Yarn Overs and Hushpuppies

I had another Gazyva infusion Tuesday, and all my lab values were good except my albumin and total protein, which were low. My lymphocyte count was actually low, which was astonishing. (And heartening.) All my other CBC values were normal, including my differential. So, big Yay! there. I had slacked off on taking High Protein Ensure with my morning and evening meds. Guess I will start doing that every day again.

Still no Venclexta. I’ve been off it since Monday. The VA supposedly finally mailed the prescription last Friday, and it was mailed from Dallas, so no surprise it’s not here yet. I had titered up to 200 mg a day. He wants me on 400 mg a day for a year. Because the medication is potentially toxic and is so expensive, I can only get a month’s supply at a time, so I’m going to have to do the antsy-will-I-get-the-refill-in-time-not-to-miss-a-dose-dance every durn month. As I may have mentioned earlier, dealing with the VA is like pushing a rope. Sigh.

The orchids are winding down their blooming. Only two have blooms now, the purple #5 Orchid (the new kid) and Mr. Ball, the white one. Evidently, world domination is a life goal of arrowhead plants (Syngonium podophyllum) — which don’t bloom, BTW. The cutting I potted is going great guns, and the cutting I’m rooting in water has put out roots enough to be potted, which I need to do. As soon as #5 Orchid is done blooming, he will be repotted. Evidently, each variety of orchid blooms a set number of blooms. Mr. Ball has put out eight blooms both times he’s bloomed for me. #5 Orchid and the rescue orchid also put out six blooms.

I’ll have to wait till next blooming season to see how many the purple stripy #4 Orchid puts out. It was being bullied in the store and the top part of its bloom spike was broken, which is why I “rescued” it. What remained of the spike had five blooms. Evidently, different species also bloom for different periods of time. Last time he bloomed, Mr. Ball started putting out a spike in January, and his blooms pooped out in August. Don’t think he’s going to last that long this time.

In the knitting news, getting rid of six grocery sacks of yarn means I can buy more yarn, right? This is Juniper Moon Farm’s Moonshine yarn, colorway “Swimming Pool.” It’s single ply, a “4” which my yarn chart says is a “worsted, Afghan, Aran.” I’ve already started on the shawl this is for:

knits up like a dream. My own pattern I’m calling “Najidama Bay”.

And then there’s this, which I bought to make this:

And then, there’s this, which I already had, to make this:

Sigh.

I need to go on a hat finishing bender. I could finish one a day if I only would. I also need to repot the bamboo.

I bought myself a pair of skinny jeans. (That was the pair I returned to Walmart because it was a Miss size and I’m not.) Found a pair in the right size. Ever notice how most of the people wearing skinny jeans aren’t? Speaking. Sigh.

I have a wallpaper program that draws from a file of pictures I’ve collected over the years because I think they’re pretty. Even though my desktop is extended over two monitors, it still chooses a different picture for each monitor. Synchronicity happened this morning.

Two different pictures of the Milky Way. When you see something from two different points of view (binocular vision), that’s how you get depth perception . . . . .

Books Read in 2024

31.	What Cannot Be Said, Harris, C. S. 
30.	Who Cries For the Lost, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
29.	When Blood Lies, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
28.	What the Devil Knows, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
27.	*As Many Stars, Noone, K. L. 
26.	*The Featherbed Puzzle, Noone, K. L
25.	Who Speaks for the Damned, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
24.	Who Slays the Wicked, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
23.	Why Kill the Innocent, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
22.	Where the Dead Lie, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
21.	*Ribbon Dance, Miller, Steve and Lee, Sharon
20.	*Benedict and the Bear, Oliver, Lisa
19.	*Juniper Wiles and the Ghost Girls, de Lint, Charles
18.	*Penric’s Demon, Bujold, Lois McMaster (re-read)
17.	*Bisclavret, Noone, K. L. 
16.	*Flashes, Noone, K. L. (short stories)
15.	When Falcons Fall, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
14.	Who Buries the Dead, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
13.	Why Kings Confess, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
12.	What Darkness Brings, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
11.	When Maidens Mourn, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
10.	Where Shadows Dance, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
9.	What Remains of Heaven, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
8.	Where Serpents Sleep, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
7.	Why Mermaids Sing, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
6.	When Gods Die, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
5.	What Angels Fear, Harris, C. S. (re-read)
4.	Shogun:  A Novel of Japan, Clavell, James (re-read 1210 pages!!)
3.	*Demon Daughter, Bujold, Lois M. 
2.	Lord Peter, Sayers, Dorothy L.  
1.	The Nine Tailors, Sayers, Dorothy L. 

