Friday, October 29, 2010

I can't stop laughing!

It sure is nice to laugh loudly and uncontrollably every once in a while.  I've been so disappointed and stressed lately and had a lot of aggravation this afternoon, in particular.  The helpful insurance woman at the pharmacy called me around 3:00 pm, after which I called my doctor's office, insurance, pharmacy again... By 5:06 pm I'd been on the phone or on hold for more than two hours.

Queue local news broadcast, the 5:30 portion and I'm watching behind real time via DVR magic.  Channel 10's Beau Zimmer is reporting on the new extended TSA pat-down protocols and interviewing passengers at Tampa International Airport about their experiences.   He explained that the new protocols provoked mixed responses with the additional qualification that women tended to be more likely than men to find the changes objectionable.

Suddenly I hear a woman identified as passenger Perky Olson lamenting, "until the lady came over with the plastic gloves I had no idea."  And I burst into laughter.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Cotton Clash

Cotton, why do you hate me so?  Just what did I ever do to you?

I've been knitting 12" square blocks in cotton and as of the last hour or so the cotton is winning. I've stopped to take a break and tape a thick (sport style?) adhesive bandage over my thumb. I'm hoping there's enough padding in the bandage that I can resume knitting and finish off this block. It kind of seems to me that knitting cotton bothered my right hand before. Not sure if that included just the kitchen cottons (Sugar 'n Cream, Peaches & Creme, Lion Cotton) or also Cotton-Ease and Knit Picks Shine and Comfy varieties as well.

It just seems surprising that using the same kind of needles one yarn would make my finger/thumb tips sore when other yarns don't.  It's not like I'm knitting with wire or stainless steel.  The yarn itself feels soft enough and even slightly squishy.  I just can't imagine why or how cotton stitches resting on the needle are hurting me.

ETA:  Great news for me!!  The bandage seems enough of a cushion that I can keep knitting on.

ETA: as of Nov 17, I've continued to work with worsted cottons and not had any trouble with them for quite some time.  I guess that's something I have to get used to again each time.  But I really don't understand why.  I'm certainly thankful that with continued use it stops hurting me fairly quickly.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

It's All Rebecca Danger's fault!

I can't seem to stop buying alpaca yarn.  Why? Because I must make alpaca alpacas.  In true to me form I still have not completely finished one yet, but I have two mostly finished, yarn for a third and possibly more yarn on the way.  I just can't keep track anymore.

Why would this be her fault? The inspiration came from her pattern!  I never would have thought of knitting an alpaca alpaca on my own if I had not seen Zeke the Aloof Alpaca.  Beyond that, I'm thinking I'm going to certainly need a llama llama.  Specifically I must create Coquena, The Llama.  She's adorable, with or without her peruvian hat.  Definitely cute enough to crochet, but perhaps this will be the first time I attempt to convert a crochet pattern into knitting.  From there, I'll likely be compelled to knit a bison bison, an angora angora... or would that be a mohair angora, or angora rabbit?  Maybe one of each kind if I can figure it out.  Surely there must be a camel camel in this menagerie.  Perhaps I can limit myself to animals and won't have to produce knit corn from corn or bamboo with bamboo.  Otherwise, this could go on forever.

I suppose the reason I must do this is the same reason I will someday knit a set of dissected frog and lab rat specimens.  I don't know if this compulsion comes from novelty, irony, or just a strange sense of humor.  Fortunately I think I can bear to skip the fetal pig and alligator, so I'm not disappointed to find those patterns missing.  I can't say exactly what makes the frog and rat essential and the alligator and pig too much.  I've always been a bit weird.  There's just no helping or explaining that, I guess.

Knitting for Good, or just for me?

I am always up for a good excuse to cast on something new.  Not that I need any excuse whatsoever.  It's just that if there is a reason (better than whim) perhaps that smoothes over the guilt I have or should have about suspending one project to start another.

Lately I've been working on 12" afghan square blocks for a special purpose.  I first saw a request for help posted on Ravelry and then checked out the author's "Spreading Love" blog entry for more information.

