Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday Activities
It's been an intense couple of days. Saturday was Not Good, and we'll just leave it at that. I've been processing it elsewhere, with people who've been through this kind of thing. Earlier today I looked at Bob and said, "Am I ever gonna get better?" And he said I was doing fine, right on schedule for where I am, and yes, I'm going to get and feel better. Today, the solution for feeling like crap was what it so often is -- pray to be relieved of fear or resentment or whatever it is, and then get on and do something. Anything. I didn't WANT to do anything, and I didn't feel like I had enthusiasm, excitement or energy for anything, but that doesn't matter. I do have one project I really wanted to be Finished, so I started with that. It's a knife sheath, a commission, for a friend who's a biker and wanted something in black leather, with fringe to match his leathers, for a folding knife.
I've never done a sheath for a folder before, and it presented construction difficulties, and I've never done fringes before either. I made a sandwich of thin, 4-ounce leather, with an insert of black-on-white watersnake skin. You have to cut a hole for that, and cut the snakeskin, and put a piece of something soft, like chamois, cut the same as the hole but a little smaller, behind the snakeskin to pad it and make it flush with the top of the sandwich, then glue it all in place and stitch around it. I've done that before and felt competent there.
But straight knives are narrow and this folder's over a half-inch deep. I made the back out of heavier 9-ounce leather, about a quarter-inch thick, with a strap on it folded over and stitched down for a belt loop. That's common and straightforward too. The tricky part here was the welting. I thought I'd be using two layers of the 9-ounce leather, plus a third of 4-ounce, cut for the fringe, and I got all that done, and then realized it still wasn't deep enough inside. I had to cut a third layer of the 9-ounce leather. And I'd already glued the other two layers to the back, and tacked on the front and cleaned up the sides on the belt grinder -- so it wasn't just a matter of tracing. I got a little stuck there, and left it for a few days.
I have the COOLEST vice for holding things while I sew them. We saw someone using one like it for filework on knives last spring, and Bob came home and made one for me. I like filework, and it looks like I'll have time to learn some this winter, but it works great for a lot of other things too. Sewing that saddle-stitch needs two hands, so you need your work to be clamped. This is made out of a trailer hitch ball in a piece of pipe, so you can swivel it in all directions, then tighten the screws to hold it still. I'll take pictures another time -- it's too dark now and my flash isn't so hot.
After the sewing was done, I dressed the edges, cleaned the sheath of fingerprints with rubbing alcohol, and got the first coat of black dye on it. I don't know that I like the fringes very much, but I'm really pleased with the rest of it, now the dye's on it. It needs another coat of dye tomorrow, then buffing, a clear coat and a second buffing, and I'll take it to the guy I made it for, and hope he likes it. Pictures of the done thing tomorrow -- those light issues again.
The gluing today was all contact cement, so there was standing time every once in a while. I put the kittens in the former flying squirrel cage, where we keep the cat food now. The runty little black one (my favourite) found his way into the food right away. His sister spent a lot of time climbing the trees in there. The pictures I took of them in there didn't turn out well -- kittens WON'T hold still for pictures. But here's one of the calico on the front steps -- I really like this picture. We gotta name these guys soon -- they're six weeks old now.
And we haven't seen a hummingnbird for a couple of weeks, but the feeders are attracting the red wasps that are as big as Sea King Helicopters, and lots of yellow jackets too, right near the house. Aubrey screams whenever she sees one, which leads her to show me how loud she can scream, and that wears a little thin. Today, I took down all the feeders and cleaned them to put away for winter. I said, "These smell AWFUL," and Bob thought it was because the stuff had fermented, but it wasn't that kind of smell. When I took the last one apart for washing, I found it had become a yellow jacket trap -- there had to be two dozen drowned ones in there. Ugh.
