the best bunny story i've read all week

did you know Tina from Blue Moon has recently brought home a new bunny? he's absolutely beautiful. go read her post and i dare you not to melt.

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i've been messing about with cold-brewed coffee, trying to get the proportions of coffee to milk right. i'm getting closer. the beans are from the Merchants of Green Coffee, in lieu of my most-favorite Stumptown. it's all about proximity, and i can get it freshly roasted, which i'm told is the big dealy key thing. blend so far is 1/3 ethopian beans, 2/3 sumatran.

i like a latte kind of drink, so i am not adding water to the coffee concentrate. i'm closer today than ever, but it's still not right. when i get it right, i'll share the proportions.

oh, and my lattes include sugar-free vanilla syrup. you wanna tell me i'm a coffee wuss? go ahead. try. i like it sweet, and so there.

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my gretel is on hold. i am trying to knit from stash, not for financial reasons, but because it's just damned greedy to have a good bit of yarn and not look there first for supplies for a project.

sadly, all my stash options are not working out. the closest is a lovely skein of Silk Cotton from [sigh] Handmaiden, in the most beautiful colors of faded yellow to grey [i think it might be Dandelion, but my skein is much more muted than any i see on the web]. except it's probably 25 yards short of being enough to finish the hat. will i be brave enough to cast on, knowing i might not have enough to finish? we'll see!

meanwhile, i am knitting greedily on my new sweater -- Amy's Vintage Office in the Amy Friendly Yarn [bamboo/silk] and i cannot believe how fabulous this yarn is. it's not as slippery as pure silk and it's not as wussy as pure bamboo. it's kind of heaven.

pictures later. right now, work!

where we wuz this weekend...

god, i love this lake.
Originally uploaded by amysinger

here. right here in Milford, Pa, at the tippy top of the state.

i didn't get more than my feet in the water [it was a wedding weekend, not so much with the swimming] and just looking at this picture makes ache to be up to my neck in the lake. sigh.

the wedding [a renewal of vows, actually] was really beautiful and i loved seeing my family and getting to meet my new cousin, who is my new BFF.

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i loved reading about your weekends! you guys were busy!

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in other news:

- my teevee boyfriend got married this weekend. [p.s. that link is a bit rude -- it's to dlisted, but it's also funny]

- as I picked up Boeing to put her in the carrier to take her to the bunnyspa [vet's] for boarding, I noticed something horrible on her chest that wasn't there three days earlier. Boeing suddenly has an abscess and I got pretty angry at myself once I figured out how she got it -- a chew toy had been chewed to a shart point and she actually punctured her skin with the damned thing. she's already had a first shot of pen. g and is improving, but we'll continue to be worried about her until she's healed. if it weren't for the small hole filled with goo on her chest, you'd never know she had the thing -- knock wood, she's acting totally normally, which is good.

yup, really angry at myself. chewtoy put aside [out of bun reach] to show doc in case he needs to see it. sigh.

dood.

I have one of these. I hesitated to buy it at $80 when new, but the shop owner reminded me there were only 400 of them. The guy knows his stuff, so I listened.

Plus, it's Joe Ledbetter, who I love, and IT'S A BUNNY!

I have GOT to watch this auction. Except I don't want to sell him, and I'm pretty sure I tossed the box. But I am dying to see how much it sells for.

[yes, I'm especially bloggy today. what of it?]

3 rabbits for 6 hours

This is Cardinal Biggles.

Cardinal Biggles [not his real name, but close enough so that, if he'd stayed with us, he would have answered to it] is a 6-year-old Netherland Dwarf. He's cute, doesn't mind being held and has very soft, tiny ears.

He was in our house because his family wasn't spending enough quality time with him [first one kid, then two, and the mama had huge guilt that the former bunny time was now being spent elsewhere] and they wanted a better home for him. We share a vet, and they made the connection.

So we thought we would give it a shot. We've read and pretty much live by the House Rabbit Handbook, so we had an idea of what to do.

Introductions downstairs in neutral territory were promising, so we decided to continue on. Here's the setup. We have a tiny house, and the only space to safely keep him in was in the room adjacent to Boeing & Squeeze's mansion. He was fenced in and they couldn't get at him. Or so we thought [hint: foreshadowing].

The girls ran around his fence. There was sniffing. There was mutual boy/girl sniffing. [All participants have been spayed or neutered, btw.] For a while, our living room looked like this. Two girls on the left, ignoring little bunny who is hiding in the litter box inside the dog pen.



It was quiet, so I thought we could let Biggles out for a very supervised short run. It ended abruptly when I found Boeing with a tuft of Biggles-colored fur in her mouth. It was not good. I was ready to give up, but hub wanted to give it another shot. I re-read the chapter on introducing bunnies, and realized that letting him out of the cage in their area wasn't so smart, and maybe if we took a step back, we'd have better results. So I agreed. Back in the pen he went to stay. I thought it would be fine for the evening. [Are you starting to sense a pattern here?]

Then, it started to look like this. Multiple times:



Yes, that's Squeeze, humping Boeing from the wrong direction [not that there's a right direction between two girls, but whatever...]. Squeeze does this from time to time, but last night, it was every 10 minutes.

What happened next, I have no picture of, for obvious reasons.

It had been quiet for a while, and then there was scrambling. THREE sets of four bunny paws, scrambling on hardwood floors. Never a good sound.

I look and Boeing and Biggles are trying to eat each other's faces through the bars. EAT EACH OTHER'S FACES, I tell you.

Biggles went home soon afterwards.

What I think we had were THREE dominant bunnies, and there's no way that could have succeeded, especially since we don't have the space or time to devote to a 5-week introduction period. We did try, and it's a shame he couldn't stay because he's adorable on his own.

