I’ve been keeping my eye on the Mother of Cats all week long.
It is really cold and snowy outside. I mean, the really wet sticky snow that gets on your paws and squishes up between your toe beans and is just the kind that all cats everywhere hate. Mateo went out a couple of times today and that boy was back inside within 60 seconds flat. Anyway, the lavender and other cute flowers are all safely in the garage, Mateo is safely indoors, and the Mother of Cats and I have been really productive.
Her weaving is off the loom. Finally.
Right now, the weaving is a long, long scarf that has some fringe on it. The Mother of Cats washed it last night and it is done for now. Mateo likes to sleep on it, and since the fabric is a little scratchy the Mother of Cats is totally okay with that. She has been talking about cutting it up and sewing little stuffed cats from it, or maybe a sewn bunny, and frankly I don’t care as long as there is catnip involved. A pillow would be kind of nice…
She also has made a lot of progress on her La Prairie sweater. Now she is working on one of the sleeves and is pretty happy with how it is looking.
Looking good, right? This what happens when you get quality cat assistance!
The body of the sweater is a little longer than it should be, but she is happy about that. The sleeves are kind of a problem because she doesn’t want them to be soooo long, so after doing some funky math and checking out what other knitters did, she has shortened up the blocks of solid knitting and now we’ll see how it all works out. She does seem to still be a little stressed about the whole thing. She keeps muttering… I hope I have enough yarn… I hope this won’t be too long… thank heavens there aren’t so many bobbles on the sleeves… I don’t care. I’m a cat. As long as the tuna keeps coming, I’m happy to support any knitting that is going on.
So, that’s it. It has been a pretty good week. The weaving is done, the sweater is moving along, and the Mother of Cats is also halfway through her book about dragons. Someday soon the snow will stop falling, the Mother of Cats will put our lavender back outside, and we will visit the bunnies again in the mornings.
This is my favorite pose after watching Dune: Part Two with the Mother of Cats this week.
This is Hannah, signing off.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
Notes from the Mother of Cats: the book Hannah mentioned is A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon.
This book has over 800 pages in it!
I’m chomping at the bit to get all these lengthy projects finished up so I can knit more Emotional Support Chickens!! Also, I have books lined up from the library that I need to get read before next weekend…
Today is the 25th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. I’m reposting what I wrote several years ago right after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016. Since then, there have been so many other shootings in so many other communities that it is hard to list them all. 25 years of insanity and grief. I wrote this old post (below) in 2016, but on today, the anniversary of that dreadful day that impacted me so 25 years ago, I think that the words are worth re-reading if you care.
My memorial columbine for Columbie High School in my garden last summer. I still come to tears when I think of that day.
We Are One
There are small moments when everything that you know suddenly shifts in its frame and the future becomes something that you never imagined could come. You get a diagnosis, you fall in love, you win the lottery. Such was the moment when, while teaching my third period biology class, I glanced towards the door to see an assistant principal and a counselor standing there motioning for me to come out of the room. Once I was in the hallway with them the questions started: Where are your children? Where does your husband work? It was the day of the Columbine shooting.
Columbine High School was one of the two major high schools in my community. My youngest child had just graduated from the other school, Chatfield Senior High, the previous year. I and my immediate family were safe, but the impact was still dreadful. That night I drove home past police in assault gear standing guard at critical intersections; they had positioned road equipment to block the intersections if the “terrorists” tried to escape.
I was a high school teacher. I knew that there are many dark sides to kids in crisis. I imagine that this is also true of the general population, but I had seen enough in my classroom to know that some young people want to burn the world down, and death is not a deterrent to them; the young can be very volatile and especially vulnerable as they are still becoming stakeholders in society. I was pretty sure that the attack was actually being done by students. At the time it was hard to imagine; now we know better.
The impact on the community was dreadful. Here are some of the standout memories:
Crosses were erected on a hillside and piles of flowers, toys and candles appeared on street corners. Finally, tents were erected over the mounds of offering to protect them from the weather.
Columbines were displayed everywhere in remembrance. To this day there are still Columbine license plates on cars in Colorado.
People huddled together in crowds holding candles against the dark as they mourned together.
My students were terrified to come back to school. Some of them asked if I would take a bullet for them. I will, I told them. I will keep you safe, I promised. Now I know that I lied.
I cried when I realized that the girl on the cover of the Rocky Mountain News (the image above; photo credit to the Rocky Mountain News) was the cousin of one of my students. She was in the library during the shooting. Not all of the others under the table with her survived.
I spun some white cashmere yarn while watching the memorial service on television. I never dyed the yarn so it would match the color of the doves released that day. I still wear the scarf.
