Grue!

Today I went and got my new dog, Grue.

More specifically, on Friday I went out to Austin to see K-the-knitter and Mr. K, stayed with them until this morning, when I drove out to Seguin to meet up with Grue's foster mom. Seguin is roughly the midpoint between Aggieland and the city I adopted Grue from, and her foster mom was very kind to meet me there.

Well, the first thing I noticed is that she's a bit bigger than I was expecting - more like a 35 lb dog than a 20 lb dog, though honestly that's okay by me. She weighs around the same as Maggie, maybe a little lighter actually, but their personalities are very different.

Maggie is a very outgoing, friendly dog. If she sees you, she wants to go to you, and she wants you to pet her (quite a lot, please, and perhaps some belly rubs?). Her tail is always wagging, and she is always smiling.

Grue is (at least so far) a very anxious dog. Quite frankly, she's not as well socialized; though she's very sweet to people, her initial reaction to most things is fear and avoidance, then curiosity if it doesn't look like it's going to come after her. She's very quiet, I haven't heard her make a single sound yet (aside from one time, she burped), and all she really seems to want to do is lay down, not too far from people, preferably on the couch once she realized she was allowed to get up there. She does not like her crate (it's a bit small, have to get a bigger one, I was expecting a smaller dog), but she has eaten and drunk and, eventually, peed on the grass outside. Granted, it took me carrying her down the stairs and twenty minutes of her sniffing and cowering every time a bird called or a car passed before she would pee, and another ten minutes of me coaxing her back up the stairs and into my apartment, but she did have a successful 'walk'.

Grue's mom said that she isn't 'used to a leash'. This seems really weird to me - were they not walking their rescue dogs? Who does that? She was content to stick close to me, which is good, that will teach her to walk next to me when she gets more confident, but I do wish she'd been exposed to more things as a puppy.

All in all, I'm still very happy with her. She is a super sweet dog, and not loud or hyper like I feared. Hastur and the Library Overlord came by to see her, as well as Mr. Friend-Ex (I figure that name will work as well as anything else? We really are remaining friends) and a buddy of his, and we all hung out and had fun and pizza. Grue even got a pepperoni or two, because I am not above shameless bribery. I took a bunch of pictures with my phone, but I'm too tired right now to upload and post them, so you get to wait.

Me, I've got a puppy to snuggle with.

Home Sweet Home

Well, I got the keys to my new apartment on Friday. The Library Overlord helped me move over my bed, and a bunch of my kitchen equipment, and then later on my mom came into town and bought me groceries. Oh, so many, many groceries. Mostly it's stuff that's either dry, canned, or frozen, since I know there's only so much fresh stuff I'm going to eat right away, but it's been interesting. I made pancakes and bacon at 11 p.m., and last night dinner was a glass of lactose-free milk (did you know they make lactose-free milk? It's awesome, I can drink all I want without horrible gut pain), a banana, and one of those personal-sized microwaved chocolate cakes, which as it turns out are actually pretty good. Tonight I plan to make some sausage and lima bean dill rice. I make a mean lima bean dill rice, if I do say so myself.

The first night alone was not an easy one. I couldn't sleep, the light from the window and the computer screen was different than I was used to and I was thinking way too much. In the end I called some folks to talk, and that helped, and the next couple of nights were easier because of pancakes and moving exhaustion.

A friend of mine is moving soon, to a fully furnished grad student apartment in California, and so she called me up and asked if I wanted any of her stuff. Basically, anything that hadn't already been claimed and that I could haul away myself was fair game, so I got two futons (hooray seating!), a bookshelf, a microwave, a small cabinet/table thing, a bunch of sheets and towels and a whole lot of dishes. One of the futons I was able to put together myself last night, the other I hope to get done when I get home this afternoon.

Internet won't be working at my house until tomorrow, but by tomorrow evening it should be up and running. Mr. Sweetie (what should I call him now? Mr. Ex? Mr. Friend?) offered to come and help me put it together, which is nice of him. I should offer him dinner.

