Of Mice and Men ... or rather, rats ....

Charlie did it!
My smart, handsome dog went to an Earthdog Workshop and was the best dog at the workshop.
He was the first to go through the tunnel, the first to find the rats, the first to bark! What a wonderful boy.

We went all the way to Chattanooga for this and it was worth it. No pictures, I was too busy keeping control of my wild boy, what with there being other Westies, dachshunds of all types and a couple of Scotties. The other Westies were better behaved than Charlie and not too adventurous - my boy was not so inhibited. He made a new friend with a Scottie named Fergus and spent a good 30 minutes wrassling good-naturedly with Fergus. This makes me hope that Charlie will be able to do Junior Earthdog next time we have a chance. In the meanwhile, Charlie will have to practice ... a lot.

The drive was quite taxing - I-75 is a real mess. On the way up, barely out of Cobb County, there was a relatively minor, but messy (small produce truck) accident with one lane of four blocked. Yet the traffic backed up for well over a mile and 20 minutes to goggle at it. On the way home, I was just around Lake Allatoona when I spotted a traffic jam clogging all the southbound lanes ahead of me. I nipped off at the approaching exit and ended up taking the Generica tour of the northern exurbs. I do have to say that the bit right above Allatoona was country in the sort of way that the roads up in Cumming were not too long ago - house trailers, horses, firewood for sale. All to be gone sooner rather than later, I'm sure. Made it all the way through the wilds of northern Cobb County, Cherokee County and into Roswell, only to be stymied, just when I was getting so tired I felt like weeping, by the remnants of the end of the Tour de Georgia. Normally, I'd at least have enjoyed watching the muscular legs, but by 5:30 p.m. on a day that started at 5:30 a.m., I was more interested in getting home. Charlie, who'd been sleeping with his head on my leg for the entire trip, was equally ready to get home. In fact, he took a nap with me, then slept right through the night and was still ready to sack back out after the morning walk.

In other news, the spring colored socks are done - a present for my mother.

Progress on the afghan proceeds slowly - in fact, I have joined the Slogalong http://www.masondixonknitting.com/slogalong/ for people working on seemingly endless projects . . . pictures or links to follow soon. I'm itching for some smallish project, perhaps it's time to resume dishcloths.

Other than that, I have attended the Atlanta Dogwood Festival (twice); the Inman Park Festival; been working on a plan for http://www.hildrethcemetery.com/ and trying to cope with a workload made significantly greater by the involuntary departure of two of my compatriots - one of whom was "Mr. Coffeepot" from prior posts. Needless to say, the powers that be did not
consider the impact on the rest of us in terms of workload - or perhaps they considered it and decided it was unimportant. I would beg to disagree, but they aren't asking me and neither are they answering the calls. Ah well, there's always caffeine . . .

Succumbing to socks

OK, I needed a break from the brown brioche afghan. And it was Monday. And I'm knitting from stash, but sock yarn is allowed. So off I went to the Needlenook and indulged myself in something spring and summery.

And so last night, on went the caston onto #2s and with a little bit of news and weather watching knitting:

Very nice. I think.

And MORE blue

OK, I've been waiting for a day when my arms and shoulders could take it, and after exerting myself yesterday a bit helping Marleen's Joe move some furniture, I realized that I could do it.

Mood: Gratified.

Those who are less than impressed with a single light fixure also need to know that this had to be put up hanging out over the 2-story stairwell.

Blueblueblue blue

Most of this weekend has been eaten up with an allergy attack and the effort to finish the blue paint in the laundry room. I am happy to say that the horse-sized antihistamines work and also that all the blue bits are done.


I also finished the gloss paint on the (sole) shelf. I plan to put up another narrower shelf for tools and stuff above the wooden shelf, which is 18 inches deep. But I am not going to start in on the white semigloss. For starters, I need to wait until all the blue is dry and then razor out all the taping (and replace a couple of electrical outlet covers. And I need to shove the dryer back into the washroom and get some clean clothes for next week, plus sheets and towels, so this:




is what we have for now. The lighter area up in the upper right is just touch up over the overspray from attacking a waterstain with Kilz.



