It’s Furious Balancing

Laiane has made it over to Qalia; just a few more pretty pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Sunset over the Qalian planes. These remind me a little bit of Kenya (but the trees aren’t quite right; we need thorn trees or baobobs).

Qalian Moonset:

And, just because my jaw dropped again in the face of my uber-deadlyishness:

3,093 points with a single arrow. Good Gravy.

EDIT: Well, apparently, cats and kittens, we have a lot more to come with this Rangering experience. I had a 4,870 crit later that same evening.

I go to mass once a year, on Ash Wednesday.

You see, I have this theory. I have a lot of theories. Since Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the season of atonement, the chance that God will smite me – the biggest sinner in existence – as I walk into church to ask for forgiveness, is very slim. “Hi, God, I’ve been a bad girl and I’m here to work on the salvation of my immortal soul.” Ka-WHAM [or whatever sound effect works for heavenly smiting]. Bad press for the Church, let me tell you.

In terms of religion, I identify myself as a Pagan-Buddhist-Catholic, or a Buddhist-Catholic-Pagan, or a Catholic-Buddhist-Pagan, depending on the time of year and my inclination. I’m not even a “good” Catholic. I don’t go to mass every Sunday and I don’t think I’ve been in a state of grace since 1987. Technically, I shouldn’t be taking communion at all; but I remember Father John, the priest who taught my catechism class, telling us that the priest doesn’t ask for your Catholic ID card when you go up front for the Eucharist. I guess we’re on the Honor System to some extent.

But this was all yesterday. I’ve been freakishly busy at the office and just in general, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck, not even having time to post my Ash Wednesday theory until the day after Ash Wednesday:

[The "Ten for Tuesday" blog meme list, and I can't get this bloody thing to format properly. Trust me; it's driving me nuts.]

I think what a person surrounds herself with can be quite telling about her personality. I realize that I’m reaching on some of this to make them fit into the definition of a “collection.” Deal with it. My blog, my rules.

1. Comic books. This started around 1995 (or 1996), when I walked into Vault of Midnight and met one Curtis Sullivan (and his wife Liz, and friend Steve). I’ve since fallen off in my reading to an embarrassing extent, but I’m quite proud of my messy, in-desperate-need-of-sorting collection. The highlights include Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (the FIRST printings, thankyouverymuch) and original artwork from Transmetropolitan (on loan to The Vault).

2. “Real” books. See recent blog post below.

3. Maneki nekos. Japanese “lucky cats.” Most of my collection is from eBay, but one of the attorneys visited Japan a while ago and brought me back an authentic neko. I have about 40 of them in various sizes and colors.

[Items 4 and 5 are side effects from working in the "death care industry."]

4. Grim reapers. I suppose this is a memento mori thing. I have a pewter figurine, a small wind-up walking toy, a rubber stamp, and a fully poseable plush (with plush scythe) at my desk at work.

5. Funeral home paraphernalia. Nothing too sick, although I know I have a mouth former somewhere in one of my boxes in the basement (this keeps the mouth of the corpse from collapsing/receding). No trocars or embalming equipment, but I do have a metal box (circa 1940′s) for the decedent’s personal effects (A.P. Acquavella Funeral Home, Brooklyn, New York); several ballpoint pens (in need of refills) from mortuaries and embalming services in Springfield, Missouri; a metal coffin-shaped key chain from the Batesville Casket Company; and a coffee mug from the United Casket Company (“Dedicated to Quality and Service”).

6. Stuffed animals (tigers and cats). I’m 12 years old on the inside. Really.

7. Yarn a/k/a The Yarn Stash. Knitters are strange creatures. They collect vast amounts of yarn that has no immediate discernable purpose. “Ooooo, that’s pretty. Let’s buy a few skeins and knit up….something.” I read somewhere that Tracy Ullman has a room of her home dedicated to holding The Stash. My own stash is quite small in comparison. Along with that beautiful cotton chenille from City Knits (see blog post of January 7th), I have:

* 6 skeins of Noro Big Kureyon, brown-cream-gray-orange colorway (A20), bulky

* 2 skeins of fluffy Peruvian cotton, sport/DK (for washcloths) orange and yellow, and ½ skein hot pink