The Fine Art of Pet Juggling

Well, if you read HasturTorres's blog, you may know already what's been going on these past couple of days. Hastur and the Library Overlord got a cat on Saturday, after lots of time and money spent trying to find one that would work with the Overlord's allergies. The cat, Loki, was the sweetest thing ever, but he had trouble breathing, so Hastur took him to the vet to be checked out, and testing revealed that the little guy was very ill, and the vet recommended the cat be put down.

Because of the nature of his illnesses (and I think I'm going to let Hastur decide how much of what information to release to the public, so please excuse my vagueness), Hastur and the Overlord agreed that it was the only option. They had to weigh the health of their adorable dachshund, whom they've had for years, against one very sweet, very sick kitty, who was not going to get better, and who could make other cats, dogs, and people very sick. It was a hard decision to make, but this morning I drove with her and we said goodbye to Loki.

I spoke with the vet about my own current situation, how I'm living with them now and was exposed to the cat, how I'd like to bring Heed and Grue to my new home, and what she thought the best plan of action would be. As it turns out, the illness that is able to pass to dogs is the easiest to remove from the environment, once the host is gone. Boiling water on the things he pooped on or near, steam clean the carpets and upholstery, wash all the clothes and bedding in hot water, and it's gone. As long as all that's done (and it's getting done tonight, the bedroom is already the Clean Room and the dachshund is safely locked away in there), I could pick up Grue tomorrow.

The unfortunate part is that the respiratory issue with Loki was airborn, and she said I can't Heed home for another 4 weeks. Mr. Sweetie did come and visit Loki briefly, so I've asked him to please watch Heed for signs of respiratory issues (beyond his usual sneezing) and let me know if he sees anything.

I had really wanted to move Heed in to my new home first, and let him get settled in before I brought in a new animal. But I can't live completely alone, I'm just not built for it. I need to hear breathing at night that isn't mine, know there's another warm body in the house whether it walks on two legs or four. So I am going to try and get Grue right away, and when it's finally safe bring Heed over.

Two more days. Two more days until I have a home again.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Well, folks, this is going to be a bit of a long post today, but it should usher in an era of shorter and more frequent posts, for reasons that will soon become evident. I know I've been largely MIA for about a month now, and the reason for that is...

Mr. Sweetie and I are separating.

First, the barrage of answers to the usual first barrage of questions: The details of what happened are between me and Mr. Sweetie, it's not anybody else's business. Yes, I am holding up okay. We are trying to remain friends. I have found a new place to live, and I move in next Friday. I have been sleeping on a friend's couch for almost a month now. Yes, I am still taking the prozac, and I plan to keep doing so for at least the next year (doctor just approved my longer prescription).

Heed of course is going to come with me to my new place - but Maggie will be staying with Mr. Sweetie. She is first and foremost his dog. She needs a stable environment with a loving daddy and a grassy yard to play in, and he needs his little piglet. Since I will have lots of time on my hands, and no longer want to live in a dog-free home, I will be getting one of my own - a one-year-old corgi/basset hound mix that I shall name Grue. I hope that she will be spunky enough to run Heed around, but laid back enough to chill on the couch with me while I play Warcraft. Since nobody expects the spanish inquisition major life changes, money is a little tight with me right now, so I've asked the dog rescue to please hold Grue for me until mid-June, when I'll have saved up enough for another pet deposit and her adoption fees.

Logistically, almost everything has already been worked out. I signed the lease for my new place last week, the security deposit has already been paid, and there is enough in Mr. Sweetie's account to cover my half of the rent on the old place for the remainder of the lease. Mr. Sweetie has agreed to hold my things until I can move them out, and has even offered to help me move the larger furniture, which is very considerate. I'll be within walking distance to work, which will be handy, because that way I'll be able to go home and walk Grue during my lunch hour.

I've been knitting a LOT lately. Like, have-to-make-myself-stop, tingly-sore-arms amounts of knitting. I've knit up to about 30% of the Persian Star Shawl, and written out the pattern for the entire thing. It's going to be a bit before it's PDF-ready, of course, since my actually-mine computer is still with Mr. Sweetie, and it may take some time before I can get internet at the new Casa del PenName. I can still post plenty from campus, though, so no worries there. I plan to put it up for sale via Ravelry once it's completely ready, and then start on probably another large lace shawl pattern.

