All Fixed Up Again

Hi! Welcome back to my blog!

It's been a terrible 3 weeks; about 500 hours ago, while taking the first steps to set up the new Blogger/Picasa feature, I accidentally deleted CatBookMom's Yarns and went slightly nuts. After umpty-'leven pleading emails to the Blogger Gods, they restored my blog Tuesday afternoon. In the same 'Murphy's Law Corollary' way that waiters finally deliver dinner the moment you go to the bathroom, I had spent lots of Sunday and Monday creating a new blog. So I spent Wednesday deleting and creating and creating and deleting email addys and links to blogs. The nasty culprit that was my email address but misspelled and which 'caused' all the problems is now defunct.

I have a new email address that will get comments from all my wonderful readers. If everything works right, you should be able to email me directly from the link on the right, above Midnight's cute picture.

As soon as I figure out how to do it, there will be buttons and all those other new-fangled doodads that this old-fashioned blog should have. Since I had all sorts of pictures and knittery news included in them, I've copied my two posts from the 'new' blog over to here; they're just below, marked 'Redux'.

There hasn't been much in the way of knitting since Wednesday. Knitdevil Madge has bravely asked me to teach her how to knit socks. We started with worsted yarn on size 4 needles, and in kidlet size, so that we can work through the process quickly. We had a lot of fun Tuesday, and, having done hats on dpns, she immediately 'got' the fiddly cast-on for top-down socks. On Monday we're going to move along to heels, which IMO are the tough part of sock knitting.

Thursday I spent some hours at the hospital with a friend from my seniors' charity knitting group. She's had surgery for colon cancer, but there were some complications, so she will need chemo. Thursday she had a shunt?/ Stent?/ whatever put in her upper chest for the chemo, and as usual she had to be there hours before the surgery. Her niece couldn't get there till after the procedure, so I sat and knitted and tried to help the time pass.

Yesterday I had my usual Friday fun, with both my seniors' charity knitting group and the SnB-with-wine at my LYS. And it was my mother's birthday. Last year I went all out with little bits of decorations and a cake for all the residents at the nursing home, but Mom wasn't really comfortable with all that. So this year just the two of us celebrated, with a little balloon, a little bunny to hold it, and chocolate ice cream from Baskin-Robbins. Yum! Mom managed quite a bit before she got tired.

And I hope none of you worried. Yesterday there was indeed a fast-moving and very smoky fire in the hills just south of Burbank. There's a short-stay apartment complex between Burbank and Hollywood, near Griffith Park and the Hollywood sign; business people and actors, including famous ones, often stay there. A couple of boys staying at the complex set off some (illegal) fireworks and set the brush on fire. We've had less than 3 inches of rain this year, a new low, and the brush is perfect tinder for fire. No one was hurt, but there was a LOT of smoke. About 160 acres burned, but the fire didn't get near the Hollywood sign or Griffith Observatory, which is the domed structure on the right of the picture. The seniors' center is closer to the area than our house, and when we all came out at 3pm there was ash on the cars and a nasty smoky smell. It was really tough for people with respiratory problems.


And finally for a bit of eye candy. Outside the window next to my computer is an arbor, which is steadily becoming covered by a lovely purple wisteria vine. DH took these pictures on Monday, before the flower panicles were beaten up by 35mph winds. If the winds had been as strong yesterday as they were on Tuesday, the fire would have been a real danger to the Oakwood apartments and the Observatory.