Moving On (10) and Knitting Content

Things are moving right along on the moving front.

A few days ago I mentioned all the planning I’ve been doing to some of my online friends. One of them (the mother of five, so she has some experience in this area) suggested a couple of books and that perhaps DS ought to be doing some of the planning.<g> (I can’t imagine why she’d think that!)

Actually, DS is planning. He’s allowing me to provide guidance and I’m loving it. I did, however, order four books for DS. They are as follows:

• Real Life 101: A Guide To Stuff That Actually Matters


• Real Life 101: The Workbook


• Where's Mom Now That I Need Her: Surviving Away from Home


• Where's Dad Now That I Need Him?

The first has lots of advice about things like budgets (which we’d like to provide ourselves, except his eyes glaze over and his ears physically grow soundproof covers when we try) and the last two include easy recipes and all sorts of parental-type advice. I was expecting to find these books at Borders. After all, this is the time that kids go off to their first year of college; surely such books would be in high demand! Well, not so much. So I ordered them and expect them any day. DS seems to think they’re a good idea, too.

In fact, DS is being so agreeable that I’m beginning to wonder if he’s been replaced by a pod person. So far I’m not sure that’s a bad idea. On Saturday he not only got his electricity account set up, he called the phone company and the cable company to get their prices. Tonight we decided that probably it’s best if he bundles the cable, Internet, and phone service together. I’m not entirely happy about it, but it’ll save him $50 for four months and $25 after that. And, as DH pointed out, if the phone goes out because the Internet goes down or the electricity goes, he *does* have a cell phone, which we’ll still be paying for. So he won’t be without the ability to call for help.

Also on Saturday, DS continued to work on finding the floor of his bedroom and packing up stuff he wants to take. Without me reminding him, I might add. In fact, when I suggested he do a bit more work, as he didn’t do any on Friday, HE ACTUALLY DID IT! WITHOUT WHINING! OR EVEN WHINGING! I swear this is not my kid.

Today he and I took the grandbabies to the vet. They didn’t get any shots and the vet agreed with m, that rechecking them for FeLV is unnecessary, since the first time we had Texas A&M do the definitive bone marrow test. Other than running a slight fever (which I think they normally do), they are rather incredibly healthy. However – and this is a big shock – they had *fleas*. We have no idea where they got them. They haven’t been outside the house since like November and we don’t seem to have fleas in this house. In fact, we have the house sprayed for pests quarterly. Plus, DH regards fleas with the same welcoming spirit with which I greet large hairy spiders or great big cockroach/waterbugs. As in screaming. Well, to be honest, DH doesn’t scream, exactly. But he hates them with a great deal of purple passion. If there were fleas in the house, he contends, he’d know. However, they combed fleas off both cats. So we got some Frontline for them and for their favorite playmate, Simba, and dosed them tonight.

The vet also recommended some chicken flavored chews for the babies to help keep their teeth in the wonderful condition they’re currently in. So this evening we presented them with one each. They feel like paper to me, and the babies *love* paper, in a destructive, shredding way, but these chews do not seem to the babies to be food. I’ll try them on the big cats, but I suspect the chews will be going back to the vet.

The babies were incredibly good. There was no screaming in the car, even though the cat carrier is now officially not quite big enough. It’s also old as the hills and missing some of the screws meant to hold it together, so it will need to be replaced. Tempe was a bit concerned about being put in the box, but it didn’t bother RayRay at all. In fact, the only thing that bothered him was that Tempe was lying in the very center of the box and taking up about 2/3 of the space, somehow. However, RayRay is not always stupid. When we got in the examining room, he declined to exit the box. Not as firmly as Tempe, who wasn’t coming out even when the carrier was turned 90º and you’d think gravity would insist. (But of course, none of our cats believe in gravity, anyway.) Still, there was very little noise from them and other than them insisting on sitting on my neck with their claws out, it was pretty uneventful. They also didn’t complain about the drive home. Amazing!

Speaking of the babies, DS went out on Sunday and bought out a lot of PetSmart for the babies’ birthday and moving presents. The big purchase was a small version of Simba’s tree. He’s calling it the Shrub. It’s a two story carpeted affair, with a flat sleeping tray up top and a tunnel underneath, and includes a dangly toy with a bell and catnip. They took to it with great, great glee and have taken to both sleeping on the top tray. (This is amazing, in one way; the tray has a hole to go through. Ray proved that was its purpose when he first lay down in the tray and his rear end went, ungracefully, through the hole. Tempe would have been embarrassed to have missed the fact that there was a great big *hole* there, but it didn’t faze Ray. He just scrambled back up and found a better position.) DS also bought them new beds (which I suspect they’ll completely not use), catnip toys, a new litter box (covered, to cut down on the throwing the litter out of the box and the pulling of non-litter objects into the box), new food bowls, and some adult canned food, which they think is just the best thing in the world except maybe the Shrub.

Finally, in my reading of various websites about what to have in your first apartment, I came across a person who suggested taking old, ratty towels – you know, the kind that have developed a fringe? – and cut them up into dishcloth and washcloth size and hem them. Now, first off I’m thinking, “Hem? I doubt DS would do that. Heck, I don’t think *I’d* do that, and I know how!” Plus, we don’t have any towels like that, really. When towels get to that point, we have a couple of ways we handle it. DS wouldn’t notice; DH would use them till they developed big holes (holes in the plural, too), perhaps cutting off the fringe occasionally. Me, I trash them and replace them. (Towels are not that expensive!)

But it did give me an idea. Among the things found in the box we packed from my mom’s stuff, there was only one set of towels and no dishcloths or dishtowels. And I’m a knitter. (Have I mentioned that?) So I went to Michaels on Monday and bought a large selection of Sugar ‘n Cream yarn. Sugar ‘n Cream is 100% cotton and pretty absorbent and is quite happy to go in the washer and drier. One ball makes a nice sized dish or wash cloth. Two would make a decent guest hand towel or a hand towel for the kitchen. And Michaels was selling the balls for about $1.29 or so a piece. It’s a fairly thick yarn (size 7 knitting needles, US), so I think he’ll still need commercial dish towels for drying dishes, but I’m enjoying making him dish and wash cloths. I think I’ll make a few for my former-daughter-from-a-previous-life, too. They’re pretty quick and fun. I’ve got two on the needles at the moment. One in the ubiquitous diagonal square pattern, using one ball of variegated white, purple, yellow, and blue, a ball of purple, and a ball of yellow. The second is a modified basketweave pattern that I’m less than crazy about in a variegated orange, yellow, and pink colorway. I nearly frogged that one when I realized I didn’t like how it looked – but hey, it’s a *dishcloth*. Who *cares* if it’s not a lovely pattern?

I also went down the way to Borders (where I didn’t find the books mentioned above) and got, among other things, the new Vogue Knitting magazine, with a bunch of stuff about socks, and Mason Dixon Knitting, which has a bunch of washcloth patterns in it. I picked colors of the yarn specifically for one pattern I knew was in there and I’m hoping to get started on that one tomorrow. (Since I don’t have the pattern memorized, I’m waiting for a day when I’m mostly home. I figure it won’t be hard to memorize, but thought a few rounds through the pattern with the book in front of me would be a good thing.)

So the sock knitting has been put away for a few weeks. But they’re sitting where I can see them and I’ll get back to them when the spurt of dishcloths is over or gets old, whichever comes first. (There may be a lot of Christmas presents accompanied by washcloths this Christmas!)