I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands.

It's going to be weird living alone, I'm not going to kid myself about that. I've never lived entirely by myself, but in the end I think it will be a learning experience. I plan to cook more, which will of course require the number to poison control courage and creativity, but I think I can do it. I expect to be blogging a lot more, and playing a lot more Warcraft, and of course posting tons and tons of pictures of Heed and the new dog. Unfortunately, I can't have any alcohol now because of the prozac, so I won't be drowning my sorrows in anything stronger than a case of Dr. Pepper, no matter how much I might want to. I picked up Crazy Aunt Purl's book, "Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair", and let me tell you, she is one awesome lady.

So, yeah. That's me as of right now. Take care of yourselves, everyone. I'll be taking care of me.

End of Hiatus

Well, isn't it like me to announce my hiatus at the tail end of it? I am back. This are different in my life than they were a month ago, but all in all I think I'm on the upswing.

I started taking anti-depressant medication earlier this month, and I am feeling better now than I have in years. Seriously, just this one small thing has made a world of difference in me. I haven't had a depressive episode in over a week. I feel like I'm all here, and connected in a way that I can't really describe well. Before the meds, I felt like I "lived" in my eyes, and the rest of my body was a tool that I used to get around and do things. It wasn't even a tool that I really cared for much of the time. I knew the drugs were working when I looked at my hands one morning and thought me instead of mine. I wish I had done this a decade ago.

I've lost almost 10 lbs in the last few weeks, at first all in a rush, then I gained some back, then lost some again, but I think what I've lost now is healthy loss and not just being to crazy and stressed to eat. Hastur and the Library Overlord have been good friends to me, as shoulders to cry on and so much more, I know I can never repay their generosity but I'm determined to try.

This past weekend I went and saw Chilerox and 2MinutesToBelgium down in San Marcos, and Balthazar the spinning wheel (and my hand cards) found a new home. He is a lovely wheel, but my Babe and I have a history together that no other wheel can match. We went by Hill Country Weavers on Sunday, and I found some Habu cobweb-weight merino in a lovely rich hazelnut color, and some size 0 addi lace needles, which I've chosen to take as a sign. After Persian Star Prime is done, I may doodle around with some Orenburg lace.

In Persian Star Shawl news, as of today I'm four rows away from finishing Chart E, after which there is one more giant monster chart, and the edging. Don't let that optimistic sentence fool you, though, chugging through Chart E means I'm about 20% done with the entire shawl as a whole. If I finish it this week (and I should, but I also have a friendship bracelet to make for a swap, which has to come first) I will dry-block it and take a million pictures. It doesn't look anything like what I first imagined, but I do like how it is now. Funny how life can surprise you like that.

Hiatus

I'm going on hiatus for a while.

Rrrrrrip!

The other night, I ripped out 23 rows of the Persian Star Shawl. Almost 1500 stitches.



That's a dime I used for scale. I didn't have a quarter handy.



It damn near broke my heart to do it, but the chart as I had written it in that section just plain sucked. There was too much empty space, too strong of vertical elements (and I don't care for strong vertical elements in circular shawls - makes 'em look like wagon wheels), and the whole thing was repetitive and boring. I don't want my shawls to put people to sleep, and I know that Galveston suffers from enough of that. It had to go.

So that section, like all that have gone before it, has been re-sketched and re-charted. It's a wholly different beast than it was before, and now I am enamored of it. I start to worry, though, whether I should change the name of this shawl? Because honestly, it bears absolutely no resemblance now to that original ceiling tile. I mean, I definitely like the pattern as it's written so far, it's just a very different beast than it started out trying to be.

And yet, it will be star-shaped in the end. Or star-shaped inside a round shape, actually, but you get the idea. Either way, it's time for me to pick up my needles again. I want to see how this next section looks when it's finished.

Making an Honest-to-God Actual Website

That's what I've been doing lately, setting up a real, paid-for, domain-registered website.

