Doh!

I totally forgot to tell y'all about my close encounter of the entrepreneurial kind.  I went to smoke my last cigarette before the trip in the airport smoking lounge and since security took my lighter (and destroyed my cool duct tape lighter-keychain contraption) I asked a lady at the bar for a light.  She obliged, and when she did she noticed my purse, the fuzzy brown felted one.  She LOVED it and excitedly showed me the scarf she bought at a craft show recently.  A nasty, acrylic, super-long eyelash, garter stitch contraption, for which she paid $65!!  She said she had to have a purse like mine so I suggested a price (below $65) and she accepted and gave me her phone number.  I spoke with her last night and we made arrangements for the exchange.  I actually had half of the yarn I needed, so I told her that her price was just for her because of that fact, but that if anyone saw the purse and was interested she could give them my number, but the price would be a little higher.  She is a painter, so she moves amongst artists, so there is a chance I might get a call.  Anyways.....yeah for my first commission!

AND.....while at the yarn store I decided to treat myself.  I had a gift card and had just gotten paid and had just received my loan check, so all these things snowballed into me deciding to knit a cashmere throw pillow.  I found a pattern that called for FIVE balls of the yarn I wanted, so I made a quick decision to make the pillow cashmere on one side and another (yet-to-be-decided) fiber on the other side.  The yarn is sooooooooo lovely...just....I couldn't stop cuddling it on the drive home.  It is 65% cashmere, 35% silk, so it has a slight sheen.  Oh!  you have to see it.  I'll take pictures.  Plus I bought three balls, so I'll have a bit left over for a nice little project afterwards.  I CO last night but didn't think to take pictures.  I will do so soon and will get them up asap.

Brooke and her brother Christopher are coming in for a visit this weekend!  I haven't seen her since April, so sorry if I'm MIA, but we have a lot of catching up to do!  Have a great weekend.

I'm baaaaaack!  I couldn't wait to get back to some humidity, so of course it is raining all day today.  Alas........

Here are some photos from New York.  One of them is magical, and if you chose wisely you will be rewarded handsomely.  Read the clues carefully, now:

Here's me and Grandma.  This is the whole reason I went up there.  She had just been moved from a hospital to a rehabilitation center to recover from a heart attack.  Doesn't she just look like the definition of a grandma?  I mean, look up "grandma" in the dictionary, and I swear her picture is right there.  Okay, except for the fact that she LURVES pig's feet.  Thank the goddess I did not inherit that!

On the left, we have my cousin Chuck with his wife Judie and their kids Cody, Austin, and the new baby Bailey (see more photos of her in a post below) and on the right we have an unwilling Riley (son of my cousin Janice - in the background) and my mom.

Here we have the grave of Pres. Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States.  My mom and I drove around to give my grandma time for a nap, and because we wanted to see parts of Buffalo that we'd not yet seen.  Pres. Fillmore is buried in a really neat cemetary with plenty of unique grave markers, the most unique of all were these:

CHAIRS?!?  C'mon, that's fucking awesome!  That takes some balls, to put chairs out and assume that people are gonna need/use them to come and sit and chill by your grave.  If I put stone chairs out on my grave, instead of just a regular headstone, would y'all come sit and miss me?

Speaking of friends, I made a new best friend on my trip:

This is Niko, my Aunt Nancy's dog.  Isn't she just gorgeous?  It's too bad you can't see her eye's clearly.  Her irises are icy blue, and her pupils are star bursts.  She was abandoned and my aunt and uncle rescued her about a year ago.  She's now roughly eight, but she plays like a puppy, and boy does she love the snow. 

Speaking of snow:

I MADE A SNOW ANGEL!!!!  Okay, I know you might be thinking, "Katy, that looks like more of a mud angel to me."  Yeah, well fuck you.  It's a snow angel and I love it!

Okay, that's enough pictures for now.  Have a wonderful day.  If you're in Idaho and you see my sister, wish her a Happy Birthday today!  Oh, and it turns out clicking on the photos will do nothing.  I just wanted to make you read the whole post.  Cheers!