I am very pleased with the lucency and depth of the blue - the semigloss gives to a light quality that I think would be missing with flat paint.








This is the blue tile that I found while shopping with the fabulous Tobye T in Adairsville at the tile outlet back in 1999. I think it was right after Miranda came to me and just before Tobye absconded for Colorado. I think I shelled out $20 or so for this tile, which sat in forlorn stacks in the laundry room until like 2004, when I had the cash to get the tile laid. Unfortunately, there was no way (or enough tile) to remove the water heater and furnace and tile under them. When I have to replace the furnace



I hope I'll be able to have the water heater pulled too and some sort of plain white tile laid under the water heater, as the old lino is coming up in shreds and really disgusting. Hmm, there are 5 of the blue tiles left - enough to cover almost all of the floor that's visible between the wall and the furnace and the existing marble curb and the water heater - so almost anything in white past that would work just to make it more cleanable. The other thing I'd like to do in the laundry room is get the vent pipes arranged more compactly. They did at Deb's next door but it mine, they stick out overhead. Makes perfect sense - she's short, I'm tall , but that's probably a bit more long term. A new light fixture to replace the ceramic-socket-bare-bulb arrangement is definitely on.

So next, I need to muscle the 350 lb. front load washer back closer to the walls and start a load of wash and then I can drag the dryer back (again) and hook it up. Next weekend I can de-tape and start the reverse taping for doing the white paint. Progress.

On the knitting front, I am still slogging away on the chocolate brown brioche afghan. We've been at black hole country for a while - it's at lightly less than 6 feet and no matter how much I think I've knitted, it's doesn't seem to get longer. Since it's for a married couple, I want it long enough to wrap around two sets of shoulders on a cool night. I've passed from enjoying it to hating it back to enjoying it, but I'm really truly starting to look forward to knitting something else.

No exaggeration about the pollen

This is what the pollen looks like after it rains and it piles up behind an obstacle in the parking lot.











And this is what it looks like when you swipe some up with your fingers - just an inch or so from the above accumulation:















Yes, it really is that bad. A thick paste, discernably gritty when rubbed between the fingers.

In other news, Joy delivered 4 more lovely pups for Marleen in the small hours of the morning and looks much happier now that the puppies are on the outside. Just like human babies, they like to come in the night, apparently — Marleen said the first pup arrived about 4:30 a.m. and the last around 7:30. Ms. Packratty went by on her way home from work to admire the new babies. Joy was proud. Pictures soon.


Now, it's time to limber up the masking tape and paintbrush and get back to work on the laundry room. More blueblueblue.

And the rains came

Last night, leaving work, the temperature had turned deliciously cool. Like 20 degrees cooler than at lunch. It was so delightful that Ms. Packratty rushed home, walked Charlie and then turned her attentions to the laundry room, where she successfully got the easy 50% of the painting job done.

This lovely luminous blue in a semigloss was a Packratty find at the infamous Home Depot OOPS shelves in the paint department. $1 quarts and $5 gallons when you can find someone else's mistake that is your perfect (or reasonable facsimile thereof) color ... and for $5 a gallon, Ms. Packratty finds she can be VERY reasonable.
Of course, tonight the taping and cutting in and the second coat on the areas that weren't ready for a second coat last night will happen and then the painting the walls that will be remaining white begins. That will be considerably less speedy and nowhere near as dramatic. However, the contrast tells Ms. Packratty that the white appliances against the blue wall with white shelving will be dramatic and very clean looking.


Then better things happened. The new washer required only a minor adjustment and when the repairman was leaving, Ms. Packratty noticed with delight that the first rain in weeks was starting. By the time she departed for work, the rain had been gently falling for at least an hour and the immense amounts of pollen were starting to wash away.






