This is why.

 They spend a third of the time chasing each other around the house, even in the middle of the night...sigh. But I'm savoring the hijinks because I know kitten foolishness fades quicker than the terrible twos. 

This morning, there was a snag in the feline social fabric. 

Bailey had a spat under my bed with Bong. Then he strolled into the studio, lifted his tail, and pissed on an open box of comic books stored under the table, marking "his" territory. In his tenure with us, I've never seen this distinctly male behavior, but then, this is the first time we've welcomed another male cat into the family, even though they are both neutered.

 Colin was quick to salvage what he could, wiping down everything else with disinfectant. I will have to watch Bailey like a hawk and shut the door when I'm not in here to observe. This too shall pass.

I posted more thread sets to the store this morning, but I also felt the need to treat myself to a few more, even though I can hardly get the stash closed. 

There has been a lot of turmoil close to home this past week, and I'm not feeling well. Vertigo is the worst. It makes it hard to be fierce in body and mind. 

A few days of routine as fall sneaks in, and I'll be fine. 

Not crazy

 Yet, at a feline count of four, we are full up.

This is Bong. Six months old and already nine pounds. Sweet-natured and all-day handsome. His foster mom wrote a great marketplace post about everyone needing "Mini house panthers, shadow goblins..." The writing pulled me in, and the picture of him and his three sisters kept pulling me back.

And Sophie was driving me nuts with her beagle impression. What cat wants to play fetch all day long? And when she wasn't in my face, she wanted the Elders to play. They have come to tolerate her, but play? The kitten needed a kitten. So, yeah. Welcome Bong! He answers to the name so it stays.

In the middle of this, I needed to make some changes to my bedroom that involved emptying and getting rid of a massive old desk and moving an overloaded bookcase. 

So many books and, to my shame, bookmarks in a third of them, only one or two chapters in. I was so happy to see them, I plucked them all and wished the books good luck. Maybe I'll pick you up again one day. 

The desk drawers were full of pictures, important papers, and notebooks. The bottom drawer was full of expired technology. Flip phones, PDAs, a Blackberry, some digital cameras, and a nest of cords that might belong to some of them. 

 I have never seen this picture before. Jimmy, Colin, who is about three, and my Dad. Everyone dressed to kill. Why and where? No clue. My handsome devils.

Sharing

 These days, I am sharing the stitching chair with Sophie. I'm afraid she is going to grow faster than my hips will shrink. We may have to work out a schedule.

Saving the best for last

 

A fine spaghetti dinner, a few rounds of poker, and two weeks' worth of catching up.  He's loving the trumpet and taking band, and getting A's in math. 

We will try to institute the ancient technology of letting writing. I left him with stamps and envelopes. The ball is in his court.

And a warm welcome when I got home. 

I never even watched Jimmy Kimmel, and I cancelled Disney+, Hulu, and HBO as soon as the servers let me in.  This fucking country can eat itself alive for all I care right now. People seem to be waking up to the Shitweasel's game and hitting back. I have plans for 10/18, but for the moment, I want to wrap myself in a cloak of invisibility and take a break from screaming.

The ignorant Jesus jumpers think this is their moment. Jesus spat in Charlie Kirk's eye, and god threw him down the elevator shaft. That smell? His burning bullshit. 

A person to person week

Good friends. Good food. Good times. It shouldn't feel so unique, but that's on me.

The week began with lunch at a local eatery with an old friend. Em is the person who gave me the idea that writing was a worthy pursuit. She was the first editor to terrorize me with her blue pen and is a published author herself. 

The next day, a spur-of-the-moment gathering for a Braves game on the radio, poolside, started out with a freak thunderstorm. A downpour out of the blue so heavy that we sat outside the gate in our respective cars, hoping a storm this belligerent would blow itself out quickly.  It did.

We ate our picnic lunch in the gazebo to the drizzle and just in time for "Play ball!' I was in the water for pretty much the whole nine innings, drifting and gabbing with another of my oldest friends from here.

Despite the nighttime chills here, this water gets full sun all day. Have you ever swum in a saltwater pool?  The water has a magic that feels like a living thing.  My only regret is that I didn't take a flying leap face-first. The old bones said, "Use the steps, dummy."

Jan told me that despite this splendor, very few people use the pool. What could they be doing?

 That wonderful blue light. 

 Today, another long-overdue lunch with my oldest friend here in the south. Like me, she and her family were shanghaied here by AT&T lo these many years ago and made our lives here, like it or not. We chose another local, not a chain place, and had the best shrimp po'boys ever and hashed over the wretchedness of the state of things. 

It was wonderful to see everyone. 

