Rachael

Oh, my god, am I sick. This is sick like when you were a kid sick. I’ve had a fever hovering around 101.5 for the past two days and my throat is so sore it hurts to breathe. I’ve had my share of strep throats, chronic for most of my life until I got my tonsils out at 30, and this is all of that rolled into one big ball of fever-pain.

Wanna know the worst part? I was supposed to start teaching my knitting class last night, and there was no way. I could barely whisper, and I couldn’t stand up without going into a flop sweat and then collapsing into shivers, and I HATE LETTING PEOPLE DOWN. I know everyone does, that’s the sign of a responsible person, but it seems to go further than that with me, moving into some obsessive-compulsive Type-A madness. No, I can go! I’ll dose up on medicine! I’ll fake it! They’ll never know! I must handle my business, sickness bedamned! I made myself sicker worrying about  this class, I think.

But Sile, the owner of knit-one-one, came to the rescue. She found a sub for me (thank you, thank you, Kate). And not only that, but she drove over to my house and picked up my class supplies, and then she also left me a care package. A care package! How is THAT for forgiveness? A little juice, a muffin, some tea, a Ready Made mag, Baby Catcher (the very book I’d been eyeing just a few nights ago in the bookstore), some Jolly Ranchers.

That kind of thoughtfulness and care made a person like me (STRESSED beyond belief by letting people down) finally be able to relax and sleep. Which is what I’m planning on doing today. And probably the next couple of days, too. Thank you, dear Sile.

(Oh! Before I forget AGAIN, Lala named the other kitten Waylon. Which was appropriate, since when I found him, he was wailin’. So we have Waylon, for the music, and Willie for the writing. She says it’s Willie like Nelson, but I know it’s Willie like Shakespeare, and so do you. Although it does reference a Waylon Jennings song he sings with Willie Nelson, in which they sing about themselves, "Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas, Waylon and Willie and the boys, this successful life we’re living got us fueding like the Hatfields and McCoys." That’s more information than you wanted? Waylon and Willie are doing well, and the dogs are getting used to them. Waylon already wants to play with Clara’s big nose.)

Courtesy of Erika, source of many, many good things,  lolcats just for ME!

Hee!

And also for her, since she mocked our meltdown, shot from a moving car (I was not driving):

Yes, that was a freeway. You heard about it, right? The gasoline tanker that was supposed to be off the roads due to bad brakes, overfilled and driven by a fellow who should have also been off the road, exploded into a big fireball, taking out TWO freeways at once. (No one died, the driver caught a cab at a nearby gas station to the hospital.)

And because no one died, we ARE allowed to gape at it unashamedly. Seriously, I called EVERYONE on Sunday morning, hoping to be the one to break the news. I don’t do that with tragic happenings — I avoid phones and notifications in those cases. I won’t be the one to call you and gasp, "Guess who DIED?" But this? Oh, yeah. "GUESS WHAT? THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AND THE FREEWAY MELTED!" That’s fun to share.

And to laugh at. Look at the way they stuck tape over where you can’t go anywhere. Heh.

Strangely, I have this love thing with the Maze, the area in which this happened. In the Maze, there are eleven freeway choices (counting different directions) and probably fifteen flyovers and flyunders. It’s gorgeous. Anyone remember when I had that freeway shot as my header on this page where the tub is now? That was part of the Maze. My sister took a black and white shot of it and gave it to me this Christmas, and it’s in my room:

Isn’t that purdy? And now two of those portions are undrivable — places where I am everyday, all the time. To get to the dog park, I have to pass right by. Kind of amazing in a fun, terrible, no-one-died kind of way.

And right next to that picture? Another sorry sight:

My yarn. Packed away into bags. The schmittens are living in this room as they grow big enough to play rough with the dogs unsupervised. Until that point, they’ll be in here when we’re not home. A veritable kitten wonderland, wouldn’t you say? But no yarn for kittens, no! Kittens that squish brothers!

Still at my work class, out in the middle of nowhere, stealing this time again, but OHMYGOSH don’t you want to take my class? Starts next Tuesday the 8th and goes for three weeks. We’ll have a blast, and you can make a Chickami like THIS. Go HERE and sign up. I think there are only two spaces left.

Also, I MISS Lala, the dogs, the KITTENS, and home. My bed. I will be home tonight, but we have to drive for approximately forever to get home. We will go right by the melted portion of the freeway (did you hear about that? The Maze, melting this weekend? Two Bay Area freeways out of service right at Ikealand in Emeryville? I decided Ikea should just rebuild it. Sure, it would be pressboard, but it would be done in a week. If the engineers could understand the instructions.)

Quick post! I am out of town! I just checked email and boy, am I behind. I’m in a work class, and I’ll be back with schmitten pics on Wednesday or Thursday. Miss you all. xoxo

https://rachaelherron.com/quick_post_i_am/

Why doesn’t THIS happen to me?

   I is snoozin.

First, THANK YOU for your lovely, wonderful comments about Digit. A lot of them made me laugh, and some of them made me cry. The image of the limping coyote will always be with me (I saw one this morning on my way to work, just around the corner from the house, and I checked his legs for limps — he was fine, so he wasn’t The One). Your comments meant the world to me, thank you.

But you want more pictures, right? That’s why you’re really here. That’s why I would be.

Because I’m working a lot this week, and possibly all this weekend, and the kittens couldn’t come home with me until the night before I started back to work, I wanted a safe, secure place for them to be when we weren’t home. I wasn’t about to leave the two kittens with either: 1- our three curious dogs (although I’m sure Clara would have them reading Tolstoy by the afternoon), or 2- my yarn room.

So I bought a big ole crate in which to make this little nest, where they’ll stay for the next week or so while we’re not home and they get JUST a bit bigger and more confident:

Yes, people, that is a cashmere sweater inside the carrier. A cashmere sweater that Clara ate the sleeve from, but cashmere, nonetheless. A wool sweater that suffered the same fate is next to it, then a bit of carpet, and their litter box (they’re very well trained) and their food and water.

But the part I like it best is the hanging scratcher you can’t really see that I hung in the back, so they can climb, and that weird hammock looking thing hanging from the top. It was an impulse buy — I found it in the hamster section of the pet-product store — and it’s awesome. This is what they do A LOT:

There are two kittens in that picture. One is just sleeping and smushed.

 

This is Willie Joe. Willie for Shakespeare (rescued on WS’s birth and death day), and Joe for the Race That Knows Joseph (an Anne of Green Gables-ism for kindred spirits). He’s a little more timid, and will always have bed-head, I think. He’s not officially long-haired — he just has SOME long-hairs.

This is _______________ . Lala, being the best wife ever, let me bring home TWO kittens on a day we hadn’t even planned on getting one, so she gets to name this one. You can give her ideas, but please, for the love of god, let them be good ones. I didn’t know I would be a control freak about the name, but apparently I have strong opinions about it.

Willie, chillin’

    Earrings?

See how fluffy Willie is? And No-Name (Lala? Noname? Like the sushi?) is just a big spaz — confident and a little purrbox. I have yet to get Willie to purr. It’s my goal. I love them.

In other news, last night it is reported that I said in my sleep, "They were just spiteful Canadians, anyway." THAT IS SO FUNNY TO ME. I love sleep-talkers, and I love the fact that I am one, sometimes, and HELLO! There ARE no spiteful Canadians, so I’m proud of my sleep creativity!