During those sad days I woke from a nap as a large helicopter flew low over my house. It was President and Mrs. Clinton on their way to meet with the Columbine parents, and the helicopter was Marine One.
Columbine was closed for quite some time after the shooting, and the students of Columbine HS finished their year at the high school near my house, Chatfield; the school ran split sessions to accommodate the two student populations in one building. Early in the evening right before the Columbine students started at their new school I drove past Chatfield on my way out of the neighborhood, and I saw that Chatfield had been wrapped in a huge ribbon that combined the colors of the two high schools: silver, blue and magenta. There was also a sign that said, “We Are One”, a play on the school district number, R-1. The two schools would become one.
We Are One, I told myself. I turned right and started driving down the hill towards the golf course to the north. Streams of parents were coming up the hill on both sides of the road, clutching each other, walking back towards the high school. They were the parents of the Columbine students, coming to a meeting at the school where their traumatized children would end the year. I continued down the hill and across the bridge with tears streaming down my face.
We Are One.
Today I live in Aurora, Colorado, and everyone knows about the shooting that happened in the theater there. I blogged about my dismay at the huge gun culture (and the money it produces) as evidenced by the unbelievable plethora of gun (shooting) related magazines in the local book store last July. Then last year there was a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, which is the town where I grew up as a girl. How many mass shootings will I have to deal with in my life? Why should anyone ever have to deal with even one?
Orlando, my heart is broken. I am so very, very sorry that this has happened to you.
It’s spring here in Colorado. The first baby bunny appeared this week, and the plants in the yard are starting to burst out in green buds. The roses are looking like they are going to do really well this year (except for that one that the bunnies ate…) and there was a huge outbreak of my little bulb flowers in the front garden. I have new cushions for my patio swing, and I sit in the sunshine, reading and drinking my morning latte, every warm morning. On chilly mornings I wrap in a favorite shawl and stay out with the cats as long as I can. The first grasshoppers of the year have arrived for the cats to chase, and the air is filled with birdsong. There are even blue jays!! Good days.
The phlox in the front is looking great!
A couple of day have been so warm I couldn’t stay in the sunshine long and I’ve had to deploy the umbrella shade. Then, the next day, there may be snow. This is spring in Colorado: rapid changes and big temperature swings. The same is true for the barometric pressure; look at what happened this week.
My emotional stability has been a little like the air pressure the last couple of weeks as I’ve gone through a round of testing and doctor’s appointments. I was very upbeat when I went in to get my blood draw to check my iron levels, and the bone density scan last month was just routine. I mean, I’ve been feeling soooo much better: more energy, sleeping better, more mentally alert and even my appetite has improved. Suddenly my gut doesn’t hate me, and I am getting out of the house more. I went to my knitting group for the first time in months! I was positive that my test results would reflect the improvement.
Not so much. After weeks of eating iron-rich foods and downing my iron supplement there was absolutely no change in my test results, and in fact, the test that measures the concentration of hemoglobin in individual red blood cells (MCHC) got worse. Seriously? The only gain was one value of 25.5 that went up to 25.6; still too low. After all that red meat, salmon, iron pills, avocado, and spinach all I got was 0.1 improvement? Kind of disheartening as this means that I have to have some invasive testing to see if I’m bleeding in my stomach (it’s a scleroderma thing), and I don’t think my doctor will put it off much longer. (It’s called watermelon stomach) (fabulous) (of course this is rare) (my zebra self is not happy).
Then the bone density scan results arrived. I have somehow developed a fairly serious case of osteoporosis in a short time span; the report says to start immediate treatment. Then I did some googling and found out that the diuretic that I take can cause osteoporosis, and I absolutely shouldn’t have been taking it because I have a strong family history and I’m kind of high risk. (Of course I am) (I stopped the diuretic) (now my feet are swollen) (my zebra self is crying).
I have to be honest. I was kind of crushed by the bad news that I absolutely did not expect. Then I mentally slapped myself around, did my exercises, potted some lavender plants, and went shopping on Amazon for some cheer-me-up jewelry. Just what I needed to pull myself together. One day at a time, right? I already have more than my share of challenges, so I shouldn’t waste any energy on things that haven’t happened yet. Next week I have an appointment with my internist, and we’ll work out a treatment plan for the osteoporosis and next steps for the anemia. (I took another iron supplement) (my inner zebra has pulled itself together again) (the zebra wants to point out that its lips aren’t as blue as they used to be).
