Robin McKinley's Blog, page 58

Hummus. And chocolate.

 

 

You know how ‘the news’ isn’t ‘the news’ but ‘the BAD news’?

Every now and then something slips by the radar—it’s newsworthy and it’s not bad.  It may even be good.

I love this.  Virginia tobacco farmers, floundering in the dropping demand for tobacco, are planting chickpeas instead.  Because hummus is booming.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323798104578453174022015956.html

YAAAAAAAAAY.  GO HEALTHY EATING THAT IS HEALTHY WITHOUT MAKING A BIG SCOWLY FACE DEAL OUT OF IT.*

I of course have been eating hummus for decades.  I’d’ve said all us old original-Moosewood-Cookbook** hippies and freaks and navy-blue-suit wearing secret counterculturists ate hummus.***

But I do want to draw your attention to hummus chocolate cake.  I’ve got a recipe for it myself somewhere but I couldn’t find it and I had to go bell ringing†.  There are several of them out there in internetland†† but they seem nearly identical and epicurious is usually pretty reliable:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/FLOURLESS-CHOCOLATE-HUMMUS-CAKE-50146823

This looks like mine—the four eggs and two teaspoons of vanilla are right.  I may use more cocoa.  It’s a safe bet that I usually use more cocoa.  But the cake is lovely.  Really.  It’s chiefly the tahini that gives what you think of as the hummus flavour to, um, hummus.  Hummus chocolate cake is just very, very dense and moist and filling and scrummy and excellent.  It’s also dairy and gluten free and doesn’t taste like a lot of the contents of those grim ‘without’ shelves at the supermarket.†††  You can even fool yourself that it’s good for you.

* * *

* I am also going to risk being heinously politically incorrect and say that given America’s^ relations with the Middle East I can’t help but feel that enthusiastically adopting even a mere humble foodstuff can’t hurt.  They’re people like us, you know?  They eat.  And eating together is usually bonding too.

^ And most of the western first world’s

** Which is out of print.  The new one is all low fat.  Feh.  http://www.amazon.com/Moosewood-Cookbook-Katzens-Classic-Cooking/dp/1580081304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368656400&sr=8-1&keywords=moosewood+cookbook

I’ve got so many physical issues it’s not frelling funny.  My intolerances are intolerant of my other intolerances.  But one thing this body has always got right is its cholesterol levels—even back in my heavy dairy, if-it-stands-still-long-enough-put-butter-on-it days, I had low Bad Cholesterol and high Good Cholesterol.^  So everyone moaning about Katzen’s high-fat recipes I was like, What?^^  I remember reading an interview with Katzen I think around the time that the new revised not-so-much-fat edition came out, saying (as my flaky memory recalls it) that she was a little embarrassed at the way she’d trowelled on the dairy and the oil and so on but that she’d been publishing a vegetarian cookbook at a time when vegetarian food was perceived as feeble and weedy and listless and she wanted to present it as able to duke it out with steak and chops.  And it does, unless you have the kind of politically incorrect metabolism that DEMANDS MEAT, which mine does.  Oops.  But I don’t have to have it every day.  And my original MOOSEWOOD and ENCHANTED BROCCOLI FOREST cookbooks have a lot of pages stuck together and a lot of notes in the margins.

^ I must have told you this story:  when I first had ME, and my NHS doctor had grandly declared that she didn’t believe in ME—thanks ever so, lady—I went briefly to a private doc recommended by another ME sufferer.  He had, he said, found himself making a speciality of it simply because he saw so much of it.  I couldn’t afford him for long but he got me started taking care of myself and was very encouraging even when I told him I had to pack as much in as possible in as few appointments as possible.  One of the things he did was have my blood tested for seven single-spaced pages of stuff.   The ‘normal’ ranges for most things are wide enough you have to be a doctor to find any of the readings suggestive, but anything that counted officially as abnormal was marked by a big band of colour, like a giant highlighter.  My cholesterol levels were highlighted.  NOOOOOOOO.  CHOLESTEROL IS THE THING I DO RIGHT.  No, no, said the doctor.  The lab doesn’t differentiate between good abnormal and bad abnormal.  Your bad cholesterol is abnormally low, and your good cholesterol is abnormally high.

Oh.  ::Beams::  Pity about the ME though . . .

^^ I also have another of my crunchy-granola, geeky health-nutter fringe rants about the fact that fat is good for you.  The super-low-fat thing is BAD.  And margarine is not fat, okay?  Margarine is evil.  Greasy evil.  What they do to it to make it solid is far worse than butter ever was or could be unless you injected it with curare or something first.+

+ I think one of the fashions for eggs as good for you is current too.  Yawn.  Yes.  They’re good for you even when they’re out of fashion, unless you’re allergic to them.  I eat a lot of eggs.

*** My hummus is actually not Katzen’s.  I was indeed faintly superior and ho-hum^ when Moosewood came out.  It wasn’t going to have anything to teach me and what’s with the twee hand lettering?  I think one of my long-ironed-hair, tie-dyed-skirt-wearing friends gave me a copy^^ and when I still had more than twelve calories a day available I was a sucker for a good cookbook.

^ I have never claimed to be a nice person, and I was worse when I was younger

^^ Tie-dye took a long time to go away.  AND IT CAME BACK.  AAAAAAAAUGH.  Barring a pink tie-dye t shirt that a friend and her kids made me a few years ago+ that I am very fond of, I have the same feeling about tie-dye that I do about bell bottoms.  AAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  And don’t come near me with shag carpeting or Austin Powers either.

+ It’s colour proof and everything.  You can put it through the washing machine.  They make home-hand-dyeing colour a lot better than they used to.

† I RANG THREE TIMES TONIGHT.  YAAAAAAAY.  It was almost like being a real person.

†† Along with a lot of suggestions for straight hummus-chocolate mousse-like-substance or frosting or cookies which I will leave you to discover for yourselves although if you’re asking me all those involving things like Nutella are impure.

††† Personally I think chocolate-covered rice cakes are a sin against nature.

