The Cat and Other Tales
Oh, hello there.
I was looking at my calendar and realized I hadn’t posted in three weeks.
It’s not you, it’s me. I haven’t been online much lately. I made disparaging comments on Twitter about having to avoid BART demonstrators, but that’s about it. There are many things going on at work, for one thing. The semester started, and I work at a college, plus I’ve been studying exciting things like XML and XSLT and command line field mapping in my spare time instead of crafting. Oh, and going to museums. Those of you who fancy yourselves creative types might find this video I found via SFMOMA interesting. Pretty much a long winded version of Edison’s “1% inspiration, 99%perspiration” saying.
Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.
Let’s catch up:
– Spent a weekend in Reno helping my brother move into his new house. I may have cried when he moved out of my house 2 weeks ago. My dog still looks for him (they were good buddies). He’s going on to do much more interesting things in graduate school, though – environmental planning and research. Now my husband and I only have each other to harass. And the cat.
– A certain demonic cat got into my new quilt and wrecked it. She must have had quite a time in there, and probably got poked by some pins. She pulled out 90% of the pins that are holding the quilt together, the fabrics were in total disarray, even the backing paper was wrinkled up. Miriam was not a happy camper, and did not speak to her cat for a while. It took many hours to put it back the way it was, and as I continue to work I still have problems with spacing. Tell me again why I have a cat?
– After Jeremy moved out, Jeff and I went on a serious cleaning binge, and also a getting-rid-of-stuff binge. We’re really getting minimalist at this point. I’ve also removed all my craft stuff from its storage and reorganized it, and gotten rid of things I didn’t want. We never really did put much effort into our spare/craft room after we moved in because Jeremy was living there, so now I’m attacking it with great enthusiasm. Also, the cat isn’t allowed in there anymore (she never really was).
– Streetcolor yarnbombed my local library 
. Sadly, I missed the event.
– I did my very first tie-dye project, pictures forthcoming. I also considered wrapping a few rubber bands around the cat’s fur and seeing how she looked when tie-dyed.
That’s about everything that’s currently safe for public consumption.
Back to XML.
Scenes from daily life
Oven-drying some spiced tomatoes.
Fresh herbs from my tiny container garden and the farmer’s market.
Tomato, basil and caramelized onion pizza with Jeremy’s homemade dough.
Summer is the time for really overdoing it on fruit-eating.
I don’t understand why she thinks a face plant into biking shoes is comfortable for sleeping.
A few flowers to liven up the place.
The Observer
My demon cat, Callie, doesn’t like anyone but Jeff and me. For whatever reason, she loves me and indeed, will let me flip her over and scratch her tummy (most of the time). In fact, she follows me around watching me when I do things. I don’t know what I did right with her (aside from eternal benevolent patience), but this is a frequent sight when I’m doing things. I was just looking through my most recent batch of Ah Kimono fabrics from my fabric club, and I looked down and there she was.
And the fabrics are rather amazing too, right?
Can I tell you how FRUSTRATING it is to be literally a week away from finishing two big projects using my kimono silks, and yet be unable to finish because I cannot get out my sewing equipment yet? GARGGHHHHHH. For real.
