost certainly help me get rid of some of the extra weight I’ve mysteriously gained lately.

Anyway, at the moment at least, I seem to be doing okay. Heavily medicated, but okay. There were a bunch of things I’d wanted to do this weekend — Summerfest, the Indie Craft Experience in Centennial Park, and the fundraiser for a local filmmaker — but I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to do any of them. At the very least, I’m a bit nervous about driving if I have to take any of the antinausea or pain meds; also, if I start going downhill again, I’d rather start whimpering, displaying abominably poor posture, and possibly vomiting in the privacy of my own home, rather than out in public.