Thanksgiving

This year, I'm thankful for:

-David's family, who hosted Thanksgiving here today and invited my family
-My family, including my mom and P&T,who were here; my talented and beautiful siblings, who were here only in spirit; and my dad, who's in Indiana with his parents
-My SIX living grandparents
-Living within easy driving distance of both of our families
-My wonky, charming house and mushroom-filled yard
-My sweet kittens, even Pobbes, who destroyed another (silk, a gift transported from India) scarf this week
-Scarves, Capilene longies, and SmartWool socks
-My two online classes and the technology that lets me teach remotely
-My phone, on which I'm tapping this
-My few, but tenacious, readers here

Happy Thanksgiving!

Manly

Today I raked and bagged leaves and hung the last living room mini-blinds (which required installing a hand-cut shim--and wrestling with my cordless drill). It left me feeling quite accomplished--although I'm pretty sure I'll be sore tomorrow.

Pobbes kept a careful eye on us.

This morning as I was hauling the trash out to the curb (another manly task!), I noticed several crops of mushrooms in the yard. Becca came over later and helped me identify them: a bunch of (edible) fat jacks,* and some other generic lawn shrooms that she did identify, but whose name I can't recall. We have a giant oak and a giant Doug Fir in our front yard, so the lawn is a veritable fungus farm. Very exciting, of course.

*Which she took home; I'm still working on cultivating a taste for mushrooms, let alone cooking them myself.

Birthday Eve

Tomorrow is the kittens' first birthday. Here they are snuggling together on the couch this afternoon. Thank goodness for kittens on a rainy day home alone.

Alone

Tonight, after spending time with friends in Portland following dropping David at the airport, I'm home all alone. Not even the kitties are here; since I only just got back and it's late, they're still at their kitty cousins' until tomorrow. The house feels pretty lonely... but the thermostat did reset itself to 70 while I was gone, so at least it's warm!

Pobbes

It's possible that it's just because he's my first kitty, but Pobbes is the most curious creature I've met.

Also: so handsome!

NaBloPo(One)Mo!

One.

That's how many clicks on "older entries" it currently takes to get from the front page of this blog to my last NaBloPoMo entry (2011). A full nine posts--briefly touching upon adventures including Mouse Wars (redux); foot surgery (hallux); and the acquisition of a tautology of felines (deluxe). Clearly, I've been a less-than-consistent poster.

But what's better for consistency than a challenge? That's right: it's NaBloPoMo again, and another chance to fail (or, you know, succeed!) at posting every day for a month. I'm grateful to Mari for reminding me, and hope that lots of you join in, too. (Or at very least comment; it's seriously the comments that keep me going.)

So, one mo' NaBloPoMo? Here goes.

Heat

Is this going to become a Crazy Cat Blog? Perhaps. The kittens are awfully easy targets.

Kitty thermometer: they start lolling on the hardwood at around 85°

So you may have heard that it's been hot here in the Midwest! It's been hot approximately everywhere, though, so you may not have cared. Anyway, on the Fourth, Mpls cleared 101°, setting a record (and feeling super-tropical with a 72° dew point). David and I were both at home for the holiday, trying to stay cool in front of our portable A/C unit (which was struggling to keep it to an almost-comfortable 87°), when we lost power.* 


We lasted about 10 minutes upstairs before picking up the kitties and heading down to the basement, where it was nice and cool--probably in the 70s. Pobbes and Icy were very excited to explore; they'd had baths that morning in an effort to cool them down (panting kitties are a terribly pathetic sight!), but soon had cobwebs in their whiskers (and everywhere else). David and I were somewhat less excited, but with a book for me, his smartphone for him, and cold drinks for both of us, we were able to outlast the hour-long outage. Actually, it was much hotter when we returned upstairs--but the views and furniture were better and the space much cleaner!


Thankfully, it has cooled and dried off over the past few days; we've had highs in the upper eighties and lower nineties, but more importantly it's dipped to around 70 and below at night, meaning it's completely bearable. Actually, it's been beautiful. Nothing makes you appreciate a nice dry 87 quite like a muggy 100.


