Skill Issue

It's day 4 of Holidailies!

Slow Knitter

I started this knitted dragon over a decade ago, got through part of one wing and stopped. I picked it up again recently and finished the other wing a couple weeks ago.

Note: I am not a great knitter. I'm not even a good knitter.

Today I started on a foot. It's supposed to end up looking like this:

Photo pulled from Kim Harrison's blog

It requires three needles at a time and I have never knitted in the round (or whatever that's called). This is not really the project for someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

Mine does not look anything like that picture. I still need to attach the last toe, but I'm fairly certain that's not going to help. Does a dragon need toes? This may be an important question.

Obligatory Kitten Picture

Pepper went back to the shelter for adoption today! Woohoo!

To understand why this is so exciting, you have to know Pepper's story. If you're squeamish, skip over the next paragraph.

MEDICAL DETAILS

He came to me about a month ago with a prolapsed rectum (ie, his insides were hanging out through his butt). The usual cause is parasites causing the kittens to strain too much, but in most cases you can just sort of push it back in and things are fine. Pepper's was so bad that it needed surgery — they had to open his abdomen, pull everything back inside, and tack it down.

END MEDICAL DETAILS

Anyhow, the foster coordinator asked me to take him on Saturday (surgery was scheduled for Monday) because she knows stuff like that doesn't bother me. Understandably, he wasn't eating and didn't want to do anything, but he purred loudly every time I came in the room. The poor little guy was skeletal and smaller than the usual weight limit for surgery.

Surgery went well and he came back that evening to recover. For the first day, everything looked great. Then he started having horrific diarrhea and stopped eating. We started him on antibiotics and fluids. It didn't help. He lost more weight and looked really pale. I thought we were going to lose him after all, but about a week after surgery, we finally got him on the right combination of antibiotics, probiotics, fluids, anti-nausea meds, and appetite stimulants. He started eating and all his problems resolved over the next few days.

He's been off all his meds for the last week, and everything is looking great. Plus, he's still the sweetest boy. I'm so happy he made it!

The Best Laid Plans...

Today was mostly a "deal with the foster kittens" type of day, but at least I got some writing done at the weekly Crepeville meetup with my Wednesday writing buddies.

Update on the Articulated Skeleton Thing From Yesterday

Maria and I both found this wiktionary entry that claims that paleontologists use "articulated skeleton" to mean "a fossil skeleton found all in one piece with the bones still arranged in the proper order." So I guess it sort of makes sense in the context of the book. (Not really, though, because they know the bones were moved after all the soft tissue had disappeared, so I don't know how they would have been transferred without everything getting rearranged. But at least I'm not imagining bones wired together.)

News on the Mysterious Murders Contest

My story made the short list! Final winners will be announced on Dec 20th. I'm amazed to have gotten so far.

Foster Kitten Stuff

This is where you should just imagine me looking like that guy from The Scream by Edvard Munch. Four of the five kittens in The Snack Pack have had horrible diarrhea for the last week and a half. They were supposed to go back to the shelter for surgery and adoption next Wednesday, but now they've been bumped at least another week.

Meanwhile, all six of The Vampires were supposed to also be going back for surgery and adoption next Wednesday, but two got bumped to the future because they're still a little congested and they're just barely big enough.

So I thought I was sending off all eleven kittens next week, but instead only four will be going. Yes, four is better than none, but things will get tricky if I still have fosters at Christmas because I'll be traveling. (It's not a real problem for me — the shelter will find a vacation foster — but I'd hoped to avoid the problem.)

Obligatory Kitten Photo

Cool Ranch found a great place to hang out this morning — on the headrest of my office chair. He looked extremely comfortable.

Suspension of Disbelief

Stirring

Last Thursday (Thanksgiving), I had intended to make this fancy mac & cheese (French Onion Soup Mac and Cheese), but by the time I'd finished the 10k and come home and cleaned up, I didn't have 2 1/2 hours before I needed to get in my car. So I just brought the vegetarian gravy I'd already made, and that was fine because there was already too much food.

Today I finally got around to making the fancy mac and cheese. (Meh. It was fine, and my kitchen smells divine, but I feel like the cheese overpowered the caramelized onions that I spent over an hour stirring so I wouldn't bother making it again.)

While I was stirring onions and bechamel, I listened to the first couple hours of The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths. It's a British police procedural (-ish, because the main character is actually an archeologist but she has a child with a detective chief inspector and POV changes to him in some chapters). The characters are interesting — I haven't really gotten far enough to find out if the mystery part holds up overall.

Suspension Failure

Here's the start of it: a body is found behind a wall in a very old building. Multiple times, the remains are referred to as an "articulated skeleton". We know there's no soft tissue because the archeologist can clearly see a surgical plate on one of the bones. (I'm not entirely sure why the archeologist is getting it out from the space behind the wall instead of the police, but we'll pretend that makes sense because otherwise our main character doesn't have a reason to get involved.)

Here's the problem: an articulated skeleton is a set of bones held in place by pins and wires to approximate the location of the bones in a living body. But as far as I can tell, there are no pins or wires on the skeleton removed from behind this wall. Unless I've missed something, the author is picturing a skeleton that hasn't fallen apart. But if the soft tissues are gone, there's nothing to hold it together.

I really feel like I must have missed something somewhere. Or maybe there's another meaning of "articulated skeleton" that I haven't been able to find?