Nostepinnes and other unmentionables

 

 

I HAVE JUST FRELLING ORDERED A FRELLING [YARN] SWIFT AND A FRELLING FRELLING NOSTEPINNE.  Two days ago I didn’t know what a nostepinne was.  I think I’ve seen the word somewhere and assumed I was too young/old and that ignorance might not be bliss but was probably better for the blood pressure and the too easily over-stimulated fantasy-writer’s imagination.*  And then I brought up the yarn bowl question on Twitter the other night and someone else started talking about her nostepinne and I’m like whoa, are you sure you want to discuss this in public? **

Diane in MN

Does anyone out there have any useful guidelines for when you cut your losses and frog again and when you soldier on

A glance around my house would reveal that I can tolerate a lot of imperfection in some areas, but I HATE visible mistakes in my knitting and will rip (or tink, if I catch any soon enough) back to get rid of them. More than once, if necessary and if the yarn will take it, if I like the project.

I don’t think I’m a perfectionist about anything any more***.  Spending a lot of time and effort at something you’re essentially pretty awful at—let’s say bell ringing—will do that to a person.†  But I agree about actual errors.  Part One of this particular project has only one really gruesome error which I think would disappear when I got to the seaming-up stage, supposing I got that far—and I left it in because I had NO idea what I had done and therefore no idea how to undo it.  But especially on something that is, for me, relatively small-gauge, which is to say 4 mm needles [US size 6], and a non-stretchy yarn, which is this cotton-bamboo stuff I’ve made several baby bibs in and I like it but it’s not very forgiving, the—ahem!—slight variability of my stitch-making starts to show up over time and distance.  I ripped out my first couple of bibs once each, but they ended up not too embarrassing.††  This New Secret Project is bigger and . . . well.  So I’ve got to the end of Part One and put the wretched thing on a stitch holder—it’s getting so that every time I order yarn††† I automatically order another pair or packet of stitch holders‡—rolled it up and put it aside.  I’ll think about it later.

Which leaves me with only ::urglemmph:: other unfinished projects and therefore of course I need to start something NEW!!!!

Which is going to be Manos del Doohickey—I’ve left the tag back at the cottage‡‡—and it’s mostly silk with some wool so it’s NOT VERY STRETCHY again, uh-oh‡‡‡, but I want to make myself a LARGE SQUARE (SOMEWHAT) WOOLLY SCARF.  Because I’m tired of how difficult it is to find Large Square Wool Scarves.  And the reason this is the particular New Project that leaped to mind—despite the small-gauge-unstretchy thing—is because it will be ACRES AND ACRES OF MINDLESS GARTER STITCH YAAAAAAAAAY.  I’m always amused at these high-falutin’ knitters on Ravelry going on about how this or that pattern is too boring because there’s too much garter/stockinette/ribbing.  I LOVE GARTER/STOCKINETTE/RIBBING.  I tend to knit to calm down.  I don’t want to have to think!  I don’t want to have to memorize a frelling pattern!  I don’t want to figure out why my sleeve-shaping decreases look like tiny stairs rather than a nice smooth line like in the frelling photos!  I just want to keep looping the yarn around the needles!!!

But first I need to wind these wretched hanks into something I can use. . . .

* * *

* I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I nostepinne in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

Not all of Monty Python is totally deathless and mesmerising, in my cranky^ opinion, but I would have trampled a few grandmothers to have written that particular piece of dialogue.  Although some of my attitude problem may be due to having a few issues with Monty Python.  For some reason.  I mean, it could have been Sir Rupert.  For example.

Minstrel: [singing] Brave Sir Robin ran away…

Sir Robin: *No!*

Minstrel: [singing] bravely ran away away…

Sir Robin: *I didn’t!*

Minstrel: [singing] When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.

Sir Robin: *I never did!*

Minstrel: [singing] Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and valiantly, he chickened out.

Sir Robin: *Oh, you liars!*

Minstrel: [singing] Bravely taking to his feet, he beat a very brave retreat. A brave retreat by brave Sir Robin.

^ And easily grossed out.  Just by the way.

** http://blog.designedlykristi.com/?p=335

Oh.  Okay.

*** Although I still want my socks to match what I’m wearing, even if nobody but me is going to see them.  Or nobody but me, Peter and the hellcritters none of whom care.  I care.

† Circumstances are not helpful.  Last Wednesday due to the very mixed assortment of ringers who turned up for practise I rang ONCE.  ONCE.  I got a lot of knitting done.  Speaking of knitting.  On Sunday afternoon there were eight of us.  Which meant we all had to ring all of the time.  Which since most of us were the weak end was a trifle challenging for the ringing master and I was somewhat drily amused to note that I was being relied on to hold it together in a way that I would not have been if he’d had any choice.  You know I would get to holding-it-together better sooner if I got more practise time in.  Sigh.

††  And I finally asked one of the recipients if the thing, you know, WORKED?  Because babies keep getting born, in the alarmingly incessant way of babies, and bibs are something I can, apparently, do.  Yes, he said.  It’s very chewable, and it goes through the washing machine fine.

††† Not that this would be often or anything

‡ And another frelling tape measure.  What do I DO with tape measures?!?  Is there a Tape Measure Planet like there is an Odd Sock Planet?

‡‡ Oh please.  What is Google, chopped liver?

http://www.artesanoyarns.co.uk/Manos%20Del%20Uruguay/manos%20del%20uruguay.html

‡‡‡ McKinley, not that we expect you to be relentlessly intelligent or anything, but the two most outstanding unfinished projects^—which is to say well enough started to count as ‘unfinished’, which are First Cardi and First Pullover, are NICE REASONABLY LARGE GAUGE STRETCHY FORGIVING WOOL, you meatloaf, why don’t you go FINISH ONE OF THEM?^^

^ Plus legwarmers.  I think I’m on my fifth pair.  You know this weather may be my fault.  It’s the middle of May, WE MAY HAVE AN OVERNIGHT FROST LATER THIS WEEK+, and I’m knitting legwarmers.

+ And I am not going to dig up my petunias/begonias/gladiolas/dahlias/osteospermums, so I hope they FRELLING COPE.  Maybe I could lay some legwarmers over them.

^^ And the current not-given-up-on-yet Secret Project is also mostly wool.

Mastiff? What?