And, just because they were so tiny and beautiful, as if Faberge had made a beautiful enamelled pear:

Yellow season

Just as New England has a peculiar season known as Mud Season, Atlanta and much of the Southeast has it's own vile precursor to full Spring — Yellow Season.

This is when the billions of pine trees (and oaks and hickories and dogwoods and Bradford pears and so forth) burst into bloom and coat everything with a fuzzy layer of the reproductive cells of plants. All takes on a yellow hue. Normally, this season falls during the spring rainy season, so that the coating of yellow is washed off or diluted every day or two, sending swirls of yellow through the gutters in scummy little cakes. This year, we've barely been able to summon up a heavy dew and the yellowness is getting intense. In the mornings, the first car or two through the parking lot leaves visible tracks through the yellow, just as if it was a light coating of snow.

Besides coating windshields, Yellow Season has other perils. During the morning commute, one occasionally sees cars swerve out of control, or speed up suddenly. It is Ms. Packratty's firm belief that these actions are not related to cell phones, coffee drinking ot makeup application by commuters, but are instead caused by fits of uncontrollable and profound sneezing.

She has also considered taping off a square yard of a neighbor's car roof (a car that has not been moved in a week and so it's coating is undisturbed) and carefully scraping off the pollen load and weighing it. If one knew the weight if the pollen coating one square foot, the pollen load per square mile could be calculated. And from thence, the pollen load for the square mileage of the greater metro area could be extrapolated. Ms. Packratty suspects the gross weight of the tree gonads coating everything would indeed be ... gross.

For those who might think this exaggeration:



This is the roof and back window of Charlie's Chariot, which was washed on Sunday. Picture taken mid-morning Thursday. The streaks were caused by excess fluid from window spritzing.


Now excuse me . . . aaaaitttchhhhooooooo!

Here is the queen herself, looking sulky.

What? No, you don't need to pick up these papers or CDs.

And here she is, marching down the bed, the instant she realized that Ms. Packratty was sorting out the desktop.

"Mine. It's ALL Mine."

Too Long Silent

OK, it's been a while.

Life has been more than a little insane - ranging from the death of the washing machine and a scramble to find cash to pay for a replacement, to a reprise of last summer's back problems, to an endless slog of too much craziness at work.

The span of silence also encompassed the visit of my dear friend from Colorado who came through to see her first grandchild and roosted with me for about 18 hours between her arrival at the airport and being taken up to Lake Lanier where her son and daughter-in-law and the baby are living. It's always wonderful to see Tobye and I was able to give her the book and the skein of alpaca silk lace weight that I'd been unable to resist buying for her.

I am still knitting on the chocolate brown afghan and I am within about 1 1/2 skeins of being completed, thankfully.

There has been some chiding for my failure to post pictures of Delilah Fuzzybutt, the real owner of Chez Packrat - Ms. Packratty being permitted to live here with Charlie only because she requires certain attentions, such as a steady supply of high priced kibble and a clean sandbox ...

Therefore, here we have Ms. Delilah as she makes sure Ms. Packratty's efforts to tidy her desk and sort things went to naught. OK, Blogger doesn't seem to want to accept pictures. We'll try again later.

Why is there no Packrats Anonymous?

Ms. Packratty spent most of her weekend excavating the guest room. Bags of assorted crap were trundled out to the garbage. Yarn was herded back into yarn bins. Clothing found its way into "dry cleaning" and "mending" baskets or onto hangers. More junk and trash and crap was bagged and hauled away. The bed is now clear of stuff. The new little basket system for the laundry room is working well.

That said, the bathroom still needs caulking and debriding of junk. And some general scrubbing.

The foyer is still a bit of a tip. And the kitchen needs one more big push. I'd like to sit on the floor and pull things out of the lower cabinets and decide which things are going to MA and TX and then be able to stow the nice new Calphalon stuff I've been buying. If I can clear the cabinets, I can deal with the countertop over the dishwasher which has been accruing clutter like a magnet attracts iron filings. Maybe I need another one of those clever bins for collecting the various semi-disposable food containers and lids ... Hmm, it's working for the laundry.