So, I'm going to New York Thursday morning to visit my Grandmother.  She is quite elderly, and just recently suffered a heart attack and a stroke.  I'm not sure which type of stroke, but the good news is that my Grandma is a hoss, and she is slowly but surely recovering.  My father just returned from spending a week up there visiting with her, and so now my mother and I will be there from Thursday through Monday.  Dear Whomever, please don't let Mario fuck up the house. 

Anyway, I'm really excited to see my Grandma.  She's the quintessential grandmother.  Short, coifed hair, cute yankee accent, basement full of all sorts of crap she'll never need.  Like a dozen boxes of jello and two dozen cans of mushrooms.  Her basement is one of the only basements I've ever known, since we really don't have those here, what with the whole below sea level thing.  The room where I'll sleep is above the garage, and there is a crawl space attic with a bunch of games, including MOUSE TRAP!!  My sister and I always used to set it up and trap the mouse--I don't think we ever really played it.  Has anyone???

Other reasons I'm excited: Can you say Saranac Black & Tan?  What about Loganberry syrup?  How about Dark Chocolate/Orange Sponge Candy?  Salin's Hot Dogs?  Okay, that last one is for a coworker, obviously, but I need to stock up on my yankee groceries.  We're bringing the King Cakes and returning with the beer and candy that quite literally make my world go 'round.  WARNING:  IF YOU SEE THEM IN MY HOUSE AND TOUCH THEM WITHOUT PERMISSION I WILL FUCKING CASTRATE YOU!  THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT!!

Plus, I'll get to see other members of my father's family, whom I never get to see.  People like Bailey, my first cousin, once removed.  She is too cute:

And I'll get to see some snow.  Maybe.  Get away from this 75 degree weather for a while.  Old Man Winter: I'm ready for ya!

Mo. Researchers Find Largest Prime Number

Happy New Year!

Mario and I made a resolution to declutter our apartment.  So, we are donating his trombone, which no one ever really plays, to the Katrina Piano Fund, which benefits musicians who have lost their instruments in the storm.  Mario had to play a little goodbye:

What, you thought I was gonna get rid of some of my stuff?  Maybe next year!

Fuckin' A...........

Serioiusly, a tropical storm forming on December 30th?!?  If I were the bunker-building supply-stocking type, this would be my getting busy time.  I want a bunker like Christoper Walken built in "Blast from the Past".  That shit rocked!  Except for the hot Dr. Pepper.  I digress.  This storm is just now forming a full month after the official hurricane season was supposed to have ended.  WTF?  This cycle of super storms is forcasted to last the next decade, but perhaps the next 50 years. 

This gets me all twisted up inside, because although I can't wait to finish up school and get the heck out of dodge, I'll always have some sort of ties here.  I always thought they would just be familial, but after Katrina, I've come to realize that perhaps I have some sort of emotional connection to this place. 

I was (luckily) put on anti-anxiety medication shortly before the hurricane, so I was more than able to handle the tragedy when it occured.  I sat on my friend's couch in Natchitoches and watched the nightmare unfold day after day in the adjustment phase of the medication--a total zombie.  Of course, we started each day with a trip to the drive-thru daiquiri store, because that's how we do, so that might have contributed to my easy acceptance of the situation. 

Anyway, my first big breakdown came about a week and a half after the storm when I visited Our Lady of Lourdes church in Slidell.  This was the church my family attended while I was growing up.  I say was, because it is totally gone, along with most of that area of Slidell.  The water mark was four feet up the door, which is already several feet off the ground.  The roof collapsed.  Beams were scattered across the parking lot, burried under debris and scum left behind by the evaporated flood waters.  There were skeletons of the fish that had been brought in from lake Pontchartrain and possibly the gulf.  You could look through the remains of the walls and see straight across to some of the newer buildings that survived the storm.  I broke into heaving sobs in the parking lot and cried for about twenty minutes.  It felt so good.