 

 

Somebody tell me why a bull terrier counts as a mastiff type?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mastiff_Type_Breeds *

Is this the Funny Face category or something?  Although I was interested that part of the description is that while these dogs have been put to a variety of purposes, they are most often used for guarding because they generally have a strong guarding instinct.  Pav is a surprisingly good guard dog, not something I was expecting.**  The hellhounds are hopeless guard dogs.***  And on the one hand you think, if it came to that, how seriously is anyone going to take something about fourteen inches high at the shoulder and weighing not quite thirty pounds?  And on the other hand you look at that bull terrier head, even the small, streamlined version, so clearly built for biting, and, having bitten, holding on, and possibly you think . . . uh.  I quite like my shins in their current configuration, and having feet on the ends of my ankles.  Maybe I’ll go burgle someone else.

Meanwhile:  there is a small earnest explosion in response to All Suspicious Noises,† which, if it happens in her crate, is all very well, but if she’s in your lap at the time it can be a trifle disconcerting.  She means it too:  most of the time there’s a twinkle in that sweet, evil little eye††, especially when she’s having a go at the slippers you foolishly left in the middle of the floor or the shopping bag you’re trying to carry in your non-lead-holding hand††† but she is all business when she’s Responding to a Threat, and if I tell her to shut up too soon she will remain on alert, giving me a brief pitying look because I am not taking her professional assessment seriously enough.‡  I write fantasy so I may be imagining some of this‡‡, but it sure seems to me that the best way to get her to shut up is to appear to be listening intently to whatever it is she’s hearing, and then relax.  Oh, she says.  Well, if you say so.  And she stands down.‡‡‡  Of course if it’s some legitimate disruption, like, say, the delivery man bringing my latest consignment of on-sale yarn,§ or Raphael the archangel come to sort out the latest 4,715 little peculiarities across my range of demon-possessed technology§§, there is an interesting metamorphosis from Red alert!  Red Alert!  Woop woop woop woop woof! to, Hey!  There’s something going on!  The hellhounds are having FUN and I’m NOT!  Let me OUT OF HERE!§§§

* * *

* But when I tried to click on an outside link I got this:

Forbidden

You don’t have permission to access /m/articles/view/Molosser-and-Rare-Breeds-List-Part-1 on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Cheez.  What is this, the secret Homeland Security site about the creation of a new breed of anti-terrorist dogs which can leap tall buildings with a single bound and when stressed put out a pheromone that neutralises all explosive material in a 30-foot radius?  The FBI has had worse ideas.

** I will now receive a cross email from Olivia saying that she told me.  Well, she may well have done, but she hasn’t hit menopause yet and doesn’t know about Menopause Brain.

*** Is it a friend?  Is it fun?  Can we chase it?  . . . Never mind, we’re asleep.

† Some of them inaudible to the third-rate human ear.    I will not demean my noble, responsible watchcritter by suspecting that some of them may be imaginary.

†† Southdowner sent me a quote from someone on her bullie list:  ‘Flipping through the BTCA Record for 2012. How can you resist a breed praised by judges for “a wonderfully evil expression” and “stunning varminty eyes”?! Somehow I don’t think Labradors or beagles are prized for rottenness…’

††† It has fascinated me for over five decades the way dogs figure out some of what pisses you off but not all.  Pav knows perfectly well I’ll come down on her if she bites her lead, for example, or if she runs off with one of those slippers—indeed she runs off with a slipper looking over her shoulder with a wonderfully evil expression in her stunning varminty eyes and she doesn’t just run, she bounds, which is ‘nanny nanny boo boo’ in dog language.  But she will not get it about the dirty laundry.  When I take a slipper away from her she’s all heh heh heh heh heh.  When I take my knickers or my socks away from her she’s all sad and disappointed and it takes her a good two seconds to recover her spirits and find something else to destroy.

‡ The hellhounds may half-open an eye at this point and murmur, You sort her out, Pav, we’re holding the floor down.  We need to conserve our strength toward resisting our next meal.^

^ Snarl.  —hellgoddess

‡‡ Also I am critter soppy.

‡‡‡ I am not imagining it that she lets me take stuff away from her however.  I can put up with a lot of torn knickers and scalloped slippers for the fact that she doesn’t gulp down whatever it is in the two-thirds of a very long second it takes me to reach her end of the long extending lead.  In fact chances are she’s just standing there looking resigned.  She let me take what proved to be most of half a sandwich away from her today.  How amazing is that?^

^ She’s not a bull terrier.  She just looks like one.  As I keep saying.

§ This is my favourite delivery man.  Not only does he actually LEAVE STUFF BEHIND THE GATE THE WAY I ASK DELIVERYPERSONS TO DO^ but he has a dog that rides around in the van with him.

^ Has anyone ever seen a female deliveryperson?  Female postpersons are totally common, but I’ve never seen a woman deliveryperson.  It can’t just be brute strength;  some of the blokes look like they have trouble lifting a medium-sized yarn shipment.

§§ It’s been a long day.

§§§  ‘Here’ may include my long wiry tower-bell-ringing-toned spider-monkey arms clamping her to my chest.

Venice in the rain, guest blog by CathyR

 

Note that I’d be happy to post fabulous holiday photo guest blogs every Sunday night for the rest of my life –Ed*

* Note also that this NOTE would be at the bottom, only for some reason the admin window won’t let me in, and I’m terrified of erasing a photo by accident.

 

Day three of the photography holiday – and the rain was pouring down! Exploration of the Jewish/Ghetto quarter was postponed in favour of a morning’s look at a selection of each other’s photos, and critique from Philip, our instructor and group leader. Not to be deterred, however, I stood outside the hotel, under an awning, for 20 minutes after breakfast, to see what I could capture of the Venice waterfront in the rain.

Wouldn’t you be SO upset if this was your only day in Venice!

 

When not selling umbrellas to tourists on rainy days, these very same guys are touring the restaurants in the evenings selling roses!

 

They bought his guide books, eventually!

 

I imagine people probably have wellies designed for every occasion.

 

The boat is a Vaporetto.

 

Battling the wind.

 

Photo critique over, we all went our separate ways as some of the group weren’t keen on going out in the rain. I’m actually really pleased we had a day in the rain – after all, flooding in St Mark’s Square is another iconic image of Venice, and the city remains photogenic, if a little more challenging!

Confined to the raised boardwalks, colourful processions of tourists in St Mark’s Square.

 

Those umbrellas are a nightmare at close quarters.

 

Mind you, some of them don’t last for long in the wind!

 

Why have tables set out in the rain, we wondered? Well, it’s how the restaurant advertises that it is actually open for business, despite the weather.

 

Wonderful architecture; the repeating arches and columns echoed by the repeating rows of tables and chairs.