I also pulled out the La Prairie sweater and knit steadily through the sadness until the body came off the needles. Gosh. It looks really nice so far. Something has gone right this week…
Today I woke up to a snow/drizzle mixture that was too unwelcoming for even Mateo to go out on the catio. All my joints hurt, and my muscles weren’t sure if they were going to play nice either. Of course, I had to drive across town to get lung testing and a sit-down appointment with my pulmonologist to go over all my results. I put on my cute Weekender Crew sweater, wore my new “in your face, scleroderma!” jewelry, and headed off for the testing. It hurt to breath as I walked into the building. I convinced myself that it was just the cold air; after all, I feel pretty good, and I was overdue for some good news.
The lung testing specialist is now my friend. We laughed and talked and caught up as she got me ready for testing, and then I breezed through all the parts of the pulmonary function testing and the 6-minute walk test. Every single result was cause for celebration as Stephanie (my technician) became more and more excited with the little graphs and data appearing on the computer screen. “This is better!” she kept saying. By the last test she was practically jumping up and down with excitement. “This is great! This is great! she crowed as she walked me to the exam room to see my pulmonologist. “I’ll let him know that you are here.”
I love this pulmonologist. He is the doctor who first listened to me and picked up on the fact that I had a hole in my heart and pulmonary hypertension. He held my hand and told me I could cry when my interstitial lung disease was first diagnosed. He has always been the doctor who was most honest with me; he told me last year after the tide had turned that they hadn’t been sure I would make it a year. He supported me when I halted the anti-fibrotic drug due to quality-of-life concerns. Today he was all smiles as we went over the results and my exam. My lungs have maintained on the scans. I have regained some lung function. The decision to halt the drug was the right one; there is no obvious sign of fibrosis right now. This is the best possible outcome right now; everything that he hoped for. I was the last patient he saw today, and he was pleased to have such a good one. “Best appointment of the day!” he declared as he walked me out. We were both enclosed in a bubble of joyous happiness as we walked.
I took this picture outside the building.
Outside the clinic the parking lot was almost empty. The cold drizzle was steady, the sky was full of sad lumpy grey clouds, and the gloom of early evening was creeping in. Around the building some ornamental trees were just beginning to open their flower buds, but in the shelter of the courtyard on the south side, the sunniest location, one tree was covered in blooms. Kind of a metaphor for the last couple of weeks. Sit in the sunshine and bloom, no matter what is going on in the world around you.
On the drive home, in my mind, my zebra self was dancing for joy.
Do you see how grown up I look? I turned THREE YEARS OLD last week.
The days here have been nice, and the Mother of Cats has been letting us outside on the catio every single day for a couple of hours. It has been just great. She bought some new plants and put them out for us. The backyard bunny comes out every evening to visit with us. We had a crazy eclipse that made all the birds go to sleep, and then when it was over they woke up again and we were so excited!!!! It was just like two sunrises in one day! Oh, I almost forgot to mention… there are GRASSHOPPERS flying around. Look at how happy we look in the great outside. Isn’t my new lavender plant nice?
Everything was going great until the Mother of Cats discovered that I had been testing the catio wire for weak places. Hey, there is a bunny right out there that absolutely wants to play with me. Well, actually, it is more a matter of me wanting to play with it, but you understand, don’t you? I wasn’t actually going to hurt eat the bunny…
Mateo: when the Mother of Cats found this, I lost my independent catio privileges…
It was kind of hard for her to miss a hole in the fence this big, especially when it is a perfect Mateo-sized gap. Sigh. She’s pretty sure that I was actually outside of the wire trolling for bunnies in the yard, but we’ll never tell. Hannah and I are in total agreement about keeping our mouths shut. I have to give her a few days of my tuna, but it’s totally worth it. We’ve reconciled ourselves to just spending time with the lavender plants in the indoor garden instead of being outside with the new lavender, the grasshoppers, and the birds. And MY BUNNY!!!!
The truth is, Hannah and I kind of fight over the spot right by the lavender plants and seedlings in the indoor garden. It’s a really nice spot, don’t you think? The turtle is nice company, and we still have our lavender so that’s good. Anyway, where I’m going with this is that we are pretty much on HOUSE ARREST and can’t go out unless the Mother of Cats goes with us. She has been weaving, and knitting, and reading, and planting more plants all week, and she hasn’t managed to get anything finished yet. Not one thing. It is kind of embarrassing. We do try to hurry her along so we can go out in the afternoons, but she gets busy with her little hobbies and forgets about how much we need to be outside. To make it worse, did I mention, she still doesn’t have anything done!!!!!