The bottom line is, today's finishing a lot better than it started. My final triumph was just a little bit ago. The bathtub plug's not been fitting, and you can shower, but a bath runs out before you can get wet, hardly. I'd said I'd use a crochet hook and fish out the hair I figured was stuck in there, but I forgot. Bob had wanted a bath before bed, and I finished the dying (leather, not personal) and went and stuck my finger down the drain to see if I could fish out whatever was in there. Easy-peasy. Turned out there was a little circle of clear plastic in there. It had popped off the centre of the hot water tap handle, and got stuck, so the plug couldn't turn. Pictures of the finished knife sheath and the vise tomorrow or Tuesday.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Getting Free of Fear
I've had a couple of days of living with old stuff and feeling seriously sub-normal. And I've got anxiety around the big family lunch tomorrow (not my family, my host’s), 60 people; and I forgot that it's my MIL's birthday on Monday, which makes me a weasel. That's how I woke up this morning. We'd planned to drive to a place Bob likes today, The Hardwood Barn. They have a sawmill, and exotic woods, and he wanted knife-handle materials. I'd said yesterday I'd like to drive, about an hour each way, because I haven't been, not enough, and especially cuz the forecast was for rain today. Like I said last night, I've driven in a little drizzle, and it sucks on those cobblestone streets up in south
And it was going fine. I told Bob that a friend of ours who'd been in financial management for an NHL team for a while had said hockey players talk about "flow" -- something smooth and seamless happening in the play -- and I had flow with the driving today. We were on Rte. 259, which is two lanes southbound; a big, two-lane wide grass median with a fairly deep ditch; and two lanes northbound; 70 mph. I had the cruise control set about 72 or 73, and the guy in front of me was going a lot slower than that. I signalled a lane change and checked behind me and there was nothing there. I made the lane change without touching the brake or accelerator, so without disturbing the cruise control, because I didn't have to. We were passing him, and he pulled out to pass the guy in front of HIM, who was really the slow one, without checking his blind spot first, I guess.
I knew he was gonna hit us, and I went onto the gravel shoulder and tried to keep off the grass. I had a flash that at that speed, we'd cartwheel in the ditch. I don't exactly know yet what I did -- I just know he didn't hit us and we didn't go in the ditch -- I just got back into the lane and kept going. I didn't even have time or enough free focus to be scared. I just did what I had to. Bob said I did it perfectly, my reflexes were good, and he'd been sure the guy would hit us. By then I was just grateful I wasn't gonna have to show an out-of-country learner's permit to a state police officer. We'd been the following car when I started to pass him -- I thought that would make it all my fault. Bob said not -- when someone hits you in the side by cutting into your lane, it's their fault. I said there'd at least have been lots of witnesses -- like the guy driving the 18-wheeler behind us. He was far enough back he wouldn't have rear-ended us too -- but I was really aware all the time that he was back there.
We were almost there. Stopped at a gas station because there's no public johns at The Hardware Barn. Bob bought us cokes, and we kept going, and I kept driving. I drove back too. There were some little sprinkles of rain, enough for me to figure out the windshield wipers, but not enough to be slippery. I was told last week not to use cruise control when it's raining cuz you can hydro-plane easier, so I hadn't set it coming back. Then I decided I 'druther drive without it because I'm learning how to feel changes in speed. I tend to speed. But today I was aware before I glanced at the spedometer whether I was hitting five mph above or about three mph below the limit.
Like I said, I didn't have time to be scared then. A friend had called this morning before it happened -- she'd been sure there was something wrong with me, so she called. Later she read yesterday’s e-mail and found out about my low blood sugar yesterday and thought that was it, but I think she knew about the car thing somehow, before it happened. We didn't get the phone -- it was where Bob couldn't reach it. I called her back later from the hammock, with a kitten, and when I was telling her about it, I started to shake.
Rest of the day was pretty normal. Bob's making pork ribs for tomorrow in the slow cooker; I buried the smoke detector in the sofa cushions and opened the windows; four-year old Aubrey came down and helped peel the ginger root cuz I was making qeema again ... (I'd put two chocolate-covered marshmallow Santas in the cart while we were grocery shopping and gave her one. "Is it Santa? Yes, it's Santa!" That made her happy, then she bit the head off, tilted her head back and closed her eyes and she had the most blissful look on her face. Later she had chocolate on her face and I wiped her off, which she didn't mind, because "I can't see it.") I was putting the rest of the qeema away warm, so I could drain off some of the fat first, and I had a big spoonful of it to go in the dish -- and I wanted to swallow ALL of it, and I knew Bob would never know. I haven't felt THAT urge in a real long time. I think it's still reacting to the driving.
I'm really glad we went today and that I drove, and that it happened, and I kept driving. It's not going to scare me off driving, I know that. And I didn't realize until right now -- I had no road rage and wasn't doing blame or getting mad. But I'm still kinda reacting. I gotta go hard-cook 30 eggs now -- we have to be there at 1 tomorrow, and I'm not getting up early enough to do them first.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Oooh -- it's been at least two weeks ...