In fact, I put it out here now. Is there anyone in Toronto who wants a 6-year-old neutered male bunny who loves to be petted? His family really wants to find him another home where he can spend time out of the cage and be part of the family. I'd suggest it be a rabbit-free home [for obvious reasons], but rabbits + cats often get along well together. If you're seriously interested in meeting Biggles, leave me a note in the comments and I'll make introductions.

buns

time for rabbit photos, i think. Boeing first, Squeezle second.




that is all. have a good day!

catchup

So we're back. Hub and I returned last night from a week at my folks' place. We celebrated dad's 70th [THAT was a party, let me tell you...no one can organize a shindig better than my mama], ate a lot of really good food and I rediscovered Mr Pibb.

Did you know? They're making it again, except it's now Pibb, and the diet version is Pibb Zero. Whatever.

My sister and I loved this stuff when it was just Mr back when we were kids. This new Pibb incarnation seems to be only available in a portion of the US. It's like Dr Pepper, but more subtle. I love it.

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So for this trip to Chicago, we drove. We've got a little Subaru [it's a 4wd car], so travel on possibly slippery roads is less scary to us than it might have been. However, we managed to drive on the two driest December days ever, and that was nice.

Because we drove [we usually fly because you just can't count on December weather to behave], we were also able to stay an extra day and avoid the ice storms threatening our travel route home. And hang with the fam and sample my sister's delicious cooking -- a mexican feast this time.

Oh, and we ordered this with our Amazon gift certificates from my sister and her hub. I do not like reading maps and am, therefore, bad at it. Hub hates getting lost. I hate backtracking. This device is a marriage saver. We call it the lady in the box, and the lady in the box got us home stress free. [sidenote: I'd used this exact model when I visited Scout in an Avis rental car in ABQ last June and marvelled at how easy it was to use, had super-quick recalculation when I decided to take an alternate route and never steered me wrong. The Amazon price was significantly lower now than when I last checked in June. Love this thing.]

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The buns [both of them] are in great shape. They were fawned over at the bunny spa and came home totally relaxed and happy. We're lucky to have such a great vet's office so close to our home.

We'll be keeping an eye on Boeing, of course. But if she doesn't show further symptoms of the bladder stone, there's no reason to remove it. [If she were a boy bunny, that wouldn't be the case.] We also brought home timothy-based pellets, but confusingly, they have the same calcium content [0.8%] as the alfalfa-based ones we'd been using. I'm going to have to look into this.

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So that's all for now. I've got new tea to sample, lots of catchup work to do on Knitty, and a serious machete needs to be taken to the clutter in our house. But before I go, this:

via Neil Gaiman's Journal, this delicious set of reviews at Amazon.co.uk. Savor them.

ah.

that's better.

- new Knitty is up [clear your cache, folks].

- Boeing is acting more like herself...enough so that we feel comfortable going on a family trip that really couldn't be cancelled [dad's big birthday party]. she'll be staying, with little Squeezle, at the bunny spa, so they'll be able to watch her in case she gets wiggly again. but she won't. because i told her not to.

- and now I can get back to my last-minute knitting. :-)

happy sigh.

today [a summary]

I'm in the thick of the winter Knitty slog, so this will be short.

- for those at LK last night, and those who love bunnies, the news: Boeing [who is acting fine and wonderful now] does have a 12mm-long stone in her bladder. our vet says we can try antibios, which will help if it's one kind of stone. if in 6 weeks the stone isn't smaller, then it's the other kind that can only be fixed with surgery. in any case, all bunnies in this house will be transitioned to a new low-calcium diet.

- hub now has caught up to me. we both need, um, several different levels of focus in one lens. and my RX has changed a little too. so we both ordered new glasses today. the frames are never the financial problem, but our lenses are over $400 a pair. for each of us. very, very painful.

- I made a mess with Laura last night, and it was wonderful. Laura is the queen of the chemicals. [more on this later, if I'm allowed to.]

- really, can't talk. Knitty. bye.

it's official

I am freaked out.

I'm not asking for sympathy, especially because the reason for my freaking out is my upcoming trip[s] to exotic and wonderful places.

I'm hugely excited about going to SOAR a week Sunday, especially because it's a week with Jillian [which is a rare, treasured thing in my life] and a 7-day learning experience/party with fiber friends from all over. And almost NO WORK.

I'm nearly rendered speechless at the thought of flying to Norway almost immediately after I return home. With the hub. To finally, after 5 years, get to meet Theresa, meet Oslo knitters and SEE FJORDS! A little speaking and shmoozing, some teaching, and all the rest is play! Who gets opportunities like this? Well, I guess I do.

[This realization constantly freaks me out.]

Oh, and then when we're done playing in Norway, we get on another plane, and get off in London. In time for my birthday. A little more teaching, some shmoozing again, and again, enough time for play to balance it all out. Dinner at Fifteen! Shopping at Liberty! Tea! Cider! Scooter stores!

In practical terms, it means I'll be away from home for almost the whole month of October. Away from the bunnies! And Massimo! And the bunnies! And that's the part that's freaking me out. Just being away from home for so long is rather disconcerting to me.

Okay, just typing that out makes me feel like a scared little kid. I need to shake myself out of such an unproductive state of mind. It's ridiculous. I guess I needed to write this down to help me see that.

I expect the largest part of my nerves are centered around the bunnies. We've got kind people coming by to feed/check on them twice a day while we're gone, but things happen with bunnies and fast. Would they be better boarded at the Bunny Spa [vet]? I don't think so. They like familiar. They hate leaving the house. I think we're doing the right thing.

So there you go. I may not be a parent, but I am definitely a bunny mom.

breakfast in the Knitty household

Fresh from the grapevine that we can successfully grow in the backyard.
Boeing left; Squeeze right.