This is what I’m talking about. The Mother of Cats is far enough into the book now that there are dragons. She likes dragons. Has she finished the book yet? No. She isn’t even halfway through yet. She should spend more time out on the deck reading, don’t you think? Then there is the sweater. Do you see how long it is now???? She still isn’t down to the bottom of the body yet, and she is starting to seriously worry about running out of yarn. The weaving is almost done, but is it off the loom yet? No. No, it is not. She’s now considering knitting some lace to attach to the ends of the woven strip (scarf thingy) to make it spiffy. That means that it won’t be done for even longer.
Sigh. Somehow, she needs to get this endless crafting under control…
Still, the Mother of Cats did get us more lavender this week. Lavender is nice. Now we have 4 different kinds growing in the garden and on the deck. I’d really like to check on the progress of the lavender in the gardens, but the stuff on the deck is enough. I guess.
Have a good week, everyone.
Notes from the Mother of Cats: The endless cardigan that I’m knitting is called La Prairie by Joji Locatelli. I’m very close to the bottom of the body. I’m considering leaving it short sleeved…
Look at what these cats have done to the knitted pika I made for them!
We’ve been hanging out with the Mother of Cats today.
The Mother of Cats has been friskier lately. She’s been working with her indoor garden, and went shopping to buy a whole bunch of new flowers to put outside. She did a lot of cooking. She expanded the indoor garden and repotted a bunch of plants.
The indoor garden now has three shelves. The bottom shelf has the miniature rose, some lavender plants, and the seedlings. The middle shelf is mostly African violets and the baby fig trees. The top shelf is mostly orchids, but there are a couple of African violets up there too. We really like the new shelf and extra space, and Mateo especially is walking around among the plants keeping tabs on how they are doing. The Milkweed is growing great! The baby lavender seedlings are growing more leaves. The planted rose seeds: NOTHING!! The Mother of Cats also fixed up the catio some and has been reading outside with her morning coffee with us every morning. Things have been kind of great lately. She took some great photos of us.
Don’t we look great? The Mother of Cats says these are our glam shots.
The Mother of Cats then spoiled everything by going off and leaving us overnight while she visited her son. What is up with that?
While she was gone, she read this book about dragons and made two PICC line covers with yarns that have dragon colors: the green is called Green Dragon and the purple is called Purple Dragon. How come she went playing with dragons and left us alone? Did the dragons get OUR TUNA?
We absolutely were not surprised to see that she knitted with a purple yarn while she was away. Everything has been kind of purple lately.
Her new sweater (which is kind of purple) is getting longer. It is so big it covers her legs and Hannah while she’s knitting on it. Hannah really like the sweater and want one of her own.
The Mother of Cats say that the name of the sweater is La Prairie. What a crazy name, right, but the Mother of Cats likes it because we live right at the edge of the prairie and that is why there are so many wild things in our yard.
Her weaving is getting bigger and now the weft has changed to a purple color. The CoalBear likes to whap at the purple yarn while the Mother of Cats is moving the shuttle back and forth.
So, there seems to be a lot of purple lately. Enough with the purple and the Mother of Cats. It’s time to talk about us, right. After all, it is Caturday!!! Look at how big our bunny is getting in the back yard. You can barely see it in the first shot of us watching it (it hangs out at the bottom of the tree) so the Mother of Cats took a closeup of the bunny. Look! It looks just like the tree! What a clever bunny! Besides the bunnies, there are lots of birds and GRASSHOPPERS outside and it is kind of exciting on the catio now. The Mother of Cats even moved out some plants for us.
So, that’s about all. Guess it is time for us to go pester the Mother of Cats to get up and play with us. She’s been more active lately, but we still like to keep her busy taking care of us. Hannah is pretty sure that we need TUNA because we were left alone one night last week.
But first we are going to grab another nap… Did you notice that our blanket is purple?
The United States Food & Drug Administration has really been on my mind this last week. Let me set the background: I have a rare, progressive autoimmune disease that at this date has NOT ONE SINGLE DRUG that can directly treat it. Not one. There are drugs that target symptoms and the complications of my disease, systemic sclerosis, but none that can shut the disease down.
Over the last few days two alerts about new treatment developments for systemic sclerosis hit my newsfeed. One of the drugs, Certa Therapeutics’ FT011, is designed to treat chronic fibrosis and was just granted FDA Fast Track status. After a 12-week trial 60% of the systemic sclerosis patients had clinically significant improvement: I suspect that they are talking about lung function here. This is huge! This is the drug that I have been waiting for ever since I quit the anti-fibrotic drug OFEV last summer due to intolerable side effects. Fast track status means I may get this drug in another year or so. THIS IS HUGE, PEOPLE!!!! HUGE!!!
How about a break? Here is my monster orchid 4 years ago today.
