How many of me are there?

This is pretty cool, I think.

I read about this on another blog, this website where you can see just exactly how popular your name is (in the US, anyway).

Of course, I had to try it myself.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 5 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

For my first name, there are over 125,000 in the US (and over half a million of the more common spelling variant; if you know me IRL, you know what I mean). And over 99% percent of us are female, how ... comforting? Or something.

Let me know, if you try it, how close to unique your name is!

Some days

Some days have more ups and downs than others. Today had some down downs, but in the end, laughter is the thing.


more animals

Apples and fires (waterfires)

This morning, I was resigned to Autumn. I went apple-picking yesterday, we made apple crisp (mmm-mmm!), and we smelled the wood fires on a cool evening. It is Autumn. I was at peace.

You should have seen my face this afternoon when I left the house and found it was 80 degrees out. Oh, New England, you tease!

Yesterday was a lot of fun, even before I saw this bumper sticker:


It was a beautiful Fall day, and the apples were ready:


Some of them have clearly been getting up to no good, though:


Even the small fry were having fun.


(This isn't someone I was there with; I felt okay with posting an unidentifiable photo of someone else's kid.)

Before you start picking, a peck doesn't seem like a lot of apples. As you're carrying them, it comes to feel that way.


And when you get them home, you're sure. A Lot of Apples. I have applesauce bubbling on the stove, which smells marvelous. I'll be making more before too long, given how many apples are still left. (I'm not complaining.) Yes, it was a lovely day.


I went shopping for a while between apples and evening plans. Didn't get anything exciting*, but I was pleased to find that the outlet mall has a Merrell store. When my feet are fully recovered*, that will be good to have.

*Although, if you are near a Harry & David and you like caramel corn, may I recommend the fat free caramel toffee version of the Moose Munch? It's not cheap, but you won't regret it. At all.

**The blisters are a lot better. I wear shoes! But those last two spots are not 100% yet, and as I learned, trying on shoes is inadvisable until they are. Nothing feels right.

Do you recognize these? There was a whole tree of them, looking like exploding raspberries. Fascinating.


After dinner, we went into Providence for WaterFire. It was very autumnal fun, and I took many blurry photos. A few are reasonably clear.




I hadn't looked at the website before finding it to link to, and I am greatly amused that they call it not a festival, not a party, but a sculpture. Riiiight.

I was taking some Pan pictures recently, since he was looking especially fuzzy in the sun:


When I turned my head, there was another country heard from:

Did you know you have two cats?

Poor Harold. He gets no respect.

Time and past to talk about hockey

I can't let the start of training camp pass without delving into the subject of my Bruins at least a little bit, no matter how much job searching and feline health worrying may take my time. The Bruins are back! Hockey is back! It's the best thing about summer ending.

And it all starts with great news: Patrice Bergeron is all better. He'll be able to play, no health concerns or restrictions at all. It will be so great to see my favorite (current) Bruin, uninjured, out there again, just like he's meant to be.

Now, I'll admit, I'm not as thrilled with every piece of news so far. Like the fact that their opening game, which they kindly play on my actual birthday, starts at 10pm? Not thrilled. Stupid circus in town and the stupid circus road trip, every single year they mess with my long-summer, hockey-deprived mind. But overall, I'm happy. I may even go watch some of training camp, depending on how things go on Monday. It's always fun to see, and especially hear, hockey again.

One more good thing about the end of summer? Going apple picking. Yeah. Tomorrow. Yum. Fun.

Feline Update

Harold is sorry to report that his campaign for all my attention, all the time, now that I'm home more, is still not achieving full success. He is a little depressed about this.

Hasn't she heard that I'm an important cat?

Someone else was not ready for his close-up.

Mom! No flash! It hurts my sensitive little eyes! Have some respect.

In job-searching news, I had a phone interview* today which went well, and led to an appointment to see them in person on Monday. And tomorrow I have an interview for another job. Encouraging!

*While I was thinking about the nature of phone interviews as related to in-person interviews, I was reminded of a hockey saying: "You can't win a game in the first period, but you can lose it in the first period."

The view from Harold

No ... no lap?

What do you mean ... no lap?

But, I want lap!

"Ten times in one day is enough"?
What does that mean?
I want lap!

Various updates (how descriptive)

Pan update: he seems to be a little better, thank deity of choice. He's not quite as distant as he had been being. Yesterday he came and sat on my lap, and again this morning, and it was simply lovely. It's less than a week since he lapped, but it felt like longer. I also saw him eating, which was a relief, and he's eaten his pills, if not eagerly, at least willingly, several times since yesterday. (I went out and bought a pill shooter, so of course he started taking the pills again: natural feline perversity.) We may not be out of the woods, but at least they're thinning for now, and I'll take it.