 

This little girl stood out from the crowds.

 

Colour against a monochrome background.

 

Wellies required!

 

They don’t really go with the posh bags in the shop window display!

 

I wouldn’t fancy a gondola ride in this weather. Not many gondoliers did either, judging by the numbers of watertight boats moored by the Square.

 

Rough water.

 

But even in the rain, Venice and the Grand Canal are beautiful.

KES, 78

 

SEVENTY EIGHT

He shook his head.  “It’s dead easy,” he said.  “We can figure out the details later.  Tonight all you need to know is this lever,” creak-creak, “this way if you want the fire to burn up more, this way if you want it to die back a little.  You put the wood in here,” clunk, “and you keep an eye on it.  You don’t want it burning hard—that just wastes wood”—the lever made a faint scraping noise as he moved it—“you probably want it about there, but we’ll check in a few minutes.”

He looked past me into the vast cavern of the parlour.  “I suppose you do have central heating . . .”

“I can’t afford it,” I said, and hesitated, looking at my dog and reminding myself how it was I was renting a house about twelve times bigger than I needed.  If I was going to stick a pin in a map, why couldn’t I have been on the Florida page?  Although there were alligators in Florida.  I would end up in a town with alligators.   “And I don’t need an attic and six offices anyway.  Hayley said they’d lean on the landlord to put in a wood stove.  Another wood stove.”  If wood was cheap I really did have to learn how to use the thing.  Things.

“Your Guardian should keep the downstairs warm—you may need a fan, and you want to start keeping a big kettle of water on top—it depends on how good the insulation is and how bad the drafts are.  And how you feel about being cold.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and tried not to shiver.

“Okay,” said Mike.  “Then you’ll want the second stove.  Maybe upstairs, if the floor’ll stand it.”

“And an electric blanket,” I said, concentrating on not shivering, although I was beginning to feel a little heat radiating off Caedmon.  I needed to carry some book boxes and get my blood circulating again.

“An electric blanket?” said Mike.  “Why?  You have a perfectly good dog.”

Sid, as if on cue, walked delicately past us and lay down in front of Caedmon.

She looked up at Mike as he looked down at her.  “Although she may need you to keep her warm at the moment.” He bent down to pat her.  “She’s got more ribs than a Fourth of July barbeque.”  She flopped over on her side and raised a leg to encourage him to rub her ski-slope tummy.  “If Bridget—and Jim—hadn’t told me you’d caught the Phantom I wouldn’t believe it,” he said, rubbing.  “This is not your average one-day-reclaimed wary, nervous stray dog.”  Sid’s eyes were half-closed and her relaxed top lip had fallen away from her teeth, giving her a kind of mad half-smile.  “They’ve been trying to get anywhere near her for months.  Dad and me too, of course, and half the town,” he added.  “This isn’t a successful stray-dog area:  stray dogs don’t survive the winter.  But your Phantom did.  We figured she—now we know she’s a she—must have found shelter somewhere.  But wherever it was didn’t include food.”

He stood up and Sid’s eyes instantly snapped open and she turned her head up to stare at him.  “Sorry, honey,” he said.  “I have boxes to carry, and it’s going to start getting dark soon.”

“And never mind tripping over the steps,” I said, “or getting the van back in time for JoJo, we have a neighbour to frighten the socks off.  The hand-knitted silk socks with the tasteful lace edging.”

“You’re catching on,” said Mike.

I followed him back to the van and did another sweep for squishy lightweight plastic bags.  There were also a couple of five-pound sacks of dog kibble I thought I could just about manage.  Thanks to Mike we were almost done.  I bore another of those disorienting and rather sick-making waves of excitement and dread:  major life change, ahoy.  Last week I’d still been in Manhattan, where I’d lived thirty-nine years.  Last year I’d still had a husband. . . .  I gritted my teeth and clutched my underwear and my dog food.  What was that against the front wall of the van?  It didn’t look like boxes.  I’d been pretty out of my mind, that last night, packing to leave, but I had still been relatively sane when I started loading.  It got worse later.  I squinted, but it was too dark in the windowless van to see anything.  Whatever was back there, it would be out soon enough, and then I’d take the van back for JoJo and pick up Merry and . . .

I looked up at Rose Manor.  From the bottom of the driveway it looked as tall as the Chrysler Building.  The sun was going down behind it at an angle so while the shadow wasn’t falling on me, the front of the house was still in darkness almost as profound as the back of the van.  Anything could be hiding in the shadows on the porch.  Cosmic horror was only the beginning.

Stop it, Macfarquhar.  You live here now.  Yes, I replied silently, I know.

Lifesaving Knitting

 

A fortnight or so ago a New Friend sidled up to me at St Margaret’s and said that she’d bought a ticket for a charity concert—so she wouldn’t chicken out of going at the last minute, I know that one, on the day you’re too comfortable on the sofa with hellhounds or similar—but she wondered if she could bamboozle me into buying a ticket and coming too?  It was a worthy cause and we could hang out.  We’ve made half-hearted attempts to hang out previously but they’ve never come off because we never nail one down by saying THIS place and THIS time and putting it in the diary, you know?  Modern life.  Who has time for spontaneity?*

So despite a qualm or two about the concert itself I said yes.  You can put up with a lot in congenial company.  And she and I were finally getting somewhere, you know?

And then last week at St Margaret’s when I told her I’d got one of the few remaining tickets** she looked all doleful and woebegone and said she hadn’t rung me because it hadn’t been confirmed yet but for Inarguable Personal Reasons it looked like she wasn’t going to be able to go after all. . . .

Oh.  Feh.  So I’m now stuck with a ticket to a concert I was only looking forward to because I was going to see her.

But I had the frelling reservation and, at this point, a close personal relationship with the venue’s box office, who had hired a uniformed guard with two Alsatians and a Darth Vader clone to protect my investment till I arrived IN PERSON and offered my palm print as proof I was the correct individual to cede the ticket to, so I’d better go.  I went.

Fortunately I took my knitting.

