Home Again

I'm safely back from Curacao! I had a wonderful time, but it was a long day back, so more details will have to wait. But they'll be coming, I have so many pictures to share!

Hanging In There: State of Me

It's never easy to lose a beloved pet. I remember a scene from a book where the main character's pet has died, and someone says it's the worst thing about pets, "they never live long enough." Mom is missing Maggie too, which sometimes helps me (we commiserate about automatically looking behind our chairs before standing up) and sometimes doesn't (like when she mentions missing Maggie in a rare moment when I wasn't thinking of her).

I also have this lingering, throat-clearing-cough thing going on, and considering that I started getting over my cold on January 1, enough already! I did not want to have throat drops on my packing list for the trip at the end of February, but I have to have one within arm's reach at all times, so yeah, I'm bringing them with. Sigh.

My second bag...

I am still, somehow, doing my FIGs every day, though wow, on February 1, I had no idea that compassionate vet care was going to make the list. However, I realized in the first week that seeing friends was always going to make the list, and have made a point of going out, even if I'm not feeling like doing it, because I have a good time. Even Monday night, when I was so sad about Maggie, seeing my knitting friends and talking about everything but Maggie was a good distraction. 

Light fixture from dinner Tuesday night: 

Crystals formed in a Damp-Rid bag:

Weird, right?

The trip will be a good distraction too, I suppose, though it can be a struggle to feel the same level of excitement for it that I did before. Hopefully I will be able to spend a few days not thinking about her (or, more realistically, not thinking about her very often), but coming home to her not being here, not wondering how long she will punish me for being away before she gets on my lap, will hurt. Ah well, first-world problem to be saying that in regards to a trip to the Caribbean! I did some looking back, and it seems that the last time I went out of the country was to Canada in 2011 (PEI! Anne!), and before that, to England in 2008. A long time ago! But my passport is still good, so not impossibly long.

We leave before the crack of dawn on Sunday, and it's unlikely that I'll blog while I'm there, but I'll be back here eventually. Y'all behave.

Maggie

The cancer moved so fast. She was fine a month ago, and today it was time to say good-bye. She will be sorely missed.

Dropping Things, but Hey, Read!

I'm so wound up with worrying about Maggie (current situation is that we don't know yet, but it isn't looking good) that I'm dropping the ball in a lot of things in life right now. There are things I should be doing that I just don't, like when I noticed on Wednesday, just by chance, that I hadn't paid a credit card bill that was due today, and things I want to do but am not, like reading and commenting on blogs, and tasks that fall in between the two, like working on clearing out my email inbox. I'm mostly working, reading-reading-reading, and fretting, which manages to fill all my time and then some.

I did try to catch up on a few things yesterday, and came across a post from the other day where where Engie wrote about the ubiquitous READ posters that were always in the library and bookstores when I was a kid. I have a similar one, not from the American Library Association, but from the publisher when this book about the Muppets came out. I had to keep Kermit, and it's on the back of the door of my office even now.

A Small Thank You to Past Me

Years ago, I was on vacation and got too much sun on my back, resulting in itchy peeling. So I bought a back scratcher.

Fast-forward to today, and I use this thing all the damned time, so thank you, past me, for not putting enough sunscreen on your back on that beach day! Who knew it would be paying off all these years later.

Do you have anything to thank past you for?

Bad News. Not Sure Exactly How Bad Yet

I wanted to let y'all know about this, it felt like ignoring the elephant in the room otherwise, but this isn't something I can talk about much yet. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Maggie was looking very round in the middle, a very obvious change. I took her in to the vet last week, and from the X-rays it looked like something was going on, but they couldn't tell exactly what. There was some fluid, which they were able to sample for testing, and they took blood to test as well. 

Nothing obvious came back, so yesterday I took her in for an abdominal ultrasound. And, yeah, looks like it's some kind of carcinoma. They got some cells to test, and we should hear next week some time, what kind it is, and thus what the prognosis is, what treatment is available, all that. I'm trying not to freak out too much yet, but it's hard. My baby girl.

Truer Words, Etc.

You know, this is so me it should have my name on it:

Is it you, too?

Just Saying

On one of my posts recently, I don't even remember which one, there was a cartoon I wanted to add to the post but I couldn't find it online anywhere. I had a feeling that I had cut it out of the newspaper and put it on my fridge, before I moved, and while I might very well have it in a drawer somewhere, I had no idea where, so I went on without it.

And then a few days ago, it popped up in my FB memories! So here it is. A screenshot of a clipping. How high-tech I am.

My First F.I.G.

Elisabeth of the blog The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist is leading by example for a month of small gratitudes in February, calling it The F.I.G. Collective. The idea is to make a point on noticing at least one thing every day to be grateful for. I printed out her tracking sheet, and while I don't plan to blog it every day, I did want to kick the month off with my first.