Later, I'll write about the epic fireworks display(s) we caught later on the Fourth!


*I was going to put that in all caps, but then I remembered that there are people in the South/East who were out of power for days. Now I feel like a pansy.

Kittens

As you may know, in November David and I acquired a cat problem to deal with our mouse problem. We no longer have any mice, and the cats are among the sweetest, best-looking, affectionate, and chillest that I've ever encountered.
Which is a good thing, because left to their own devices, they would destroy everything in sight.

That's not quite true. Their favorite objects of destruction are toilet paper, plants, textiles, sewing/crocheting supplies, and cardboard boxes. If we're careful about limiting their access to those objects, they may still scratch a bit on the furniture (Icy) or steal David's razor (Pobbes), but wreak far less havoc.

Before we realized we had to keep them away from most clothing, however, we did have a few casualties. They chewed a hole in the back of a silky new camisole with the tags still on it, and multiple holes in another top I'd only worn once. Worst, though, they got a hold of the cashmere sweater my sister and I got David for Christmas last year. Pobbes first got to it when it was on the top of David's (tall) dresser, chewing a hole that rendered it unwearable but still left plenty of material for recycling. I put it in my closet to protect it, but yesterday discovered that Pobbes had pulled it out from under the closet doors and was again mauling it. In fact, he had Swiss cheesed the whole thing, leaving hardly any material suitable for crafting. Upon this discovery, we decided to let him keep his furry quarry, in the hopes of dissuading his destruction of other prized clothing.

David captured the following video when Pobbes had dragged his trophy to one of his other favorite things, the big sleeping bag you can see on the red chair. Also visible in the video is Fernie the Palm, who is tattered but hanging on after suffering greatly as one of the kittens' earliest targets. Try to ignore my maniacal cackling, and enjoy our kittens doing what they appear to do best:

Foot

This is my foot (along with my helpful assistant Pobbes,* who is perpetually intrigued with the camera's wrist strap). The divot you see just below and to the right of the center of the photograph is a scar from the time I dropped my bike on my foot and the chain ring bit out a chunk. It and a mark from another of the teeth are more visible when my foot tans and the scars remain white, but as I attempted to photograph it today, I realized how subtle it is.

Today is the last day that will be the most noticeable scar on my foot.

Remember the X-ray I posted a while ago, showing the apparent source for my toe woes? And how the cortisone injection I had in November (November?!) made it so much better? Well. That wore off, and my foot went back to hurting as much, if not more, than before. It felt worse, anyway, since I was virtually pain free while the cortisone lasted. So! I went back to the podiatrist, and we decided that after exhausting the conservative options, it was time to consider surgery.

He suggested a minimally invasive procedure called a cheilectomy, in which he will remove the osteophyte, clean up the joint, perhaps drill some to stimulate production of new collagen, rinse everything, and then sew me back up. This should take, in his estimate, about 20 minutes. Recovery (which will mostly take place over spring break, next week) will involve a surgical shoe, but no boot or crutches. I only have to wear the shoe while I'm on my feet, and while the stitches are in (10-14 days), and he thinks I can be back to running in three to six months.** (When we were initially discussing the surgery, I immediately did the math in my head, and determined that this would potentially allow me to train for the Twin Cities Marathon--though even I realize this is a bad idea.)

So. I have no illusions that this will be a magical fix, or that my young, healthy, athletic, non-smoking ways will make for a perfectly non-eventful surgery or recovery. But after so long living with this, and having been forced to stop running altogether (and even walking as much as I would like to!), I'm read to give this fix a try. I check in to the surgical center in just over an hour.

*Pobbes is one half of a Kitten Problem we acquired in late January to deal with our (then) Mouse Problem. He and his littermate Isis (Icy) have educated me on just how quickly such small animals can become such a huge source of love (and frustration!). Most of you who still read here are already my FB friends and have access to my "(Almost) Daily Kitten" album, but I'd also be happy to post more kitty pix here!

**My podiatrist is a runner--marathoner, Bostoner, and triathlete--and he is the one whose focus has consistently been on running, which I think is pretty fantastic.