Just a couple days after the news about FT011 another news alert, even bigger news, came that Cabaletta Bio’s CABA-201 drug had been granted Orphan Drug status by the FDA. I’m not completely sure, but this seems to be a type of CAR T-cell therapy that would provide an immune system reset: a cure. Did you catch that? A CURE!!!!! The disease that I live with, systemic sclerosis, could be stopped dead in its track if this works. Orphan Drug status provides some financial incentives and helps in bringing the drug to market, but it doesn’t speed up the process like the Fast Track status will for FT011. Still, this is good news arriving all at once. I have a sense that momentum is building as these new, very sophisticated drug treatment strategies come to market based on specific molecular interventions in the patient.
Anyway, none of this going to happen overnight because the FDA approval process is very slow and painstaking. This is the way it needs to be to develop drugs safely. Drugs are first visualized based on knowledge of the regulation and complexities of biological systems. “Oh, that’s a good idea for a drug,” some scientist tells themself, thinking about a regulatory pathway in humans. They follow through on their idea and then see if it works in a specific science-based process that tests the drug in lab, animals and then finally humans to see if it will treat the disease/condition.
Mateo: Hang on, everyone. The Mother of Cats is going to go all science geek now…
For example, one of my drugs is called Letairis. It is designed to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension, and it is an endothelin receptor antagonist.What the heck is that, you ask? As you might, because who in their everyday life would need to know about this stuff, right? Maybe you should skip this part if you are feeling sleepy… You’re still reading? Wow! I’m so impressed and grateful for your trust…Well, anyway, here is the very short version at the Midnight Knitter level of understanding: endothelin is a small protein produced by the cells lining the inside of my blood vessels that causes blood vessels to constrict. The drug that I take, Letairis, is a sneaky molecule that mimics endothelin; it binds to the receptor on the target site and blocks endothelin, keeping it from attaching to the receptor. The drug prevents my blood vessels from constricting and keeps my blood pressure in my lungs low. Yay!
Anyway, some scientist long ago had an idea that maybe blocking the action of endothelin would be a good way to control pulmonary hypertension. This idea was tested in the lab, then on animals, and then if all seemed okay it was tested on a very small group of humans, and then larger groups of humans. Data is collected and analyzed to look for the efficacy of the drug while also identifying all the possible side effects. There is a lot of risk/benefit analysis before the drug is released to market. After that more data is collected to hunt for bad side effects once the drug is being used in this much larger market.
I guess my point is, this is a long, long process with lots of safeguards along the way. The FDA is the agency that provides the scientific guard rails that protect me and every other drug consumer in the US from bad information, harmful drugs, and unscrupulous people who push pseudoscience treatments in order to make a buck. Thank you, FDA, for providing this essential service for me and every other American whether they appreciate it or not. I’m glad that you do this, even if it means I have to wait for my new drug that is slowly working its way through the process to come help me.
Mateo: Now the Mother of Cats is getting political. Watch out everyone!!
Today the United States Supreme Court heard arguments about the abortion drug mifepristone that centered around its approval by the FDA and the decision by that agency to allow it to be delivered by mail. I’m convinced that the issue has been raised solely because this drug is used for abortions, but the arguments brought before the court are suddenly extremely pertinent to me and my own situation.
I’m pretty sure that not one of the justices on the supreme court is qualified to make a judgement about the scientific process used to develop this drug and the analysis that was made about its safety. Just as I wouldn’t allow one of the large pharmaceutical companies to rule on a matter of law, I am alarmed that the courts are now going to second-guess a science-based agency.
I am also extremely concerned about the court deciding whether drugs can be sent to patients through the mail. It has to do with the ancient, mostly forgotten until now, laws on the books about drugs that can be used for abortions or contraception being delivered by mail.
Remember my drug Letairis? I need it to control my life-threatening pulmonary arterial hypertension that was gifted to me by my systemic sclerosis. This drug has a rigorous enrollment process and requires female patients to use two forms of birth control and to take a pregnancy test every month before they can get the next 30-day supply. Each month this drug is delivered to me by overnight express from a pharmacy in another state. This drug can harm an unborn child and may create the need for an abortion. Suddenly the arguments that were made today before the US Supreme Court threaten me and my access to medical care.
I sure hope that Certa’s FT011’s progress on the Fast Track isn’t affected by all of this. An upended FDA approval process could be disastrous for me and a lot of other people waiting for a new drug to arrive to save their butt.
Unintended consequences are a bitch.
Update 3/27/2024: While I was writing this post yesterday, the FDA approved a new drug for pulmonary arterial hypertension (WHO Group 1). The relief and celebration in the online support communities this morning was pretty amazing. This is good news for me, too, as my PAH is in Group 1. Yay science!!