IT WAS UNBELIEVABLY DIRE.  UNBELIEVABLY.  DIRE.  The concert.  It was.  AAAAAAAAUGH.  Words fail.  Words need to fail or I will be banned from WordPress for the rest of my life.***  The one minor stroke of good fortune was that I’d arrived early enough it was worth getting my knitting out immediately so it was already on my lap when these jokers got up on stage and started prancing about doing whatever the frell they thought they were doing ARRRRRRRRRRRGH.  After the first . . . incident . . . I firmly picked my knitting up again and got QUITE A FEW ROWS done by the time it was over.  I swear I would have run away screaming† if I hadn’t had my knitting. . . .

Which leads me to the next thing.  I’ve been torturing myself, and some harmless hanks of yarn, trying to make another gift.  Me and my frelling Secret Projects.  GIVE IT UP, MCKINLEY.  I’ve already frogged this one once.  This second time it looks a lot better than it did the first time but it’s still what you might call . . . clearly hand made.  Does anyone out there have any useful guidelines for when you cut your losses and frog again and when you soldier on on the grounds that your friend will appreciate the effort you’ve gone to even if SHE BURIES THE FINAL OBJECT IN THE BACK GARDEN IN CASE IT’S CONTAGIOUS?

Siiiiiiiigh. . . .

I also got distracted on Etsy the Evil†† from my (relatively) honest quest for a needle roll††† into yarn bowls.  And I made the perilous decision to ask Twitter if any of the twitterverse’s knitters use yarn bowls.  Am I just being flimflammed by a pretty face?  Hand-thrown pottery bowls are very pretty.  Or do they help with what I have dubbed the invisible-kitten problem with your wodge of working yarn?  In the rush of helpful answers—including plastic bags, yarn cozies [sic], and teapots—I suddenly had a FABULOUS IDEA.

Was this totally sitting on a shelf waiting to be a yarn bowl through the long years of no longer being required for blanc-mange or what?  Stay tuned.

It’s exactly the long thin oval of a certain style of skein. Those Victorian/Edwardian china mould-makers were PRESCIENT.

* * *

* Hey, I finished the day’s stint early/it’s raining and I don’t feel like gardening/if I hear my neighbour’s extra-loud telephone bell go one more time^ I shall run mad with an axe, want to grab a cup of tea somewhere?  No, sorry, I can’t, I’m working a double shift today/it’s raining so I’m sorting out the garage^^/I have to sort out the garage because I need to hide a body fast.^^^

^ They need fewer friends

^^ No friend of mine would ever use that excuse

^^^ Ah.  Okay.  Need help?+

+ I found a drowned mouse in a bucket today.  Ewwwwwwww.  I have no truck with the ‘mice are cute’ brigade and am perfectly happy to trap the suckers, using the fastest, lethalest traps available, but drowning in a bucket is a slow, crummy way to die and made me sad.

** And my email, possessed by demons as it is, failed to accept the confirmatory email from the venue so I’m all AM I GOING OR NOT.  WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO HERE, CONSULT AN ASTROLOGER?

*** Banned—?  From WordPress?  Um . . . actually . . .

† Most of the people who preach at St Margaret’s I like and find not merely worth listening to but interesting.  But there is one . . . I have been trying to decide if it is worth establishing a habit of knitting during the sermons so that the next time this joker stands up I won’t have to gnaw my knuckles till they bleed so as not to run away screaming.^

^ I realise that a Supreme Being needs a sense of humour, but I feel perhaps we might review some of said humour’s minor manifestations?  People who have been at this Christian thing a long time keep telling me that God likes engaging with his mortal children on their level.  Okay.  So let’s discuss the practical jokes.

†† You know I have been complaining about the mess and confusion of Etsy’s so-called search function and have finally realised . . . it’s all a careful plan to entice you in deeper and deeper.

††† The design I like best is only in a bunch of dumb fabrics.  ARRRRRGH.  Also I object to spending more than £11,872.33 (most of this is the overseas shipping cost from America) for a needle roll.  So this is still an open question.

Book Rec: The Whole Hog by Lyall Watson

 

Subtitle:  Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs

Best book plug ever:  ‘After reading Lyall Watson’s splendid celebration of the pig, if anyone calls me a swine I shall take it as a compliment.’  —Desmond Morris*

This book was, I think, a biggish** deal when it appeared in—yeep—2004.  I bought it relatively soon after it came out—in hardback no less—because I’m a bit of a natural history nerd, especially the frivolous end when I don’t have to remember a lot of Latin names and derivations and blah.  Watson actually gives you all these, but he does it so charmingly and with such a lively and immediate description of the critters in question that all the sober stuff doesn’t have a chance to oppress your spirits.  What I remember best about it is that it was one of the first books I read after the move out of our old house AND I NEEDED CHEERING UP.  It fulfilled this function admirably.***

I’ve never been friends with a pig† but I’ve known too many people who have, not to be sure that there’s something there to get to know.††  Watson has been friends with lots of pigs.  He may even be slightly cracked on the subject.†††

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/oct/23/featuresreviews.guardianreview2

. . . Although I don’t find the opening lines nearly as eye-catching as a paragraph a few pages later, this arising from an encounter from an aristocratic Tamworth boar:  ‘ . . . the Tamworth boar’s stare was unnerving.

‘I have since learned that pigs are past masters of the art.  They grow up on the game of ‘Who Blinks First?’ and can hold their ground against anyone.  Each time I join a herd of pigs, in captivity or in the wild, the same thing happens . . . no one bats an eyelid or breaks visual contact until I concede defeat . . .’  Italics mine.

Here is more about THE WHOLE HOG although on my screen at least there’s some inept silliness where the first few paragraphs are repeated, but keep reading:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-whole-hog-by-lyall-watson-6159132.html

And, just by the way, I am SO JEALOUS of his childhood in Africa, and especially of his warthog.  Sic.

Read the book.

* * *

* Quoted toward the end of the book:  ‘The paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings.’  G K Chesterton^

^ For some reason Watson seems to leave mythological pigs mostly alone.  Okay, they’re mythological, but Circe and the Gadarene swine get a look-in.  For those of us who raised ourselves on fairy tales and legends and so on, the fact that two of the Norse Vanir rode big scary heroic boars predisposes us to respect and be interested in pigs.

** Not to say piggish . . . ‘Cats look down on you;  dogs look up to you;  but pigs look you in the eye as equals.’  —Winston Churchill

*** Even if he’s mistaken about the lack of ‘rocking pigs’ for kiddies to ride on.  I’ve seen pigs with saddles on merry-go-rounds too.

† Unless you count Wilbur.