* 4 or 5 skeins of assorted eyelash yarns shades of turquoise and blue

* 2 skeins of Paton’s Chunky Shetland, bulky (like the gray basketweave scarf)

* 1 skein Lion Brand chenille, bulky, dark blue

* 2 skeins Peruvian wool, worsted, hot pink (Kitty Pi Version 1)

* 2 skeins Australian Corriedale wool, super bulky, peacock (Kitty Pi Version 2)

* 1 skein Mango Moon viscose, red-orange-yellow-magenta colorway and matching textured twist, rayon

* 1 cone, approx 400 yards, of undefined origin, navy worsted wool

* 1 cone, yardage unknown, light blue/grayish cotton chenille, sport/DK or lighter

8. Husbands. This doesn’t quite count as a collection; it’s more of a series. Let’s just say third time’s a charm and I’m happy with the current one.

9. Knowing how to order beer in a foreign language. German, Czech, and Swahili. One never knows.

10. Ranger characters. It’s actually the same Ranger character, just different games. Laiane Wolfsong was born in the first Everquest. Then there was Morrowind, EverQuest 2, Oblivion, and now Vanguard. I don’t like characters that can’t sneak, hide, and cause obscene amounts of damage from a distance. “Security” features (in the Elder Scrolls series), tracking, and animal companions are definite pluses. There are downsides, though. I remember in the original EQ all that time in Jaggedpine Forest doing the root and shoot (with the snakes) and the snare and scare (with the griffons/griffawns). Most of my high 40′s to lower 50′s were a long, agonizing line of griffon butts.

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey. -Marcel Proust

I’ve been dealing with chronic pain from endometriosis for 15+ years. A little more than that, maybe. I can’t say that my pain is my constant companion. It comes and goes. Today is one of those “comes” days. I carry tension in my jaw, clench my hands so tightly my fingernails leave dents in my palms. No great insights today, folks; just thought I would share my favorite Proust quote. Even in agony I can be pretentious. It’s a gift.

Nothing can be done in this household without cat supervision. Knitting, gaming, reading — you name it. The Cat must be present. I think it’s in his contract or something. All this supervision is stressful and must be remedied by frequent naps. Peasant, bring me my catnip and kitty treats!

I was surfing the innernets, as I am prone to do, looking for memes to jazz up my blog. I say that I have the World’s Most Boring Blog; it is in definite need of “jazzin’ up.” Since I don’t have a tremendous amount of material in my own life, I look elsewhere for inspiration and motivation — whatever it takes to get me typing about something.

I found a few book-related memes. Being an avid reader, I thought that might be one way to go, but I didn’t find any topics that quite “fit.”

One of the memes I looked at said to list the books in your TBR (To Be Read) Pile. I don’t HAVE a TBR Pile. I have a TBR Bookcase. Now, admittedly, it’s a small two-shelf’er and one of the shelves has my fitness/nutrition non-fiction on it, but most of it is Stuff I Haven’t Gotten to Yet. There’s also a small TBR Pile making it’s home on the sectional sofa in the living room, and a smaller one on my nightstand [The nightstand books are ones I'm currently reading; they tend to fall by the wayside every now and then and sit there for a while, so they're more of a To Be Finished Pile.] There are also assorted piles on the bedroom floor that are in some liminal states of Being Read, Should Be Read, Reference, and Why Haven’t You Shelved This Yet?

My name is Laiane Wolfsong, and I am a Biblioholic. (All together now, “Hello, Laiane!”)

There is no such thing as too many books — just not enough bookcases.

I decided – for the heck of it – to post some pictures of The Laiane Wolfsong Not-Yet-Memorial Library, and a few selected items.

To your left, Ladies and Gentlemen, are the eight stacking bookcases comprising The Fiction Collection. It appears that Ms. Wolfsong has a penchant for the classics. Austen, Tolstoy, Proust, Marquez, Trollope, and Shakespeare are well represented, with a smattering of Melville, Borges, Dostoyevsky, Dumas, Dante, and Hugo thrown in for good measure. There’s also a great deal of space given to one of her favorite writers, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (The Dream Cycle collection and the first volume of The Annotated Lovecraft are absent in that photo; she attests they are “somewhere” in the residence).