Hannah is taking the week off, but she would like to remind everyone that they should have a good Caturday. Go outside and listen to the birds! Roll around and coat your fur with some nice dust to take the oil off. Look for a bunny. Demand tuna!! Run wild through the house, chase your brother, and sleep in a sunbeam.
What? I’m busy out here on the catio…
I’m still struggling with fatigue, and even though I’ve been trying to eat iron-rich foods, my doctor has decided that I need supplementation. Ugh. I’ve discovered that iron supplements are pretty much evil. Seriously evil! Like, the awful goes on for at least three days after each supplement, but I am starting to feel better. I sleep better. I have more energy. My GI symptoms are starting to calm down. I’m more mentally alert and have an urge to write. Huh. Anemia. There is another post in here somewhere, but not today. Today is about my happy place, the crafting room.
For some reason that I don’t understand, Hannah has decided that I need to spend all my waking hours in the crafting room. She trills and carries on (like, she scratches the woodwork around the doors to make me come running…) until I come back to the room. She is okay if I’m up and moving about, but if I try to read in bed, she intervenes and makes me get up. Okay. Transferring my reading to the craft room… huh… there is lots of sunlight in this room. I have a little loveseat along with the indoor garden, my loom, and a television, so this is actually a good place to hang out while I’m iron-loading. Did I mention that there is a walk-in closet attached to this room with all things crafting inside? Maybe Hannah knows what she’s doing. Over the last week I’ve been gardening and moving things around, and I realized that I really have made a happy place for myself in this room.
Here’s my loveseat with my emotional support chicken, my knitting, and one of my favorite shawls.
Did you want the links for those knitted objects? Just in case you do, here they are. The sweater is La Prairie by Joji Locatelli. The shawl is another Joji creation called Julie’s Wrap, and here is the link for the Emotional Support Chicken.
Do you see all the popcorns on the edging of Julie’s Wrap? It took FOREVER to make all of those, and you would think that I’d learned my lesson, but noooo…. I went ahead and made those popcorn stitches on the La Prairie. Do I regret this choice each time I come to that row on the chart with the popcorns? Why yes, yes I do. And yet…
Look at how cute they are in this cardigan!!!!
If you commit to knitting this sweater, and it is a serious commitment, you might as well commit to the popcorn. I’m really pleased with how this is looking. I’m into the third color of yarn and can’t wait to get to the fourth one. This is going to be a fun light cardigan later on this year.
Back to the happy things. They have pretty much piled up on the table in the room that usually has my fabric cutting station on it. This is what has moved onto it over the last week or two.
That teddy bear is the one that my son gave me in the ICU after my lung biopsy. He’s wearing a hat that I’ve knit for Frayed Knots donation, and the little zebras are ones that my niece sent to me as happy surprises. The Amazon Echo on the table reads my audible books to me while I knit. Happy. This is happy stuff.Did you notice the green cat tail in the last photo? Here is the knitted cat, in fun spring colors. He’s propping up my current dragon/octopus books and doing a great job at it, too. Those books make me happy! The watercolor painting in the background is one I bought with a girlfriend at an art sale one perfect fall day in Golden, Colorado. My friend died two years ago, but the memory of her and that perfect day lives on in the painting.Some of the plants from the indoor garden have overflowed onto this table. (Actually, that’s what set off the rearrangement of happy stuff.) This white orchid is a rebloom on a plant from last year (yay!), and in front of it is one of the new little fig trees. To the right, in a little terrarium that MAKES ME HAPPY is an African violet that is blooming its heart out. Above them you can see a bit of the quilt that my cousin made and sold to me a few years ago. Hey, doesn’t this make you happy too?
If you are interested in knitting your own cat, the pattern is Grey Kitten, Calico Cat by Claire Garland. I think that some more things will be joining this assembly on the table. I have some little statues that were put away because… Hannah… that I can now take out and arrange with the flowers. I have some special skeins of yarn that might be fun to display. Maybe I should focus on weaving a little wall hanging on the loom.
Tomorrow it will snow again, but I will be safely indoors with Hannah in the craft room, embracing the popcorn stitch, and enjoying all the little happy things that have been collected in here that are emblematic of friends, family, favorite knits, and happy memories.
There is a little take-home lesson here somewhere. If you are struggling with extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and everything hurts, just go with it. Make yourself a happy place. Make something beautiful. Hang out with your cat. Embrace the popcorn stitch. Read in the sunshine.
Don’t forget to take your iron supplement, though, no matter how nasty it is!
