My mother is having surgery tomorrow. We’re all expecting that she’ll be just fine, but hospital time is never fun time, so I’m giving her all the support I possibly can, dammit. Browncoats: she’s the lady who speeds production for me by making my pompoms so I can get your hats out the door faster. I know you want her to get well soon!
Burmese pythons on the move to California.
I’m impressed that an article with this much of a tongue-in-cheek tone made it into a major metropolitan newspaper, what with lines like, “There are few free-roaming African lions and tigers between Florida and San Francisco, the geological survey said.” Darned lack of lions! Well, maybe by 2020, when the article says the pythons will hit the Bay area, the tiger population of the southwestern United States will have surged. Keep a happy thought.
But the reason my husband sent it to me, and the reason I’m sharing it, is for the following. I present to you the best line by far of the article:
“Beavers would be a very tasty treat for them,” Rodda said. “No beaver would be safe from a python.”
You may commence snickering.
As we were taking our daughter to school this morning, the weather was cold and the sky was gray. The school is less than a mile from our house, but with weather this cold, we were definitely going to drive.
About halfway there, something amazing happened. It suddenly started to snow! This wasn’t in the forecast.
“Emily! It’s snowing!”
“Snow? It’s not supposed to snow at school!”
It wasn’t enough for a snow day, of course, so onward to school she went, mildly flummoxed by the weather. On the way back home, we didn’t get more than 100 yards from the school before the snow tapered away. In the rear view mirror, though, a steady snow. It’s like a little pocket of happiness, entirely localized on my daughter’s school.
My husband suggested I take a walk up that way. “Now if only you could find some kind of knitted thing to wear to keep you warm…” Wise guy.
I think I’ll take his advice and walk to the school. And then drink some hot cocoa.
ETA: Opened the door for a walk, and the snow is at the house! YAY!
I’m caught up on Jayne hats, by which I mean I’m working on hats ordered eight weeks ago with an eight week delivery time. The next few up are from Dec. 27-28, and I’m starting in on those tomorrow. But today, I decided to knit a little on non-paid projects.
So tonight, I screwed up the heel turn on my second Fuzzyfoot and mangled the decorative edging I chose for my daughter’s doll’s dress.
I should just not knit anything but Jayne hats ever again. Sigh.
In cute daughter news, I apparently haven’t been keeping up with the personal lives of the stars. I had no idea that Lucy Liu had a little sister named Contessa Liu who had two children named Tiarra Liu and Bennet Liu. The children apparently each have a pet – one has an armadillo, and the other has an opossum. There’s artwork which I wish I could show you. Come home to mama, digital camera!
The furnace busted late yesterday. It didn’t seem so bad at the time, since it was in the high sixties, but today… today, not so much. Emily got up and went into the den to lie on the couch and kind of ease into the day. While she was in the bathroom, I tossed the couch blanket into the dryer to warm up for a few minutes. Then I fixed her breakfast and asked her if she wanted her hot water bottle. She said no. So I took one of Steve’s clean sweatsocks, poured in some uncooked rice, knotted it, and threw it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Made a great heat pack even if it smelled a little like rice. Now I want some of my husband’s chicken teriyaki.
The rice socks retain heat for at least a half an hour. She said it was too hot, and she didn’t want it anyway. That’s okay, it felt fine to me and saved me from making one of my own! This kid routinely wants to wear miniskirts in the winter, so probably she really was okay in her flannel PJs.
The furnace guys can come out tomorrow morning to fix it. And we’ve got a kerosene heater that we can fire up to heat things up before bed, so at least we’ll have a better temperature to cool down from. I think we’re good for now. We may head out elsewhere later – or else just I may head out elsewhere later. My husband and my daughter are both hot-blooded Italians. I’m a WASP with chilly feet.
Links:
Gravity powered lamp.
Beautiful monasteries.
Giant frog fossil found.
Teenager disproves goldfish memory myth.
Tattoo of the year.
My Jayne hat not authentic enough for ya? Come September, you can bid on the original!
Move over, Lucy Liu, there’s a new star in town. It’s… Clara Barton!
Yes, my daughter is obsessed with the Civil War nurse and activist who founded the American Red Cross. Emily attributes all sorts of amazing, improbable, and very naughty activities to Clara Barton. According to Emily, Clara Barton:
1) left the emergency brake off in a car on a steep driveway
2) hid mashed potatoes in her hat
3) caught a hard baseball in her mouth
4) jumped out of a tree using trash bags as parachutes
The list goes on and on. Clara Barton is her Chuck Norris. Now that she’s been studying about the moon in school, apparently Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Clara Barton all went to the moon together. And had a tea party.
This is all hi-LAR-ious to her. She’ll start giggling uncontrollably as she tells me the outrageous things Clara Barton did, and then, in high dramatic fashion, I’ll widen my eyes and wave my arms and say, “Nooooo! Clara Barton did not pop popcorn without a lid!”
Why Clara Barton? I have no idea. But Clara Barton’s lasted longer than Lucy Liu, proving that substance trumps style. And now Emily wants to join the American Red Cross, so I guess that’s a positive development. I just need to warn her that her days will not consist of shenanigans like opening umbrellas in cars. That’s just for Clara Barton to do.