I've been trying to think of any additional toys or diversions I might be able to whip up and send along with the knit blocks.  But the 100% cotton criteria is proving a bit of a challenge for my limited brain.  That would work fine for toys, but I'd thought it might be fun to send something a little different to play with, like an assortment of disguises.  If I were young and very ill I think it would amuse me to have a supply of eye patches, hats, masks and wigs and such.  When an adult would come into my room to I'd slip on a snout or mustache and very loudly ask, "WHO?, who are you looking for to give that shot to?"  And then continue to profess, "I'm very sorry, you've clearly got the wrong room; as you can see, there are no little girls here at all."  But then I suppose inspiring obstructionist frivolity is probably counterproductive.  I'm also concerned that items made from 100% cotton would quickly stretch out of shape and just be disappointing.  That's not even considering that blocks are what was requested and I have not completely finished one yet.

Well, I have nearly finished one block (and am a third of the way through a second).  It's just that I made a stupid mistake with resizing a cloth pattern.  I added stitches to the side borders but forgot to knit extra rows at the bottom to have a comparably wide bottom border.   Still haven't completely figured out how to remedy that, although I have tried a few slow and tedious approaches and failed with them.  It would have been a lot less fuss and work to just have frogged and started over when I noticed it rather than continuing to the end and expecting that surely I'd think of something.


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Halloween plans, predictions, projects and procrastinations

There are a few things that I'd like to get finished before Halloween, but I'm starting to realize at least part of that is not going to happen.  I'd like to get some decorations up outdoors, but haven't worked up the energy to drag them out yet.

Of course it would be nice to have my Puffed up Pumpkin-y pumpkin bag for that night, but crochet tends to wear on my right wrist lately and right now that's my good wrist.  I'm not sure I ever had a use in mind when I started that.  It was more of an impulse pattern that I just had to make.  Clearly I must be the only one who crafts things because I can't stand the thought of not making at least one.  Funny how it doesn't matter whether or not these items are practical or have any intended recipient, or purpose, besides catching dust.

Small Victories

I've had my lion mask done for a few weeks already; I wish I knew how I managed that so far in advance ;o).  The tan pants and top I plan to wear have arrived as well and fit well enough.  Ordinarily I wouldn't choose ruffles on a scoop neck tee, but ruffles seemed to reflect the idea of fullness in a lion's mane, so I jumped on board with whimsy.  I've decided to overlook the small annoyance that these pieces match perfectly in some lighting and are a slight mismatch in others.  Seems the match is still closer than I'd be likely to find if I were to drive to the mall and scrounge.

And Decisions

I've been debating reworking the neck on Addie's lion sweater.  For Halloween we like to sit on the front porch and wait for kids.  I put a blanket out so she's not on the concrete and while she's inclined to stay right with me I always keep her on a leash as well.  This is a whole lot easier and more enjoyable than the alternative: Ding-DONG! ARRRAwff, Ruff, wuff WUFF!! calm, Addie-QUIET! Thats ENOUGH!  It would be nice to have a leash slot in the back of the neck of that sweater.  Ding-DONG! ARRRAwff, Ruff, wuff WUFF!! calm, Addie-QUIET! Thats ENOUGH!  I'd also like to maybe add some additional length to the collar so it will more easily stay up near her head.  Next stop Ding-DONG! ARRRAwff, Ruff, wuff WUFF!! calm, Addie-QUIET! Thats ENOUGH! is to see if I still have any of that butterscotch yarn around here.  Except where my words and thoughts are being interrupted imagine I'm missing something on tv and having to pick up and put down my knitting over and over.  Oooooh!  I do have my Koala Caddie.  I'm gonna be a knitting lion; often the kids are a bit far apart at times so sitting and waiting can get boring too.


Faux Pas or Folly?

I'm seeing now the foolishness of commenting on problems with my blog in my blog.  Just as a practical matter, it strikes me as odd to read updates about troubleshooting that appear in a reverse chronology.  Besides that, if no one else is seeing what I'm seeing that can't possibly help my credibility.  (Everybody come and heckle the crazy lady who can't find the pictures we're seeing...)

