64 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread

  1. Amyliz April 22, 2017 / 8:40 am

    Lily is so pretty! Yesterday I saw a cat who looked rather like Lily being walked on a leash! Seemed like a very chill kitty, just strolling along and sniffing stuff! (The owner did pick up him/her to cross the street.)

    • Jan April 22, 2017 / 8:51 am

      Unfortunately, she wriggles out of any collar or harness I put her into. I’d love for her to be an adventure kitty though!

  2. Jan April 22, 2017 / 8:47 am

    Something distracted her from down the street in that shot, because just seconds before, she was stalking me!

  3. Murray C April 22, 2017 / 8:54 am

    Gotta watch out for those roguish tulips, Lily!

    Am going to a Science March in Philadelphia today – chilly and drizzly, oh, goody.

    • Maia April 22, 2017 / 12:11 pm

      I’ll be in the chilly, drizzly Seattle March for Science. 🙂

      • Allu April 22, 2017 / 1:50 pm

        Just came back from the March for Science here in Gainesville. Good crowd!

        • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 5:19 pm

          I’m back – had to take a nap when I got home – bad night’s sleep on top of a long walk in the rain. But great turn-out and great fun. There was one woman there, a young, small, gal – very pretty, looked to be Phillipino? Wearing nothing but a tutu and knee length yellow plastic boots and a set of pasties, holding her sign aloft – I was most curious about the purpose of the outfit – and wasn’t she freezing her pattooties off?????

          • Maia April 22, 2017 / 6:29 pm

            Just in from the Seattle March- It was also a large turnout. Everyone I saw was very sensibly wrapped up in raincoats or lab coats under umbrellas. We had several people in Bee costumes– perhaps that was her intent? But my goodness- brrr!

  4. Caz April 22, 2017 / 9:22 am

    Such a pretty kitty, love that her pink earsies almost match the tulip 🙂

  5. Dubravkamcvmd April 22, 2017 / 9:35 am

    Lily is such s beauty, which reminds me – we haven’t seen pictures of Faye’s Millie recently, or did I miss it?

    • Faye April 22, 2017 / 2:02 pm

      Did post recently. Will send new. ?

      • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 5:19 pm

        Ooooh, I’d had a similar thought recently and must’ve missed the post! Will happily anticipate new photos!

      • Dubravkamcvmd April 22, 2017 / 5:20 pm

        Thank you!

      • Not That Mike The Other Mike April 22, 2017 / 8:35 pm

        Faye asked me to post some pictures of her Millie and a video. She’ll be along to explain these, I’m sure.




        • allein ? April 22, 2017 / 8:46 pm

          “This video is unavailable”? ?

          • Jan April 22, 2017 / 8:50 pm

            It says unavailable for me too, but when I clicked on it, it played just fine. \shrug\

            Millie is a super-cutie-patootie!

            • allein ? April 22, 2017 / 9:55 pm

              Thanks, now I’m ded.

        • Dubravkamcvmd April 22, 2017 / 8:50 pm

          Adorable! Who is the playmate?

        • fkaWaldenPond April 22, 2017 / 9:08 pm

          Is this a recent video? I thought she had grown more than that– she is adorable and I feel strongly that her tail should come with its own sound effect. 🙂

          • Not That Mike The Other Mike April 22, 2017 / 9:12 pm

            Faye said that it was Millie when she was still at the shelter, playing with another dog there.

            • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 9:25 pm

              I love the sound of the little paws galloping about! Both of those doggies are extra cute. The white and black one kept looking at the camera – a real scene stealer! The nerve.

        • Faye April 23, 2017 / 2:13 am

          Hi all. Thank you Mike! Such fast service! I went to sleep early and missed my own post.

          These are all pics/video of Millie before I even saw her. Tiny creature rescued from Puerto Rico. Three pounds.

          Millie is playing with a shelter mate. I was told she was a total boss of the other doggie and stole all his food!

