Yarn Bandit Strikes Again

Can't a girl even go to the bathroom around here without securing all knitting items?


Why?

Honestly, Why? Does anyone out there have an answer for me?

His Brains are in his Nose

This is Matilda:

In my family, all vacuum cleaners are Matilda. This version of Matilda makes the usual sort of noise when she is on. The Boys, like many dogs, are not terribly fond of her, especially when she's making noise. Tiki responds by scurrying around a little, and then leaving the room. That seems pretty sensible to me.

Kirby responds by running to the one person who can save him from all evils: Dirtbunny. But what if Bunny is the one running Matilda? What then?

Close your eyes and try to picture what this looks like. Go on, take a moment, then come back.

Did you see a silly, frantic beagle running to Bunny, then away from Bunny, then to, then from, and back and forth and back and forth? Did you see a silly, frantic beagle getting so confused about what to do that he ends up getting his feet tangled up in Matilda's nose? Did you see him wait until Matilda went silent and then and only then fleeing to his hidey-hole after the danger had passed?

This ridiculous little guy was not only a stray who survived in the wild, he was the strong and brave member of his little pack of stray beagles, not that anyone could possibly guess from seeing him without his even more neurotic sidekick, Nike. Fellow humans, it is my belief that our secret doorknob and can-opener technology is safe.

Nike, by the way, was rescued at the same time as Kirby, and has been adopted and is living happily ever after.

Not a good day

Once a week, I run an anti-virus scan. Sometimes, this is a problem. I don't know why, but once in a while, it won't run on the laptop when the desktop downstairs is in use, and sometimes I can't do anything online on the laptop if the scan is running on the desktop. This is a little inconvenient, but I've always been able to deal. But now, I have had to abort six attempts on the laptop over two days. This morning, I got all the way up to 540,000 files before it got stuck. I am convinced that this means there is something horrible on my laptop that is lurking behind the scenes, waiting to steal my data or keep me from playing spider solitaire. I won't feel right until I get it to run properly.

Plus, I paid the bills and balanced the checkbook today. It's a holiday. I'm supposed to be doing something fun or at least restful. But no. I got waist deep into my financial life. It's cold in there, and the bottom is all slimy.

I have an awesome hat. It's green, with multicolored flecks. It has ear flaps, tassels, and a giant pom pom. The only thing it's missing is a noise maker of some sort. But it doesn't fit. I have been meaning to rework it, but have been afraid to undo all that finishing. Then it occurred to me: if I take off the pom pom, I can just unravel it from the top without disturbing the ear flaps or tassels. So I did. I have 117 stitches, and now I have to figure out how to make it smaller. That means looking this hat up in my knitting journal to see what gauge and needle size I had last time, then doing some math. Again with the holiday-I'm-supposed-to-be-having-fun.

Kirby is all depressed and clingy and he's constantly underfoot. My back is sore, so I need to be careful about bending, twisting, and reaching. The thing is, if he's between me and the light switch, I have to stretch and reach to turn off the light, and that hurts. He's also trying to trip me. I'm not sure whether he wants to commit suicide, or if he wants me dead. I've been able to avoid a major fall (me) and a major stomping/kicking (him), but if this keeps up, I'm going to have to choose between Kirby and severe pain. Last night I dropped a kitchen knife and I was sure he was done for (but he was safe).

I have decided to blame my parents for this. It's their fault I don't know how to be still and relax. So there!

Hmm. That did not make me feel better.

More on Birthdays

I've had a lot of bad birthdays.

• There was the year my brother knocked my birthday cake off the counter. Mom dusted off the chunks and plopped them on a plate. No sense trying to frost it.
• There was the year I caught my hair on fire trying to blow out birthday candles. I discovered my hair was on fire when my father started beating me upside the head for no reason I could imagine. What the.....? My hair recovered.
• There was the year I did not take the day off work and a crazy person called me and blessed me out based on bullshit and it later became another instance in which I got sued for doing my job.
• There was the year The Man went to teach at PBU at the last minute and I was alone.
• There was the year The Man utterly and completely forgot my birthday and I didn't even get a card from my parents until the next day.