Hannah wants me to mention that the Chewy tuna fairy visited us yesterday.
p.s. MR, how could I have forgotten to post the picture of the whole quilt? Here it is, a ribbon winner by my wonderful cousin Ruth Ann. Ya’ll, MR is at Downunder with Boodz and sets me straight whenever I wander from the straight and narrow…
I’ve been hanging out with the Mother of Cats in the craft room all week.
There was a big snowstorm this week. It just snowed and snowed and snowed and Mateo got more difficult to manage than usual because he was so frustrated…
Mateo: Where are my bunnies!
The snow kept up for so long the Mother of Cats went out and whapped at some tree branches with a stick to make the snow come off. The trees are all okay, so that was good! There was so much snow in the end it was taller than Mateo. Did I mention that he was grumpy and frustrated? He chases me way too much when he is grumpy… Lucky for me the Mother of Cats had just ordered more chirpy toys for him along with a second automated laser light so there is a fresh one for him to play with while the other one is charging. Sometimes the Mother of Cats is kind of smart. Sometimes…
You can see how much snow there was with the bear. When the awful stuff finally stopped coming out of the sky there was almost 15″ of it on the ground. I absolutely refused to go out onto the catio with Mateo the Idiot, but the poor Mother of Cats had to go out to shovel it twice to get the sidewalks and driveway cleared. Poor Mother of Cats.
Mateo went on the catio while she was shoveling, but I’m too smart for that!
Mostly we stayed indoors and knitted away on the new sweater and listened to an audiobook when we weren’t playing with plants (that’s coming up soon…) or suffering in the cold whiteness.
Look at how much sweater got done! The Mother of Cats is listening to The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi while working on her La Prairie cardigan. She really likes the book (but so far there hasn’t been even a single octopus in the story…), and she is below the armholes on the sweater and getting ready to start using the third color of yarn. Whew. That is a lot of knitting. I’m a really great support for the Mother of Cats while she’s working. I deserve more tuna for sure!
We also worked a lot with the garden plants this week. The Mother of Cats planted her little fig tree seedlings, and they are looking great.
Now there are 4 new fig trees growing in the upstairs garden with the orchids. Speaking of the orchids, another one started blooming this week!
Look at these cute blooms!
There are some other projects with plants going on which I don’t understand all that well because… I’m a cat… but the Mother of Cats seems to be really happy with the way they are going. The milkweed seeds came up out of the ground this week and the snapdragon seedlings are so big the Mother of Cats is going to have to put them into bigger pots soon to get them ready to go live out on the deck.
The Mother of Cats was really excited to see the milkweed sprouts, but I think that she is a little silly. She thinks that the milkweed will make butterflies come to the garden, which I guess is good because I like to chase them a lot, but it is hard for them to get into the catio. Maybe she can put some of them in pots on the catio? That would be nice!
She is going to plant some more rose seeds this week (they have been in the refrigerator for 6 weeks) and this time I promise to not knock them down onto the floor, and hopefully there won’t be any nasty mold. She is also trying to get the jade plants to bloom, but so far there isn’t anything happening on the plants. Well, they may be growing more leaves, but that isn’t exactly what the Mother of Cats was hoping for.
Not my jade plants, not my problem. I’ll be more excited when she plants catnip.
This is Hannah, signing off.
>^..^<
Notes from the Mother of Cats: The lung CT scan results came in. I still have lungs. They still look the same as they did 6 months ago: not better, but not significantly worse, and I have less fluid around my heart. I’ll take it!
It has been months since I got sick with the Wannabe Covid and I’m still flirting with long-hauling. Ugh. My fibromyalgia symptoms seem to be better right now, but I’ve become anemic. Fabulous. No wonder I’m so exhausted! The BLZ (blue-lipped zebra) is running wild lately. I spend my nights listening to Murderbot audio books as I try to fall asleep, and lately I’ve been reading books in the daytime that feature… octopuses. Last week the two things, Murderbot and octopuses, began to overlap in my mind.
I guess I need to set the stage a little here. I’ve been interested in octopuses for some time now, and I’ve been reading science fiction books for most of my life. I’ve heard of octopuses who engaged in antics at the aquarium as they snuck out of their aquarium to catch (and eat) the fish in other tanks. There was a news story about a jail aquarium break by an octopus who returned to the ocean via a floor drain. I loved the octopuses in these books when I read them.