          Millie is just shy of 12 pounds now. She has learned to go up and down on her own using doggie stairs at the bed. Fully pad trained and does her business all on her own. Fetches when I roll her ball off the bed. Brings it right up and puts it in my hand.

          We are working on sitting and giving paw using treats. Also wearing a harness and leash in the house first.

          Thank you all for asking about us. She’s a delightful mischievous stubborn bossy smart happy girl. A blessing.

  6. Gigi the cat lady April 22, 2017 / 9:46 am

    Today we are doing our monthly lunch with my 96 year old mother-in-law. We used to take out to the restaurant but she doesn’t like to go out anymore because she has problems walking and doesn’t want to use her walker outside the house. So we are bringing take-out BBQ chicken from her favorite restaurant. After lunch I have errands to run and tonight my husband is talking me out for sushi.

    Jan you must be a good kitty-mama because Lily grew into a really beautiful cat!

  7. AJ April 22, 2017 / 10:42 am

    What a beautiful kitty! No big plans here, just a haircut and more packing. Have a good weekend everyone!

  8. Duckie ? April 22, 2017 / 11:28 am

    Bad start to weekend. Broke hubby’s twelve hundred dollar sewing machine.
    The neighbours in the building next to us had a huge fight about one o’clock this morning. One guy, drunk, wanted to try playing his trumpet. He got VERY upset when everyone else protested.
    Wish I had Lily here to comfort me.

    • debg April 22, 2017 / 11:46 am

      Hugs, Duckie. Sorry for all the kerfuffle.

    • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 5:21 pm

      Oh, Duckie, so sorry about that – and you’ve reminded me about my promise to look for stuff for him. I do get distracted.

    • Smartypants April 22, 2017 / 6:48 pm

      Oh, I hate when neighbors fight – I used to have a couple next door who was like an episode of ‘Cops’ – every darn weekend.

      Hopefully you can make up the lost sleep tonight – I find that helps a lot.

      • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 9:29 pm

        The first house we ever bought had neighbors from hell. We had just gotten our bed assembled and settled down, covers up to the chin, proud as can be, our first house, when we heard loud banging at the door (it was a twin or semi-detached in different parlance) and running up and down the stairs, yelling, obscenities. Talk about thinking WHAT HAVE WE DONE and cursing the sellers. Turned out the guy had been the focus of a local police sting for dealing drugs. Fortunately for us, in less than a year he had to move because he couldn’t keep up with the taxes, so the rest of our time there was fine.

  9. Laura April 22, 2017 / 11:29 am

    Lily is getting more beautiful by the day! Thanks for letting us see her regularly as she grows up, and your photos are terrific, Jan!

    Things are fairly quiet this weekend. I’m going to be catching up on some work and my reading — I recently started a fascinating book about the Norwegians who, during WWII, sabotaged the heavy water plant at Vemork. Talk about real heroes! I’m enjoying it a lot, but haven’t had hardly any reading time. I also got food poisoning Thursday and spent the day being sick, so was too miserable to even open my book even though I had time.

    The neighbors across the street are having As yard sale, and I’m trying to avoid it. We got rid of so much clutter when we moved here, I don’t need to start accumulating it again!

    And Melody’s beloved young neighbor is moving — across the country, so there’s no chance of seeing her again. ?

    Everyone have a great week!

  10. debg April 22, 2017 / 11:51 am

    Lily gets more gorgeous every day, Jan! You photograph her so beautifully, too.

    Lazy, creative weekend after a stressful week.

    I was in our video studio starring in a short video about planned color pooling for knitting. Will post a link here when it’s ready. We’ve got fewer than 50 Lovecats cowl kits left, by the way, on the Interweave website–if you’re still interested, grab one now!

    So today I’ll run some errands, then return home for a quiet day processing fiber for handspinning, knitting for work, and cleaning up my dye studio. My new electric spinner has revitalized my spinning energy, and last weekend’s giant cleanup of studio and stash room added to the creative energy. Now that I don’t have to clear away a gazillion piles in that workspace, I’ll actually get down to work!

    • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 5:24 pm

      Oh, Debg, I thought of you today when I saw the “brain hats” at the March – they were so funny.

      • debg April 22, 2017 / 7:12 pm

        I’m so glad you got to go! All you Cutetropolitans who marched for science, I was with you in spirit.

        Brain hats are hilarious. I’ve got a knitting pattern for one somewhere, or can get one easily.

        • Allu April 22, 2017 / 8:21 pm

          Attempting to insert a picture of brain hat

          • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 9:30 pm

            The very thing. Maybe they could be called Thinking Caps?

            • Faye April 23, 2017 / 2:20 am

              Perfect.

  11. N. Fritz April 22, 2017 / 11:52 am

    Just returned from a ten day trip with BF to the US. Short version: we ate lots of fried food in Louisiana (yay crawfish!), rented a UHaul and drove my belongings 1000+ miles, stopping in Missouri to donate my Greek, Latin and archaeology books to my alma mater. Ate bbq in Mississippi, saw friends and former professors, then spent 5 days with my parents. Ate at a lotsl of favorite haunts in Missouri (Shakespeare’s Pizza!) and Iowa (Riverbend Pizza in Keosauqua, NTMTOM!). In the meantime it snowed in Austria and still hasn’t entirely melted. Tonight tango and waltz with BFs ex and new hubby; Monday grades due for graduating seniors. Whew!

    • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 5:26 pm

      Whoa, that sounds like quite a jaunt! Are you coming back soon that you moved belongings? Am very impressed that you Tango – something I wish I’d learned.

      • N. Fritz April 23, 2017 / 4:45 am

        Murray C, I am hoping to send essentials to myself in Austria when I have a bigger, more permanent place. I like to dance alone in my apt to my funky favorites playlist, but I do not partner dance well, something that I am trying to remedy. They were selling dancing shoes at the event last night, and they surprisingly had my size. So no more excuses!

        • Murray C April 23, 2017 / 11:03 am

          I used to dance by myself in my living room before I met my husband. One of the qualifications I had for a mate was that he could waltz and he can! He took ballroom lessons and asked for the best dancer who it turned out was a gay man – so he danced with him! (Something I love about my husband.) We were at the wedding of my hub’s step-sister who has a ton of gay friends. I was dancing with one of them and my husband tapped him on the shoulder to cut in. The fellow started to hand me over and hubster said, “No, I want to dance with you!” It was such a great moment, so funny, so endearing. It was a great wedding. We ended up going bowling in our wedding gear.

          • N. Fritz April 23, 2017 / 3:40 pm

            You sound like a fun couple, Murray C!

            • Murray C April 23, 2017 / 9:39 pm

              You sound pretty fun yourself, N. Fritz – matter of fact I think Cutetropolitans are all round fun people and wouldn’t it be grand if we could meet one day.

  12. allein ? April 22, 2017 / 12:24 pm

    Pink ears and pink tulips…I like how the yard and the cat are color-coordinated.

    I’ve been off most of the week; been trying to clean up and organize some things. And I had the dryer vent guy come on Tuesday, so I wanted to get all the crap out of my living room and bedroom (on the off chance he needed to get in the attic, which is through my bedroom closet; he didn’t) so I took the hamper and everything from the bathroom (which would have been in his way), and all the piles and baskets of clothes and stuff from the bedroom, and the random shoes and boxes and bags sitting around the living room, and put them all in the office/library and shut the door. It looks like an episode of Hoarders in there. Also took all the paper that needed to go to recycling down to my car (I’ve been going through lots of papers in the past couple weeks so I had a big box and bag full).

    Wednesday I had breakfast with my best friend, who played hooky from work. Her birthday was a couple weeks ago, so I had told her I would take her and her husband out for dinner or whatever (his birthday is a week after hers); we had a nice breakfast just the two of us without the kids, which we haven’t done in forever (I love her kids, but they get loud and last time we went out they were hitting each other the whole time). Then I did a few errands, dumped all the paper in the recycling dumpster (is it bad that I went to my old apartment complex where they have single-stream recycling and everything goes into one big dumpster which is so much easier than my current community’s setup?). I’ve been gradually straightening things and pulling things out of the office to put away. Thursday night I pulled out all the laundry and sorted it into piles in the living room. Spent yesterday doing laundry and will do more today. Hope to vacuum tomorrow.