In other news, I think I've solved my upcoming dilemma, to wit: I have an interview on Friday, and I still can't comfortably wear shoes. I know, it's almost two weeks since the Bad Shoe Incident, but I haven't been able to walk normally in shoes yet. There has been improvement, most of the little blisters are gone or almost so, but the two worst ones, the ones toward my heels, just don't do well with any pressure. Socks, yes, flip-flops yes; shoes make me hobble.

Enter the solution:


I had some time to kill and wandered into Marshall's (discount clothing chain store), and just look what I found. Fairly comfortable (miles better that the ones from the Incident), and no backs:


I actually wore them most of today, and the results were very positive. I do need to adjust to the height, since most of my shoes are flats, but there's virtually no soreness, yay. And, I like them!

And thank heavens for a bright thing, since my day included the dentist and a full set of x-rays (gag x 24), and voting in the local primary (civic-minded but dull) and really just job search and blah. And, I've gotten so much done on my second sea sock, in just a week, but I'm wondering if I need to rip out the heel and do it again, since it seems ... excessively roomy.


I can't face it tonight. We'll see.

One final shot, from the town event I went to this weekend. They had a pie-throwing booth, and look at the target:


Welcome to Boston.

Worries

For the last few days, I've been more worried than usual about Pan. He's seemed a little less engaged than he was. Who would have thought I would miss the nagging to "sit down already so I can sleep on your lap"? He's not completely retreating: he'll sit near me, on the back of the couch or on the bed, and be purring, but it isn't the same. I woke last night and found him curled up with me, entwined, and was so happy, but today he's back to looking at me from a distance.

He's also stopped wanting to eat the Pill Pockets, which means I have to pop the pills in for him, and he doesn't fight it much but I still hate doing it. When he started doing this, I wondered if the last of the PPs were getting stale, but after the first one of the new package, he still doesn't want them. It's so worrying. I see him drinking water, and using the box, and getting in the shower to lick the walls (does that count as drinking, recreation, or both?), but I realized yesterday, I think it was, that I haven't noticed him eating recently. I'm sure he has (right?), just that I haven't noticed him doing it, but more worry. Today, I offered him some wet food as a treat (the boys are dry-only, always have been), and he sniffed it and looked at me like, so what? Harold came along later and was happy to have some.

For that matter, Harold has been extra-lappy over the last week or so. Weird coincidence. Thank heavens he sleeps a lot, because when he's awake he keeps coming to see if what I'm doing goes with having him on my lap. It's like he's lapping for two, so to speak. Weirder and weirder.

This isn't a story with a conclusion. There's no, "and then..." It's just me, worrying.

An Evening with Franklin

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get any great photos of Franklin last night, and it wasn't even the intimidation factor of snapping pictures of a really good photographer. The issue was primarily that without the flash, there was blurry, and with the flash, the lighting looked decidedly odd. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Now, I grant you, at the Stata Center, it's not at all unlikely that the lighting would be odd. I mean, have you seen this building?


At least, if the lighting wasn't weird, it would be one of the few non-odd things about the surroundings--but in fact I was there, and the lighting was not noticeably weird. The chairs were a little close together for comfortable knitting (elbows, you know), but of course everyone* managed anyway, and the lighting was sufficient, and certainly better than the Yarn Harlot at the Calvin, so I guess MIT wins this round.

*Not literally everyone was knitting, although most were. A woman in the row behind me was quilting. I got to the heel on my second sea sock.

There were a few technical difficulties to delay the start, but of course a group of knitters can pass the time quite well, and there was a lot of project-gawping and love-your-sweatering and can-I-touch-your-yarn going on (that's the knitters handshake, after all). I had brought a scarf, since yesterday was chilly, and since it hasn't been scarf weather in so long, I'd forgotten how the Ruffles scarf is interesting to a knitting crowd. (I wore it to the Knit Out a couple of years ago when I was making it.) It was fun.

My favorite shot is this one, which is blurry, but not so blurry as to be immediately discarded. (After all, this is just a casual blog synopsis, not a professional review.) He was getting things set up, and looked up just as I took the photo.


He probably wasn't looking at me and wondering how he had ended up in a room full of strangers who wanted to take his picture ... but maybe he was.

He had a whole presentation, starting with this cartoon (from the book, of course):


I thought he was a good speaker, and not as nervous as I would have been if I was invited to speak in front of "probably about ten people" and had to face a hundred or so.


He talked about how he got started knitting, and about how the 1,000 Knitters Project came about, and how it's going (in short: well, very well). I particularly enjoyed the story of Debbie New* being actually unable to work on anything as simple as a row of 22 stitches of plain knitting.