And I don't even want to think about what's behind the couch and needs to be cleared out.

That said, if I can put in another good solid hour in the guest room tonight and tomorrow night, that should be done and then I can work on the bathroom and kitchen.

But it was not all debridement this weekend. In addition to last week's dishcloths/potholders, more got knitted this weekend. The round ones are easiest - Ms. Packratty watched the first half of the PBS version of Jane Eyre last night and completed an entire dishcloth during the show, which was marvelous. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/janeeyre/index.html Next Sunday will definitely find Ms. Packratty perched on her couch, knitting and teapot at hand.

Love these colors, however while one brand of cotton yarn produces two dishcloths, the other produces just shy of 2, so the best alternative is to buy 2 balls and make three round and a small square, I guess.

The potroast, once cubed, produced a lovely stew, and since it is cold and dreary outside still, Ms. Packratty suspects that it will be as comforting tonight as it was last night after getting damp and cold walking Charlie.

Ms. Packratty has been taken to task for failing to post more pictures of Delilah Fuzzybutt. Despite having the camera at hand all weekend, Delilah obstinately refused to pose. We shall continue to endeavor to get pictures of her looking adorable or imperious or amusing.

9 days and counting

Ms. T will be here in 9 days and the guest room and loo must be ready for her.

Today's progress: a bunch of junk removed from the computer corner of the room and dragged out to the dumpster. Also a bunch of linens run through the wash and all the grout in the tub squirted with grout cleaner. I found TWO dead keyboards lurking in a corner - did I suppose they were going to be healed? Sheesh. And some more dishes washed and a start on getting the kitchen spiffed up a wee bit.

Friday am's task is to remove still more junk from the computer corner, take hanging clothes up to the upstairs closet and start getting all the rest of the loose yarn back into bins.

Friday p.m., I plan to get the bins back in the closet and make sure all the tub caulk that needs to be scraped out has been done. And continue to work on hanging, washing and sorting stuff, including getting all the stuff needing drycleaning in one place and all the shoes in another.

Saturday a.m. is time to caulk the tub and cart out all the boxes from the foyer that accumulated in the last 2 months.

Let's see how I do with these plans.

I did go buy 4 shallow bins for the laundry room shelf - one for socks, one for undies, one for kitchen stuff and one for things like bluing bottle, bleach stick, dryer balls, dryer sheets, stain spotter, etc. I do need to do more to fix up and organize the one shelf until I can put in a track shelf system with a bit more storage, but it's a big start. It feels like something that Ms. Packratty can deal with. And bought more hangers as I clearly need them. Can one have too many hangers - I mean the good plastic kind, not the metal and paper ones from the cleaners?

Dishcloth pictures tomorrow - can't find the batteries right now.

Thank you, Knitty.com

After plundering every knitting book in the house and a couple at the library, my head hurt. I could see the drawings of the cable caston, but they might as well have been Attic Greek. Then I went to www.knitty.com and there was an explanation with photographs. With contrasting colors of yarn. It made sense. I think. Now I have to see how I do when the yarn finally comes to start the hat for my father.

And got half of a dishcloth done at work between calls and other stuff. Done on much smaller needles, I think these will be thick enough to be potholders, without sewing two together.

10 Days until Ms. T arrives and there is about a month of work to be done on the guest room and guest loo. Tomorrow, the plan of action.

Sniff, sniff

Yes, Ms. Packratty still has the sniffles, but she is feeling much better and boy, is Charlie happy. Walkies, walkies. Sick leave is a wonderful thing - when a cold shows signs of colonizing the Packratty throat or chest, it's time to rest and try to stay well.

