I think it was a parrot...and I found another blog to watch

I have achieved knitting whilst walking on the treadmill while also listening to an audio tape.
I'm not chewing gum at the same time so I think it'll be OK.

Spent a lot of this evening reading this nifty blog: "Readin' with my Furries".
I saw a comment about it in the Best Friends Magazine. It's about a nifty lady named Jennifer who is also a pretty serious cat person and has the joy and fortitude to work at Best Friends. She has chosen to spend a few hours a week reading and creating lap-time for the kitties in the Incontinental Suite, who generally don't get as many visitors as some of the other Kittyville residents. I plan to check back and keep reading. (Yes a few tears were shed whilst reading through the older blog entries.)

I was pulling in laundry from the line late this afternoon and there was an odd bird up on the phone line. It was kind of short on neck so I knew it wasn't the usual dove or desert birds that loiter in our neighborhood. I briefly thought it might be some kind of small bird of prey but there were other birds, wrens-n-such, on the same phone line, unafraid. And it bobbed it's head up and down and used it's beak to steady itself on the phone line.
A parrot? I tried to take pictures but it's more like bird-outline:




























But I did play with the camera a little and got a lovely shot of the sunset:

Semi-crummy week/Lovely Friday evening

Yes, the week was only semi-crummy.
For all the stress at work (for my industry this time of year is like tax-time for accountants; 'cept we get "tax-time" a least twice a year (sometimes more but I'm Not going there just now))...
For the mystery insomnia last night (if I'd known I'd be awake until 1 AM, I'd have had a buncha dark chocolate and earned my insomnia...)...
For the across-the-board depressivness of the news (all issues seem to have been born of greed)...
For the lack of time with my honey, for the worry about the cat and the minor obsession with his litter box and it's contents....

I did have a lovely Friday Evening. Having abandoned work after only a bit over 9 hours of attentiveness, I was trolling for a treat/relief/something that wouldn't make me seriously afraid to weigh in next week...
Then I remembered the Yarn Harlot had a new book out: "Free-Range Knitter".
She'd done a nifty, very nicely written blog about it a week or so ago.

I decided that might help me recover from this week and prepare for next week.
I trucked over to the nearby B&N, found a neat stack of the desired tome and selected one for my very own. I also managed to pick up a couple of things for Christmas and B-day gifts then settled down in the cafe to read. To top it all off, I got some tea and plain cheesecake.

The cheesecake was yummy, but is certainly NOT what was inspiring me laugh out loud in the cafe. "Free-Range Knitter" is lovely and fun and ironic and so well done; such a grand use of the English Language.
I Love how she sees and phrases things.
I'm only up to page 21 (didn't stay much past the scarfing, um, gracious lady-like partaking of the cheesecake)...but I've giggled my way through each page. The folks at B&N were kind enough not to ask me to leave for disturbing the peace, but I did notice the busboy was a bit cautious about picking up my empty plate (he paused but seemed to decide somehow it was safer not to interrupt my chortling).
I'm having a terrible urge to call up KJ or Reba and read one or both of them the "Glory Days" section in Chapter One about the McPhee Annual Furnace Wars. I've read her blog comments about this - here you can too (Oct 29th)! Too fun!!
Ok, I'll stop gushing about the book. But this was such a nice break from the rest of the week.
A gift.
Time to go spend some time on the treadmill. It was only plain cheesecake...but it was cheesecake. So...whilst virtuously walking a couple of miles, do I read some more of Free-Range Knitter or do I knit some more on the replacement baby blanket and listen to a "Cat Who" book recording? Ummm...

Yarn carrying confession and a Stray Observation

Well, I pretty much disappeared for over a week, huh? Apologies.
I'm distracted with knitting, BobCat and work stuff.
BobCat had another issue with constipation and spent a day at the Vet experiencing the various efforts to unbind him. He's doing better, but we'll probably have to do some daily medication to help him digestively. (See - I kept the description vague and "ewww-less". Aren't you relieved?)

Knitting distractions: I've been working very hard to finish BJ's Baby Blanket - the last of the trio of Baby Blankets I've been cranking out the last couple of months.
I understand the baby is not here yet, but she's due any minute now...overdue, actually - so I'm LATE.
Now....... technically, I did finish it.
Will I be giving it to JoAnna (my friend) for her daughter BJ?

NO.

Why?










Because I did a crummy job of joining the pieces and carrying the different yarn colors up the edge. Ewwww. Not something I can give to someone and look them in the eye. So...I'll be shipping it off to the Project Linus people.
Yes, I feel a teeny bit scummy about inflicting it on Project Linus, but that way it won't go to waste and maybe some kind soul will think the odd spots of color are a "design element". (sigh)














Sooooooo - I got another skein of the Ecru color and I've started over.
It's not like I can blame ignorance on my poorly executed color-carries...I'm pretty sure I learned how to do it correctly on another project. And it was JoAnna that taught me.
So, no, I'm not going to present them with a baby blanket suffering from unsightly random speckles of yarn colors where they're not supposed to be...

And here's the stray observation. I was driving home from work this evening and found myself behind a Boxy Fake SUV in a rather spiffy coppery-orange. I realized the custom license plate said "Lemming". I actually thought about trying to ask the driver if:
a.) "Lemming" is his last name?
b.) He just likes Lemmings...?
c.) He feels like a Lemming in traffic?
d.) Or if I'm the Lemming because I'm following him... ;-)

Teeny Gecko, Shopping Carts, and some knitting...