*Non-knitters note: Debbie New is a knitting celebrity**. She knit a lace coracle (a boat) that actually floats. She knit a kaleidoscope. I think that she could knit anything, literally.

**Franklin noted that muggles (non-knitters) are often baffled by the use of the term "knitting celebrities"***. His impression of a bass fishing fan mocking the idea, and then recognizing "Bubba McSomething" on a fishing show, was hilarious.

***I saw Stitchy McYarnpants, still working on the crochet-edged beer cans for her friend's drag contest costume, and Jess from Ravelry, and a few other people I recognized.

When he talked about the 1,000 Knitters, he brought out the scarf:


... then bowled it down the center aisle.


Rolling it back up, he talked about certain notable parts of the almost-finished object (bobbles, a hole, etcetera; I don't want to spoil the story). And no, he hasn't measured how long it is.


Franklin's sister came down from Maine for the event, and brought the fabulous shawl he made for Abigail, the one that caused the largest amount of drool in keyboards of 2007 (you remember, right? that wasn't just me?). It was amazing to see it in person. What gorgeous work. The man can knit!


My overall favorite thing he said was when he called knitting, "the most beautiful form of procrastination". I need that on a t-shirt, okay? Someone? Thanks.

I'd only seen the Stata from the outside before. It's equally, ah, interesting from the inside.

A skylight showed the rain I could have done without.


The room we were in had such an interesting ceiling. Maybe I hang around too many knitters, but I couldn't help wondering if something unexpected happened during construction, and the person in charge said, "Make it look like a star and call it a design element!"


Through one window and across to ... a greenhouse? Or something?


The question mark at the info desk is a great idea (and directional marker), even if yes, it looks like it was Photoshopped in.


From the other side, though, it makes me say ¿Que?


Next time, perhaps I will try to hang upside down from above, to get it that way. It's good to have goals.

On the way out, we saw this sign:


And looked up:


Lovely, yes? Although perhaps a bit more moth than butterfly. Still, I like it.

A dilemma, a review, and a photo

I'm going out tonight, and rain is coming into the area, which gives me a dilemma. I've been sticking with the flip-flops, even as the weather has gotten chillier, because shoes and the blisters are still not a happy combination. The blisters are improving, really, but they're not healed yet, particularly the heel ones. The blister-specific bandages are helping, but... yeah. We're not quite there.

When I got ready to go out this morning, I tried a couple of different pairs of shoes before resigning myself to the flip-flops again*. I'll have to walk a little bit tonight, and slipping on wet flip-flops sounds as unappealing as wearing shoes that rub the blisters. What to do, what to do.

*I was actually sitting on my couch, weighing the options: pain or cold? pain or cold?

So where am I going tonight? To see Franklin speak. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Should be fun!

Before I leave you today though, two things. First, I read a good book recently and I want to tell you about it before it goes back to the library. It's called My Husband's Sweethearts, by Bridget Asher, and I was fascinated by the premise:

Faced with the imminent death of her charming, cheating and estranged husband Artie, Lucy Shoreman decides to call the names in his little black book and invite the ladies to his Philadelphia home to say a final farewell.

And I felt it lived up to that interest. There was one denouement that didn't shock me, but it was handled well and I didn't feel cheated or anything by it. Good idea, well-written, very enjoyable. Check it out!

And the second thing is a photo I forgot to add yesterday, from the farmer's market. Fishermen speak of the one that got away; I write about the item I didn't buy.


Did you know that sprouts grow on little Christmas trees? Neither did I! Learn something new every day.

The brighter side of being unemployed.

Well, hey, who am I kidding, if the pesky money issue wasn't there, I'd love to not work. I'm not one of these people who, upon winning millions in the lottery, keeps their job down at the plant.

But specifically, being out of work right now means that I can finally go to the local farmers market, which has always irked me by being during the day. Although fall weather is coming, it's still pleasant, and I walked into town to see what they had. It's a small market, but I found a few things:


For seven dollars, I think I made out. Don't you love those carrots?


He said he planted them too close together. Carrot love!

I passed a nice garden on the way. If you look closely, you can see tomatoes among the flowers:


And cucumbers climbing onto the porch. Nice!


This bush had to be ten feet tall.


And the flowers were beautiful.


I went up to my former place of employment yesterday and had lunch with a few people, then visited my little garden plot once more. There were still a few tomatoes, and a bunch of green beans (past peak, most of them).





And I picked basil, catnip, and mint (because it was there).


Now I'm off, for my second night of twin-sitting this week. The other night was fun, but whew! Thirteen-month-old twins negate the need for a gym membership. Fortunately, dinner, play, and bed was followed by several hours knitting and reading on the couch. I needed to recover! It was fun, but they move so fast I didn't even get any pictures!