    In between reading The Cute and other internet stuff, of course. Been catching up on podcasts while I putter around, as well.

    • Jan April 22, 2017 / 4:41 pm

      Great, I was just pulling together a pre-order for fall-planted bulbs, but now I’m going to have to go back and make sure that they all color coordinate with Lily! Thanks a lot!

      • allein ? April 22, 2017 / 5:34 pm

        Better to do it before you order. You don’t want to plant it all only to find out they clash with your pet!

  13. Not That Mike The Other Mike April 22, 2017 / 12:59 pm

    Good to hear what everyone’s up to (sorry to hear about your troubles, Duckie, that sounded terrible). As for me, I’m taking a break from yard work. I’m still trying to figure out how to best plant some of the free plants I got at a spring festival. I think I finally have an idea.

    • Smartypants April 22, 2017 / 6:51 pm

      Oh, free plants! Cool! Have fun laying-out and planting.

  14. Patty April 22, 2017 / 1:40 pm

    It’s chilly here this weekend. A few days ago it was in the mid 80s, today the furnace kicked on (I have it set at around 45). My daughter sent me a picture of Alice (mama cat) snuggled with the 2 kittens she kept. She said Alice pretty much ignores the kittens, but she must have gotten cold yesterday. The kittens are the same size as their mom now, except my Callie, she is bigger. I haven’t decided if it’s all floof, because she has long fur and the others have short fur. Grace (the one who weighed a pound and a half when I got her) is bigger too, but very skinny. I guess she will always be skinny, after her crappy start as a kitten.
    There were lots of yard sales going on this weekend, but the chilly weather made me too lazy to go to them. My 2nd youngest daughter’s baby is due on May 24th, but she is planning a yard sale on the 20th, since that’s the day the HOA has chosen for her neighborhood’s sale. Here’s hoping she doesn’t go into labor the day of the sale. I said something about that and she laughed and said, “If I do, I’ll just go in the house and have a baby” This will be her 3rd home birth, so I guess she has a point. Her sisters and I will be helping man the yard sale. It’s kind of weird that the yard sale is just another excuse for us to all get together and have a good time.

    • Jan April 22, 2017 / 4:39 pm

      Don’t underestimate the recuperative powers of kittens! Lily is still only 7lbs at 11months old, which isn’t a big cat, but she started out incredibly tiny: runt of the litter, removed from her mother too young, very much under fed/nourished and being drained dry by a multitude of fleas (you could see them dropping off if you shook her a little, it was disgusting). But once the fleas were taken care of and she started getting good food, she rebounded wonderfully!

    • Laura April 22, 2017 / 6:10 pm

      Speaking of yard sales, my new neighbors across the street had one, and when I went out to check our mail, I finally couldn’t resist going over there. And of course they had a perfectly nice living room set for sale — they bought new everything for this house — so we ended up getting it for a great bargain. I really wasn’t going to go over there, I swear!

      • Faye April 23, 2017 / 2:23 am

        Meant to be. ?

    • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 9:32 pm

      I think this is a great idea! There are so many Scots in Canada anyway!

  15. Faye April 22, 2017 / 2:22 pm

    Woke up. Cooked pasta ate half for breakfast and saved half for tomorrow.

    Had the urge to draw but the cold grey day put me back to sleep under the blankets with Millie. Slept until 1:30!

    Saving big laundry job for tomorrow. Indulging in drawing, reading, tv and surfing. Very contented.

    Oh my big adventure in technology was to get unlimited for my phone/iPad and install Hulu app. I’ve resisted up to now as I watch enough stuff already. But I want to see The Handmaids Tale on Hulu. This is based on one of my favorite books by Margaret Atwood. Very timely. From the trailers it looks like they nailed the book. I give the book and tv a two thumbs up.

