When my wallet turned up, and we were tossing the newly-cancelled credit cards, Andrew and I realized that we had at least 20 free movie passes between the two of us. I had an AMC gift card that I got as a Christmas gift in 2005. I think between then and now, we used it once. I also have a discount move pass to my favorite independent theater, which was a Christmas gift in 2006, but we recharged recently.

I don't normally go to movies for a few reasons:

(1) Expensive. I think it's unreal to pay $15 to see a movie when you can buy it on DVD for the same price and watch it alone. I work during the day, and frankly, I'm inconvenienced by having to schedule my life around matinee pricing.

(Matinee pricing, in my opinion, is one of those things that keeps the rich wealthy. I have a whole spiel about the rich getting more for their money.)

(2) Other people. If I go to a movie, I don't want to hear you talking on your cell phone. I don't want to smell you. I especially don't want you kicking my chair, or chewing your popcorn loudly.

(3) Other people's children. I like well-behaved children, but you only notice the ill-behaved ones in public. You know why? Because well-behaved children don't scream at inappropriate times to get Mom's attention.  So, if I notice your kids in the theater, you're going on my list.

In any case, Andrew asked me out on a date, and we made plans to see the first showing on Sunday of "Dan in Real Life". I would like to say that I think Steve Carell is a red-hot smokin' fox. I loved him in "Little Miss Sunshine" and he has that same genuine, heart wrenching earnestness in "Dan in Real Life".  I don't normally like movies like this, but I found it to be honest, heartfelt, and incredibly moving. You could say I liked this movie.

It wasn't a sobfest- quite the opposite, actually. There were scenes where I laughed so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. My favorite scene has to be where Dane Cook and Norbert Leo Butz are singing about Ruthie "Pigface" Draper. See it here:

[WARNING: This blog post is about dog health. If you’re squeamish, skip this post.]

Sunday was a hard day. I got up on the early side, and Linda and I started to make brunch plans. Niki was running around, being his normal self, and I caught a glimpse of something in his butt fur.

I took a closer look, and it was blood. I woke Andrew, called the emergency vet, and collected a sample of bloody diarrhea from the backyard. I checked Elphie, but she was all clear, so off we went to the emergency vet.

The emergency vet is not a good place to be, ever, and that’s really frightening. Especially when you’re holding a bag of bloody dog poop.

Niki was really good with the vet, who suggested that the bleeding may have been caused by stress, or trying too hard to poop. You know, straining. We were sent home with instructions to keep an eye on him and bring him back if he got worse. We felt much better.

This whole time, Niki is his usual self. No fatigue, no change in behavior, NOTHING. That was the most unnerving thing.

An hour later, there was significantly more blood. Back we went to the emergency vet, where they ran a bunch of tests on his poop and his blood. The first good news that they rushed to tell us was that there was no problem with his coagulation (woo!).  Next, the vet came out and gave us a list of what could be the cause of the bleeding.

The list included:

-Hemorrhagic GastroEnteritis (possibly caused by bacteria)
-Colitis
-A parasite

She also mentioned that the bacteria could have come from pig's ears, and the top two could be caused and/or aggrivated by stress.

Strangely enough, the treatment for all three was antibiotics. We’ve already seen an improvement in how much blood there is in his stool, and it also appears to be firming up.

See how comfy everyone is? They had to be- to get to Sacramento, it’s a 2 ½ hour drive each way.

You might wonder why we would choose Sacramento- I would, too. Franklin Habit was there doing a shoot for his 1000 Knitters project. How cool is that?! The Minions were all good sports, and the ride up and back went as smoothly as anything could. (Well, it could have been a smoother ride. Colleen may have caught some air after we hit some of the bumps on the freeway.)

We got to Sacramento around noon, found the building where the shoot was scheduled at and went and had lunch at a terrific Mexican restaurant. Not only was the food great, but you could order ceviche by the POUND. I did. It was glorious. Then, by some act of evil Minionage, this happened.

Sombreros. Singing. Startling. When I find out who did this, there will be a proportionate response.

We went to the shoot, and Franklin charmed each and every one of us. I didn’t know that most of the Minions don’t like to be photographed, but evidently, he managed to immediately put everyone at ease. As always, we have a shot of the Minions with Franklin, and Franklin with my sock.

I have to admit, I was completely uncool. I was so star-struck that my brain just froze. Franklin asked what the yarn was, and my brain went BLANK. I stammered. I don’t STAMMER!

I looked at the yarn, and I started talking. “She has a ‘C’ name… She does that wonderful silk…”

Finally, Mom saved me with “Claudia?”

“Yes! Claudia!”

Ok, I can remember where, when, and how much I paid for yarn. I can usually tell you the yardage from memory. I may not know what today’s date is, but I KNOW my yarn!

All-in-all, it was a pretty terrific 25^th birthday celebration.

[Here is a shot Rachel got of me during the 1000 Knitters shoot:]

I am a terrible blogger. I let work get in the way of the blog. But, until this blog turns into a book deal, off to work I go. Part of what keeps me from blogging is lack of photos.

