So, What Does Inside Cat Do for Fun?

Since I kind of committed, let's talk about hobbies. You know how you can fascinate a baby by jingling keys in front of his/her face? I never got over that. I get drawn into just about anything - I reach for any shiny thing that comes along. My mother used to scold me, “Jack of all trades, master of none,” and tried hard to get me to focus on one thing. She didn’t care what one thing, just one, instead of wanting to know everything about everything. It didn't help her cause that I grew up in California smack dab in the center of hippy-hippie everything. I remember taking summer classes on tie-dying, Japanese paper making, basket weaving and macrame. I had long-haired art teachers who encouraged experimentation, so I made things in clay, learned stained glass, metal casting (specifically, making jewelry), a little wood carving. I love it all. I can’t help myself. Reaching for those dangling keys, I still want to know everything about everything. I've tried to stick to things that are affordable and don't take a lot of space so my family still loves me. So regretfully, I don't have a glass blowing studio, stained glass equipment, kiln and potting wheel, a shop full of woodworking tools, a loom, spinning wheel (though I desperately want one), sheep (for spinning, you know), bee hives, a printing press and all the other things necessary to turn me into a one-woman village. This actually does make me a little sad. Let's explore some of my more recent interests, just for fun:

When we were moving to Alaska, I decided I needed to give up my freshwater fish tanks. I loved the fish and frogs and the plants I had growing in each tank and I enjoyed learning about them, but I did not want to figure out how to transport the tanks. Also, I looked around online and could not find any information on stores selling fish in Alaska. I was wrong, there are several tropical fish stores in Anchorage. So now you know. But I gave up having my arm wet to the elbow and my fish went to a very deserving young man. I still miss them, even though that 50 gallon tank took up a lot of real estate in our little house.

My new hobby in Alaska was houseplants. I figured I'd need the green during the long dark winter (which actually was lovely, white and brown with pink sky, but I digress). So I bought a no-nonsense plant stand and lights and started collecting African violets and orchids and various other pretty leafy things. Anyone who saw my tiny jungle office in Portland knows I loved plants already. When we moved from Alaska back to Oregon, I gave away my lovely healthy houseplants and decided I would focus on gardening in the yard in Oregon. Which I did.

Now I am grounded, incarcerated, a big fat couch potato. I need a new hobby to drain off some of my fascination with everything. No problem. I grabbed a crochet hook from my knitting daughter, begged some yarn off her and started crocheting. I can do that easy even with my left foot propped higher than my heart. I ordered a big box of the Right Colors from the Internets for my Broken Ankle Memorial Blanket and got going. I may even have other projects on the hook (OK, I do...).

I have not abandoned the garden. My husband has kindly agreed (with only one little -suppressed- sigh of long suffering) to keep the garden alive. He loves me that much. My daughter helps me with the herbs I brought inside for the winter. I sit at the table with my brick of a foot propped up and she brings the plants and we both fertilize and water and deadhead and all that. It's nice. I am very grateful for the assistance, so the plants get to live.

I tat; I've tatted for years now. In case you are blinking at me like this, 0_o tatting looks like this. It's a kind of lace. You can scroll through the pics, if you are interested, to get an idea of some of the variety available. There's more to it, but it's my hobby, not yours, so I won't bore you. I mostly make jewelry (earrings, necklaces), beaded purses, ornaments and garlands. I've also been noodling with making wedding lace as a potential side business. All my tatting stuff is packed up in the shed at the moment. The thing that's really cool about tatting is people are just in the past couple of years developing new techniques, so it is an evolving craft.

Last Easter-ish I made the Ukrainian Eggs in the fuzzy picture above. You do it with eggs (I used brown eggs), beeswax and aniline dyes. I buy the specialized copper and birch tools I need from Powell's book store, or sometimes online. It's a Russian thing, though lately I've run into Russians who never heard of it, so I am guessing it is a Western Russian thing, as the Ukrainian in the name indicates. Russia's a giant country and I suppose it is not surprising that people at one end of the country don't know what people on the other end are doing. Getting to make the eggs in the picture was the incentive I gave myself to finish our tax forms last year. By the way, my brother-in-law made the cool wooden bowl they are sitting in.

Another sort-of-hobby all my life has been "get in shape." Except that it's more of a wish. I've never stuck with an exercise regimen for long. I've never been particularly fit, but I could generally get through a day without huffing or puffing. I realize that at the moment I am slowly deteriorating into a sack of flab. One day I will be tortured by some otherwise nice person who happens to be a physical therapist. At that point, I have already resolved that I will make peace with the Wii Fit and start using it. I will not stop until I am able to walk or even jog a 5K run. I know, my dreams are overwhelmingly big. Maybe you and I could work on it together, what do you think? Let me know. You have plenty of time to decide. No need to rush.