But this year is a good birthday. This is what I had for breakfast:



Fresh homemade cinnamon rolls. OK, leftover from Christmas and carefully preserved in the freezer since then, but they were warm and delicious. Plus,

• I am NOT at work, and am probably not going to get sued for anything that happens today. Probably.
• I hit the clearance racks at the mall and got three pairs of pants, a shirt, and some unmentionables for eighty bucks.
• Because the teens and tweens are in school, it was safe to go to Sephora and I got some new eye pencils.
• I went to Glutton Place and bought myself some chocolates and something good for dinner and a birthday cake and some overpriced french butter cookies because I liked the tin.
• Unbeknownst to me, The Man had already procured a birthday cake for me yesterday through deceit and trickery. This means I have a chocolate birthday cake and an emergency back-up chocolate birthday cake.

But best of all, I have birthday snow.

Hee hee hee hee. I can't stop looking out the window and giggling. Hee hee. Here's our street when I left to go out:

And here's the yard now:

Hee hee hee hee.

That's it for today people. I have some yarn to play with, and some beagles to cuddle, and a fire to enjoy, and a bottle of champagne with my name and age on it.

Birthdays

This week marks the one-year anniversary of Tiki's adoption. He refused to pose nicely with his hat on his actual "birthday,"

because the hat was so delectably chewable, so I waited until he was asleep in the sun and tricked him:

Awwwwwww.

He's a good boy most of the time, and that more than makes up for times when he's naughty. Most of his naughtiness is shamefully cute anyway, but don't tell him because we don't want to encourage it. Everywhere we go, everyone remarks on what a sweetie he is. Even the vet tech, who sees who knows how many cute doggies every day, gives him a little cuddle and calls him a big bundle of cuteness. And so he is.

At Christmas time, The Boys and I visited the old folks in the south, and The Man made a side trip to see his people. We were out in the garden when The Man came back. Tiki saw and heard the Volvo drive up, and he ran to the gate. Was it? IT WAS! THE MAN WAS BACK! HOORAY! He barked and barked. Here I am! Here I am! One of The Man's unfortunate tendencies is cluelessness, so it took him a good 5-10 minutes (despite my extraordinary efforts) to make it out back. Tiki kept a vigil the entire time:

AWWWWWWWWWW!

He is so friendly that we wonder sometimes whether he would be happy living with any family that treated him nicely. I consider that photo--Tiki waiting for The Man, whom he has barely glimpsed through the woods from 50-100 yards away--to be proof that he loves us.

We love him too.

Where has Bunny been?

A fair question and one that’s hard to answer. I’ve discarded several posts on this already because I can’t seem to get it right. I can’t find the proper balance between disclosure and discretion. But, I’ve been asked, so here goes.

It’s the new year, and my birthday is tomorrow, and those events lead into an introspective what am I doing with my life sort of mindset. I’ve been competing for a promotion at work for about three years. I’m a strong candidate, but not the only strong candidate, and I truly do not know how it is going to work out.


I also have had a work disagreement over a legal issue. This is not uncommon among lawyers. (For that matter, it is not uncommon for lawyers to say “not uncommon” when any normal person would say “common.” But I digress.) In the course of that, I made the painful and shocking discovery that someone I greatly admire and respect, and who I thought respected me and my work, apparently does not hold me in the esteem I imagined.


There’s more—a lot more—but I really don’t want to do a long boring work rant. In short, recent events at work have evoked very strong feelings and I’ve been preoccupied and since I haven’t been able to think of anything appropriate to say, I haven’t said anything.

This weekend, I made the difficult decision to withdraw from competition for the promotion. I would have been great at that job. I have been great at that job (part of the competition process has been extended try-outs). But the higher-ups recently decided to extend the competition again, and the cost of competing for so long was too high for me.

No regrets. I feel as though I’m off probation for the first time in three years. I am more relaxed, I stopped having anxiety attacks as soon as I communicated my decision, and I am no longer vomiting every morning before work. I am starting to feel like myself.





P.S. I haven’t smoked a death stick in three weeks. How’s that for managing my feelings more constructively?