Here are two small gems for your consideration.

The first, “Most Expensive Used Book” — H.P. Lovecraft’s Something About Cats (First edition, 1949, Arkham House, August Derleth, editor). $130, not counting shipping and handling, brought this beauty into The Collection. Worth. Every. Penny.

The second, “Best Beloved Book, Judging By Its Cover” — Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (79th printing, 1976).

Here I have to lapse back into the first person narrative. I got Anne’s diary when I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old. I have read it dozens upon dozens of times. The pages are yellow with age, and many of them are falling out. Of course, I bought The Definitive Edition (new translation, originally edited out bits added back in) when that came out in 1995, but I would never toss out the first book. Sacrilege! No other book in The Collection comes near the well-worn-ness of this book. Okay, maybe my paperback version Richard Adams’ Watership Down, but it’s not THAT close.

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I have, in my study, two shelves of children’s books and fantasy, and well as The Non-Fiction Collection: Human Sexuality, Eastern Religion, Western Religion, Women’s Studies, Art/Photography, History of World War II, Marilyn Monroe, Women’s Health, Adventure, Death and Dying, Travel, Cats, Humor, u.s.w. There is also an entire closet of my comic books and graphic novels.

I really need to catalogue all of these. The task is just too daunting. I can’t even begin to estimate the sheer number of books in this house.

I have a deep connection with my books. They have sustained me during all the circles of hell through which I have had to travel. Homesickness. Divorce. Pain (physical and emotional). When I look at my shelves, I see more than paper and bindings and words. My books give me a sense of solidity that nothing else can. The written word is my lifeline.

Yes, that’s a critical hit for a little over 1,700 damage. A yep. I have about 1,050 hit points myself at 15th level, and this was just one WHACK at a mob.

One thousand, seven hundred in damage. Holy frijoles.

The Kitty Pi (the quite small kitty pi) as modeled by Thomas:

I’m still a very bad photographer/Paint Shop Pro user. I swear on a stack of Bibles that the pink yarn in the top stripe is the exact, identical color (and dye lot) as the pink yarn on the bottom, but can I take a picture that somehow demonstrates this? No, I cannot. I have other gifts, but they do not translate into the realm of photography and/or digital editing. I know how to use semi-colons. I know the difference between i.e. and e.g. I know when you say something is a person’s forte it’s pronounced “fort,” not “for-TAY.”

Nonetheless, I suck at photography. I’m not losing any sleep over it.

The top photo is the Kitty Pi before it went into the Magic Felting Wash. I’m glad I took the time to take it out of the pillowcases and check it halfway, because it had SHRUNK like you would not believe. A lot of wet yarn wrangling later, and I got it over the cat cabana I was using for it’s blocking form.

(Thomas investigamatin’ the pi in process)

That would be a plural of kitty pi in the title, not a shortened version of kitty piss. Pi’s just didn’t look right at all (not that pis looks quite right, but it is perhaps what one would call the “best choice.” Or not).

Anyhoo, it’s Friday, Friday, Friday at Chez Cat Barf (to borrow from Crazy Aunt Purl, one of my favorite bloggers), and I am bound and determined to finish knittin’ on the kitty pi and felt the blasted thing. I feel like I’ve been looking at it for months, even though I know it’s only been a few weeks. This is some odd attempt to discipline myself in my knitting. One Project At a Time. No New Projects Until Ongoing Project is Completed (Even if Ongoing Project is Making Me Blind). A yep. Knitting Discipline Builds Character (although I am certain I know more than a few people who will attest that I’m already a character).

And what is a kitty pi, one may ask?