* Ebook  (re-x-read) reread more th

Bisy. Backson.

Anyone familiar with the writings of one A. A. Milne regarding the doings of a small boy and his stuffed bear will recognize the quote. Yesterday was a “bisy” day. I had a luncheon date with a dear friend and fellow knitter, KC, at 11:30, at the nearby Rosa’s Cafe and Tortilla Factory. It was Taco Tuesday at that establishment, and I indulged. Nums.

In an (vain) attempt to declutter and reduce my stuff burden, I had gone through my (still) extensive yarn stash and whittled it down from four bins to three.

Ended up with six big brown paper grocery sacks of yarn to donate to the knitting group. KC and I transferred this bonanza from my trunk to hers in the Rosa’s parking lot . . . Thank goodness I have my handy little collapsible cart. This is everything I schlepped out to my car yesterday morning. (The cart accordions front to back so it fits easily in the trunk of my car and comes in right handy for getting multiple sacks of groceries from the car up to my digs.)

I had a whole list of errands to run after lunch, namely all the ones I was going to do last week and blew off, plus a couple more. I had a couple of returns to Amazon — I’ve been trying to find a replacement for my trusty old Ocean internet radio, which has developed Alzheimer’s and can’t remember the WiFi password, but that works just fine on the hot spot on my phone — One of the ones I ordered didn’t have a sleep timer, and the other one wouldn’t turn off the screen display and was very circuitous to operate. While I was on the east side of town, I rumbled down Broadway, which still has its original (and historical!) brick paving, to finish paying off my lawyer for all the “instruments” I had her draw up (will, powers of attorney, etc.).

On my way back to the main drag that would hit my next destination, I stopped off at my friendly neighborhood nail salon and had my fingernails and toenails seen to. (Those grooves on my fingernails are Beau’s lines and are probably from chemotherapy. I do not have them on my toenails, according to the nail salon lady who was giving me a pedicure . . . . )

Then I went way out to the south side of town to return a pair of jeans to Walmart. They were a Miss size, which I am not. While I was on that side of town, I mailed a care package to my BFF at a nearby Post Office. On my way back home, I stopped off at Market Street and finished getting groceries. It was oppressively hot yesterday, and I had grocery shopping at the bottom of the list so I could make it home with ice cream before it became milk soup.

As I was about to get out of the car, a bird fluttered down and around. It was clinging with its little claws to the rubber strip at the bottom of the passenger-side rear window. A fledgling, and a fairly hot one, on such a hot day. Poor little guy.

I’ve been keeping a concerned eye on the wildfires in New Mexico. The people in Ruidoso are being evacuated to Capitan, which is where my cousin and his wife live. Those fires are 0% contained and are very fast moving. People are being told to forget their possessions and evacuate immediately. 20,000 acres have already burned. Again.

Over the weekend, I pulled out several skeins of yarn for a contemplated project. What you don’t see in this picture is my guiding hand on the strand of yarn en route from the swift to the ball winder. Let me just say that when the humidity is 22%, winding 100% wool yarn while standing next to a metal filing cabinet can be a rather shocking experience. Yes, this is snob yarn. Like I need one more WIP. I have seven (!) hats in WIP which I am going to finish if it harelips the governor . . .

The arrowhead plant cutting I rooted and potted is going great guns. Its repotted “parent” is unwadding leaves fit to kill in its ongoing plan for world domination . . .

