Morning All!

Hmm, I feel I should do a bit of a catch-up post today.

Trip planning is coming along swimmingly - only 52 sleeps to go!!! We've booked most of our accommodation - La, any recommendations for staying in or near LA? Heh. Get it? Ahem. I am so very much looking forward to meeting so many of you!

Sock knitting is cruising along - I've now finished five socks and I'm doing the toe of the sixth. I promise I will blog these! I'm just so happy to have the sock mojo back - socks is all I feel like knitting right now, I'm getting a lot of pleasure from it. I'm currently doing lots of scrappy stripy socks to use up some of my sock yarn leftovers.

Marlowe is getting HUGE, and is still supremely arrogant and energetic. Except when it comes to Lulu. Every now and then he forgets and bounces up to her, and she then delivers one of her almighty smackdowns, which I think she hugely enjoys, so everybody wins.

I have upped my meds dosage and it seems to be helping a little. On Saturday I went out for the day with Gibbering - we went to Dandenong and visited opshops and clothes shops - we lasted a whole five minutes in the yarn shop before she informed me that THIS IS HELL and we left. Poor Gibbering! Heh. I bought a pair of jeans, a skein of sock yarn, and a spinning book for Yarnivorous, who we dropped in on on the way home. I also bought some of her sock yarn while we were there - pics to follow!

After I got home I wound up my new sock yarn, and wound up some other skeins as well, and knitted and watched dvds with Dave. At the end of the day, something felt weird. I had a good day. I enjoyed myself, saw friends, bought Yarn, etc - not an unusal day in itself, but the difference was that on Saturday I wasn't depressed. All day. A whole day! This gives me a scary insight into what it must be like to be 'normal'. Wow. I think I like it!

I've been crashing a bit since then, but Saturday actually gave me a lot of hope!

Right. I'm at work and I should at least act like it.

Marta

I just learned that Marta the Goddess of Colour passed away last week after a long battle with cancer.

Her incredible talent was surpassed only by the warmth of her personality and she will be sadly missed.

My New Sock Knitting System

I have a new sock knitting system. For a long time, I have completely stalled on the sock knitting. Even if I got enthused enough to start a sock, I'd get halfway down the leg, start thinking about the second sock and give up completely.

And y'all, I have a BIG sock yarn stash. Which will get significantly bigger when some of you lovely people take me yarn crawling in a couple of months. Heh.

Anyhoo, I was thinking that if the second sock is what is stalling my sock knitting, why not eliminate the second sock altogether? I've never been a huge fan of matching socks anyway, and I figured that if I knit two socks in the same yarn but different patterns, they'd match enough to satisfy me but still be interesting enough to keep going with.

It's working.

Pics still to come, but in the last week and a half, I've knit and finished three whole socks. And I'm halfway down the leg of the fourth!

Unorthodox? Yep. Weird? Uh huh. Like nails down a blackboard for socks-must-come-in-PAIRS-minded people (*cough* Purplexity*cough*)? Mwahahaah!

In Which the Cuteness Becomes Unbearable

His little pink paw pads are shiny!!!

Dates!

Okay, now, we have actual dates for this trip!

Friday 23rd March - arrive NYC
Sat 24th & Sun 25 March - NYC
Sun 25th March - NYC
Mon 26th March - NYC t0 Boston
Tues 27th & Wed 28th March - Boston
Thur 29th - Boston to NYC
Fri 30th March - NYC to Chicago
Sat 31st March - Chicago to Minneapolis
Sun 1st April - Minneapolis to Seattle
Mon 2nd April - Seattle to SF
Tues 3rd SF
Wed 4th SF to LA
Thurs 5th LA
Friday 6th LA - Melbourne

Don't Judge!

Hey, don't knock it til you've tried it, dude.

Wow

We've paid for our tickets.... this trip is really HAPPENING!!

EDITED TO ADD: La, Chris, Carrie K, Kelly - you guys may or may not have my direct email so here goes: purple six (number, not word) at optushome dot com dot au

Cause... it's time to organise!

Vanquished

Marlowe: Don't panic, Lulu! I've vanquished it! It's in it's death throes now!

Lulu: ............

Marlowe: No need to thank me, I have saved the day!

Lulu: You know what, I'm just going to go ahead and assume I'm still the smartest cat in the room.

The Struggle

You shall not defeat meeeeeee!

I Take it Back

La, I take it back. We have rejigged and rethunk and we would love to visit Disneyland with you! How does Thursday 5th (?) April sound? All dates given on this blog are subject to flight availability and whether or not Dave and I have killed each other during the planning stages of this trip, but anyway.....

And Chris? Looks like we'll be in your neck of the woods on a Saturday - does that sound okay?

And Carrie K? We'll probably be in SanFran Monday/Tuesday 3rd/4th April - please say I can buy you a drink!

Also, the important part of this trip planning - what are the yarn stores I cannot miss in New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, San Francisco, LA?

Nemesis Returns!

Back again, Evil Shopping Bag? Take That! And This! Grrrrrrrrr!

I Sense... A Disturbance in the Force.....