It's taken a lot of time just to figure out how to interpret what is going on.  I thought at first the malfunction was obvious - lack of pictures where they'd previously been.  It wasn't until almost day after first seeing oddness that I realized the problem wasn't quite what I thought.  Either that or it shifted somewhere in the middle.  Which actually is something I thought I was seeing direct evidence of; still not sure those changes had any bearing on the outcome, though.  Once the WIP bar was working properly I left the window open and after a while was shocked to see the FO bar malfunction.  It made me wonder if there was something that kind of queued them up together and the longer FO set had to wait for the WIPs to loop around so it could start over.  (Sounds improbable to me, because they seem completely independent.  Still I had to keep watching and waiting for it to start again.  But the only way it did start over was to reload the page.)  I guess I'm still not sure how to understand what was going on with the completely white picture area or the times when it was quickly flashing gray, but not resolving into an image... like fast forward or something.

So I'm feeling torn about taking out all mention of problems or just leaving them to get buried.  I suppose a third option could be to pretend it never happened.  And whether the current functions of things stays consistent or drops off again is an important point of consideration.  I would like to understand someday just what was causing this.  And hopefully I'll have a good laugh about it, too.  I suppose it really shouldn't matter much one way or the other.

In case I have manage to inadvertently confuse anyone, I am truly sorry for that.  This situation has definitely been confusing and frustrating for me, lol.

ETA: I've been so distracted by other issues and challenges lately that whether or not the pictures are displaying properly or whether or not the longer FO show reloads and continues has completely dropped off my radar.  Funny how something that seems so important one day can be completely forgotten the next.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Taking a different view

The next thing that occurred to me for troubleshooting was to go sit at another computer and see just what it looked like from there.  In a matter of minutes I've seen the works in progress shows appear absolutely correct with photos displayed as expected, blurs of photos that don't display completely and fade immediately, and also plain white where the photos should be.  And this was with all no intervention at all from me other than viewing, clicking somewhere else and then returning to look again.

This feels far too much like having my brother and sister simultaneously trying to teach me to drive a stick-shift.  And by that I mean all of us in the car at the same time.  They're both younger, but have a tendency to gang up on me, always have.  That's a particularly vivid memory of unresolved confusion.  They both tell me what to do, they correct me and the result is sometimes the car moves forward and sometimes it dies.  The whole process is mysterious; I can't tell what was different at all between the times it worked and the times it failed.  At least here I have a more powerful reassurance that it's not me.  Since no changes were attempted and the result varied based on nothing more than a few more seconds time passing, I'm in an area outside of the sphere of cause and effect.  Feels a bit too familiar, in a very infuriating sort of way.  Random can be very uncomfortable.  Randomness is not usually my friend.

Photos still blank

Or are they?
At times there really is nothing to say besides the obvious.  Hopefully that statement soon won't make sense because this blip will have been resolved.  The whole episode will be no more than a vaguely recalled speed bump in a bigger adventure.

I've done everything I can think of and the works in progress show is still a blank white space where the photos go.  I guess it's just going to be malfunctioning until I can figure it out or just give up and delete it.  In the meantime I'll keep rearranging and poking around at it and trying to get answers and results.

Hmmmmm.  Just as I clicked preview the window displayed with both the new and old (code should match, though) WIP slideshows along with both FO shows that are currently there.  However, as I saw at times last night the timing of the WIP versions is off.  If it isn't completely blank, it's doing what I just saw: flashing a blur, just a brief fuzzy gray rectangle that never materializes into an image and fades out as soon as it appears.  So maybe the issue is timing???

Added above paragraph and clicked preview and now I see 2 working shows each of FOs and WIPs.  I know it isn't me, lol.  I guess I'm just going to have to live with this for a while...  Fortunately, since I'm pretty much the only one here, the oddness of it will likely go unnoticed.

Just for fun, I'm seriously considering how to go about changing the size of those items anyway.  Surely it's not the time to do anything extra when just the basics aren't 100%, but why would I leave well enough alone?  I've been sucked into the underlying gobbledegook of the working parts.  That's a clear invitation for tinkering!  I've always been the kind of person who knows just enough to be really dangerous that way.  I can embrace this aspect, especially when I'm being provoked by items changing and functioning by their own whims.  That's how I've managed to get a lot of skill and understanding in a range of areas.  I'm not the least bit afraid of replacing sinks, faucets, light fixtures, and even had the old washing machine and dryer set in pieces and then working again several times.  I am fearless this way.  I will prevail.