This book is traditionally published. (I wouldn't have named the title and author if it hadn't been.) There had to have been multiple editors — familiar with the genre — who looked at this. How did nobody stop and say, "hey, that's not what an articulated skeleton is"?

So now I'm thinking more about how this skeleton is held together (a trivial thing that has no bearing on the mystery) than the actual plot of the book. My suspension of disbelief is dragging on the ground.

Ugh. I still feel like I must be missing something.

Obligatory Cat Picture

This is Akasha, mother of vampires. Or at least, mother of the six kittens in my spare room who are named after vampires. The kittens are weaned and Akasha kept trying to get out, so she went back to the shelter today so she can be spayed and adopted.

She's a super sweet cat. Hopefully she'll find a good home soon!

Welcome Back!

Oh hey, it's December already. That means it's time for Holidailies, the daily blog challenge!

Quick introduction

Hi! I'm Theresa. I write SF/F books as T.M. Baumgartner and cozy mysteries as Tess Baytree, but much of my time and energy goes toward fostering kittens for the Yolo County Animal Services Shelter.

My current (10+ year) knitting project is The Dragon Who Has Seen Some Stuff — so far I've finished the wings, which are not even approaching identical. If I ever finish it, this thing will have loads of character, which is the polite way of saying I can't be bothered to go back and fix mistakes.

10k Turkey Trot 2025

A few months ago, I decided signing up for my town's Turkey Trot would be a good idea despite being in my 50s and not having run for at least five years. I had to modify my training schedule from three times weekly to twice in order to keep my knees and shins happy, but I finished the 10k last Thursday with a blistering pace of 14:06 minutes/mile. And I didn't come in last place, though I'm pretty sure everyone who finished after me was walking.

What to expect for Holidailies 2025

That's a really good question. About a week ago, I decided I should come up with a list of topics so I wasn't desperately casting about for something at 11:30pm every night in December, but there was zero follow through, so... Expect kitten pictures, random anecdotes, and probably some feedback on my attempts to learn Affinity.

(Affinity 3 just came out. I've been using Affinity 2 for the typography on my covers, but going back to GIMP when I need to manipulate the image. Will Affinity 3 inspire me to do everything in one place? We shall see.)

Kitten picture of the day

This is Cool Ranch, one of the Snack Pack litter. He has discovered the best way to get through a gloomy December morning.

Happy Halloween!

That's it for October and Horrordailies! We're ending the series on an image with a lot of saturation and it's not particularly spooky, but yesterday we had a pentagram, so take the average and it works out.

Once again, I like it.

Foster Kitten Updates

Bailey Potato had a vaccine appointment/recheck today and she is 1.48 pounds. This girl is planning to stay with me as long as possible before reaching that surgery weight goal. She is currently sleeping in my lap.

The snack pack kittens had their first containment breach this morning. Due to the size of my bedroom and the need to have a large dog crate to hold their feral mom, the playpen around the crate is squished between the foot of my bed and the wall. One of my blankets had partially fallen into the playpen, so three of the snacks climbed onto the bed to freedom. Frito wandered into the hall; Taki and Pringles stayed on the bed. (Cheese Puff and Cool Ranch were still in the playpen.)

Then, 20 minutes after I returned everyone to the playpen and removed the escape route, I went back into the room and only found four of them asleep on the heating pad. Cool Ranch had climbed to the top of the dog crate and fallen asleep.

The other mom & kittens group is hanging in there. I'm tube-feeding three of the kittens and we're on an every 3-4 hour schedule (including overnight). Yes, I will be happy when they either wean or go back to nursing.

One of those babies is chompy. She (or possibly he, because I keep forgetting to look) lunges forward when I least expect it and clamps down hard on whatever body part she's chosen. There has been a lot of swearing and laughter in that room recently.

Okay, speaking of the babies, I need to go tube feed. I hope you've enjoyed Horrordailies and I'll see you soon!

Summoning

 Horrordailies is over tomorrow, and we can't let it go without summoning a demon, right?

I like it.

Foster Kitten Updates

I have pretty much taken over the feeding of four of the six new babies, including tube-feeding three of them. I'd like to believe this will resolve as soon as they all get over their colds, but who knows. They're old enough to be weaned in the next week or so anyhow, so the end is in sight.

Other than that, everyone is doing well. Bailey has a vaccine appointment tomorrow and we'll probably reschedule her surgery. Maybe next week?

Boo!

October is almost over, which means I only need to come up with two more spooky things for Horrordailies. Luckily, this one is so scary that it will make up for everything!

I'm enjoying drawing backgrounds and other things with a variable pen hooked up to a gradient and then giving the photo element a waterpixel filter to make it fit in better. I probably could have done more with the kitten here (lovely Sabot), but it's late and I'm tired.

Foster Kitten Updates

"Friendly" mom sometimes hisses at me when I enter the room, but then she comes over to get all up in my business so that I can accidentally pet her while I'm trying to do other things. It makes it harder to deal with getting eye meds into squirming babies when mom is shoving her head under my hand. Thankfully, she was busy eating when I tubefed the smallest baby, who isn't doing great. Fingers crossed that's enough to get him on the right track.

("Feral" mom (aka, Popcorn) hisses at me whenever she thinks I've looked at her funny, but that's to be expected since she really is feral.)

Bailey is currently the only office kitten and she cries, loudly, when I'm not sitting at my desk. Poor kiddo. She will be part of the feral mom's kitten group when they're weaned and that should make her feel better.