Children of Ruin was especially interesting to me because it raised an interesting question: what is intelligent life, and what would it look like. Can it evolve in species already on Earth, and would we recognize it when we saw it? One of the things that always makes me cranky when reading science fiction is… the aliens always share a lot of attributes with humans, and it is a given that intelligent life would evolve specific cultural and technological attributes that mirror our own. Why. Why would that be? Why do we assume that the only yardstick for self-awareness, communication, and cognitive function has to be exactly what we are? Perhaps that is human-centric hubris, and we should look at the world (and space) with better eyes.
Then I read this book last week and I totally went down the Murderbot/Octopus rabbithole.
Do you know Murderbot? Murderbot is a robot/human cloned-tissue construct (corporate owned, of course) that was designed to serve humans as a security/defense tool. It has a failsafe device installed in its brain to control its behavior called the governor module: Murderbot hacked its governor module and is now a free agent trying to figure out what it wants while consuming massive amounts of media. Murderbot is a person, but it doesn’t want to be human. It is its own self, struggling to find its way and purpose (while killing/maiming the occasional bad human along the way) in a universe of heartless megacorporations who abuse human rights and use constructs as disposable tools.
The Mountain in the Sea explores some of these same issues. The book askes the question: What is a person? There are evil megacorporations who abuse the environment and employ human trafficking in their quest to turn a profit: Murderbot would completely understand this world. Even more, the book askes other important questions: What is required to be considered an intelligent species? Language? Tool use? Community and culture? Self-awareness and obvious problem solving? How do we identify and evaluate these?
The Mountain in the Sea has a robot with a brain that passes the Turing Test. Is it a person? What rights should it have? There is an octopus that probably could also pass the Turing Test if there was an octopus version. There is a soldier who provides security for the scientific research facility who utilizes octopus-like technical interfaces in her work. She also hides behind a robot-like translator so she can avoid interacting with the other humans… if she was Murderbot she’d be watching media. There is a scientist who is driven to build a perfect human-like brain, and a scientist who is driven to understand other brains. There are victims of human trafficking, and it is hard to not ask the question, what are the rights that all persons are entitled to? The Mountain in the Sea kind of had it all (if you are a BioGeek struggling with Wannabe-Covid long haul symptoms), and it was the perfect companion to my nocturnal Murderbot audiobooks.
I engaged in a lot of googling to check out information while reading the book. Yes, octopuses really can change their skin color and texture to immediately blend into the background. They really do build cities. They really do have brains that are completely different from our own, and those arms are somewhat autonomous as they interact with the environment. They use tools. You can check out these sources to learn more about octopuses. Octopus 101 and Octopuses Keep Surprising Us.
Late last week I went on an outing and headed into the book store.
If it had an octopus on the cover it pretty much jumped off the shelf and landed into my basket. The dragon got in there too, somehow, but it lives in water too, right? It probably is self-aware and intelligent, right? It’s the Year of the Dragon, right?
But first, I’m reading all the octopus books.
p.s. The Murderbot Diaries is being adapted by Apple TV+ into a series. Yay! Murderbot would be thrilled to know it is becoming streamable media.
p.p.s. Anemia can be a symptom of Covid long-hauling. Seriously, I just wanted to pull my hair out when I saw this article. I was at the low end of normal when I got sick in October, and now my iron (ferritin) level is half of what it was. Wannabe Covid, I hate your guts!
Did you know that spring is right around the corner?
That’s right. I can tell that spring is coming because there are more birds in the yard now. The robins are back!! There is more sun in the afternoon. The flights of geese over the house seem to have stopped. There are THREE BIG FAT BUNNIES in my backyard!
These bunnies are really big! Mateo the CoalBear and I watch them every late afternoon when they come out into the yard to play. The CoalBear is chomping at the bit to chase them, but so far he hasn’t managed to escape from the catio. The bunnies are also eating the Mother of Cats lawn, but she doesn’t seem to care that much. She’s just happy to see some green grass after the long winter.
Anyway, the Mother of Cats made me this mouse to play with since I can’t go out to chase the bunnies with Mateo.
She stored the mouse in the catnip jar to make it smell good. I’ve been hogging it for myself because that dang CoalBear plays with all the chirpy toys and never, ever lets me have fun with the ping pong balls. He just acts like all the toys belong to him and I never get to play with anything anymore, so this mouse is mine! Besides, it doesn’t chirp, so he isn’t that interested in it, and he doesn’t like catnip.
I eat his tuna when he isn’t looking because he is a total toy hog. It’s only fair, right?
This is Hannah, signing off.
Notes from the Mother of Cats: That portly mouse is made from this pattern on Ravelry. I used same homespun yarn that the chicken is made from, and Hannah seems to be roughing up the mouse more and leaving poor HanPeck along.
I kind of think that this mouse looks like a pika. What do you think?
Yarn, Books & Roses 