Costumed Inspiration

For reasons I don't remember I was motivated to look up an idea I hadn't thought about in while. The one where a woman wore the same little black dress for a year to raise money for a worthy cause.  (Truly it seems there were identical copies of the dress so she did have a clean one to wear each day, so nix the Eeeeeews already.)  I guess the idea stuck with me because it sounded so very different from anything I'd imagined someone doing.  I couldn't remember the name of this, uh, endeavor but found it quickly enough with google.  It's called the Uniform Project.  I did want to share this image Day 184. Sat, October 31 2009. I'd like to post it here, but I have a feeling that would be cheating or stealing or just plain bad karma.

As a photo it's simply mesmerizing.  Not just the makeup, an effect much like Capt. Jack Sparrow as the tribal deity or what-not in whichever numbered movie that was.  The second comment calls it creepy.  But that's not quite right.  I do love it as both an idea and an image; In fact I hope to try something like this some day, just for a thrill or something.  Yet gazing at it is disconcerting, even bordering on painful, making me feel like I'm looking at a Magic Eye poster and can't figure out where to focus my eyes.  Strangely, I think something small and overlooked is what really makes this particular shot work for me.  The focus issue is exacerbated by the strong shadow from a camera flash.  Usually that kind of thing really cheapens the quality of an image.  But in this case something so mundane and maligned is instead a special effect instead.  I'm sure the vibrating lack of focus quality in the image isn't just from remarkably drawn extra eyes, but the dreaded heavy flash shadow, too.  Almost like the way a strobe light really hacks up your perception of an otherwise ordinary scene.  Amazing!!  Since the makeup is green and reminiscent of the Wicked Witch, that easily leads me to our 2009 costumes.

Check out that smile!  (Ravelry project)

The Lion 
the Tin Woman

I saw the lion brand yarn pattern and knew I had to make her a lion costume.  I was the tin man, since that was the easiest thing I could think of to coordinate with her.  I made her a medal of courage and put a bow in the mane to change her from a lion to the not so Cowardly Lion.
At that time I had hair that was perfectly Dorothy-suited, but didn't think of costuming myself at all until a few days in advance.  I didn't have anything Dorothy-esque in my wardrobe, either.

A kid said I couldn't be the tin Man

This year I had a 12" braid (not just a ponytail) cut from my hair around the 4th of July.  (The fat end as thick as my wrist.)  Sent it to Locks of Love, again.  Well the other two times probably weren't in July, and I think the first time it was just a 14" ponytail, and the second was a 10" braid.  So I don't have the hair for it right now.  More importantly I still don't have anything remotely Dorothy to wear.  But I thought I'd try to do something rather easy for me again so as to not dress as the tin man two years in a row.



One size fits ALL
Addie doesn't mind wearing the same costume repeatedly.  There were at least three or four consecutive years that she was the "Bee dog."  She weighs just over 50 lbs, which makes it a bigger challenge to costume her than say a chihuahua or yippy-yappy dust mop.  Fortunately one size fits all child costumes with the right design are wonderful.  I'd planned to buy her a lady bug costume of the same style for the following year, but by then the design in stores was tutu skirt rather than cape wings.  I've always loved the wings on this - they twist and fold up like a dashboard sunshade or pop-up laundry basket.

This years solution to the Costume Dilemma - 

Earlier this year I bought a book of crocheted mask patterns from an online friend.  As soon as I saw the lion mask I knew we'd both be lions together this year.  

It may be hard to believe, but my dog really enjoys wearing costumes.  She gets a LOT of attention this way from kids and parents, and when she's dressed up people who might be afraid of her smile and approach just to tell her how cute she is.  I reserve dress up for Halloween only, except that one time I did dress her as a reindeer for her snapshot with Santa.  Well and also for show and tell at dog class when they found out she has a reindeer costume.  And there was a week that I had her wear a child's babydoll dress with 3/4 length sleeves.  (And a webbed D-ring belt; empire waistlines aren't very friendly for horizontal wearers and if not belted she'd tend to snag her toenails in the hem.)  She'd had a small cyst removed from her elbow.  Her vet suggested a t-shirt would most easily cover her stitches and keep the area clean.  She'd only be able to get t-shirt lint on the stitches, not dirt, grass, carpet fiber or anything else.

