The Day of the Sat

I am loving the weekend. It's gorgeous outside -- all grey and beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, my beautiful boy is enjoying the change of scenery now that he has the run of the house. He loves to sleep on my dad's chair in the afternoon. And he is now king of the pillow in the window.

And because he has the run of the house we can't leave things out that he might want to bite, like my flannel shirt. I heard a thump and knew BK had jumped off the counter, but I did not realize that he did so with my shirt in his stinky maw.

I refer to this as an opportunity. He has given me an opportunity to applique. So last night and this morning I stitched the hole, which turned out super janky-looking. So I took a piece of Japanese fabric and stitched a character from it on top of the hole.

Adorable, but the underside still looked like garbage, so I stitched on a piece of fabric that I, in the end, realize I could have used for the original hole. No matter. I still love it.

Then I cut some fabric for another applique project, and made roasted vegetables. I would like a nap now.

This morning's accompaniment to sewing was the new Meghan Markle show. I was prepared to not like it. As I said to mrguy, she does not meet my expectations. And he looked back at me and said "She's just a lady". And he's right. I have just wished for her to thrive and cringe when she keeps making mess ups that are public (like her websites, botched corporate names and the like) that seem like things that a professional should handle for you -- once and well.

But the show isn't terrible. The episode with her friend (stylist?) was ok. The one with Mindy Kaling was over the top. When they take all their cute food and then change clothes and eat it in a gorgeously decorated potting shed that is too much. The episodes with her Argentinian polo friend and chef Roy Choi were just about right. If she can just be more authentic, she's watchable.

With one exception. The music for this show is atrocious. It's overly loud, changes tempo and theme every few minutes, and occasionally sounds like old fashioned "needle drop" music. Pick a lane, people.

She's just a lady, indeed, but she's been paid a lot to make this show and I wish, for her, that it was a little less forced. I will watch it while I do other things, but that kinda puts her in the same league as Australian Opal Hunters.

Good luck to ya!

Cat Names

There comes a time when you have to admit that you will not have as many cats as you have in your list of cat names. How to prioritize? Will there ever be another, or is boy kitten the end of the road?

Amy

Angela

Babbette

Berniece

Cedith

Charlene

Connie

Danke Ciao

Desiree

Ed Ho

Faith Yanagi

Felicia

Frits

Geraldine

Giacomo

Glendora

Harlow Mitten (name of a person who piloted plane that crashed but everyone ok)

Javi

Jazzette

Jomar

Killer

Mansion 

Manu (i.e. Manuela or Manuel)

Martin

Melba

Mits Funai

Nanette

Ona Lee

Pappy

Pillboi

Ranger

Raymond Shrimp Boy

Ron

Sarshel

Schatzi

Shadrach (Shad)

Tammy

Uli

Vashka

Vinnie Malavarco

Wayne

Wifi (pronounced Wee Fee)

Willette

Fake Leg Balustrade

There's a house on the way to the freeway that's getting flipped. They've painted it black, as you do these days, but the posts holding up the railing on the porch are painted this horrible peachy white man's flesh color. I always call this fake leg color. My mom preferred this color for her nail polish. I really don't know why.

It's been a deathy day today. Our beautiful boy, the inky ingot, left us. He was feeling poorly this week, not eating. Yesterday I said that I felt like he was telling us it's his time. And this morning he was hiding behind the tv console in the kitchenden while in another room I spoke to our dear dear friend about the death of his wife a few weeks ago. I came back in and mrguy said it was time to go to the ER. Sweet boy was crying, and breathing fast.

We went to the ER at the clinic that gave mr handsome a clean bill of health four weeks ago. They saw us immediately and were so kind and professional. The bad news came soon -- our boy was basically almost gone already, with his congestive heart failure winning out over his kidneys, which were failing. There was not a single thing to be done, and not a way to bring him home. It had to be done there.

Sweet boy. I felt the krink in his tail one last time and petted and kissed him, but you could just feel his suffering.

On the way home with our empty cat carrier we passed the house again. They've painted more of the black but seem set on the tan color for the porch, which mrguy has dubbed the Fake Leg Balustrade.