Not for me, of course - or rather, not just for me.

See, my friends and I, we're gamers. I know I must have mentioned this once or twice or a million times, we are huge nerds and this is what we do. We have a game that's been running for over two years now (I remember the excitement of showing off my engagement ring while we sat down and prepared for the superhero game), and a game that is very recently started. We meet two nights a week, as a rule, though of course school and work and life make their intrusions. We have a set of forums that we've used for a couple of years for things like arranging gatherings, sharing funny stories and interesting news items, and incidental interaction (incidental meaning nothing you need dice for) between characters. It's a good system, and one that we like, but in the years that we've had it, the hosting site has often crashed for weeks at a time, leaving us with little recourse.

So I bought a website. And a year of hosting. As a lump, it was a little painful on the wallet, but it came down to less than $10 per person per year, for registering the domain, getting things set up, and all the hosting, and that's a hard deal to beat. I'm wanting to say it was something like $5/month for hosting?

I used JustHost.com, which offers unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, and was very well reviewed. So far I haven't had it for terribly long, but I'm liking it. I set up new forums right off the bat, and Pitt Beau will be showing me how to move over all our previous posts in some kind of an easy manner, so that we don't lose our years and years of forum history. I set up subdomains and ftp accounts for everyone in the group, so that everyone has their own corner of the site to fuck with as they please, and nobody (danny) has to worry (danny) about anyone else (me) messing with their content (danny), even if only as a prank. Which, knowing our group, we would do in a heartbeat were it an option. I mean, hell, I would do it myself.

So now things are slowing down on that. I still need to make some html templates for me, and for folks who aren't terribly familiar with html, to use. I still need to set up some kind of a contact list that not-us people won't have access to, and perhaps a chat room, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

Perhaps at a later date I'll post a link to the site, but for now I think I'll leave it be. I want to see it grow into an awesome online encyclopedia of our games, because I am just arrogant enough to think that they're really something special, even in the wonderful world of gaming.

I mean, where else are you going to find an ex-government-experiment ward of the state superhero whose power is that she talks to rats, and can locate objects or people through her "cheese sense"? That level of awesome doesn't just grown on trees, you know.

100 Best Novels?

So, random house put out a list of the 100 best novels of the past whatever period of time. They had a list compiled from libraries, and a list compiled by patrons (L. Ron Hubbard and Ayn Rand are all up in the top 10 of the reader's list, so clearly something fishy went on with the voting but whatever).

This got me thinking. I read a lot - I mean, I read a lot - but I don't really consider myself "well read", largely because I read mostly science fiction, fantasy and horror. If I wanted to live under a slightly smaller cultural rock, reading every book on this list would be a pretty good way to go about it, I figure. Reading every book on both lists might end with me clawing my eyes out, mostly because I've got no respect for Hubbard or Rand, but it might still be worth it only so that I could bitch more effectively.

So if you take out the duplicates and sort them alphabetically, this is the list you get:

1984 by George Orwell
A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
BELOVED by Toni Morrison
BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
CATCH-22
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein
DUNE by Frank Herbert
ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies
FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
IRONWEED by William Kennedy
IT by Stephen King
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
LOVING by Henry Green
MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
MOONHEART by Charles de Lint
MULENGRO by Charles de Lint
MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
SHANE by Jack Schaefer
SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles
THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie
THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
THE STAND by Stephen King
THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
TRADER by Charles de Lint
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute
U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
ULYSSES by James Joyce
UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
V. by Thomas Pynchon
WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor
WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
YARROW by Charles de Lint
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm


It's a lot. But I think I can do it. I might even shoot for doing it all in one or two years.

Pasta Pasta Pasta!

So, a few days back I tried making some potato gnocchi - and let us politely say that it failed.

Like, hardcore fail.

So tonight, I'm going to try making ravioli instead. I have a shiny new pasta roller, and a kitchen full of ingredients. I'm going to try and make a spinach and feta set, a mushroom cheesy set, and depending on how much of the boiled crawfish I'm eating for lunch escape my belly, I might even try a delicious crawfish-based filling.