I will investigate with my Amazing Investigative Kitten Powers.....

StinkyBloggerBeta

You're only going get one photo at a time until I work out how this new Blogger thang works.....

EDITED TO ADD: This photo is first in a series - the Amazing Adventures of the crime-fighting Super Marlowe!!

Oh, and La? It doesn't look like we're going to make Disneyland .... :( But I'd love to treat your La-ness to a drink if we can organise it!

Marlowe and Dorian

One of Marlowe's favourite sleeping spots - on Dorian. Dorian is here demonstrating his unfailing patience with Marlowe.

Freaky Friday

I saw the just about the Freakiest Thing Ever in the Vet's office on Tuesday night. We were taking Meiko and Dorian in for their yearly shots (Dorian howled dismally all the way there, in the waiting room, and all the way back; Meiko went straight for the puffed up fur, huddled in motionless terror in the corner of her carrier position) and there was a lady there with a poodle on a leash and pushing a stroller. I (naturally enough) assumed there was a kid in the stroller.

Not so.

In the stroller in a big felt pouch was a kangaroo. I am not sure if it was a fully grown wallaby or a half grown kangaroo, but I do know that its name was Lucy. I know its name was Lucy because it was wearing a collar with 'Lucy' spelt out on it in big rhinestone letters.

But that wasn't the most disturbing thing, oh no it wasn't.

Lucy's owner had painted her toenails. Pink.

Cause I know when I bring up one of our native animals as my own, the first thing I'd do would be to PAINT ITS TOENAILS.

Hiiiiiiiiii!

Yup, still here, still flattened from the beating the Depression Monster and it's sidekick Stinkyhotweather are administering while my shiny new meds stand on the sidelines pretending not to notice. Sigh.

Purplexity has gently enquired as to whether I have abandoned my ever-patient blog public, and has subtly threatened e-slaps, e-nudges and e-hugs if I don't come to my senses toot sweet.

Recent knitting would have been a lot more impressive if I hadn't decided to scoff at the Guage Gods and spend a day and a half knitting something that would not have fit any baby I have ever seen. I am now toying with winding up some Handmaiden Sea Silk (droooool) and knitting something for the heck of it. I figure if I can let go of the idea that I must make something useful and functional I might be able to start (and FINISH) something gorgeous and completely impractical.

I haven't shown you many of my recent yarn purchases cause I've been buying myself stuff to make myself feel better and I'm a bit ashamed - I may have gone a little overboard..... But! New austerity measures firmly in place!

I have had several lovely offers to shepherd me to yarn stores, hockey games and even Disneyland (La, you wench!) and I shall be hunting down each and every one of you to take you up on those offers! YARRRN CRAAAWL!!! And, you know, if there happened to be a bar or two conveniently located near these yarn stores.....

Dave is happily resigned to this trip being significantly occupied with yarn stores and bloggers. A jewel among men!

Further details of the Peeve World Tour Itinerary as they are finalised......

Sketchy Itinerary

In response to yesterday's obvious excitement (dread? horror?) at the news that Peeve will be Stateside in a few months, we are planning on visiting San Francisco, Seattle, Nooo York, Boston, Minneapolis (Yay Chris!) and of course LA. Possibly I could visit La in LA! That tickles me. La in Lala Land. heeeheeee. Potentially Chicago, if Kelly comes through on that promise of a hockey game!

Stretchy Paws

Mmmmph....Must....be....cuter.....

*snork* Yup, there we go....... (difference in colouring in these two pics is purely due to my crap photoshop skills and in no way detracts from the cuteness)

Long time no blog!

I have been keeping things from you, my dear bloggers. I have won two awards. YOU PEOPLE ARE WEIRD AND ARE SERIOUSLY MESSING WITH MY HARD WON ABYSMAL SELF ESTEEM. I won a Golden Spork, and I won it weeks ago and I didn't even tell you (scroll down to the December 12 entry). I am a bad blogger and deserve to be repeatedly spank.... anyhoo. And Lovely La has honoured me as well! Gosh. I went all giggly and girly when I read about these tremendously cool bloggers saying they liked me! I am such a geek.

Well, the depression monster is still kicking serious butt over here. Meds are taking their own sweet time kicking in, but if I am even one hour later than usual taking them - hysterical mess by 6 o'clock in the evening. Guess who was a barrel of fun on New Year's Eve?? And the weather SUCKS. Hot and humid and no breeze. They've been promising thunderstorms for a week now, and I've been waiting patiently - I love a good thunderstorm, absolutely love it, but apparently the weather dudes are just messing with me. And all my knitting hates me. Its lurking in corners discussing ways to piss me off. Okay, that last one was a lie. But who amongst us hasn't thought that once in a while??

Now for the good news. It is a strong possibility that in late March Peeve (and Mr Peeve) IS COMING TO AMERICA!!!! Yes, that's right, thanks to a ridiculously good air fare, we are contemplating a couple of weeks in the Good Old U S of A with a stopover in JAPAN. So. Chris, La, Kelly - what's the weather like over there at that time of year? Anyone up for a yarn crawl?

Mwaahahahaha!!