When it's raining really hard I put a bright yellow raincoat on her.  She really hates to get wet; even used to walk around or jump over puddles and wet spots when my neighbors were washing their cars.  Besides this, whenever she's had to have stitches and needed to wear a big, plastic elizabethan collar, we've made that a game too.  I call it her big head collar and and when she wears it I refer to her as my little bulldozer.  No one in class believed me until she needed this collar while classes were still in session.  People started off saying things like "Awww, poor Addie."  And she'd just grin.  Then they started saying "wow, she's smiling."  Truly, she revels in all the extra attention.

Sidebar Slideshow Hell

I sure wish I could understand what's going one with my Works in progress slideshow.  Earlier this evening I popped in to write a little and change some things around.  Spent some time finding and uploading some photos that go with a Halloween themed post that I started several days ago and still hadn't finished with the relevant images.  Made a few small changes in the design of the blog that seemed inconsequential, like adding a google search in the sidebar.  Suddenly I noticed that while my finished objects are displaying the works in progress right next door is completely blank!  The arrows and buttons are on the bottom, but there's nothing being shown.

Went back to Ravelry, searched the forums a bit.  Opened up the saved file of the code that was running these.  That was saved after copying and pasting via a link from Ravelry and then following the instructions to get my key and change everything the right places to my user info.  Scrutinized what I copied and pasted from the non-working gadget right next to the original text.  What a chore!

At different times and in different places of playing around with this I found sometimes "amp;" would appear after an ampersand (that's what this symbol: & is called; And I promise not to explain why/how it came to be called that - at this time, anyway).  So I started trying to edit those out those four characters, a through semi-colon.  Tried copying the code from the blog gadget for the finished objects, the working one, and changing the text to read "in-progress" instead of finished at the appropriate points.  It just seems every time I look at it something different has happened.   And none of my fixes are producing results that last.

Finally it seemed I had gotten both of the sidebar slideshows - sideshows! - working and then I opened a different tab or window and then went back to the blog and the WIPs was blank again.

Truly I don't need any additional aggravation or anything that would tend to make me feel like I'm losing my mind.  I have lost far more than anyone should have to lose in the first place.  Have been fighting fiercely to keep what's left of my brain ever since.

I suppose my best hope now is that tomorrow things will be normal... Or rather later this morning things will be normal.  I've been fussing with this so very long that it is after 3 AM for me.  I am so beat!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Doesn't everything taste better with dog hair?

I can't vouch for that.  But I remember seeing something, perhaps a mug, suggesting everything tastes better with cat hair.  I don't know because I don't have a cat.  I have a dog.  If I've been tasting her hair I haven't really noticed.  I suppose that means dog hair can be tasteless.  Mostly I've been unintentionally wearing her hair.  The light strands really accentuate my mostly dark and jewel-tone wardrobe.  At times I'll feel a sharp prick on my foot and find one of her hairs actually poking into my skin.  Not stuck against my skin, but a piece I have to grab, sometimes only catching it with tweezers, and yank out.  Who knew that hair could beat skin?

I just finished winding up a center-pull ball from one of the four skeins of String Theory Merino DK that arrived today.  Took a few snapshots, uploaded them to the computer and updated my Rav stash.  When I saw the photos on screen I noticed there was a strand of dog hair prominently on the top of the ball.  It appears in each of the photos just to the right of the plastic center piece.  I'm not sure how it found the opportunity to get there.  I had the winder in my hand and didn't set it anywhere except to prop it against the box part of my swift while I grabbed my camera.  That's not a lot of room for mischief, but I suppose dog hair finds the easiest and fastest path to stick to something everything.

I can be sure most things don't look better with dog hair.  Equally certain that nearly everything I own has dog hair on it somewhere.  There's just no stopping it.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

I am not the least bit discouraged...yet

Although I have only just gotten started and have not so much as invited family and friends to view my latest indulgence, I was surprisingly dismayed to find that the page views component does not accurately track information.  It is clear that while I have the appropriate cookie settings and have selected the radio dial for not counting my own page views (and saved this setting which remains selected), when I edit and then view a post or rearrange gadgets there is invariably and additional page view recorded at the same time.