My new hobby/skills include brushing my teeth at the couch using a cup and a bowl, digesting while prone, learning to use crutches, um, what else? Not much. Just hanging out, surfing the 'net, watching cable tv, napping. I am becoming a world class napper. Good for healing.

What do you like to do?

love,

inside cat

On the Import of Fruit, particularly of tropical persuasion

I've been told that since I am a big baby and achood facebook, I need to update my blog more often. The word might have been "eschewed" but who really talks like that, Mary? ;) Hmm. I am chained to the living room couch for at least the next six weeks with this broken ankle. Nothing interesting is going to happen to me. What shall I write about?

I think we will all die of boredom if I chronicle my convalescence step by step. We could work on the eternal question, "Are we human or are we dancer?" for a while. Blogging through Julia Child's cookbook has been done. So today our topic is fruit.

First, cantaloupe. Our cat, Kaleo, is, to put it politely, supersized. He's a big muscular guy for a cat anyway, but he really put on weight when our daughter's kitty died five years or so ago. I must admit I did not pay attention to how Kaleo was handling the loss of his beloved. They had been inseparable and I should have expected some response from him but I just didn't think about it. I had my own sad and I was busy. So three or four days after the death of the other cat, I finally noticed where Kaleo had been hanging out: inside the 20 pound cat food bag, gorging. He gained four pounds (for a cat, that's a LOT) in less than a week. To quote Dave Barry, I am absolutely telling the truth. We had a depressed cat who tried to eat himself to death.

So we put the cat food in a container with a lid and tried to help him lose some of the weight he gained, but really ever since then he has been obsessed with stuffing his face. He steals food. He sneaks food. He begs for food (mostly "ham" because it's one of the few words he can say). He thinks about food all the time, you can tell. It came to a head last Christmas, when Rick and I came to visit. Kaleo (who stayed here with our kids) was struggling to jump up to the place where the cats were fed. His spring was sprung. I thought he might be having hip problems, like older adults sometimes do, so just in case we took him to the vet. After x-rays and various tests and such the vet told us he was overweight, charged us three hundred dollars and put him on a diet. Three hundred dollars to find out our cat was fat, which I already knew. I'm still not over it. Anyway, this three hundred dollar diet plan included a list of things he could eat and how much. My favorite item was Cantaloupe, because the quantity allowed was "as much as he wants." I suppose some cats eat cantaloupe. Kaleo won't eat fruit. Not any, not ever. But he was crazy hungry on his diet, of course, and so was sniffing mightily at anything anyone was eating. I kept a text message Steph sent me last winter that said, "Kaleo thought he might want some cantaloupe, but upon consideration, he thinks not." I am pleased to report he has lost a pound or two since then, and he has enough spring in his hind end to jump up again. He's also getting more energy - for the first time in years, he is getting playful, even. I recommend the three hundred dollar cantaloupe diet. We need to get our money's worth out of it.

Mango. I've been thinking about diet because it occurred to me a day after surgery that if I eat "normally" while laying on my back doing nothing, I am going to have to go on the cantaloupe diet myself. I like cantaloupe but I like mango even more. Given the choice, I will take mango flavored you-name-it over any other option. (My second choice is peach.) Guess what I found out? Mango is not good for people who need to diet. If fruit can be fattening, mango is fattening. This is true of most everything I like to eat. I think learning to walk again in a few months will be hard enough without extra weight straining my joints. So I'll have more cantaloupe, less mango. Portion control is my new watchword.

Bananas. There are two things about bananas. One is that I like them very much and tell myself they are very good to have because they are one of the few foods containing potassium, which I miss when I don't have enough in my diet. However, bananas have a well-known -um- binding quality that is not helpful to me at this time. I am on a steady (but decreasing) dosage of oxycodone, which has the same trick of putting a stopper on the human digestive throughput system. I was eating a banana to take my pills a couple of days ago and suddenly realized that I have a problem... Rick went to the store and got yet another pill for me to take, and now all is well again. But I should probably go easy on the bananas.

The other thing about bananas is that they confuse our dog Snickers. Our daughter will ask, "Bananas?" at those moments when Snickers is soulfully nose to nose with her, and invariably it causes Snicks to tilt her head sideways, as if she is trying to get her brain in a better position to understand. Lately our daughter has discovered that "Papaya?" is as perplexing a question to the dog. Now, Snickers, like Kaleo, won't eat any fruit or vegetables voluntarily. None of our animals like fruit. I thought for a while our son's dog would eat grapes. But though I briefly fooled myself into believing he was eating them, Shinobi just licks grapes, takes one bite to break them open and leaves them on the ground for one's toes to discover later. So who knows why Snickers is so curious about bananas, since no one but the humans eat them. Perhaps she'd like to know more about potassium.

Winter is coming. Right now pumpkins are ripe, of course. Unfortunately I've never been a fan of pumpkin, except the roasted (salted) seeds. Did you know the only native American fruit that provides potassium is the pawpaw? This is true. I have some seeds planted in our backyard right now. They have to be exposed to a winter before they will even think about growing. In fact, it could take up to two years for the pawpaws to sprout. I will have to be patient.

That's enough about fruit, though no doubt the subject of patience is going to be a theme for me. Next time (possibly): Inside Cat's various hobbies.

love,

cat

An Important Decision

So, amazingly, I went home yesterday at 5:30 from a surgery performed at 2:00 pm. And I remember both pre- and post- op. I am very impressed with the precision of the anesthesiology team. By the way, has anyone else had surgery lately? What did you think of the little air blower that pumped warm air into the front of your surgical "gown"? Discuss.

Rick got to see my xray pictures. I had told the doctor to do a good job with me, and he said he'd do his best. Apparently he followed through: I have eleven screws in my ankle, and a titanium plate. To compensate, I say I should be allowed to take one pound off my scale weight from now on. The resident who assisted in the surgery came to see me after and said he was sure they couldn't fit another screw into my ankle. They buttoned me up good and tight.

I was sent home with a list of things I must watch for and things I must do. On that list was, "Do not make any important decisions for the next 48 hours." Come on.

Dana came and babysat me today, and did what all good babysitters do: she kept me company, helped me to the potty and made a nice lunch. She also fed me applesauce and rice crackers. We both napped. A good day. :)

I also had Nurse Chloe with me. She has several jobs: she makes sure I am comfortable, makes sure I stay still and watches the tube that runs from the nerve block box to my body. Of course, you need to understand the emphasis. She is not making sure **I** am comfortable; it is more like, "Am I comfortable, Chloe?" As you can see, she does an awesome job making sure I stay still. As for the shiny tube full of novocaine she watches, as long as it has no sharp teeth marks in it, we are all ok.

This lazing around stuff is not working out to be quite so easy as I'd dreamed. I am saddened to report the nerve block is wonderful but has limits: it only works for the right side of my leg. The left side of my leg, I am told, is served by a different nerve. I admit half a numb ankle is better than none of a numb ankle. But my leg keeps cramping from being stuck in the same position all the time, and my ankle swells and gives me lots of not fun sensations when I get up and then yells nasty things at me when I put it up again. I pant and grit my teeth and bear it for about ten minutes after every excursion off the couch. So I've made an important decision. I am never getting up off this couch again.

love,

cat

Couch Potato Salad

Except for periodic waves of nauseating pain (and I do admit, that is a negative) and not being able to move, it occurs to me that I am in an ideal situation. I am waited on hand and foot and completely excused from every adult responsibility. I can't cook, clean, do laundry, buy groceries, or scrub the toilet. When I drop something, someone else has to pick it up. All I have to do is try not to be cranky, and practice patience. I can nap, watch TV or movies or play video games - anytime! I can read uninterrupted. I never have to change out of sweats. I can craft to my heart's content (I have decided I will crochet a Broken Ankle Memorial Blanket. I already picked out a cool pattern). As we all do, I have the tubes of the internet to delight and inform me from all corners of the globe. Lap o' luxury, I'm telling you.

Wednesday at the civilized hour of 11:00 I will report to the orthopedic surgeon to have my ankle screwed back together. I'll have many incisions. The doctor will hand me back to Rick, slightly the worse for wear but with my foot properly attached, late in the afternoon. I am told that for me it will go like this: I will remember entering the doctor's office, and then I will find myself at home on the couch at night with my leg propped up, saying something along the lines of, "Wha' happen'?"

I am also told I won't be in pain because I'll have a cool techy "nerve block" attached to the back of my knee. It's this plastic thing that will inject some kind of novocaine into my leg for two or three days and numb me down to my toes. When it runs out, we just take it off and throw it away.

I appreciate the help we have been offered, very much. You are all wonderful. Thank you! :)

Since I won't be ambulatory for weeks and weeks, I attach this dancing video for our (marginal and slightly horrified) mutual entertainment: solid potato salad. Keep watching until they get past the vocal portion of their presentation and start doing the wacky circus things. If physical therapy is anything like that, count me out.

Just like an astronaut going around the back side of the moon, I'll see you on the flip side... (sample picture below)


love,

cat

The Bigger They Are...

Apparently, I am one of the bigger, because I fell hard. Yesterday (and I apologize if this is like the third time you are hearing about it…) I got tangled up in the Most Evil canvas and wire chair on the planet. I was just walking into the kitchen, minding my own business, and it reached out and grabbed me. Please skip from here to the next paragraph if you are grossed out by abnormal things happening to the human body. Right now, dear friend. OK, for those of you still here, the horrifying details: I wrestled with the chair, lost, and found myself on the ground, in an amazing amount of pain in my right leg. My right knee was bent to the right but uncomfortably overextended. And my foot, my poor foot, (really this is gross, feel free to skip ahead) was backwards. Flat against the ground, pointing 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Aaaa! Did that make you shiver? I shivered, and possibly moaned. I don’t think I’ve seen many scarier things in my life. I turned my foot back around with my hands. There were some really crunchy sounds. I was too startled to even use any inappropriate language.

Welcome back, if you skipped ahead. Suffice it to say I twisted my ankle so hard I was pretty sure I had broken it. I crawled to the couch, got my cell phone and called Rick. I felt I had to move quickly, before I passed out or something. But apparently the pain I was feeling was about as much as I was going to feel. Chris rushed Rick home and Rick took me to emergency, where I was swept right into the back and then left sitting there forever, as usual. But then they gave me morphine, so all is forgiven.
There are three bones you can break in your ankle. Turns out I broke all three. Next Wednesday, I am going in for surgery. I won’t go into details, but pins and plates were mentioned, as well as a loooooong recovery time. Two weeks on the couch with my foot elevated for sure, and then four to six weeks hopping around on my left foot. Six more weeks of only putting my foot on the ground, no weight, then physical therapy. In six months, the orthopedic surgeon tells me, I will be feeling pretty much able to do most of what I could do the day before yesterday.
I am grateful to God for many things today: my family and their unquestioning willingness to take care of me; medical insurance; God’s grace that I didn’t break open my fool head. Couches and pillows. Oh, and percocet. Wonderful stuff!
Thanks for listening. All is well. You can see the picture of my huge cast. It’s not gross unless you are scared of elephants. If you ask me, I am totally rockin' the paper pants.
love,
cat

Facing up to Facebook

OK, I quit Facebook. I'm sorry if this bothers anyone, but my entirely personal and grown up opinion is that Facebook is yuck. I never could make heads or tails out of what was supposed to be happening there. And then I had this huge horrible guilty feeling every time I thought of it, like, "You should go to your stupid Facebook page and figure out how to be sociable. Your friends must be wondering what is wrong with you and why you never talk to them, you loser." This has not helped my stress level or my self esteem. So, forget it. I looked up how to make the account go away, made it go away, and now I do actually feel better. I'm not rejecting any of my friends, just that weird website.

It's fine with me if you like Facebook. I still like you and pretty much everything you stand for. It's just my particular quirk. I have lots of them. Here's a short list:
* I don't like shredded coconut baked into anything - it has the taste and texture of cereal box. I have to believe that it does not taste that way to normal humans, because nearly every cookie bar ever made has coconut stuck in it.
* I don't like movies about WWII.
* I'm not thrilled by SUVs, even though I own one - in the parking lot, they look to me like so many hippos lined up at the river's edge for a good wallow.
* Black and white Mary Jane shoes. Fine with me if other people wear them, but I had some once and ended up hiding them in the back of the closet until I outgrew them.
* Naked mole rats. Ewwww.
* I don't like standing there sucking it up on the Wii. Video games should be played as God intended, from a comfy chair. Please, for the love of heaven, just let me sit down.
* Don't get me started talking about Twitter - even more random and weird than Facebook, WAYYYYY beyond my comprehension.
I'm quite happy if you do like these things. It's not you, it's me.

What do I like? Lots of stuff, way more than what I don't like. Good dirt, for one thing. Know what my wonderful husband got me for my birthday? Five yards of topsoil for the garden. Isn't that romantic? (No? Oh, but yes!) I was so excited, and he knew I'd be excited and he kept the secret and teased me with the impending arrival of my gift and then there it was, a dump truck full of chocolaty brown goodness pulling up to our house. It had either rotted horse our cow manure in it, I'm not sure which. And then when Rick came home, he also had a big bag of coffee grounds from Starbucks to add to it. All for me! We spent my whole birthday weekend hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow from the driveway to the backyard. :) I already have garlic and shallots and leeks and spinach and beets growing up in it, and clover all over the rest of it to do its magic with nitrogen and make the soil Even Better, and Rick made me a little fence around the whole expanded "farm" area. It is the most beautiful thing. I already have all sorts of plans for the spring.



What I really want now is a little plastic farm set: a barn, a cow, a little pink pig, so when people come over and I ask if they would like a tour of the farm, I won't look so ridiculous when it turns out to be a little vegetable plot in the backyard. That'll do it, right?

Caramel Macchiato, extra Caramel and other regional and cultural foods of note

Our son turned 21 on Monday. We officially have two adult children. w00t! For his birthday, I took elements of cakey-ness that I know are good and made a homage to our son's favorite Starbucks drink, using chocolate mocha cake, caramel glaze (used as filling) and mocha buttercream. Then our daughter made it perfect by putting whipped cream on top and drizzling it with more caramel. The fun part was I made it all from scratch, except the "birthday letters" we put on for fun. Man, was that one sugary cake. But good, especially warmed up a little. I was going to put a picture of it but you wouldn't understand. It looks like a mess, like it melted. But that's what the drink looks like. Oh, forget it. Here's the picture and you can think what you like.



I've been busy doing everything but making money lately, mostly eating. Let's see: Steph and I went to a "Sock Fest" in Portland (when she invited me, I said, "Excuse me, did you say 'suck fest'?"), where we wandered around a Sock Museum (I kid you not) and marveled at all the wide variety of fibers and colors you can knit with, and the wide variety of materials and colors and shapes you can use as knitting needles, too. We didn't win anything, even though I TOLD the man at the front door that he was to give me a WINNING raffle ticket. The day did include good food, specifically burgers: we met up with some friends and had lunch at Red Robin, where somehow Dawn managed to pick up the tab for everybody. So it turned out I spent no money at all the whole day, got lunch and had fun. Can't beat that.

Then Rick and I went to the Beaverton Farmer's Market a couple Saturdays ago, where I was completely unable to not spend money. I got a plethora of live herbs in little pots for my garden. So now I am the proud owner of parsley, rosemary and thyme, but I didn't buy sage. I don't use sage for much other than singing along with Peter, Paul and Mary. I've already snipped at the rosemary to make a focaccia. I've never made focaccia before - it was really good, if I say so myself. Among other herbs as well, I got a lovely ornamental oregano with bell-type green and purple flowers, and a huge fuzzy Cuban oregano plant which I have put out by the front door. I love it. We also bought dinner fixin's, featuring baby red potatoes, maitake mushrooms and fresh salmon with organic vegetables and strawberries. I'm afraid to cook fish, I've no experience, but Rick grills it amazingly well. Very fun, local and it made a delicious meal.

Last Saturday Steph and I spent part of the afternoon wandering around a "cultural fair" which was really a fundraiser for the local Orthodox churches - I didn't know there was an orthodox church on Walker Road, but there it was - and we enjoyed souvlaki and Russian pelmeni and Greek coffee while watching teenage Greekies dancing traditional dances. Opa! "Why don't we eat like this every day?" my daughter asks. Well, child, because it takes HOURS to prepare this stuff. But I could make pelmeni once in a while. Really, I could. I will. Eventually. You have to work yourself up to such things, you know. And I'm going to make her help me.

I've had many lettuce salads from the garden, nearly one every day for lunch. Good eats and emotionally satisfying. Something other than me is munching on the cabbage. I don't care too much because I'm not sure even why I planted cabbages, except they do well in the winter. I ate enough cabbage as a child to last my whole life. Though I do like a little of it in my borscht. I have an ambition someday to be able to make and eat borscht that comes entirely from my garden, except for the meat and sour cream. This winter I'll have about half the veggies I need from the garden: beets, parsnips, carrots, cabbage (if it survives). Garlic is going to be planted but it won't be ready until next summer, and onions and potatoes have to wait until spring planting, too. Did you notice borscht is basically all root vegetables that grow well in cold weather? Well, it's from Russia. Makes sense.

It doesn't fit in any way to this post, but for fun here is a Japanese clip of a little chimp being more amazed and entertained by magic tricks than any little kid I've ever seen: magical. I particularly like that, since I don't speak Japanese, I hear pretty much what the chimpanzee hears, and I can see how the animal follows the visual clues he is given, not the words. And I do hope they kept the rest of his day predictable and comfortable, after all those shocking surprises. :)

love,

cat