One of Ms. Packratty's dearest friends is coming East in 2 weeks after the birth of her first grandchild, so Ms. Packratty is contemplating the heaps in the guest room and going "oh dear". On second look, she estimates she should be able to finish grouting and caulking in the guest loo and dejunking the bedroom ... sometime after the newborn's first birthday. On the other hand, in an emergency, there's no limit on what the Packratty hands and back can accomplish.

Picture of the day is Charlie with little fellow who was visiting a neighbor Monday. Charlie has never heard that West Highland White Terriers don't like children ...

The ruin of a weekend

I had a 3 day weekend, leftover vacation from 2006. I had big plans for working on Chez Packratty. But that beastly cold intervened and Ms. Packratty spent most of the weekend wheezing, weeping and honking.

However, by Monday, Ms. Packratty was able to essay a trip to get her eyes examined - and of course, new lenses are needed at a budgetbusting total.

However, that accomplished and weeping behind the geekly temporary sunglasses, Ms. Packratty went over to admire the now 8-day-old puppies and give Charlie a bath. He is now a handsome, sweet-smelling pup again.

Here are the puppies and Charlie.





















On the knitting front, another 3 inches has been added to the brioche afghan and half of another dishcloth completed. The hat kit arrived, with the wrong color yarn - now being shipped - and Ms. Packratty needs to find someone to teach her the cast-on prescribed in the pattern, as the diagrams in her knitting books make her head hurt.

Charlie grows up

Charlie, part 2

One of the big highlights of the year was actually having vacation time and enough spare change to take a vacation on my own. I love my family, but the fact that I was able to enjoy almost a week at the beach without them was grand. My endlessly cheerful aunt and uncle were gone too, so there were a couple of days when Ms. Packratty only got out of her PJs to go swimming and walk Charlie.

Charlie was entranced by two things at the beach. One was the IMMENSE pine cones shed by many, many pine trees- there were so many he had trouble making up his mind which one he wanted to pick up and carry about. Here is a picture of Charlie with one cone about as big as his head. OK, it's blurry, but Ms. Packratty was laughing her fanny off at the moment.














The other object of Charlie's affections was the golf cart. After coaxing him up onto it once, Ms. Packratty discovered that she had created a monster. No matter when Charlie was taken outside - midnight, 6 a.m., high noon, he ever after assumed that it meant he would get to go for a ride. If a ride did not appear to be forthcoming, he would go leap into the cart as if to encourage his prospects - as the picture below shows:
















There was no success in getting a picture of Charlie at the beach. He learned to swim, but liked it best when he was firmly on lead and headed out to the big sand bar at low tide. The need to keep him under some control until onto the sand bar limited Ms. Packratty's swimming - also because there is a very firm limit on the amount of time the Packratty dermis can be exposed to the sun without turning a rather lobsterish hue. All in all, and despite arriving to find the AC was off and struggling for what felt like hours to get it working, it wasn't a bad trip.

The other big event for Charlie was meeting his cousin Caroline. He has not yet met his cousin Charles Here's a picture of Charlie and Caroline:
















For the anniversary of Charlie's "gotcha" day, he made a new friend. The mail lady is definitely not afraid of a happy Westie.


And that's my year with Charlie.

It's all about Charlie

A year ago today, I drove to Alabama on a cold sunny day and picked up Charlie from his foster parent Martha. They thought Charlie was about 9 months old.

Right off the bat, I discovered that Charlie loved riding in the car.

Here's a picture I snapped of him while we were riding back from Leeds, AL where we rendesvoused with Martha. The collar didn't fit. He was too small for any of Miranda's old tack.

Then came the unfortunate incident the next morning with the cat (who has apparently forgiven him and treats him mostly with amused toleration) that led to calling Marleen for HELP! Marleen, who has raised enough pups to boggle the mind, took Charlie in hand for the afternoon that day while I went to the dentist and pronounced him to be much younger - maybe 7 months old - than initially believed, which explained some of his wildness. Charlie quickly settled in with the help of frequent "doggie day care" visits to Marleen and her crew. Going down for a few hours of romp time with DeeDee is still one of his favorite things.