Yesterday after my haircut, I was going to the grocery store to pick up coffee on sale and noticed some small tents set up in the park. It turned out to be the day of the monthly Art in the Park, and while there were only a dozen or 15 tents, I figured why not stop in and browse a little. 

Some days, the browsing is its own reward, but I actually bought a few things this time. First off, I saw this flock of wooden birds next to an artist's tent.

Ibis and egrets and flamingos, oh my!

They're so cute, but I don't have any yard I can stick them in. However, it turned out he had a few that stand, so I snagged an egret to take home. 

His name is Philbert (no, I don't know why, it just is). I also bought that pretty wood bowl, after having a nice chat with the artist. He had so many items of a wide range of wood types; it was a cool set-up. The grain is mesmerizing.

I may have a thing for wooden bowls...

We have Philbert up on a shelf, keeping an eye on things. He's a good bird.

My F.I.G. for today is having dinner with a friend, which I'm very happy about! Have you found any FIGs lately?

Beyond Anne of Green Gables

The comments on my post about LM Montgomery's The Blue Castle let me know that not everyone knows she wrote other books, and she did! So many of them! So I wanted to talk about some of my other favorites.

As I said, TBC is probably my very favorite. I read this one as a young adult, and immediately fell in love with Valancy, and out of love with her mostly horrible family, even though Valancy is an old maid at her advanced age of 29, not a child like Anne. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I loved Anne! I read all 8 books, many times, though along the way I weeded them out (I'm sure I kept the first one, but it isn't on the shelf with the other Montgomerys...I wonder where it's got to?). I was of a good age for the miniseries with Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst, as well. I'm not dissing Anne at all, just saying that I turned to it less often as I got older.

Here are the others I did keep, in addition to TBC:

A Tangled Web is another non-child-protag book, and is actually a book of many stories within an extensive clan. A lot happens, but it's definitely the story of the many characters, and highly amusing.

Emily, Jane, and Marigold are child protagonists, like Anne, and are similar and different. Of the three, Jane is probably my favorite, but I'm not getting rid of any of them. The paperbacks are copies I got when visiting the LM Montgomery Birthplace in PEI, which is where I learned about many of her books. 

Mom and I first visited PEI in 1985, and went back four or five times more. We saw Green Gables:

As well as other related sites. And so many beautiful red dirt roads.

It's lovely up there. 

Any LMM questions?

Ready for the CBBC, and a Very Cute Cat

I'm reading a book for a book club! I know, I have probably written before about how book clubs and I are not the greatest match. But in this case, Engie's Cool Bloggers Book Club (for which you do not have to be a blogger to participate), is reading The Blue Castle, which may just be my favorite of LM Montgomery's books. Yes, possibly above Anne of Green Gables! I probably read it for the first time in high school: I'm not sure I knew of it before Mom and I went to PEI, just before my senior year, and learned that there was more to the author than Anne.

And because it's such a favorite, I already own a copy, so I don't have to chase one down. It's not my childhood copy, but I love this physical copy specifically. It's an old ex-library copy:

Very old, in fact.

Apparently it was Nellie's book at some point from the print date of 1926 on, and was then given to the library in 1978.

I love an old library book, and this one just fits into my hand perfectly. I'm looking forward to the re-read, with my Blue Castle postcard as a bookmark.

And yes, the very cute cat in the title is Maggie. She has been particularly adorable recently. Enjoy!

A Few Words on Ebooks

I haven't crunched the numbers, so I don't have exact data, but I know that over the years, I have read more and more via ebooks*. I still read physical books, mostly from the library, and sometimes I purchase them too, once I know if I love the book enough (have to support those authors, you know). 
*Largely but not exclusively Kindle.

This (unknown) number went up last year, when I started using Libby and then Hoopla to get library books that way, especially when I figured out I could use Hoopla with the second library card I have, giving me a total of 30 borrows per month that way. 

Then last fall I signed up for a Kindle Unlimited trial (two months for $0.99 at the time), and liked it so much I'm going to keep it for a bit longer, at least. I can borrow 20 eligible books at a time, and while not all books are available that way, enough are that I'm roaring through them.

Which meant that I was reading an enjoyable-enough, but not fabulous book when I came across this:

And I'm largely the same. Because honestly, at this point when I request a physical book from the library, by the time it comes in, I've forgotten what grabbed me about it, or I'm not in the same mood...Who knew I was such a reader of impulse? Are you?

Meetings and More Meetings

If they don't stop having "kick-off" meetings at work this month, I'm going to start kicking things.

The good news is that they did switch the meeting originally set for 4 on Friday to 10am instead. The less-great news is that puts it right after the other kickoff meeting at 9, but I'd rather have two hours in a row than anything at 4, so oh well.