Interesting Observation for today...some irony, and a minor surprise for me...
Went to the bank this AM and nearly got run over by a gent in a full sized pickup with a trailer. He was dashing from parking lot to parking lot picking up "borrowed" shopping carts. Let us say he feels very comfortable in maneuvering his truck/trailer but he may not always be cognizant of other folks in traffic. The shopping cart collection effort being brought to my attention on the way to the bank...on the way back - there he was again. This time on the other side of the street, blocking an entrance/exit to an apartment complex as he dashed out to load another cart that had wandered away from a major shopping experience.

I found some ironic humor in the fact that as he was loading one up, about 50 feet in front of his road-block-truck...was an elderly woman pushing a shopping cart, presumably home-ward.
I was surprised when nearing and passing the woman; perched on either side of the cart were two large white cockatoos!
I'm guessing she took them with her for a morning outing...possibly to Petsmart. No, I didn't get pictures...I was driving....but it would have been a grand picture.

Here's a picture for you:














This teeny Gecko surprised me last night in our hall bathroom. I found him after I got home from work and the Grocery store (no, I didn't "borrow" a shopping cart).
Our hall bath is in the middle of the house - not quite sure how he got that far - BobCat does think lizards are interesting to chase. And he was teeny - about an inch and a half long - with his tail.
I'm ashamed to say I did not succeed in capturing him without losing his tail. I know it'll grow back, but he's soooooo teeny. I was trying not to deprive him of his nifty striped tail - but when I was trying to herd him out from behind the toilet tank - I must have applied some pressure there and it came off and continued to wiggle as a distraction.














Here's the interesting bit to me....I've "rescued" quite a few of these critters from the indoors to place them back outdoors. This was the first one that, once on my person, didn't want to leave. He was wandering over my hand and up my arm...
You can see he crawled onto my shirt and was pretty happy squatting right there. I don't think he was too impressed with my feeble attempts to take his picture. I got him back on my hand to put him on the window sill outside on the back porch - lots of bug options there...but he didn't want to get off. (sigh) Finally he chose to explore the window sill:














I've been neglectful of posting my knitting accomplishments of late. I'll try to do better, but here's a shot of Jessica's Baby Blanket before I delivered it last week...

Found out what "color" I am and kitty-mom cleanup stuff

Found out what "color" I am at this website.
I like the "blue" aspect but must question the semi-saintly description...I don't think I'm that deep - more like generally sleep-deprived. I'm just me.
(Not sure if this will work, but... cool, I got the code in the blog...learn something new every day...)

BLUE

You give your love and friendship unconditionally. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

And now...off to bed. Too tired to be more useful.
Handsome lone kitty, BobCat, had a rough weekend with, um....well.....constipation.
Don't panic - I'll be skipping the gory details. However, when he's not happy, I don't sleep well. He was moving stuff very slowly through the weekend but stopped Sunday. However, he seems to have released a lot of what was bothering him last night and I did a lot of scrubbing with bleach extremely early this AM.
Glamorous kitty-mom blog, huh? Nuf-said. Going to get some sleep.

(Again, don't panic...I'm working with the Vet and adjusting his diet to avoid this issue...we had been doing pretty well for the last month or so, but BobCat fell off the intestinal wagon, having indulged in too many kitty-treats and having found some grass to add to his diet. (oy) Have discussed with DH the kitty treat issue and I pulled the grass/weeds this AM. )

It was big. Huge. Black and Yellow with orange antennae

No, it WAS big. Longer than my fingers!!
Ok, I kinda have tiny hands, but it was about 4 inches long...

Rick at work took some REALLLY good pictures (he has a good eye and a very nifty camera).
(But you don't get to see those - ;) here's what you get...)
I happened to have my little camera with me and snapped these pics:














(This shot reminded me of the basic physical structure of the big nasties in the "Alien" movies...)





Ok, minor adventure trying to find out what kind of grasshopper it was. We considered it might be a "locust" of plague legends 'cause it was so huge...but it doesn't look like the locust pictures.
So, working my way through the search results...

• Grasshopper Mower (yes, a lawn mower)
• Grasshopper Vegetarian Restaurant (waaaay back east)
• Grasshopper Store (stuff for kids, I think...)
• Grasshopper Drink recipes (now this looks interesting...yummmm)
• Grasshopper Store (x 2 - this one looks to be for "fashionable" adults in plaid trench coats who hang out in a Van in the woods. ~~Uh-huh.~~)
• Grasshopper Arizona (a town named Grasshopper? Wait - there's actually 2 - Grasshopper Junction also!)
• Grasshopper sparrow...(no, I didn't go look.)
• Grasshopper dissection (Ack - moving on!)

OK, back to the critter identification.
I can tell it's a short-horned grasshopper...Ok, I haven't found our critter yet, (and I have been looking at A LOT of bugs on line) but I was astounded to find Orange, Pink, and Lavender grasshoppers!! I guess they're younglings...

Back to the search.
Whoa...what's this? A Taradactyl Grasshopper...darn, no pictures.
There is an AMAZING range of colors on Grasshoppers-they're beautiful! (The "Whatsthatbug" website is cool!)

Eureka!! found it. It's a Horse Lubber Grasshopper!!
Here's another person's comments. Apparently they taste nasty (hence the bright colors) and can produce a "rank foam when feeling threatened". Guess ours didn't mind all our paparazzi action, since he didn't foam up... (there's a celebrity joke in there somewhere...)
Off to the next adventure!