After a few weeks, Charlie got to get in the car again and go meet his grandparents.

Fun in the woods


















Running in spring grass ....


















Next: Charlie discovers the beach.

I hab a code ... in my node

Ms. Packratty hates being ill; she particularly dislikes being ill and feeling as though she can't breath and it really irritates her when she falls ill on the eve of a three-day weekend that she had planned to use for home improvement purposes.

At least it is not the flu. It is clearly just an upper respiratory thing that is showing no major ambitions for colonizing the Packratty lungs.

Late to work because of cold remedy grogginess, but in my stupor, did finish third dishcloth in 3 days. I think I like the round ones better. I'm going to try one of those on a smaller needle and see if it gives me a thicker fabric that might work for a potholder without doubling.

Of all the things to worry about ....

Seems that Blue Moon Fiber Arts out in Oregon, peddlers of the infamous Socks That Rock sock club (something Ms. Packratty is inspired to avoid by the rather hefty pricetag, but which she nonetheless admires as killer marketing) had their bank decide that this "sock club" thing must be some sort of scam and proceeded to reverse all the credit card transactions for the shop for the sock club and return the money to the senders. Ms. Packratty rather suspects that the bank would have had no problem imagining that men might subscribe to a "beer club" or a "football jersey club", but a woman-owned business that has been happily flogging what is clearly superior sock yarn is somehow running a scam? Jeez, for your average bank with their crazy fees to talk about someone else scamming is a bit much, you know?

See The Yarn Harlot for the whole story. It's enraging. I hope they sue. For a big pile of money.

The sudden shifts in weather have hit and I am sniffling. And unhappy. Don't know if it is an impending cold or just some transient misery. Hoping for the transient misery.

The vile coffee pot remains vile. The mold cultures haven't expanded visibly. The piggish co-worker is still out ... wonder how long we'll have to look at it.

Brioche stitch afghan progress

Progress on the brioche stitch afghan in the yummy chocolate merino. This wool is really pleasant to work with and it's Bernat, not one of the ultra expensive brands. Considering that I bought 9 100 gram skeins of of it, a good price was crucial. I've been assured that a gentle washing will make it even nicer.

The plush quality and the no wrong side of it also make it really nice, I think, for an afghan.

Hideous day at work - too many people out and too many things going wrong and when you top it of by attending the condominium board meeting on an empty stomach. Well.

Not to mention that one of the last things Ms. Packratty saw as she exited the office was:

Yes, Day 6. The guilty co-worker left early sick. Gee, just imagine — if he lets his coffee pot in a public area where other people have to look at it get like this — what his apartment must look like. Shudder.


On a far nicer subject, must mention the loverly beaded counting bracelets for knitters being made by the loverly and multi-talented Nancy Hanger at: http://www.windhaven.com/bracelets/

A knitter and spinner herself, Nancy is also a gifted editor, copyeditor and pre-press expert and an artist and writer as well. Got to love those folks whose multiple gifts encourage humility in the rest of us.

Day 5 of Disgusting

No, the co-worker has not cleaned up his mold experiment.

It grows increasingly gross.

It sits about 3 feet from me, but fortunately on the other side of a cube wall. Which is worse, the mold spores or the reek of the el cheapo brew he uses?

Maybe he should have to drink this as is?


In better news, Ms. Packratty has discovered that she can knit dishcloths and still (mostly) watch television. No pictures, we left them at home, but knocked out 2 dishcloths and part of a third while watching the reruns of Star Trek last night.

I wonder if I knit them tighter on a smaller needle if they will make acceptable potholders, or would I have to double them up?

The afghan progresses. The hat kit is on order. Until I get the hat kit started and the afghan finished, the dishcloths must answer for "small knitting" - to satisfy my inner child who wants fast results.