Alas, #3 Orchid is beginning to wind down its blooming, but #5 Orchid and Mr. Ball (white) are still going strong. The jade plant has grown noticeably and the repotted Christmas cactus has aspirations of turning into a bush. At the rate they’re growing, I may have to thrash through the underbrush to get to my computer . . .

I’m planning to attend the ice cream social that Carillon and my bank are throwing for the residents for Litha tomorrow afternoon. I’ve never been one to turn down ice cream, especially when somebody else is springing for it . . .

Alligators with Lasers

Woke up from a doozy of a dream. Seems these Texas A&M (my alma mater‘s arch rival) scientists were performing experiments with alligators, transparent plastic chutes and ramps, and lasers, and that in the process, several large holes had been melted through the drapes in my bedroom.

Now I have to explain about these particular drapes. The house my mom’s stepdad contracted for them in 1954, and that one of her brothers (and my dad) helped build, had a long narrow formal dining/living room that went straight through the middle of the house from the little foyer area at the front door to the back wall. The kitchen and den were through a doorway to the left, and the bathroom and bedrooms were off a hallway to the right. (There was a telephone nook in the wall of the foyer for “the telephone” with a little cubby underneath for the telephone book!) Along the back wall of this living room was a very large picture window covered by these drapes.

They were made of a fabric with a print of a tan stone balcony balustrade with stone pots of plants in the foreground framed by Italian poplar trees on a very dark green/black background. They were fully lined, pinch-pleat drapes hung on one of those curtain rods that are made to open and close like stage curtains by pulling on this cord at the side.

I think my mom and dad made them. (My mom made a lot of her own and my clothes when I was little and was pretty handy with a sewing machine, and at one time, my dad worked for a furniture upholstery company reupholstering furniture. It would not surprise me at all if they had made those drapes. They were children of the depression and knew how to figure things out.)

(The dress, hat and socks above were actually a brilliant scarlet. The photograph faded over the years)

Needless to say, in my dream, I was incensed that these scientists had appropriated “my” drapes and had lasered several large holes in them, and were then only going to give us $40 in compensation for ruining our drapes. I complained about it bitterly to my mom. Oh, did I mention that the lasers were mounted on these alligators’ heads and that it was an experiment to see if they lasered each other?

At least this was a better dream than the one I had Sunday, where I lost my car key out of my blue jeans pocket and was desperately backtracking myself looking for it. It was late at night, and I was panicked about how I was going to get home. The car key I was looking for looked like the key to my current car but was, in fact, the key to the famous “little red car” — a lipstick red Triumph Herald sedan “four on the floor” stick shift that we had in my late teens and that I was allowed to drive. (The Driver’s Ed car I learned on was “three on the tree.”) That “little red car” loomed large in the family legend.

I had a treat yesterday. Our dear friend CK joined me for Sunday lunch in the dining room in the building where I live at Carillon. She was such a dear friend of mom’s, and I always enjoy seeing her. Bless her, she has parkinsonism, which she is managing well, but she fell earlier in the year and suffered a tibial plateau fracture. She was lucky not to have to have surgery, but was in a straight leg brace, was strictly non-weight-bearing, and was confined to a wheelchair for three months while the fracture healed. She is finally free of the brace and the chair, is walking again, and is finally able to get out of the house. It was delightful to have her join me for lunch.

Her husband DK’s dog “aged out” about a year or so ago. He was devastated. She was telling me about the new one they have adopted. It’s a rescue, a Shih Tzu. The shelter people think the dog is about 5 years old and that it had probably been “on the street” for about a year before it was rescued. Its fur was so matted the shelter people had to just shave it. So now they have this little bald dog. Now that CK is mobile again, DK took the dog to their “ranch” outside Llano to “bond” with it. CK is not the sort of person to enjoy being housebound for three months, and she was delighted to be “free” again. We had a nice visit.