You probably think I'm terrible for referring to this color as "fake leg", and you'd be right. It's outrageous and insensitive and some day I'll probably quit it but not today. The usage of that term in the guy household came from the big guy, mrguy's dad, whose birthday guest list we found after he died. On it, (typed up in Excel, mind you), were the names of his various business partners and friends he wanted to invite to his gathering including one weird entry that said Fake Leg Guy. We knew exactly what he meant. The big guy's company made a product, an industrial ingredient, that they were always trying to find new markets for. And this is how they met a man whose company manufactured prosthetics. Guess he couldn't recall the guy's name.

Today's been a shock, really. My sweet boy. He turned his love rays on me this past year, which was pretty different from the 14 that came before. I needed it. When mrguy was so sick he was such a comfort. And he didn't stop after mrguy got better. Just like with his sister, who died of congestive heart failure earlier this year. She also decided to love on me this year. I guess they just know.

And now we're down to one. I guess we can give him the run of the house now, as long as we hide all dish towels and clothing. This will be a weird adjustment for all.

Saint Fiberica

This morning the Rev came over, and we went to an Italian bakery that I'd never heard of. It's on a frontage road, in a business center of warehouses that surrounds a giant parking lot. Not the place you'd come to look for Italian pastries. 

But we did. Oh man, I had a salmon and cream cheese plate on focaccia. Not very on trend for this restaurant but I hadn't had a bagel plate in so long that I really craved the flavors.  I came home with a strawberry camel puff pastry for mrguy.

We had parked in front of a quilting store, so we decided to check it out after our nosh. It did not disappoint. I bought some beginners' embroidery needles, asking for help from the people who were working there. I recognized one of them. I had had two cups of coffee previously. The conversation went like this:

Me: Did you go to [name of University]?

Her: Yes

Me: Did you own iguanas?

Her, eyes wide: Yeeees?! At [name of housing unit]

Me: I lived in your apartment right after you. OMG that is so wild. I'm here with my best friend from freshman year at college. Rev! You remember the iguana apartment? This is the lady who owned the iguanas!

They introduced themselves. From this point I will identify the woman as "G". I think that the other lady working in the store might have been her daughter or granddaughter, as they shared the same big blue-green eyes.

Me: I think the last time I saw you was right after the earthquake. We moved chairs out of a truck into a building for people. It was a Red Cross thing.

G: I worked for the Red Cross at that time.

So she is now retired, but had a great career managing the communications department at the university near where we both now live.

The story of the iguana apartment is epic. I had never lived with other people before living in a shared apartment at school. After my first quarter at school it was clear that sharing a room was not a good idea. So I looked for a single room in a different apartment. G was going to PELP, so she wouldn't be needing that room. PELP stands for Planned Educational Leave Program. It's a way of leaving school for a period with a way to ensure you can come back to school later.

Anyhoo, before I moved into it I remember that you could recognize her apartment because her iguana liked to bask in the sun while clinging to her window screen. You could see it from the first floor. She lived on the third. When I moved into her apartment she'd left a few things behind. There was iguana poop and mashed banana baked into the shag rug. There was a refrigerator containing frozen newts in the freezer compartment. And a phone bill.

We didn't know what to do about the phone bill. We figured out which number was her mom's and called it. Mom was unsympathetic: "My daughter is an adult, and she can manage her own finances". So we had to eat the cost. But one day I realized that she was in a different section of my entomology class. The way they returned your test results was to toss them in a pile on the floor outside of the lecture hall. I rooted through the pile, wrote "Pay your phone bill!!!" on her mid-term, and a while later she repaid us.

She was delightful today. I love seeing someone who is retired and doing what they truly love. The shop was filled with every sort of gadget that you could want or need for doing needlework. And there were crafts. Rev ended up going home with a dog toy. I bought needles and a thimble and got some fabric from a scrap bin that had big lip prints on it. She gave it to me for free because she'd brought it in herself. I want to applique it on a cheap top that I bought on ebay that is unsatisfying and did not arrive in time for our trip to Hawaii.

Here is the candle in honor of Saint Fiberica. Like I said, they have everything.

We had planned to do other things, but this was such a satisfying jaunt that we stopped there. Plus rev was having an allergic reaction to something she was wearing. 

We wound our way back to my house via points of interest in my town, including my old singing teacher's old house. It was bought by hoarders. There is stuff crammed onto the porch, and her beautiful garden is completely overgrown. To their credit, the current owners do a good job of watering.

And that's all there is to say for today. We really did it up. Now that my phone is charged, it's time to go to Safeway and do a big shop.