†† I’m a meat-eater but I don’t actually like pork much.  This may make it easier to be chirpy and engaged about pig personalities.  I’m afraid I pass over the cookbook in the first review.

†††  Or was.  This was his last book.  He died much too young.

The little things. It’s the little things.

 

* * *

WE INTERRUPT THIS WAS-WORKING-JUST-FINE-THANK-YOU-MICROSOFT-YOU-PIECE-OF-**** BLOG POST TO ANNOUNCE THAT I’VE JUST SPENT ABOUT HALF AN HOUR TRYING TO FIND OUT WHY MY IDIOT COMPUTER WENT PING ON ME AND NOW EVERYTHING IS RED AND UNDERLINED AND IN SOME KIND OF EDITING (?) MODE THAT I CAN NEITHER FIND NOR TURN OFF.  AND IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT OF COURSE SO IT’S NOT LIKE I CAN RING UP AN ARCHANGEL AND SCREAM.  I EVENTUALLY COPIED AND PASTED ‘TEXT ONLY’ INTO A NEW DOCUMENT WHICH APPEARS TO HAVE SOLVED THE IMMEDIATE ISSUE . . . BUT I HAVE TO PUT ALL THE BOLD AND ITALIC BACK IN, DON’T I?  AS WELL AS REVIVE THE LINKS.  I ALSO HAVE TO GO TO BED.  SO THE FOLLOWING MAY END A LITTLE ABRUPTLY.

* * *

Why are the cutest, the very CUTEST, the DIES FROM CUTE/GORGEOUS* knitting needle cases/rolls/organizers ALL FOR SHORT NEEDLES?  CRUMMY LITTLE DPNs AND FRELLING CIRCULARS?**  AND CROCHET HOOKS.  CROCHET HOOKS!

Ahem.  I’ve been wasting time on Etsy.***  Generally speaking I avoid Etsy† but . . . one of the frelling knitting frelling sites I’m on the (frelling) email list of had a TWENTY PERCENT OFF EVERYTHING sale for the bank holiday.  Twenty percent.  Off EVERYTHING.  Now I pay attention to twenty percent.  I will look at fifteen percent . . . but twenty percent, I’m doomed.  And so . . . I was doomed.

I’ve been eyeing up Rowan Big Wool for a while because everybody seems to love it and I’m a bit of a wannabe Rowan junkie although their magazines make me crazy, all those undernourished tragic Pre-Raphaelite-haired women†† wearing clothes that I don’t even understand how to look at let alone be able to read the blasted pattern and make the things.  But then there was this:  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/heartbeat-3 †††

I want to make this.  Well, I want to try to make this.  I wasted an INSANE amount of time this weekend, The Weekend of Twenty Percent Off, trying to decide what colours to (try to) do it in.  The other thing is . . . needles.  GIGANTIC frelling needles.  12 mm and 15 mm needles.‡  They look like police truncheons.  The little needle case I bought long, long ago ‡‡ is, ahem, full, and the addition of police truncheons is not a viable storage option.  Hence Etsy.  . . .

To be continued.

* * *

* Of course I want a dies-from-cute/gorgeous knitting needle case.  I could keep them in a plastic bag if I were a plastic bag sort of girl.  I’m not.  I’m amazed you’d even ask.

** Which all look like garrottes to me, okay?  Cooperate, you yarn, or I’ll garrotte you.  And DPNs just scare the grrzmph out of me.  I subscribe to way too many knitting magazines, and the bottom end of these give you FREE GIFTS!!! every issue.^  Cheezy plastic DPNs and ditto crochet hooks that weren’t broken out of their mould properly so they have little catchy rough places that I’m sure will contribute to the crocheting experience significantly, are popular.  They are not improving my attitude toward these outliers of knitting at all.

^ Just by the way the modern coinage ‘free gift’ makes me NUTS.  Here, have a gift with strings and caveats.  Have an unfree gift.  WHAT?  Of course ‘free gifts’ that come as part of the PURCHASE of a magazine or a box of cereal or whatever the flapdoodle aren’t free by definition.  So what ‘free gift’ is, is the double negative that makes the positive, or in this case the double positive that makes the negative . . . all right, all right, it’s late and I’m mushy-brained.  Still.  I think there may be a principle here.

*** http://www.etsy.com/

Enter at your own risk.  It’s the biggest indie-stall craft market in the universe.  It will eat your days, your brain, and your credit card.  You will also, slightly depending on what category you’re browsing, be caught up short by . . . amazing things that people have (apparently) made and are (apparently) expecting other people to buy.  You know, as in spend money on.  Amazing.  There are a few of these even in the relatively harmless knitting supplies area.

Which brings me to Regretsy, a site honouring—if you want to call it ‘honouring’ which you probably don’t—all that people should not have hung out there in public with a price tag.  However I am not going to give you a link to Regretsy—you can look it up—in the first place because the general tenor is RUDE and the opening page is . . . well, it’s not family friendly, and in the second place because she seems to have shut it down?  The archive is still there—and jaw-droppingly fabulous reading it is too if you’re into that sort of thing.  I find I start feeling as if I’ve eaten too much cheap chocolate too quickly but still . . . wow.   You can look her up too—April Winchell—who has a web site that is a sort of very large Regretsy-style collection of the bad, the awful, and the seriously squicky, whose boundaries know no, uh, bounds.  You want people being jerkfaces?  Go there.  She’s very funny.  But . . . rude.  You were warned.

However, on the subject of the successful deployment of rude, one of the shops on Etsy is http://www.etsy.com/shop/beanforest

which I discovered because FOR SOME REASON people kept sending me a link to this button:

http://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/62701160/footnotes-are-great-pinback-button-badge?ref=shop_home_active&ga_search_query=footnotes

Which I still haven’t ordered because every time I try I find myself running up a tab of about thirty quids’ worth of kitchen magnets (of course I want them as kitchen magnets) and . . . no.^  For example, upon further investigation of the deep luxuriant richness on offer, this one makes me fall off my chair laughing:

http://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/62553873/life-sucks-have-some-candy-pinback?ref=shop_home_active

. . . Okay.  I’ll behave now.  Probably.  But speaking of FOOTNOTES which I OFTEN AM like NOW^^, several people have sent me a link to a recent xkcd post:  http://xkcd.com/1208/   Be sure to do the mouseover thing.

^ My refrigerator isn’t large enough.