Tomorrow, I have to get up at a reasonable hour (i.e., before noon) and run errands. I have an Amazon return to drop off way over that way. Then I need to go way over yonder to Wal-Mart to exchange a pair of jeans. Then I need to get both sets of nails done, and I need to get a grocery or two, both of which are within blocks of where I live. I need to get the manicure guy to help me download their app to my phone because they want you to app them and tell them ahead of time when you’re coming. My hair place has an app too. They will take walk ins but, again, they prefer that you app them. C’est la vie. There’s a Whattaburger app I deliberately haven’t downloaded, as well as a Domino’s pizza app I haven’t downloaded (I’m doing good to use the website).

We had a crashy-bangy last night and briefly lost power, which means I had to reset the clocks on the stove and microwave to stop them flashing at me. It messed up the internet and the TV reception (so what else is new?)(looking at the box sternly messes up the TV reception . . . ), so I flipped off the TV and read on the penultimate (#18) Sebastian St. Cyr book. At the end of book #17, Hero‘s father Lord Jarvis’s new wife (scandalously only a year or two older than his daughter) was weeks away from giving birth. (He desperately wants a son and heir.) Book #18 takes place several months later, and so far (half way through), there is no mention of what happened with the birth, and whether it was a boy or girl. Inquiring minds want to know! Hero is also “in the family way” again, and she is sure this one is a girl. That’s one thing I like about the books. They are in chronological order, and you get to follow the lives of the main characters.

To place #18 in its historical context, the battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) takes place during the book. So far, the books cover the time period between 1811 to 1815. C. S. Harris is one of several “noms de plume” of Candace Procter who has a Ph.D. in European history. They are all available in Kindle format, but I prefer the “dead tree editions” which are manually operated and require only a light source to read.

Good News and Not So Good News

I saw my oncologist on 28 May and it turned out that my age skews my eGFR and it was better than I thought it was. So, good news there. He told me to start the Venclexta pills last Friday. I’m well into the second week now, and have had no significant side effects so far, so good news there, too. It comes in a little kit because you have to titer the dosage up over a month, then you take that dose for a year. The not so good news is that every time I comb my hair, a wad of it comes out. Yesterday morning, I had to get some of that packing tape, pull off a strip, and use the sticky side to pull the hair off my pillowcase. The thing is, hair loss is not a side effect of Venclexta nor of the Gazyva either. Still, a choice between bald and cancer is one of those DUH! choices.

I went on a repotting spree last Thursday. I repotted the arrowhead plant in a larger pot, and repotted the Christmas cactus in the pot the arrowhead plant was in. I repotted one of the orchids, potted the arrowhead plant I was rooting in water, and started another one.

Two of the orchids are done blooming for this year, but the other three are still going strong. I found new homes for the anthurium and the peace lily, so I could relocate to the credenza the arrowhead plant that is on a quest for world domination. I also obtained a large pot to repot my bamboo plant which is not doing well in water.

In the knitting news, I frogged the shawl above left and I’m reworking the pattern (above right). The yarn is a Malabrigo worsted in the color “088 Indigo.” The “easy” increases for a semicircular shawl are 8 stitches every four rows or 4 stitches every other row. I’m increasing two stitches every row. Works out well. It has that slipped stitch edging I like so much, followed by a yarn-over border. So far, so good.

The yarn has taken the dye unevenly, and I like that kind of mottled effect. I also ordered this pattern and yarn for it in teals. Lets see if I have the bandwidth to follow a pattern somebody else made up. Goals. I haz em.

I bought myself a belated birthday present last week and it was delivered yesterday. One of the guys who delivered it made out like a bandit and took the gamer chair back with him. It was a nice chair, the gamer chair, but the chair seat had no padding to speak of (neither does mine) and I couldn’t sit through an entire movie without developing a dead end. This one’s a recliner, but the foot rest comes out almost all the way before the chair back begins to tilt back.

I’ll use it with the foot stool I already have because I don’t really have the room for it to fully recline — and wouldn’t sit in it that way anyway. It blends in nicely with the rest of the furniture.