Things I’ve wanted to write about but haven’t been able to because I’m working too darn hard:
The yarn riot. Fantastic. I got 3 different kinds of yarn, all very colorful or very unique. I am so excited to make mittens from this kind (very hard to see the colors, but it’s almost right) and another wooly kind of interesting yarn will make very very pretty socks, or a scarf, or something. It’s also exotic – an Italian yarn! whoo! Third was some nice homespun-esque wool yarn, and lastly, about 5 or 6 pairs of double pointed knitting needles. Yes! I can make my mittens, and also, start socks (after holidays of course).
I dragged Colby with me from work that day, and we had a great lunch together. And, I met Linda on the train, which is always marvelous, and one of those freaky things that happens sometimes in NYC that could wig you out if you think about it too much, even if she WAS going to the same place as we were. And Peggy was at the riot when we got there, and she’s like the best hugger in the entire world (tho’ Colby thought she was just a lady there, and didn’t realize I knew her when she started hugging. Colby said she thought it was some weird yarn ritual, and she’d have to hug strangers all day!) Last night I started knitting some mittens from the colorful yarn. Really, it matches my new coat very very well. Not because my new coat is like Joseph’s, or anything, but it does match.
I worked a 76 hour week last week. It’s my first, and hopefully my last. I worked so darn hard and we’re not even going to make our deadlines. It’s very frustrating. Like, incredibly, incredibly frustrating. But the other people (who are “holding us up”) aren’t slacking off either; it’s just that our deadlines were crazy to begin with. I’d like to put a list of things I did this year inside my Christmas cards. I still don’t know what they’ll look like, but I think I’ll photocopy a checklist style thing and put the years highlights on it, like:
- worked first 76 hour week of my career.
- decided to apply to grad school.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything else that’s good and happy funny and not sad to put on the list right now. I hope I do, I need some good year in review perspective!
Here’s a sad thing that won’t make that list: My kitty Boots died. He lived with my father in Albany, and I found out on Thursday that Maggie had found him, dead. DanAaron told me. I was initially afraid the dogs had gotten him (as they may or may not have gotten a cat before), but they said that wasn’t the case.
Bootsie was a great cat. When I was 12 we got my mom a cat, Mittens, because we wanted a kitten so bad. But then she and dad divorced, and she moved out, and was still so raw from her cat Venus dying the year before that she left us Mittens. And then we thought maybe Mittens needed a friend, and the neighbors’ cat had kittens the next summer, so we took Boots. DanAaron and Daddy picked him up and brought him home and then went to a scout thing, and I got home later that day and found this little adorable kitty sitting in the upstairs bathroom right where they had left him. He was scared, and lonely. I took him all around the house and showed him his litter box. I wanted to name him Mr. Kuss Kuss, because had just started taking German and thought it would be a great idea, but luckily Dad vetoed it and we went with Boots. Later that year Mittens was hit by a car and killed, and I remember holding Boots tight and crying as Dad went up to get Mittens out of a ditch. We were good friends, Boots and I, he slept with me and loved climbing under the covers and curling into the warm spot behind my knees. I spent many nights unmoving, because I didn’t want to disturb him.
Boots was also a real spit-fire. He’d play roughly and suddenly, often when you were petting he’d flip over, hug your hand to his head with his front paws, and kick box your arm with his back paws. We all had scratches and scars from him. He was an outdoor cat, and would climb in my window at night when he was done running around. He once killed 5 squirrels in a single day and left them propped up around the house in various stages of rigor mortis. Every window you’d go to, you’d see a new dead squirrel. I had to get a shovel and fling them deep into the woods.
This Thanksgiving Boots was extra sweet. He followed me around, and slept with me in my bed again. I snuck him turkey to his spot on top of the fridge, and he poked his head around the microwave when we reheated the dinner the next day, following the smells. I’m glad I had this time with my poor old kitty. But I’ll miss knowing he’s sitting on top of the tallest appliance he can find, surveying all below him. Or, maybe he still is sitting on the very tallest appliance, watching the dogs mill about below him with an eagle eye.