Beyond this, the malfunction is even clearer when noting that of all the page views recorded 100% of them were from a Mac OS using Safari.  Were I actively involved with an online graphic design group I might be persuaded to believe that statistic accurate.  I am convinced, however, that fellow Ravelers are largely Windows users.

I am writing for myself anyway.  I can own that.  I just don't understand why the blog has built in "vanity counting."

Monday, October 4, 2010

Easy & Cheap Upcycled DIY Yarn Swift

Instructions for Tilta Swift at webeccasays.blogspot.com




This baby is every bit as great as my bead spinner, and the only thing I had to buy was the box, which cost me a few dollars at Staples.  The box is a 5 or 6 inch cube and was the smallest they had at the time.  Saw at Webeccasays that someone even used a huge mug instead.  I inherited the lazy susan, used recovered elastic from an old garment, and everything else I just had on hand.  I put small cast garden stones in the middle of the box to keep it from sliding off center when it's moving fast.  I know there's some rubbery shelf liner around here somewhere, but the weight seems to work just fine.  I position the clothespins above the yarn because for winding I sit in my recliner and put the swift where my feet should be.  The yarn has a tendency to occasionally pop over the top, but never wants to slide off the bottom.  A bit of the outcome depends on the sticky/grippiness of the yarn itself and how neatly or less neatly the hank was wound.

Was just a small challenge and a bit of practice to figure out how to adjust the yarn for easiest use.  Like being sure one end of the yarn came neatly off the outside of the hank (as arranged around the swift) and the other end tended to fall to the inside.  I have the best luck when turning the swift clockwise with the yarn approaching the ball winder around the 5:30 position.  Also results are better when I keep the wire guide for the ball winder aimed toward where the yarn is coming from.  Sounds like common sense, but I made some odd mistakes at first and had inconsistent results until I relaxed about it and was paying better attention.  

Awe-inspiring

Surely I am not the only one completely enamored with the graphics and creativity of the Drawn and PuppetShow games.  I think the Drawn people are onto something with awarding trophies or some such for completing different goals.  I've been through the game three times already just trying to make it all the way without using a single hint or tip.  Maybe that's just something in the collector's edition version; have that for the sequel, not the first one.  My only small disappointment would be that in the Painted Tower it seems to take a good bit of time every time you load the next scene.  Makes me thankful for games that give you shortcuts to previously accessed areas.

I may even use some stashed Malabrigo red shades to knit myself a long red scarf in honor of Iris.  If you knew how unlikely I ever was to consider knitting myself a long red scarf you'd see that is a great compliment.  That's only slightly less surprising than if I were to claim that Dorothy Gale's story was so fascinating I simply must have a blue gingham dress of my own, to wear of course - bah fashion sense!  ;o)  Perhaps a suitable scarf should have stars subtly worked into it...

I haven't found anything quite so completely enchanting since the first or nth time I watched the Nightmare Before Christmas, but I suppose there have been a handful of things that have come close.

The titles I know about can be found here at least, not sure about other places - Drawn: The Painted TowerDrawn: Dark FlightPuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville, PuppetShow: Souls of the Innocent

Sunday, October 3, 2010

First Chatty Ravelry Extraction: Curses!