^^ I’m sure it’s all very meta-whatsit to be talking about footnotes in footnotes.

† For all the reasons detailed in footnote *** above.

†† Most of the Brotherhood however would be appalled at the starved-teenager look.

††† Is anyone else getting a little cranky about the months’-old THIS JUST IN!!! opening page on Ravelry trumpteting three million users?  Fine.  They have three million users.  I’m impressed.  But I was impressed a long time ago and I think they might take the ‘just’ out.

‡ Heartbeat only requires 10 mm, but http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/may-2

is 15 mm.  I thought I might finally try a hat.  Especially a hat with none of this circular nonsense.

‡‡ Two years, I think?  It was two years ago this past winter that Fiona tied me to my chair and showed me how to knit and purl and cast on and off while I begged for mercy, wasn’t it?

Hellterrors never feel shattered

 

I am beginning to feel—irritably—that I am forgetting what it feels like not to feel shattered.  I did go to my Bowen lady today* which always whacks me out and then went to Fustian open practise tonight siiiiiiiiiiigh.  The problem with going even to the dummies add-on practise at Fustian—their real practise is about as far over my head as I am over Pav’s**—is that even the dummy advice is to a level and precision that I only aspire to when I imagine being someone else with a good sense of rhythm and fewer nerves.  Arrrrgh.  I was also the only beginner there tonight—which is another aspect of the problem—I am not a beginner—but compared to everyone else at Fustian I am.  I’m not sure this isn’t more demoralising than inspiring—why am I BOTHERING??—and then just to finish the job of deciding that I’m going to devote myself single-mindedly to knitting for the rest of my life I made a complete compound hodgepodge botch of poor old Grandsire Triples which I should have developed some kind of auto-pilot for by now, for those days when you’ve recently been to your Bowen lady and are still feeling a trifle rubbery and glutinous about the brain cells.  ARRRRRGH.***  Nobody threw me out of the tower window or laughed nastily or anything, and they still let me ring a touch—a touch!—of Stedman Triples† and a plain course of Cambridge Minor, neither of which I did perfectly but I didn’t do too badly either so I didn’t have to rush out to the car park afterward and order Wolfgang to run over me, in the absence of a sword to fall on.  They’re even going to continue to let me come back.  And I got some knitting done while they rang spliced Demmelhemmeldrigglefarthing Doodah.

* * *

* We.  We went.  I hurtle critters while Peter is on the table and then Peter gets tea while Tabitha goes after me.^  Just because he’s eighty-five years old he gets tea!  And biscuits!  However I’ve made the system work.  Tabitha usually gives him two biscuits—beautiful crisp chewy homemade biscuits!—and he only wants one.  I nail the second biscuit.  Well, I need the strength to drive home, right?  After all the hurtling and everything.

^ And critters, strenuously hurtled, flop in the car.  I now feel guilty every month for pleating Pav up in that too-small travelling crate for that hour I’m on Tabitha’s table but she actually does curl up in it without looking like Alice after she follows the instructions on the cake to Eat Me.  Although, speaking of eating, as long as there is foooooood involved, I’m pretty sure the hellterror would figure out a way to fold herself up like a handkerchief in a pocket, and she goes eagerly into that mingy crate in pursuit of the kibble I have thoughtfully thrown into the back—even if I have to kind of wedge the gate shut behind her.

Did I tell you she’s smaller than Southdowner’s two?  They initially looked HUGE to me, but that may just be the effect of the Delighted Bullie’s Response to Getting Out of the Car—Pav tends to get larger under these circumstances also—and they can’t be that much bigger because I managed to lift each of them in turn+ and they are less svelte than Pav.  Anyway.  I think it is really very sweet and cooperative of Pav to stay small enough to fit in that thrice-blasted piece-of-junk crate—because it’s the biggest that will fit in the space available.  Meanwhile she seems to be coming back out of her heat without having ever quite fully gone into it, which means I should probably re-experiment with the fasten-your-critter-to-the-seatbelt harness, except that that will be the moment when her hormones do a u-turn and she PLUNGES into her proper season . . . and there could be Terrible Things Done in the back seat before I frantically pull over to the side of the road and break it up.

Besides, she still chews on any harness I put on her.  One of the reasons she’s still wearing her nasty little nylon collar is that she chews harnesses because she can reach them.  She’ll shift over to a harness as soon as she either (a) sits quietly to have the beastly thing fastened on or (b) doesn’t CHEW the sucker.  Southdowner was expressing the professional dog trainer and behaviourist’s horror at my admission that I allow Pav to take me for a walk occasionally by a pant leg.++  And I daresay I should be obliging her to sit quietly to have a harness put on (and taken off).  But . . . puppies do calm down.  Well, sort of.  But the hellhounds used to eat pant legs and do airs above the ground while their harnesses were put on.  They grew out of it.  Choose your battles, I say, not being a professional dog trainer or behaviourist, and contain the battles you aren’t engaging with at the moment.  I can live with slightly gnawed pant legs and a nasty little nylon collar for the fact that she lets me pry her jaws open.  And I’m not doing everything wrong:  she checks back pretty often when we’re out, and Southdowner says that checking back is not a big bullie trait.  As I keep saying, Pavlova isn’t a bullie really, she just looks like one. . . .

+ It was DARK and I couldn’t SEE PROPERLY beyond that there was a very happy out-of-the-car bullie somewhere in my immediate vicinity and lifting seemed the better choice than falling down, even if it was rather like clutching the Large Hadron Collider only with legs and fur.  Both Fruitcake and Scone are white which does make them glow in the dark rather#, but that only adds to the effect of size and several dozen titanium-piston legs and tails.

# Probably something to do with Particle Acceleration

++ There are disadvantages to a public blog.  But I knew that.

** Farther.  She boings quite a ways, straight up, on those steel-spring hind legs.^

^ And the hellhounds don’t even have to try.  They can jump over me.  Standing up.  Ask me how I know this.  I have the scars that are the result of lack of faith.

*** In hindsight I do kind of know why.  I haven’t rung there in some time due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unnerved by being the only beginner and I was on the wrong bell.  Still.  The bottom line is still that I’m a moron.

† It’s a bit depressing ringing with a band who rings Stedman frelling Triples as an indulgence to the feeble.  At a normal tower ringing Stedman (frelling) Triples is mostly kind of a big deal.

