Winter, Cats, Duck Feet

So I worked from home today, while it snowed.

This snow is not to be confused with the snow last Thursday/Friday, during which I also worked from home, or the snow Saturday, which of course did not interfere with work, as well as the snow the Wednesday/Thursday before, and then the snow before that, two storms in two successive weeks I think, that made me beg them to give me a laptop, and there may have been some more in there that I'm forgetting; it's blurring together at this point. In other words, global warming can come any time.*
*I know, I know, but they need to stop calling it that. Just say "climate change" and it won't tick me off so much.

George continues to have his ups and downs, with Carlos as well as with me. After I was done working, I sat on the couch and he marched onto my lap, draped himself along my arm, put his head against my bicep, and fell asleep. I looked at him and marveled that this was the same cat who came chirping up to me this morning, rubbing against my legs, then grabbed my leg and bit it. He's Jekyll and Hyde, this one.

As for Carlos, he still isn't a fan, but at times he is surprisingly accepting of his fate. This was yesterday:

That Cat is in His Window, and all it elicits is the Ears of Annoyance. Not bad.

It was probably a good thing that I worked from home today, as I opened the file I saved from Friday to find that something had gone wrong with it, as things often do with their stupid worm-ridden templated documents. All the section numbers had vanished, plus in at least one section, the bullet points had been replaced by strings of Chinese* characters. I was able to let the violent language out, which was sort of satisfying. Then I spent half the morning trying to figure out what corrections I had made on Friday that needed to be copied into Thursday's saved version (because yes, this happens often enough that I rename a copy of the file very day, so I won't lose more than a day's work). That felt useful and productive. It was a great day. /sarcasm.
*Or some Asian alphabet, I don't know for sure it's Chinese. That part's irrelevant.

I did half-listen to some of the hockey games today; the US and Canada were off while the other teams sorted themselves out. The Russians advanced, so no one is being taken off to the gulag yet*. In the Krejci versus Chara battle, aka Czech Republic versus Slovakia, Krejci won, scoring the first Bruin goal of the Games, and Chara gets a week of rest before the NHL resumes (which, as a Bruins fan, I can't be too sorry about). Tomorrow, it's US versus Krejci.
*I'm only kind of joking. The Russians have said that if they only get one gold medal in these Games, if it's the hockey, that's okay. I'm kind of worried about what will happen to them if they lose.

After George vacated my lap tonight (moving to the floor first, then the window:

Isn't he cute? He relaxes so thoroughly that earlier today, he relaxed right off the couch, and I laughed so hard it kind of hurt), I picked up a knitting pattern that thwarted me last week, and started again, grimly determined to figure it out. My friend who's pregnant had the baby today, and while I did make a couple of hats, I really wanted to make these adorable duck booties, but the cast-on is, well, we won't say difficult, we'll say, fiddly. Like Guinness Book-level fiddly. (Aside: did everyone but me know that Guinness Book of World Records and Guinness Brewery are the same Guinness? I was so surprised by that; it seems obvious in retrospect, but it just never occurred to me.)  It doesn't help that I don't have a lot of experience with the magic loop method, but sometimes something that I don't "get" seems impossible until I figure out the why or the how or the logistics, or whatever I'm missing.

With the help of this blog post, and some messing about, I finally got the light-bulb moment I needed, and I believe I'm on my way. Off to keep on and see if I have actually figured it out, or am about to face-plant like an off-balance ski-jumper. To use a timely metaphor.