I didn't have a good idea of where to start when filling in the "About me" on my profile page in Rav, either.  The last blank to fill in asks for your favorite curse word.  So reflecting on something like that I entered the following anecdote.
While I don’t have a favorite curse word and my language is generally G-rated, I can say there is one that always seems to make me smile. I guess it’s not a funny story, though. It was sort of a context mismatch that really took me by surprise.
Several years ago my then college lab partner, Lynn, and I were thoroughly frustrated with our lack of progress in building the correct circuitry. She suddenly exclaimed, “Dookie!” And I instantly burst into laughter. Lynn soon started laughing at me because I couldn’t stop laughing or even catch my breath for a few minutes. My belly ached from laughing so hard and for so long, and I even had tears in my eyes. (It was a really good laugh!) When I could finally speak I looked at Lynn, who was thirty years old at the time, and said, “I haven’t heard that word since I was about 10 years old.” She replied that it was something her 10 year old had been saying lately. In a college class where students were often inspired to utter any number of different things expressing their frustration, it was a truly out of place thing to hear.
Later I told my dad about this and found the story is even less funny if you never heard or used this word as a child and don’t know what it means. When I was a kid it meant poop and more specifically dog poop, since that was the version commonly seen lying in a pile in the grass. (When I was a kid, kids still played outside and people really didn’t pick up after their dogs.) I suppose it might be regional or generational (the word), but I really don’t know.
I sure wish I could think of something else to say, besides that I DO pick up after my dog using Mutt Mitts and have always done so the entire time I’ve had her, even in my own backyard. (Because left out it can attract pests and contaminate soil and be a health hazard to children or gardeners up to five years in the future.) A Mutt Mitt goes with us on our walk three times a day every day and also when I take her to Petsmart, to see the vet, or to visit an assisted living facility and nursing home. The “pooh bag” (unused) goes in my left pocket and my keys go in my right pocket. As soon as something else comes to mind it’s definitely replacing what’s above. While it still amuses me to remember that incident I can’t imagine being known or recognized by it, lol.
I've not really wanted to leave that in my Rav profile for so long, I just didn't have anything else I could think of to put there and never came up with something that said "me".  But it has a home here now.  Could be no one else in the world thinks that is funny, but every time I think of that incident and my lab partner, Lynn, I can't help but smile.  It sure is wonderful fun to laugh until you can't breathe.

Better or worse than talking to myself??

I mean accidentally following my own blog, lol.  Well I don't know.  I talk to myself all the time AND answer myself.  I remind anyone who criticizes that habit that if I'm not listening to and answering me, who will?  That was just a button I clicked because I don't have things figured out yet and wondered what it would do.

Who starts a blog when they are battling tendonitis and tennis elbow in both arms anyway? Typing is what  causes me the most pain fastest, except for setting up my dad's IV antibiotic.  Hopefully there's only about ten days of that left.  We're in week three now and on day eight I suddenly had intense pain at the base of my thumb several hours after twanging the bubbles out of the tubing.  Until then I was doing pretty well.

And then six days later I tripped over my dog and fell onto my left wrist, the one that was worse off to start with.  Also fell onto my knees, which didn't even seem to notice - fortunately.  Surprisingly I did not actually impact my dog.  Am still a bit puzzled by it.  She knew I was falling on her and looked up at me with a wide-eyed 'you're going to squash me' deer in headlights sort of expression.  In a reflex that's kind of like a driver extending their arm in front of a passenger when stopping suddenly I slid my right arm under her chest.  I still have no idea why that happened.  Certainly wasn't planning on it and I didn't want to pin her in place to squash her.  I don't know if that makes it more like tackling her or what.  Of course it happened in an instant; I just found myself on the floor hugging her with my right arm.  I suppose the distinction is that she was not supporting my weight at all.  I have a feeling if I'd just fell on both wrists the left one wouldn't have taken quite as much of a beating, lol.

Went out and got fitted for wrist splints with thumb spicas and they are mostly comfortable. I'm supposed to wear them as much as possible and sleep in them, too.  My fingers are free to move and they keep me from turning my hands into positions that put pressure on my wrists and thumbs.  At times pinching or holding things between my thumb and index finger is pretty painful.  Still have to do that every day to hold the stem on the IV bag to spike it, connecting the tubing.  And pinching with my left hand is better than using it to push and twist, which is what my right hand has to do.  Have had a hard time opening the microwave with my left hand because pushing the button with my thumb hurts.  I feel like the splints are keeping me from hurting myself more and allowing the injured parts to mend. The only problem I haven't solved yet is that they get sweaty.  So when my arms feel hot and I'm inside and doing little I take them off, undo the velcro completely, and let them air out.


I suppose until someone else is following me, I might as well follow me.  Little chance of that any time soon and I'm not sure just how I feel about it anyway.  I don't mind sharing my ideas; heck it's hard to stop me!  But I don't have any real plans behind what's going to be here other than I'd like a place to put those thoughts that don't really belong in my rav notes.  Guess that for now I'm just dipping in my toes and going to take my time.  A good idea since typing isn't my friend right now.