It’s a cat bed. An oversized, knitted cat bed that you concoct out of 100% wool yarn and then toss blithely in the washing machine with lots of hot water to intentionally turn the wool into a bunch of shrunken, matted wool fiber. Ever put a wool sweater in the wash? What size (and density) was it when all was said and done? That’s the general idea. Knit oversized object, put in zippered/knotted pillowcase, and run it through a hot wash/cold rinse cycle to shrink and thicken said knitted object. [I must point out here that the sealed pillow case is very important to this process or else you could clog your washing machine pump thingie with wool, which would be a Bad Thing Indeed.]

I found the kitty pi online, and knew in my heart that it would be an ideal knitting project for me because:

(a) The cats really don’t care how much I mess up on my increase and decrease rows, not to mention the utter mess of starting it out on the Double Pointed Needles of Death; and

(b) The felting/blocking process will cover a multitude of sins. I hope.

So, the photo is the kitty pi in its inchoate state. I just did the first decrease row, and figure I’ve got about an hour or two of knitting left, perhaps 20 more rows. I did this first kitty pi on needles smaller than the pattern calls for, which is Another Bad Thing, because I may have added on too many — or too few — additional rows to approximate… oh, whatever. This is a kitty pi on size 8 needles with worsted wool instead of size 11 needles with bulky wool, perhaps too much of a deviation from what I Should Have Done.

Regardless. This is a kitty pi made with Love of Felines in mind, so I will plow ahead and post pictures of my foray into Knitted Cat Items. It may be a resounding success (and then the cats will turn their noses up at it) or it may be a dismal failure (and they will love it anyway).

We shall see.

Never let it be said that I am not opinionated. I have plenty of opinions. My cup overflows with opinions, and, since this blog is my own little solipsistic corner of the universe, I figure I might as well let ‘er rip.

[N.B. To those easily offended: I'm not saying that these must be your opinions, too, merely that they are mine. A careful, clever reader will note many tongue-in-cheek comments. If you want your opinions, you are more than welcome to get on your soapbox and post them on your own blog. I won't mind.]

Opinion No. 1 – Valentine’s Day doesn’t “count.”

Receiving a gift from a man on Valentine’s Day is nice, admittedly, but since it’s a Holy Day of Romantic Obligation and he MUST provide his inamorata with a token of his affection (or else be met with severe disapproval), the gift given is one of placation — not one of sincere depth of feeling. Note the large number of gentlemen in the local chocolate shop at 5:05 p.m. on Valentine’s Day evening. They are not motivated by “love,” cats and kittens; they’re merely trying to save their bacon by not coming home empty-handed. You want to score points with me, bring me chocolate for no (apparent) reason whatsoever. One well-placed gift of a king-sized package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups “just because I was thinking of you, darling” is a major point-scoring coup.

Sub-opinion: Women who judge the depth of their partner’s affections by the quality or quantity of what they receive as a Valentine’s Day token are a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

Sub-opinion: Red roses are ubiquitous, boring, and take almost no effort to procure. Gosh, you got me red roses for Valentine’s Day? Me and eleventy billion other women got red roses today. How…thoughtful. That took you what? Five minutes on the phone? How about yellow roses? How about, get this, ORANGE roses (well, I think florists use the term “apricot”) in the middle of OCTOBER “just because”? Ok, so that takes perhaps six minutes of effort of the phone, but has a far greater amount of “oomph.”(1)

[Note to The Husband, who I know reads this blog - Don't take any of this personally. You're one of the most romantic guys I know.]

Opinion No. 2 – Cats are superior to dogs.(2)

I have nothing against dogs. I like animals in general and I like dogs just as much as I like wombats, lemurs, platypuses (platypi?)(3), and just about anything else that travels on four legs. However, in the eternal cats vs. dogs argument, feline trumps canine every single time.

Reason One: Dogs have no mind of their own. Dogs, as pack animals, must define themselves in relation to other dogs, or their owner, and/or the owner’s family. A dog by itself is at a loss. Cats, on the other hand, are complete entities unto themselves.

Reason Two (closely related to Reason One): The argument of “dogs are smarter than cats because we can teach dogs tricks” is utterly specious. Let’s put this into other words and see how much water this argument is capable of holding: Dogs are smarter than cats because dogs want to please humans and dogs bend their will to suit us (instead of suiting themselves, as felines do). Dogs are smarter than cats because dogs are boot-licking, obsequious, toad-eating synchophants. A dog is a brown-nosing suck-up so, ergo, the dog is smarter. Yeah, right.