Wrap-up

The cloth from the Under the Influence dyefest has been a rousing success because I remembered and stuck to the rule of No Machine washing. Everything had to be hand-washed. Small batches of like colors. 

Most of this has been cut up into hand-sized pieces and blended into the scrap basket. 

I may have to rethink pricing or get out the old postal scale. A bundle that went out yesterday weighed 6.2 ounces and cost $7.45 for first-class postage. 

I'll see how this feels with just keys, cell, ID, and some cash today. Not sure that I can travel that light.

 

My actual triumph? Recreating her Baby. 

A bit of fluff, felt, and feathers that came in a bag of cheap cat toys. One that she singled out and has been carrying around in her teeth. Fetching it back when thrown. Coveting it when one of the other cats comes near. And misplacing the original somewhere upstairs.  She's a toddler after all. 

Now there are three of them, and she's good with them all. 

Kinky rayon

 

Ah, that weird rayon thread.

I wish I'd given it the attention that I gave the cotton when it comes to the range of colors. Each change was an afterthought.

My attempt at black and white didn't work out as planned because the thread had an affinity for Dragonblood. I don't want to call it contamination. It blushed💗.

When wet with soda ash solution the skeins are as slimy as pieces of raw chicken in olive oil. With gloves, it felt like they were trying to escape.

Washout was a little better this time because I double-tied each skein.

And the way a double strand works up into a nice bold line has grown on me. I'll be keeping a few for myself. 

Let me know if you would like to try it.

Harvest

 
Under the Influence 

Getting all the cloth washed out is going to be a challenge. No more marathons - of anything manual. 

But it's mostly about the threads. The light is beautiful this morning, so I started making sets and posting them. The names are hard coming. 

Mostly with the objective of getting away from the house. 

Just being anywhere with the internet available feels claustophobic, threatening. Sick making. 

This is one of my favorites. A huck tea towel, good sized. At first I thought that monogram was a D. Now, I'm not so sure. 

I laid out all the cotton thread - the rayon skeins were still damp. For all the richness of this towel, the threads in blue came up short. Lots of mutts. 

I remind myself that something that does nothing for me may make someone else gasp. 

 

Season's end

The stuff that I walked away from to go to the sea. The time away did us good.

I spent most of yesterday handwashing skeins of thread and pieces of cloth. Washing and rinsing skeins of DMC is like petting tiny mermaids or handling cooked lasagna noodles.

Small batches of like colors, mostly because I'm superstitious. At this stage, the dye is dead, but if any Demon Fuschcia snuck into the mix, there could be contamination. It happened to some of the rayon hanks. Live and keep learning.

Put on the music!

Soak for a while. 15, 20 minutes. Soap (Synthrapol or Dawn) in cold water. Rinse in hot. Repeat as needed. Don't let any of the skeins go down the drain. 

(I work directly in the bathroom sink. Between steps, I stretch my back and walk around. Do chores.)

Underwater, the tie-off presents itself. I grasp it gently and swish slowly. Imagine how long hair behaves under water. This action reorders any loops that may have twisted or tangled. Preens them. 

I really should take a video of this step.

 

This is about a tenth of the skeins. It's going to be a while before I start building sets and posting them for sale. I won't rule out overdyeing if the weather permits. The cloth is spectacular.

For now, I'm taking the steps slowly and keeping notes. 

The blessing

Oak Island, North Carolina

the pre-dawn view from the front porch. I spent a lot of time out there. The Intracoastal Waterway is just beyond those lights. You can see the tops of boats go by. 

I forgot my bathing suit because I never had any intention of swimming. 

Something skittered away from my steps. Lots of them. And what was I going to do with it if I caught it? I'm like a witless kitten on the shoreline chasing whatever moves. We sat just about the highwater mark and watched ghost crabs watching us from a few feet away. 

It was hot, humid, and mercifully overcast, but for a few minutes of blazing blue sky sun here and there while we were on the beach. 

I was glad to have a good book to read and an idea or two about a new writing project. 

Even though we went to the grocery store, my sisters wanted to eat out for every meal. For a seaside resort area, most of the food was just okay. I imagine most of the first-line kitchen staff take a vacation after Labor Day. 

Leaving my car with a friend who then drove me from her place to the airport was a great stress reliever. Still, I landed at 3:40 and didn't get home until 6:30pm with traffic. 

Every single person I encountered during travel was delightful. Two infants on the flight, and we didn't even know until they were carried off the plane. Kindness was abundant. On the homebound landing, the pilot brought us in HOT with one big bounce and a swooping curve that did not feel intentional.  When I got off the plane, I thanked him for the entertainment.