Now when I drive through the city, I have so many demons fighting inside of me.  One just wants to leave and take my family with me to avoid having to face any of this again.  Another is raging: "After all of the damning pictures of the deplorable post-Katrina conditions in the city, why is it taking so damn long for assistance to get here?!?"  There have been so many milestones acheived, yet so much is still in shambles.  The idealist demon (does that even work?) can't wait to see what happens in 5, 10, 15 years with all these plans being developed for the city - if we can ever get the money we've been promised without some fuck-up in Washington trying to tack-on some amendment to the bill to allow his company to rape the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge for oil.  Yet another bastard demon knows that no matter how much funding comes in, it probably won't go where it needs to go, because that's just how things get done here.  See the recent tax sale in Kenner for an example of good ole Louisiana politics/economics in action.  And lastly, there is the absolutely hearbroken demon, who cried unabashedly when I heard Randy Newman's "1927".

The point of all of this is that I don't understand how I can be emotionally attached to bricks, mortar, and dirt.  So maybe I'm not.  Maybe there really is something different about the way of life here.  Maybe it isn't all just a tourism campaign.  And maybe I like some of it.  Not the politics, of course. 

So long and thanks for all the fish...........

Graham, Henry, and Sarah hit the road Christmas night for Idaho.  They'll be spending the winter in Tetonia, wherever that is.  They are in a prime location, they say, with access to Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, and all the snow Henry's little heart could ever desire.  Well, that is what is important, after all, isn't it?

In other news....guess what Santa brought!

Happy Dance!  Happy Dance!  Happy Dance!  Happy Dance!  Happy Dance!

Chris' parent's loaned me a stack of their records, since my parents went and gave all of theirs away.  Yesterday Braeden and I hit the Goodwill in Denhim Springs and I had a bit of luck:

An original Carol King Tapestry    AND   and Original My Fair Lady Cast Album

Carly Simon Albums and Linda Rondstadt Albums

Plus Talking Heads and Barbara's first Greatest Hits album!!

Not bad for $6, eh?

I made a purse just like my brown one, but this time a little black purse, for a coworker's present.  I forgot to take a picture and of course I forgot my camera today, the day I gave it to her.  She took a picture of it with her phone:

Same Lopi wool.  I LOVE that stuff.  When I was buying this yarn I saw some Lopi Lite....same yarn, only much thinner, which would be perfect for down here. 

Speaking of cold weather, my car was COVERED in ice this morning.  How the hell am I supposed to know what to do when that happens?  I tried using some washer fluid to melt the ice, but that just made the ice thicker.  I tried scraping it off with a bum CD, but that covered NO ground and I was in a hurry.  Fuuuuuuu.......I had no coffee, no bottle of water, nada.  I saw that I did have some salt packets in my car, so I sprinkled them on the windshield, followed by some alcohol-based body spray.  All the ice came right off the glass.  That ice was my bitch!  So, I'm thinking of keeping some salted rubbing alcohol in the car to pour on the windshield when it gets covered in ice.

Go HERE now!!!
link courtesy of Matt Teadt

Per Kristin's request, more ornaments:

My little rudolph, inspired by Lauren's sister, Caroline, whose rudolph was in no way inferior to mine.  The ball on the right is a "quilted" ball made by pressing the edges of squares of fabric into a foam ball.  Very easy, looks impressive, not for the impossibly impatient.  That one took 10 minutes, which was way too long for Roy and Lauren.

On the left, we have Homey G. Funkerelli, our Supastar Gingy Man.  Check out his serious bling. 

Evidence of the amounts of alcohol consumed.  The one on the left is supposed to be a santa I think...the one on the right--he's just special.

We have a bajillion of these snowflakes on the tree.  I LOVE them!!  I can't tell you how many I cranked out once the wine really set in.  That's kinda why they aren't red & green, but I like them these colors. 

Happy Winter!

I GOT AN A IN STATISTICS!!

This past Saturday Mario and I had an ornament-making party in order to clothe our necked tree.  I think we were pretty darn successful, don't you?

Some highlights include:

Roy's arrangement of fruit for the Chocolate Fountain (did I forget to mention that we had a chocolate fountain, courtesy of Ms. Lauren C, fresh from the clutches of death?) and his fabulous angel.

Jessica's Gingy Man, about to meet his doom, along with evidence that our tree is an equal holiday tree.

There's much more, but I don't want to overload the page with pics of cool ornaments.  Later, my friends....later.  Until then, just rest in the warm peace of knowing that my halls are decked, my tree is trimmed, and I got a fucking A in statistics!!!!!