Fuzzy Dinosaur People

A few days ago, Boyfriend told me that our cat, Whiskey, had caught a mouse or a mole or something.  He had found her playing with it's lifeless corpse when he got home from work.  This was, reportedly, very cute.  However, at the time the story was related to me, the poor rodent's remains' whereabouts were unknown.

Today I was futzing around in my backyard and I saw one of my chickens, Nyneave, tossing around a dead mouse.  This was somehow cute.  She was trying in vain to rip bits of it off to snack on.  First she tried to tear off a leg.  Then she pecked at its viscera, trying to get the liver or some spleen.  Her efforts got her nowhere - but she didn't give up.  She lifted up her head, mouse in her beak, opened up her gullet and swallowed it whole.

I couldn't tear my eyes away.

Afterwards, as I was reeling from the insanity of what I had just witnessed, my neighbour threw rose petals over the fence for dessert. 

Crayon Takes a Bath

Crayon hates baths. I think he partially likes being smelly, but it's mostly that he hates being wet and cold. And for such a tiny dog he takes an amazing amount of time to get dry. This is why, in the winter, Crayon doesn't get many baths.

But recently, Crayon has become increasingly pungent. So today, despite the low temperatures and lack of sunshine, Crayon got the full spa treatment.

You can't tell how smelly he is in the above picture, but trust me, it's pretty gnar. His beard is also matted and his mane is showing serious signs of bed-body.

The first step was to brush and comb his mop. Since I estimate his surface area to be 1 square foot, this took all of 3 minutes. And already what a difference!

Step two involved a hair cut. This, he did not enjoy. He kept wriggling and sneezing and trying to make me pet him instead. He helped a little, though. Every time he wriggled loose he shook off all the excess hair clippings, which made it easier for me to get to the rest of him.

And the result: A very handsome dog.

As a reward we went for a walk, before I had to begin the soapy water torture.

But it was all worth it! Because now he smells of lavender and his beard is once again well manicured. In 8 hours when he finally dries off, he'll be the handsomest dog on the block.

Yep. He's a real Ladies' Man.

A Day at the White Stag Building

I wish I had a camera mounted on my bike - one that clips on like a bike light. That way, I could have had a few images to go with this.

I guess you'll just have to use your imagination.

Today, I attended a workshop on some cataloging program called MARCedit at the White Stag Building in downtown Portland. Which is gorgeous. They managed to blend the original architecture with new-fangled elements without too much disconcerting clash. The element that really had me entranced, though, was the hallway that had clearly originally been an alleyway between two buildings. They kept the original windows (with new glass, I'm sure) and put a skylight at the top of the first floor so one could see the original exteriors stretching out above them.

The workshop itself was less amazing -not that it was bad. It was probably about the same as any other all-day lecture on a piece of software. Many people were fascinated. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't entirely sure how this program could be useful to me and my work - it seems to be designed mainly for editing large batches of records at once, usually records received from book vendors to go with a library's latest purchase of books. Everything I catalog is unique. Not to mention that OHS doesn't buy books in bulk. Oh well.

And the lunch provided was slathered in mayonaisse. Ugh.

Luckily I wasn't particularly hungry, since I'd had 2 large slices of delishus home-made cinnamon bread for breakfast. And I'd been drinking coffee all morning. So I just snacked on the cookie that came with the mayonaisse. The cookie was interesting - it looked, felt, and tasted like a blueberry muffin-top. It made me think of Seinfeld. Sadly, no one sitting near me got the reference.

On the plus side, with all that time on my hands today, I finished another square - this one a knit square with cables. I made one major mistake: see if you can spot it!


On my bike ride downtown this morning I saw:

A homeless man literally peeing off the side of a bridge. Thankfully, he was aiming for the train tracks, and not the pedestrian walkway below.

A sea monster! I swear! I saw it out of the corner of my eye before it dived below the water and it was scary!

On my bike ride home this afternoon I saw:

A crow using cars to crack walnuts. On Interstate Avenue. I thought it was only a small population of crows in Japan that knew this trick - but apparently it's spread here too. Though - these crows haven't yet figured out that a stop-light is the best place for nut-cracking. They were diving into traffic to pick up the nut-meats.

A Pillow with a View

Knits with Wolves

Of my winter knitting project, I have already finished 2 squares. But now, I have been stuck on the same knit sample square all week. I can't seem to get past the first row. The pattern wants me to increase by 4, then decrease by 5, and that just feels wrong to me. I'm sure the stitches come back in the next row, but as I've been working on it piecemeal on breaks at work, I just get flummoxed and give up. But now that I have a weekend ahead of me, maybe I can finally figure it out.

In other news, temperatures in the mornings, when I bike to work, have been consistently in the 40-46 F range. So, I've put away my summer clothes and busted out my winter clothes. What a sad summer! I'm pretty sure I only just put away my winter clothes less than 3 months ago.

Whiskey "Dolla Dolla Billz" Burkle, the kitten, has been most confused by the change in weather - especially by that thing we call "rain." Even though her first tender weeks were spent outside in the cold mountain air, since Boyfriend and I brought her home she has only known artificially heated domiciles and summer sunshine.

She still wants to be outside all the time, but once she goes out and feels the frosty chilliness, she cries to come back inside. 5 minutes later, she wants back out, as if she expected something to change. Rainy days are even worse.

Maybe I'll have to knit her some sweaters.

Crayon Been Blogged!

By someone other than me! Finally, world-wide stardom is within his grasp.





A fellow librarian just started this blog, starring animals in sweaters (because when you take regular animals and add sweaters, you increase their natural cute levels by a factor of OMG).