Almost Done, Almost

Michael's CAD software, MoI, is almost done. Really! He was recently written up in Cadalyst.

My Dream Sale

Today I went to a National Geographic Warehouse sale at the Convention Center in Seattle. It was a bit weird at first, as downtown Seattle was not that busy, and as I walked towards the Convention Center, people all but disappeared. When I got there, I thought it was actually closed -- it was deserted and empty! The food stores were all closed, one guy was slowly sweeping an immobile escalator. But then I finally found the huge room with the sale in it, and it was a Bonanza!

Huge coffee table books were $10 each, small books for $5 and even $1, videos for $1. Most of these things I can't share with you since they're presents for people, but I did score a few things for myself. I got a $95 paisley embroidered rayon skirt for $25, and two packages of silver and gold Indian embroidered ornaments for $10 each down from $35 each.

I'm not much of a shopper, but this was awesome for me. I got about $500 worth of stuff for just over $100. If any of you Seattle people read this in time, I recommend you go for the last day on Sunday! They had piles of stuff.

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! Michael and I had a wonderful day at his sister Stephanie's. I was honored to have 2 year old Riley tell me I had "Glasses! Cool!"

Catastrophe

Imagine a silent house at 5 a.m. Two humans and a cat snooze deeply on a bed, a rabbit behind the couch. Suddenly the cat and rabbit perk up: a small flapping sound, and Bijou realizes someone is in the house eating my food! She carefully sneaks up on the intruder and

RRRREAAAAAOOOOWWW! All hell breaks lose! I leap out of bed naked and blind like a mole-rat. Running through the living room into the kitchen I have a series of rapid thoughts: Is a large scary raccoon beating up Bijou? Is someone murdering our bun? I make it to the dark kitchen I see a large fuzzy object pelting around along with much crashing and hissing. I step on a wet floor covered with some sort of grit. I scream. I still think it's a raccoon, but I don't know who's getting the short end of the stick. Michael makes it to the kitchen and throws on the lights, and we see this:
Plus a very small grey cat. No murdering raccoon. A little kitty. Bijou (the large fuzzy object) has gone under the bed, and Jo-Jo is still behind the couch being very, very still. The floor, refrigerator, and nearby walls are covered with cold tea and coffee grounds.

As the lights go on and the kitty sees us, she tries to leap onto the counter above the garbage can, dislodging more dishes. I crouch down to try to calm her, and she doesn't seem scared of me, at first. Michael says "open the door and get her out!" As I move towards her to open the door, she leaps on to a nearby kitchen chair, and then leaps up the wall! She manages to damage a spice rack as she slides back down to the floor, and finally vanishes out the cat door.

We stand there stunned. Did that cat just try to climb the wall? What the hell? Why didn't she just leave? Why did she wreak such disaster and mayhem on our kitchen? We'll never know, but one thing's for sure, she was a spry one!

It took us until 5:40am to finish cleaning up, reassuring our girls, and getting back to bed. By the time we all got back in bed, Bijou planted herself firmly on me, purring. And we slowly went back to sleep ....

The next morning after cleaning up, I sat down at the kitchen table to read with my breakfast. My current book, The egyptologist, was lying open. It had gotten splashed and was a little warped and dirty with cat hair stuck to it. As I started to read where I had left off, just under a cat hair, I read "Up early, hours before the bank will open, and I find ... Cats!" How freaky is that? The book hasn't once mentioned cats before now.

Welding

This weekend I took an 8 hour ornamental welding class with Mimi Riley. It was really fun! I'm amazed at how (relatively) simple it is. It would be expensive to get set up and do at home, but maybe someday!

I had several ideas of projects I wanted to make in the class, but I didn't end up having enough time to finish the one I chose. I decided to make a table top music stand that could also double as a cookbook stand. Here's all I ended up doing, and a Paint Shop Pro sketch of what I intended to do.
I play banjo and flute, thus the two instruments. The little song snippet is Give me the roses while I live:

Wonderful things of folks are said when they have passed away
Roses adorn the narrow bed over the sleeping clay

    Give me the roses while I live trying to cheer me on
    Useless are flowers that you give after the soul is gone

Let us not wait to do good deeds till they have passed away
Now is the time to sow good seeds while here on earth we stay

Kind words are useless when folks lie cold in a narrow bed
Don't wait till death to speak kind words, now should the words be said
-- traditional

I think I'll go ahead and buy some metal rods and bits to saw and bend the remainder of my shapes, and then rent a welder to finish the job some weekend. It looks like I could rent the welder for about $35, but then I'd need wire, a helmet, a work surface ...

Final Halloween Post

Michael and I went to a late Halloween/birthday party on Saturday. It was an outdoor party, so we needed to be toasty. I was the Rabbit With Pointy Teeth and Michael was a taunting French guard from Monty Python.

R.I.P Washoe

Washoe, the first chimpanzee to learn American Sign Language, died at the age of (about) 42.