Reason Three: Dogs don’t purr.

Opinion No. 3 – Continental-style knitting (holding the working yarn in the left hand) is superior to English-style knitting (holding the working yarn in the right hand).

I didn’t really have an opinion on this until I read in Elizabeth Zimmerman’s book, Knitting Without Tears, that she was discouraged from continental, left-handed knitting by her governess because it was German and therefore inferior. As a person of German extraction, I take umbrage.

The following may make no sense if you’re not a knitter, but the difference between the two styles is remarkable.

The right-handed, English method of knitting is inefficient and takes too many steps:

(a) Insert right needle into stitch on left needle.

(b) Grasp both right and left needles with the tips of the fingers of left hand.

(c) Remove right hand from right needle and pick up working yarn with right hand.

(d) Wrap working yarn on right needle from back to front.

(e) Drop working yarn from right hand and return right hand to right needle.

(f) Knit the stitch created on the left hand needle and slip it onto right hand needle.

Compare this to the left-handed, continental, German method of knitting:

(a) Insert right needle into stitch on left needle.

(b) Keeping both hands on respective needles, wrap yarn held in left hand around right needle by flicking left finger to manipulate yarn.

(c) Knit the stitch created on the left hand needle and slip it onto right hand needle.

Q.E.D. Left-handed German yarn-holding is far more efficient. Lord only knows where the English got the idea that right-handed knitting was superior. Perhaps they haven’t gotten over “the sun never sets on the British Empire” thing.

——————————————-
(1) I’m not sitting here making “quote marks” in the air with my hands. Really.

(2) For more in this vein, I refer the gentle reader to H.P. Lovecraft’s essay, Something About Cats.

(3) I discovered in one of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books (I can’t recall which) that male platypuses can sting you. Dr. Maturin, overcome with the exuberance of the natural philosopher, is brought low by a male platypus he picks up without permission. MSN Encarta says: “Adult males have a hollow, horny spur on the inner side of the hind leg, from which a toxic fluid is ejected and which may be used as a weapon of defense.” Life Lesson: Don’t pick up adult male platypuses. I think I would be hard pressed to distinguish the gender of a platypus, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

I will be the first to admit that I have been sucked into the universe of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This is my third MMORPG experience, and this is by far the most complex, interwoven game I’ve seen, and I’ve yet to delve into the lore of Telon (the world in which this game is set). The gameplay itself is still extremely rough in spots and some significant elements are missing (Rangers’ tracking ability, for example); but still, it’s just stinking gorgeous.

I know that one of my screen shots is very dark, but click to enlarge. The first two are from the area I was hunting last night – Maji’s Hold – which is between the half elf and the wood elf starting cities. Tigers! Bamboo! Weird oriental-inspired music! More orcs than you can shake a stick at! The last one is just outside Wailing Winds Asylum (the inmates are loose – go whack a dozen of them for a quest reward!), also between those two cities. There’s a phenomenal amount of area between the two, and these are just the lower level areas (Levels 1-12).

Laiane Wolfsong is almost to 13th level. The level progression has slowed down quite a bit from when I started, which is good, in my opinion. The level cap is 50, but I’m in no big hurry to get there. Well, that’s not entirely true.

This place is NEW and HUGE and part of me wants to run out right away and discover places and learn to craft and do diplomacy and uncover all the quests and and and and, and part of me says, “Stop and smell the roses, Laiane.”

I actually finished this scarf a week or so ago, but just got around to taking pictures of it today. I’m quite fond of it. It’s far from perfect (I note that one can see the hole from an accidental yarn over even in the small picture), but it’s mine.

I saw on a TV documentary, years and years ago, a Native American tribe that was known for their woven fabric. Rugs, perhaps? When they made a new rug, they would intentionally make a mistake in the design because they believed that only The Supreme Being/That Guy Upstairs could make something that was “perfect.” I like to keep that in mind when I’m knitting.

As always, click on the photos for close-ups.