Bullie news

 

Southdowner was here yesterday.  I got an email from her Saturday afternoon saying, YEEEEE-HA.  BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY.  I could come down tomorrow?  —I looked nervously at Pav.  You’re not perfect! I said.  And it’s all my fault because I’m a BAD OWNER!  She wagged her tail.  All stimuli lead to tail-wagging in a hellterror.*  Also, I added, you’re still TOO THIN according to breed fashion!**  She wagged her tail harder.  You could see the thought balloon though:  FEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEEE.

Still.  It would be nice to see Southdowner.  Especially because—hee hee hee hee hee—have I told you she’s ended up with TWO of Pav’s siblings?  Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.  Nothing on earth, of course, was going to persuade her to have even ONE because she already has ninety-seven dogs and a small house.  But first there was Fruitcake, who has turned out to be rather a stunner***, and Olivia was dithering about him, she’d actually turned down two buyers because she is derang—I mean, because she felt they were going to treat him as an artefact or a Breed Standard Winning Machine instead of a dog.  So she still had him, but she didn’t really want to keep an entire dog with an entire bitch . . . at which point Southdowner said she’d have him.  I wasn’t there, so I can’t categorically state there was a gleam in her eye, but I bet there was.  Southdowner herself has said that the family she’s bred for three generations, and of which Lavvy, Olivia’s bitch, is one, has mostly produced gorgeous girls and reasonably nice boys.  There’s been at least one world-beater boy, but most of the world-beaters have been girls.  I suspect Southdowner has had her eye on Fruitcake for a long time and Olivia has been pretending she didn’t know it.

So far so . . . almost reasonable.  Hey, Southdowner is a bullie breeder, of course she’s going to be interested in a gorgeous scion of her own family.  But then Scone, who was recognised as The Handful and Too Clever By Half when the final cut was made and Pav came to me, and who had gone to experienced bullie owners, nonetheless proved to be too much for them.  Whereupon poor Olivia teetered on the brink of meltdown because one of HER PRECIOUS PUPPIES was not having the happy life she deserved—but Olivia herself has a full time job and is not a dog behaviourist and . . .

. . . Southdowner said she’d have her.

And Scone is darling.  Of course.  I’ve seen her twice since Southdowner took her and I can’t see anything wrong with her.  She’s just your average mad frantic bullie.  But from where I’m standing I’m delighted Southdowner has half of Pav’s litter—and there are plans afoot† for all of us to meet up with Croissant in London. . . .

* * *

* Some stimuli, especially those including fooooooood, lead to other predictable behaviours, screaming, hanging from the rafters, etc, but the beginning of all hellterror activity is tail wagging.

** And slightly under what even I prefer thanks to what I assume was an unobserved snack of something noxious on our FOUR WAY HURTLE at Warm Upford on Saturday afternoon.  Well, I needed petrol^ and it was a BEAUTIFUL DAY and . . . who was I going to leave behind?  So we all went.  And we all lived and I don’t even have rope/lead burns.  But it would have been more fun if I hadn’t spent all of it scanning the horizon for other people’s loose dogs.  Anyway.  Pav was on short rations for about a day and a half after something disagreed with her^^ and was therefore a trifle tucked up even by my standards.^^^  All that tail-wagging takes a lot of energy.

^ Even the pet shop owner thinks I need a new car.  Isn’t that moss growing on the roof? she said.  WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH IT?  WOLFGANG FRELLING LIVES OUT.  HE FRELLING LIVES OUT, UNDER A TREE.  OF COURSE HE’S GOT MOSS GROWING ON HIS ROOF, BECAUSE I DON’T WASH IT OFF.+  What is the matter with people?  He RUNS.  The bottom line is that he RUNS.  We’ve had two bad, expensive moments with Wolfgang, one several years ago when we put eight hundred frelling quid into the steering at which point the end had better not have been nigh and, fortunately, wasn’t, and then a year or so ago when they finally figured out what was causing the extremely unnerving and demoralising not-starting thing, which was after all the drama relatively cheap to put right.  The expensive part was the effect on my peace of mind and stomach lining.  Not that I would know peace of mind if it bit me ++ but there are better seasons and worse seasons for not sleeping or for waking up and going AAAAAAUGH.

+ And at this point can’t.  Who knew that moss could get its roots through hard-finish automobile paint?  Feh.  Bad design somewhere.

++ This is another reason my road to Damascus moment last 12 September was so indisputable.  I don’t do the peace that passeth all understanding, even in fiction.  If someone was standing there shining with it . . . it wasn’t anything I was making up.

^^  MINOR SQUICK WARNING.  Well, I think minor.  But then I’m a critter owner and we have to be tough.  So READ ON AT YOUR OWN RISK.  I keep telling you that Pav isn’t a bull terrier really, she just looks like one.  One of the tricks both Olivia and Southdowner warned me about is the extra-dimensional pouches bullies have in their cheeks, to hide things you’re trying to take away from them.  Even if you have a bullie that lets you open its mouth it’s not guaranteed you’re going to find what you’re looking for.  Now, very often what you’re looking for is not something you want to fish around for with your bare hands.+  I discovered, quite by accident, and as part of the whole astonishing another-poor-sad-deluded-creature-accepts-me-as-hellgoddess business++, that if I hold Pav’s head nose down while keeping her jaws well open and give it a shake, the offending object/substance may fly out.  In fact surprisingly often does.  Even when it’s . . . you know, squishy.  Sometimes it helps to clamp the entire hellterror vertically upside down between my legs and then shaking the open-jawed head. . . .  Yes, she puts up with this.  I’m convinced however that this has very little to do with my status as Alpha+++ and everything to do with the well-developed and one might even say notorious bullie sense of humour.

+ Some of you will remember South Desuetude Cemetery Adventure.  Ewwwwwwwww.

++ BUT THIS ONE EATS.#

# I mean wow, does she ever eat.  Still.

+++ We all know that the whole Alpha business is pretty much bogus, right?  It has limited usefulness—yes you are the boss, or you’d better be—but Alpha?  Nah.

^^^ I think it is my destiny to be awarded digestively-challenged critters.  I can’t starve the hellhounds when they have the rivers because empty stomachs make them worse.  I can’t starve the hellterror when she has the purees because she eats her bedding.

*** Not of course as stunning as Pavlova.

† Or apaw, if you prefer.