Until about a year and a half ago, this was a text-only blog. BO-ring! I find that I like reading blogs that have pictures better, and I don’t want poorly lit, blurry pictures. I try to keep my photo quality high; I do decent work, and I want it to be an accurate representation online. Some of you readers don’t see me in person, so what’s the use of posting a crappy picture?

I normally try to take pictures when the light is good, which is increasingly challenging as the days become shorter. Still, I do my best.

I’ve begun plying “Wild Thing”, which is now 75% superwash merino, 25% silk (for you who don’t like math, that’s 3 plies of the Crown Mountain, one of the Susan’s Spinning Bunny Silk). It’s a light fingering weight, which just means that I need to chill out when I’m spinning.

I’m still fixated on lace, but one of my projects is making me want to rip out my hair. I’m not going to go into detail, but how can SUCH a simple lace pattern require so much brainpower?! I have 8 repeats to go, plus edging. This is totally do-able. I just have to do it.

I was the lucky recipient of an Alison (yes, that Alison!) shawl. I think the yarn is Lisa Souza’s superwash, in Valentine. The pattern is “Bigfoot”, which is on my list of things to start. Photos of the shawl are pending. When I showed Mom the shawl I said, “MINE. You have your own Alison shawl.”

I’ve been working on the Argyle 2 socks, which bleed like a mofo and turn my hands blue, but I’m down to the heel on #2, so those are almost done. A guy at the chiropractor’s office commented on it.

“Wow, you’d think you came to the chiropractor to knit,” he says, looking at my sock. Yeah, we’d been waiting for maybe 15 minutes.

“It keeps me patient,” I say, “This whole sock has been knit while I’ve been waiting in different places.”

He looks at the sock, and huffs at the tangibility of (what I like to call) “line-time”. (“Line-time” is like the space-time continuum, but different. It’s full of physics.)

“There’s no getting around waiting; at the end I’ll have a pair of socks,” I said, feeling very Zen about the whole thing.

A few hours later, the earth shook below our feet (5.6!), and I learned that instant messenger won’t crash when everyone is on it, but the phones will. After trying to get in touch with people by phone for an hour, I assumed my friends and loved ones were fine, and went back to watching TV and plying.

I’m all heart, I know.

So, this last week or so has been pretty long. I don’t like to use the blog as a complaint forum (Hello? That’s why I have a knitting group!), so I apologize if this sounds like a litany of woes.

Saturday (10/13) we attended a 75^th birthday party for Andrew’s uncle. We drove all the way to Grass Valley, and stopped at two incredibly underwhelming yarn shops. In Sacramento, we went to Rumplestilskin, where I bought an out-of-print book. That was it. They had some boring yarn and disappointing roving. The up side was that Andrew got a good look at what a Saxony-style wheel looks like, and I think my next wheel will be a pretty Saxony.

In Grass Valley, we went to a very “stylized” yarn shop, where I wasn’t enthused by any of the yarn, and left without buying anything. The fun side of this was that I managed to talk my way into a “closed” yarn shop.

The party was interesting; there’s nothing like family to make you appreciate your friends. I wasn’t really keen on the seven hour round-trip, but it was better for us to come home and sleep in our own beds and rest on Sunday.

Andrew and I both got pretty sick after that, and spent the better part of last week sick.  As we both started to feel better, we decided to go and clean out the townhouse. When I went to gather the cleaning supplies, I noticed a stream of water coming from the water heater.

Fortunately, the home warranty is covering most of it (the expensive part), and we were only without hot water for two and a half days.

I’ve been actively updating my Ravelry page (I’m “cuteknitter”), so that means there are more photos for the blog as well.

In doggie news, we discovered last night that Niki has lost his ID tag with his name, address, and our phone number. Elphie’s is firmly in place, but somehow Hairy Houdini managed to lose JUST that one tag. He still has his “I’m microchipped” tag, rabies tag, and the tag from the rescue. But still.

We’ve been doing some extra obedience and dominance work with Elphie, which has drastically improved her behavior.

As far as my crack-tastic dreams are concerned, I dreamt that there was a wasp-feeder in our house (like a hummingbird feeder, but you know, for wasps), it was at the top of the vaulted ceiling (which we don’t have), and they were the size of Iranian cockroaches.

For knitting content, I’m working on a bunch of socks, my Ribbi Cardi is currently a Ribby Halter, and I pulled yarn out of my stash to cast on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan.

My spinning has been going slow, but that seems to be the consequence of spinning singles that (when 3-plied) are a light fingering weight. It’s not good for my project ADD, and I MAY be doing some slightly self-defeating things along the way. Like weighing my bump before I start, and at the end of a disk of Six Feet Under (ahem, 3-4 hours), and noticing that I’ve only spun 6 grams. Andrew is discouraging the weighing. I can’t help it. I need to see progress.

Here's the finished Big Yellow Taxi:

Here's the Wild Thing:

So, to leave you on a more positive note, I got moved to an awesome cube at work, which is bigger than my last cube, gets natural light, and has a view of the window. It has improved my mood something fierce, and I’m not dreading coming into the office anymore. I still hate traffic and EVERYONE who drives on 101.

Except for you. Y’all are awesome.