We had another meeting that I absolutely did not need to be in this morning (which was originally Thursday, then Tuesday? I don't know), but the few pieces of good news were:

1. It wasn't run by a cameras-on person.
2. He actually did keep it to the promised hour, despite the ambitious agenda.
3. I figured out how to switch the sound source on the new laptop so that the volume was not way too loud when set at the very lowest level. I don't understand the setup at all, but at least I felt less like I was being shouted at. (Apparently one of the (many) ways in which I am a delicate flower is in volume control.)

On the down side, though, in addition to the two meetings on Friday, we got invited to another one, for next Wednesday. Which brings us to 6 kick-off meetings, totaling 7 hours. And so far, not one bit of it has any real relevance to my actual job.

I suppose I should be glad that the rest of the year isn't like this, for me. Just because I can knit through them doesn't make them not annoying. (It does make them less annoying...)

That Sinking Feeling---Literally, but also figuratively

Yeah, I need a new office chair. Mine is only a few years old, but it's started sinking now and then, which I really don't appreciate, so clearly I need to put a little more money into a better one, that will hopefully hold up to the use. Is that a vain hope? Who knows. 

It actually started doing this at least a month ago, but it seems to be getting worse. I will say that it is mightily unnerving to be sitting, concentrating on work, and feel it sink down an inch, out of the blue.

Meanwhile, speaking of work, it's January, and the company likes to have "kick-off" meetings to start the new year.

So. Many. Meetings.

Last week, we had an hour-long CEO kickoff on Thursday, and a two-hour-long kickoff for the healthcare division (two hours over lunchtime, by the way, and cameras on, people, everyone turn your cameras on).

This week, we have an hour for strategic intelligence kickoff on Thursday, and an hour for people and culture kickoff Friday morning, and then today they sent an invite for a pharma kickoff---another hour, on Friday at 4.

Friday. At four. Before the long weekend.

Seriously, what the hell are they thinking? Even setting aside that absolutely none of this has anything to do with my job, what the hell? 

Plotting and Planning: Six Weeks Out

As I knew it would when the time got closer, my trip at the end of February is starting to feel real. We leave six weeks from Sunday, and I've been doing things both more and less practical:

• choosing outfits, which isn't done yet but I started
• ordering things like travel-size toiletries and a universal converter/plug (of course I went with what Kyria recommended: thanks, Kyria!)
• buying a new roller carry-on bag; my old one is pretty rickety, so I got a new one in a pattern that I don't love, but will stand out among the black ones that so many people have:

• And, finally, deciding on a travel knitting project

Yes, my current knitting project is near enough to the end that I need to bring something else! I started the edging today. Which, since none of my current projects feels like being at the right point, means I need to make plans!

Back in 2019, I made a not-a-shawl project, named Across the Waters, and as I really like wearing it, I've been thinking about making another one. I decided that now is the time, and stash-dove for some yarn.

So, that's something! I'll wind the yarn and start it off before the trip, but since I've made it before, it ought to be straightforward enough, knock on wood.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

Now that I have finally mailed my holiday cards, I can share with you!

Front:

And back:

May 2025 be good to us all.

On Again, Off Again

The week before Christmas, I worked four days, then was off four days for my trip.

Worked a day, off a day (Christmas).

Worked two days, off two days, then I'll work two days, be off a day (New Year's), work two days, and off two days. 

What I'm saying is that the first full week in January is going to be a shock.

I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, but I'm hoping to write about my trip soon. Other than the weather, it was a great trip!

Merry Christmas

If that's your thing, merry Christmas! If not, well, I hope you're having a good Wednesday. Happy today to you.

This is where I would usually put up my Christmas card, but as I haven't sent a single one out yet, I think I will post it on the twelfth day of Christmas instead. Hopefully I will have them sent by then!

(I'm cheating, this is my friend's tree. But I did take the picture!)

Home

I got home safely last night, after a very fun and totally effing freezing trip, and eleven minutes after I walked through the door, I had a lap cat:

More to come.

Thanks for the Recommendation

Someone wrote about the magic of packing with compression cubes, and I decided to give them a try, but this is the first trip where I've used them. Magic! Who do I have to thank for this knowledge?

My winter coat is the kind that compresses down to pack into a pocket, which is great, but it's slippery, and though there's a drawstring to the pocket, it doesn't have a clip or anything, so although it's easy to squeeze the air out and get it into the pocket, it starts trying to decompress right away. Not without a fight, I managed to stuff it into this cube:

But I wasn't sure it would want to compress more. Turns out that, though it was a struggle to get all the air out of it, when I did, it was a much smaller, tidier package:

Isn't that magic? I'm off to use the other cubes for the rest of my packing. Time to get to it! I leave tomorrow, and it looks like I may never take my coat off: