As a horticulturist, I've become almost used to TV and movies completely screwing up plant id. (I'm looking at you, CSI:NY!) So I found this very interesting when I came across it today:
TV shows and community: is it wise to insult us?
Also, "The role of the tree branch was played by a Siberian Elm." Chortle!
March 7, 2012
February 20, 2012
Is 160 years old still considered Retro?
Has anyone else seen this? Am I the last to the party?
This is the Singer 160th Anniversary Limited Edition sewing machine. On the one hand I think, "why?" There are plenty of vintage ones still around that you can pick up on the cheap and - if tended - will probably still be sewing along in fine shape years from now. This plastic and electronic version? Maybe not so much.
On the other hand, the old Singers are all straight-stitch only, which can be very limiting. And this one does have all the bells and whistles. And, at least it's not yet another hunk of white plastic.
So - $499.99 puts it out of my price range, so I won't be getting one in any case. I give it a plus for not being generic, but I'd rather spend 5% or 10% of what this one costs and get myself a "real" one off of Craigslist or at a garage sale.
More sewing machine posts to come soon - I found my camera, now I just need it to disgorge the photos!
This is the Singer 160th Anniversary Limited Edition sewing machine. On the one hand I think, "why?" There are plenty of vintage ones still around that you can pick up on the cheap and - if tended - will probably still be sewing along in fine shape years from now. This plastic and electronic version? Maybe not so much.
On the other hand, the old Singers are all straight-stitch only, which can be very limiting. And this one does have all the bells and whistles. And, at least it's not yet another hunk of white plastic.
So - $499.99 puts it out of my price range, so I won't be getting one in any case. I give it a plus for not being generic, but I'd rather spend 5% or 10% of what this one costs and get myself a "real" one off of Craigslist or at a garage sale.
More sewing machine posts to come soon - I found my camera, now I just need it to disgorge the photos!
January 30, 2012
Talk About a First-World Problem.
There should really be some photos to go with this post, but there just aren't. We will proceed anyway.
Instead of sharing the long, boring story with you, let me just say that I went on a little redecorating/rearranging binge recently. My office/studio and my sewing room have changed places and I'm finally able to get the rest of my sewing stuff out of the basement where it has been residing for the past 2-plus years. The downside of this is that I now have to face ... The Stash.
Before we moved, I did do battle with The Stash - the result was six large black trash bags stuffed full of fabric, along with a handful of other assorted bags and boxes, going off to a friend's mother to be used by her church sewing group. I don't know how many yards of fabric we're talking about, but I do remember losing count of the number of individual cuts of fabric after I hit 115.
In the past couple of years, I have managed to keep new fabric purchases to a minimum. (Patterns are a whole other story.) So I really don't feel too bad about The Stash as a whole. But there is a subcategory of The Stash that I've realized needs to have something done about it. Friends, I'm talking about ... cat fabric.
A ridiculous amount of cat fabric clogs up my sewing room. There is one of those big wire shelving units (60" x 72" x 18") in the closet, and one entire shelf is nothing but kitty fabric. And that's just the neatly folded quilting cottons. Cat fabric has secreted itself on other shelves, hiding among garment or decorator fabrics.
There are a few pieces that I don't love anymore, and that I could get rid of fairly easily. There are other pieces that I could talk myself into purging, but I don't feel good about just hucking them into the Goodwill box with all the other tchotchkes. My ideal solution would have been to pack them up and take them to the thrift store run by our favorite cat shelter. The problem is, they closed that thrift store down as of the end of December, and none of the other animal shelters run a store. I could pack them up and sell them on Craigslist or eBay or Etsy, but I don't really want to.
I know ... it's a ridiculous problem. It's actually more of a ridiculous non-problem. Just pack them up and get them out of the house and quit obsessing about something so dumb.
Instead of sharing the long, boring story with you, let me just say that I went on a little redecorating/rearranging binge recently. My office/studio and my sewing room have changed places and I'm finally able to get the rest of my sewing stuff out of the basement where it has been residing for the past 2-plus years. The downside of this is that I now have to face ... The Stash.
Before we moved, I did do battle with The Stash - the result was six large black trash bags stuffed full of fabric, along with a handful of other assorted bags and boxes, going off to a friend's mother to be used by her church sewing group. I don't know how many yards of fabric we're talking about, but I do remember losing count of the number of individual cuts of fabric after I hit 115.
In the past couple of years, I have managed to keep new fabric purchases to a minimum. (Patterns are a whole other story.) So I really don't feel too bad about The Stash as a whole. But there is a subcategory of The Stash that I've realized needs to have something done about it. Friends, I'm talking about ... cat fabric.
A ridiculous amount of cat fabric clogs up my sewing room. There is one of those big wire shelving units (60" x 72" x 18") in the closet, and one entire shelf is nothing but kitty fabric. And that's just the neatly folded quilting cottons. Cat fabric has secreted itself on other shelves, hiding among garment or decorator fabrics.
There are a few pieces that I don't love anymore, and that I could get rid of fairly easily. There are other pieces that I could talk myself into purging, but I don't feel good about just hucking them into the Goodwill box with all the other tchotchkes. My ideal solution would have been to pack them up and take them to the thrift store run by our favorite cat shelter. The problem is, they closed that thrift store down as of the end of December, and none of the other animal shelters run a store. I could pack them up and sell them on Craigslist or eBay or Etsy, but I don't really want to.
I know ... it's a ridiculous problem. It's actually more of a ridiculous non-problem. Just pack them up and get them out of the house and quit obsessing about something so dumb.
January 13, 2012
Forty-Four Years!!!?!
Please join me in wishing my wonderful parents the very happiest of anniversaries!!!...Even if there has obviously been some kind of mistake in the record-keeping because I clearly cannot be old enough to have parents who are today celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary. Unless maybe they were married for a good 10 years or so before I came along - maybe I'd allow it then. (Unfortunately, no...)
January 4, 2012
I'm Only Posting Because My Mother Told Me To
Well, that's not strictly true. I've been debating for several months whether to get back to the blog or just let it go. For the time being, I've decided to post a little here and there to get the feel of it back, and then see how it goes. My other blog will be going away soon, since the project it was designed to chronicle has fizzled out. (We now have one upstairs-only cat and two downstairs-only cats, and it's going to stay that way until someone else crosses the Rainbow Bridge.)
For those of you who come to read about kitties, there will still be cat content to be had. However, my intent is to shift the focus to other areas and not be just a cat blogger. (Not that there's anything at all wrong with that, heaven knows.) "KittyChair" is not just the title of this blog, but has been a term in our lives for a lot of years, and it's always been closely tied to Hubbard. Now that he's gone, the kitty chair is empty. The desire to be as cat-centric a blogger as before has faded.
That being said, we still have three lovely cat-beasties who run our lives for us. There will surely be stories to tell (like the one about the oh-so-attractive gashes across my face) and photos to post of our furry children. But at the moment I find myself more interested in discussing horticulture and sewing and home canning and exercise and various and sundry other topics.
So ... I have returned, but for now I'm still sorting through this and that and trying to figure out what to tackle first. More as things progress.
For those of you who come to read about kitties, there will still be cat content to be had. However, my intent is to shift the focus to other areas and not be just a cat blogger. (Not that there's anything at all wrong with that, heaven knows.) "KittyChair" is not just the title of this blog, but has been a term in our lives for a lot of years, and it's always been closely tied to Hubbard. Now that he's gone, the kitty chair is empty. The desire to be as cat-centric a blogger as before has faded.
That being said, we still have three lovely cat-beasties who run our lives for us. There will surely be stories to tell (like the one about the oh-so-attractive gashes across my face) and photos to post of our furry children. But at the moment I find myself more interested in discussing horticulture and sewing and home canning and exercise and various and sundry other topics.
So ... I have returned, but for now I'm still sorting through this and that and trying to figure out what to tackle first. More as things progress.
May 12, 2011
Goodbye, Buddy.
We are sad to report that Hubbard, aka the Big Acoustic Kitty, left us on Thursday afternoon. He was with us for almost 12 and a half years, and while we know that all kitties are irreplaceable, Hubb was even more 1-of-a-kind than most.
His ongoing battles with age and disease have been documented here, but in recent weeks his decline became more rapid, and it was obvious that any further medications or treatments might prolong his life, but they would do nothing to improve its quality. So last weekend we made the decision to do him the final kindness of letting him go before his condition could get any worse. We took a few days to pamper him and say our goodbyes before taking him to the vet one last time.
We discussed calling Dr. Anne (the vet who helped us when Ziggy died) for an in-home euthanasia again, but in the end we took him in to our regular vet. While he had become weaker and more confused lately, there was still some fight in him, and we worried that Dr. Anne might need more help in handling him than we would be capable of providing under the circumstances. Our vet and her techs were used to Mr. Boo and his moods, so as much as we would have liked to let him go at home, we decided that taking him to the vet was best.
Please keep us in your thoughts as we adjust to the loss of our eldest boy. He was such a special friend and companion for so many years and through so many changes in our lives that the hole he has left behind is immense. We are focusing on remembering him as he was ... cranky, feisty, demanding, handsome, curious and quietly, steadily loving. We wish him a heaven filled with sunbeams, queso dip, potato chips, catnip mice and many, many noserubs.
The Amazing Husbandini will be working on some posts about our boy over on his blog, and for now I'm going to leave that to him. I'm still working my way through all of the emotions, and it feels like there is quite a way to go before I can get to the "sharing memories" stage of things. Hubbard's care had taken up more and more time and energy as he got older, and while I don't begrudge him one single minute, without him around to care for I suddenly have this huge hole in my life. There is a lot of numbness that has yet to wear off.
But in the meantime, I'd like to share a few of my favorite photos of Hubbard through the years. He was an extremely photogenic kitty. Please enjoy.
His ongoing battles with age and disease have been documented here, but in recent weeks his decline became more rapid, and it was obvious that any further medications or treatments might prolong his life, but they would do nothing to improve its quality. So last weekend we made the decision to do him the final kindness of letting him go before his condition could get any worse. We took a few days to pamper him and say our goodbyes before taking him to the vet one last time.
We discussed calling Dr. Anne (the vet who helped us when Ziggy died) for an in-home euthanasia again, but in the end we took him in to our regular vet. While he had become weaker and more confused lately, there was still some fight in him, and we worried that Dr. Anne might need more help in handling him than we would be capable of providing under the circumstances. Our vet and her techs were used to Mr. Boo and his moods, so as much as we would have liked to let him go at home, we decided that taking him to the vet was best.
Please keep us in your thoughts as we adjust to the loss of our eldest boy. He was such a special friend and companion for so many years and through so many changes in our lives that the hole he has left behind is immense. We are focusing on remembering him as he was ... cranky, feisty, demanding, handsome, curious and quietly, steadily loving. We wish him a heaven filled with sunbeams, queso dip, potato chips, catnip mice and many, many noserubs.
The Amazing Husbandini will be working on some posts about our boy over on his blog, and for now I'm going to leave that to him. I'm still working my way through all of the emotions, and it feels like there is quite a way to go before I can get to the "sharing memories" stage of things. Hubbard's care had taken up more and more time and energy as he got older, and while I don't begrudge him one single minute, without him around to care for I suddenly have this huge hole in my life. There is a lot of numbness that has yet to wear off.
But in the meantime, I'd like to share a few of my favorite photos of Hubbard through the years. He was an extremely photogenic kitty. Please enjoy.
May 5, 2011
10 Feet Tall and Bulletproof ... He Ain't
Have you talked to your kitties about the dangers of 'nip?
Little Grey Kitty decided that since his humans were too busy to attend to his recreational herbage needs this morning, he was going to help himself to the catnip bag. Which would have been fine, except that someone (me) had left the bag on top of a rather unstable CD rack. Down came the bag, along with the rack and about 100 or so CDs. That particular noise got me back up the stairs in a hurry!
Since I was the one who had put the rack there in the first place, and had then made matters worse by leaving the catnip on top of it, it was pretty hard to blame LGK. Especially when he was having a lovely time rolling in the spilled nip and leaping about over his fallen prey. So I decided to leave things as they were while I finished up what I was doing, and headed back downstairs.
You know how people can be classified as a certain kind of drunk? Happy, mean, affectionate, etc.? Well, the same thing applies to nipped-up kitties. And Mr. LGK is a fearless drunk. He can go anywhere and do anything. He can waltz right in to the bedroom where Big Acoustic Kitty lives like he owns the place, he can give all the neighborhood critters a verbal what for, and he can chase Electric Mayhem off from his territory. (Now, this happens with EM at the bottom of the stairs on one side of the screen door and LGK at the top of the stairs on the other, but hey, he knows he's showing her who's boss.)
Cut to about 20-30 minutes later. I'm downstairs in the kitchen and The Amazing Husbandini come in to rustle up some cold medicine. (We're trading a nasty spring cold back and forth between us.) He goes back upstairs, opens the screen door and suddenly I hear, "Escape! Escape! We have an escape!" Mr. LGK had decided that he was not going to be cooped up anymore and was going to invade the downstairs. Mr. Full-of-Himself did real well ... until he hit the other side of the screen door and realized he was actually out.
See ... out means that Big Yellow Hallway Monster (all 20+ pounds of him) comes running over to say hi. And it means that Electric Mayhem realizes that LGK is now in her territory, and gets hissy and growly as only she can. And her hissy fits do not involve backing down from a face-to-face confrontation. And it also means that to escape these things, LGK would have to turn his back on the other cats and try to run back upstairs to safety. And the door is now open! They might follow him into his sanctum sanctorum! Uh-oh. Suddenly the 'nip haze cleared, and panic set in.
As an aside, should I be concerned that my very first instinct was to whip off my shirt? After our last escape, I wanted to make sure that I had some way to cover and wrap a cat should things get hostile, and my sweatshirt seemed to be good for that. So, I'm running through the house in jeans and a bra, trying to chase down the low-slung, puffy grey blur who is careening through the downstairs in a panic and keeping an eye out that EM and BYHM don't get into it as a side benefit.
To sum up, LGK made it back up the stairs to safety while EM and BYHM were bribed with many kitty treats to forget the whole incident ever happened. After much cuddling and tummy-rubbing, LGK calmed down enough to crash in a sunbeam, where he is currently sleeping off his 'nip binge.
Please, talk to your cats about catnip. A 'nip high is not worth having to take an ass-kicking from your sister.
Little Grey Kitty decided that since his humans were too busy to attend to his recreational herbage needs this morning, he was going to help himself to the catnip bag. Which would have been fine, except that someone (me) had left the bag on top of a rather unstable CD rack. Down came the bag, along with the rack and about 100 or so CDs. That particular noise got me back up the stairs in a hurry!
Since I was the one who had put the rack there in the first place, and had then made matters worse by leaving the catnip on top of it, it was pretty hard to blame LGK. Especially when he was having a lovely time rolling in the spilled nip and leaping about over his fallen prey. So I decided to leave things as they were while I finished up what I was doing, and headed back downstairs.
You know how people can be classified as a certain kind of drunk? Happy, mean, affectionate, etc.? Well, the same thing applies to nipped-up kitties. And Mr. LGK is a fearless drunk. He can go anywhere and do anything. He can waltz right in to the bedroom where Big Acoustic Kitty lives like he owns the place, he can give all the neighborhood critters a verbal what for, and he can chase Electric Mayhem off from his territory. (Now, this happens with EM at the bottom of the stairs on one side of the screen door and LGK at the top of the stairs on the other, but hey, he knows he's showing her who's boss.)
Cut to about 20-30 minutes later. I'm downstairs in the kitchen and The Amazing Husbandini come in to rustle up some cold medicine. (We're trading a nasty spring cold back and forth between us.) He goes back upstairs, opens the screen door and suddenly I hear, "Escape! Escape! We have an escape!" Mr. LGK had decided that he was not going to be cooped up anymore and was going to invade the downstairs. Mr. Full-of-Himself did real well ... until he hit the other side of the screen door and realized he was actually out.
See ... out means that Big Yellow Hallway Monster (all 20+ pounds of him) comes running over to say hi. And it means that Electric Mayhem realizes that LGK is now in her territory, and gets hissy and growly as only she can. And her hissy fits do not involve backing down from a face-to-face confrontation. And it also means that to escape these things, LGK would have to turn his back on the other cats and try to run back upstairs to safety. And the door is now open! They might follow him into his sanctum sanctorum! Uh-oh. Suddenly the 'nip haze cleared, and panic set in.
As an aside, should I be concerned that my very first instinct was to whip off my shirt? After our last escape, I wanted to make sure that I had some way to cover and wrap a cat should things get hostile, and my sweatshirt seemed to be good for that. So, I'm running through the house in jeans and a bra, trying to chase down the low-slung, puffy grey blur who is careening through the downstairs in a panic and keeping an eye out that EM and BYHM don't get into it as a side benefit.
To sum up, LGK made it back up the stairs to safety while EM and BYHM were bribed with many kitty treats to forget the whole incident ever happened. After much cuddling and tummy-rubbing, LGK calmed down enough to crash in a sunbeam, where he is currently sleeping off his 'nip binge.
Please, talk to your cats about catnip. A 'nip high is not worth having to take an ass-kicking from your sister.
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