It's been a weird kind of week. I've been doing lots of Country Veterinarying. Hence, little blogging. The kittens all had sticky eyes a couple of weeks ago, and I'd wipe them clean with warm water and a paper towel a couple of times a day and then put NeoSporin on their eyes (well, their eyelids, cuz they closed their eyes, but you know what I mean) and put them back in the kitten box with their mother. I'm pretty sure she licked it right back off, but either the antibiotic or the extra cleaning cleared it up in a couple of days. Wild kittens often have ringworm, which clears up (on THEM) pretty quickly. Not on humans when they transfer it -- you might remember I came back with it last fall. It's not a worm; it's a fungus like athlete's foot or crotch rot, and it responds (eventually) to the kinds of creams you buy for those things. The kittens, when I pick them up, all climb straight up under my chin, so last year and this, I got it on my chest first. Sigh.
Yeshua had a weird, wet cough when I got here. I'm not sure if the hairball I stepped on getting out of bed in the morning cured it or not, but I've been giving him that Femalt stuff. He likes it and it helps. And I wormed all the big cats too, so they're a little healthier. That flea stuff that goes on the back of their heads for Tiger and Yeshua, cuz they sleep with me. I put it on Yeshua two nights ago. That night Tiger got in bed with us and groomed his head for 20 MINUTES! His hair was wet!!! He just lay there like a stone Buddha and let her. (I think he's a highly ascended Buddhist.) I'm sure she licked it all off. There's one left from when they were small, for cats under five pounds, and I was hoping to get that onto him today. He’s been gone all day though. I saw him through the kitchen window early this afternoon. He’s such a good hunter, and he had something. Couldn’t see what, but it was bigger than a mouse, and still alive. Yasmin went over to help him with it, so he picked it up and took it off in the underbrush behind the driveway.
Marmalade, the big, three-year old tomcat (this picture's two years old) is BIG, and he fights a lot. His head feels like a softball, and his head and neck are always covered in scars and scabs. He got in a fight Sunday night (I think). He came for table scraps Monday morning, and let me pet him, which is unusual. I found a couple of engorged ticks on him, and poured olive oil over them. Olive oil works great for ticks -- when I did it for a third one, at night, it was gone in the morning. And it's cheap and quick and easy to apply -- just separate the hair a little and pour.
I got a look at his face though. His left eye was swollen shut, and leaking a thick, sticky fluid. Later in the day it was open a little, but very bloody. And the next day, the eyeball looked collapsed and sunken -- I was sure it was lost. I thought about trying the NeoSporin, but I was pretty sure I'd need stitches and a tet booster after that. There's a site I have bookmarked where you can look up dosages for dogs and cats, for human drugs. We have ampicillin here under the bathroom sink. Bob orders antibiotics from
We lost one of the kittens Saturday night. This one, the little orange one. It was just a dumb accident, and we're both blaming ourselves. They're so fragile. We've both been feeling awful. They’re five weeks old now. We’re always very careful, and it wasn’t carelessness for this accident, but now we’re being extra-careful. I was sitting on the front steps last night, with the other two, the runty black one and the calico, on the back of my shoulders, trying to wrestle with each other. The black one got down, and I think the calico was trying to eat my head. I could feel paws and claws on my head behind my ears, and another pair down around my delts, and she was trying to bite – but my head’s too big for kitten bites. Don’t know that I have any recent kitten pictures – I’ll have to take some more.
It's hard. We got home last night and were carrying groceries in, both of us with both hands full. I went to kick the door closed, but looked around first. The orange one was the quickest on the stairs and always wanted in the house. He usually got in too, and I'd have to pick him up (more than once cuz he was fast and the calico would be trying too, after the orange one's first attempt) and put him back out. So I didn't kick the door last night: I turned around to look and make sure he wasn't half-way in already. He wasn't there and I remembered why and went and cried a little.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Where I am
About That Knife
I said I’d be making a sheath for the knife you can see a couple of posts back. I did it. I wanted it lean and black and shiny and elegant, with nothing on it that would distract from the beautiful handle. There are technical flaws in it. It’s the first I’ve made in six months, and there are things I’ve forgotten. The places where the stitches are out of a straight line are all I see when I look at it. (Yeah, I know.) It's got a loop on the back that'll fit any belt that's not more than 2" wide. I made it for a right-hander, but if you wanted to buy it and you're left-handed, I'd make another one.
The thing I got really right is the FIT. You put a welt between the front and back, where they’re sewn together. It gives space inside for the knife. It also holds the knife. The inside of the welt, that you can’t see, is cut to match the line of the blade. You can turn this one upside-down, hold it by the tip so you’re not touching the blade, and it doesn’t slip a bit. It still slides in and out easily when you’re doing it on purpose. But it’s never gonna slip out by accident and get lost in the woods anywhere.
“Therefore are thou happy.” -- Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, telling Romeo what he had to be happy about when he was pining over Rosaline. One of my favourite quotations.