    • debg April 22, 2017 / 7:13 pm

      That show is going on my queue too. Great book, although all too many people seem to read it as a how-to manual rather than a cautionary tale.

  16. Laura April 22, 2017 / 6:28 pm

    I ended up spending the entire afternoon holding one of my coworkers’ hands as we all how to use Macbooks — there are a few of us on a new contract where the client is sufficiently paranoid and/or well-heeled that they actually provided each of the four of us working on it with a brand-new (loaner, of course!) Macbook Air just for this one contract, plus a long-suffering computer guy to hold our hands through all our questions. I guess the client has money to burn!

    Unfortunately, we’ve learned in just two days that our one-man help desk is only a hardware person. The poor guy spent much of the afternoon (brought about, of course, by a misstep by the same coworker) without success. I told my husband about it and he resolved it in two minutes. He’s *scary* good with computers and networks and hardware and software and everything related to them. I brag on him a lot because he’s earned it!

    But my coworker is very, very unhappy at having to change from a PC to a Mac. So I had to walk her through solving several software problems because of course Macs and PCs do *everything* differently. Nothing is named what we expect or in the place we expect. I guess I’m braver than her; I just went exploring and found out what I needed to know, whereas she was just tearing her hair out, poor thing. We work together a lot and help each other out, but she is not at all technically-minded. Plus she and I between us probably have at least 70 years of transcribing on PCs, so switching to a Mac is beyond a shock. I wouldn’t do it for just any contract, let me tell you! But I love this client, so we shall see how it goes. It looks to be easy and profitable, my two favorite words when applied to transcribing.

    So I think I’ve read even less than usual on my interesting book! Not to mention I’ve only knitted two rows on one sock! Yeah, I think I deserve a bit of relaxation time….this being unpaid software tech support gets old fast!

  17. fkaWaldenPond April 22, 2017 / 7:08 pm

    Hi All! Lily is so quietly fierce yet delightfully pretty and yes!– colour coordinating next Spring’s bulbs to suit her is the bee’s knee’s in my books.
    Exciting week for me coming up as I am actually taking a ‘go-away’ vacation down to Atlanta to visit my cousin! I used to visit him quite a bit in the mid-2000’s; we get along famously-he’s a successful gay man who spoils me, treats me wonderfully when I come down. We have had some CRAZY adventures. I am really looking forward to heat, swimming, sleeping away from yelly-flappy lips, good wine and wonderful food. Anybody in the Atlanta area have a ‘must-do’ restaurant, shop, event that you can recommend?

    • debg April 22, 2017 / 7:15 pm

      Okay, now you’ve piqued my curiosity: who’s got the yelly-flappy lips?

      • fkaWaldenPond April 22, 2017 / 7:58 pm

        Oh sorry, nothing alarming– just my 17-year-old orange cat who in his advanced age feels it is acceptable and reasonable to start meow-yelling at me from the doorway to get-up using 15 minutes intervals starting at 5am, 5:30am, 5:45am… you get the idea. He loves our morning exercise and breakfast ritual and then promptly returns to bed for a sound, undisturbed sleep when I go to work.

        • Murray C April 22, 2017 / 10:02 pm

          Oh, yeah, I’ve got one of those. Our cat is also 17 – as I’ve most likely mentioned before – and she has a heart murmur, is on thyroid meds, is losing weight, shedding like crazy, not eating much. She’s going back to the vet as soon as our next houseguest is gone. She’s still somewhat active, wants to go outside, and she eats well from time to time, just much pickier. I need to find food that tempts her oh, so delicate palate.

          And your trip sounds glorious – gay men just know how to do things right! Have a fabulous time.

          • fkaWaldenPond April 22, 2017 / 11:40 pm

            Thank you Murry C. and it reads you have your hands full, good thing we love them. 🙂

    • Murray C April 23, 2017 / 9:41 pm

      Very cute! Wow, that’s a lot of fondant, makes my teeth hurt.

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