… you didn’t get enough cute yesterday:

Also, I don’t have the urge to ramble nostalgically today. But you can have pictures!

Of knitting.

First up, a blown-out picture of korknissen:

Even with too much flash, they are cute.

Next, baby shoes!

Please ignore my egregiously long toenails. Also, you can see my right baby toe wot is in the wrong place. But it is not as cute as those baby shoes, not by a long shot.

And finally, hats!

There are going to be some adorably warm babies in the American West this winter, I tell you what.

Oh, last week was long. Long and crabby. The days never seemed to end, the annoyances never seemed to stop, and my dreams were full of sad things. If it weren’t for how much fun we’re having with my stepson (code name: the Tauntaun) around, I might have taken to my bed in a grump.

Then on Friday night I went out for drinks and dinner with three coworkers, and we sat around telling outrageous stories about ourselves (translation: mostly me), teasing one another, and generally laughing our heads off. It was terrific.

Also terrific: Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, which took up all of yesterday. I didn’t get a dang thing done in favor of reading, and it was totally worth it.

My mom and sister have taken up a Saturday night tradition of surf & turf (the surf is different every week), and last night Dingo and I had our own version of it. We went to our favorite place, Masa’s Sushi & Robata Bar (fondly known in our house as The Robot Bar). They make the best beef teriyaki I have ever had. Dingo had the beef, and I had the salmon. I ate the cabbage it came on top of, as well, and both my and Dingo’s seaweed salad. Alas, after all that I didn’t have room for his cabbage too.

Yes. I am a shameless eater of garnishes. It’s a schtick. Plus I really love cabbage.

During dinner we had a totally goopy conversation about how awesome it is to be married to one another and that given the enormous piles of steaming crap we’ve surmounted, it’s hard to imagine anything that would drive us apart.

I definitely feel a little better.

Tomorrow: pictures. Pictures of great cuteness. Possibly accompanied by nostalgic romanticism.

(But no pictures.)

Next month, my family is walking as a team in The Prouty in honor of my father (the handsome guy on that page). There are so many places that are desperate for money right now, and budgets are tighter than ever, but I am grateful for every dollar of sponsorship.

Jinx spent last Thursday at the vet’s office after throwing up all over the place, including one bit that looked bloody. After last year’s adventures with poor Boadie, I freaked right the hell out. It turned out to be an expensive tummy ache, and he’s fine now, but geez louise. I think we both lost weight.

Things are boring on the outside because they’re exciting on the inside, and writing is going well. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about water.

When we were in Colorado in February, I said something about how much I like Denver, and my friend Dan said, “You can’t move here unless you bring your own water.” That got me on a line of thought about snow barrels (like rain barrels, but for snow), and how I’ve always lived in wet places, where we think of water as something that could trap you, could get in the house, hardly ever as a precious resource.

When I was 16 I spent a couple of weeks on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and that was the first time that I learned to think about water. We had been bathing in the river (using Dr. Brommer’s soap), much to the amusement of the fine folks of Red Shirt, SD.

“You’re out here to help us, but at least we have indoor plumbing,” one lady said. She invited us into her cinderblock house, where we sat around warming up and drying off for a little while. She was washing dishes, and she kept turning the water on and off.

If I were a cat, I’d have been dead of curiosity decades ago, and I am rarely afraid of looking like a fool, so I asked why. She talked about how scarce water can be out on the plains, and about how you have to respect resources, because they’re holy. Keep things clean, use only what you need.

Since then, I turn the water on and off when I’m washing dishes. I turn it off while I’m brushing my teeth. Even in this damp place, where even the air is wet. I don’t have any idea whether this makes any difference in my actual water usage – clearly, as a citizen of the developed world, I use way more than I actually need – but paying attention is important to me. I try to stay awake inside my own life.

Two weekends ago we were in Dallas visiting the Wickeds, and last weekend I came down with a case of lassitude followed by headache (shh, don’t tell anyone, but it was actually a hangover [I had three whole glasses of wine! what a lush!]), so our refrigerator was extremely empty.

I ate some sad lunches last week, I tell you.

But this week there is so much yummy food. My breakfasts will be coconut-cardamom rice pudding with spiced plum compote on top, and if that doesn’t make you weep, you must keep your heart in a carved box under a mountain. Here’s the staging from last night’s dinner:

That’s pork with zucchini on the left and flavorings for borracho beans on the right, separated by a glass of extremely bad Riesling. Both recipes are from Rick Bayless’s Authentic Mexican, and the Riesling is from a box.

I was so pleased that I actually took the time to chop everything and have it ready before I started cooking. What do you know? It cut the amount of cursing down to zero.

In knitting news, I have secret projects going on, but I was able to finish up a project that languished for over a year. Behold the Weighted Companion Cube:

It’s a little smooshy-looking, but Dingo loves it. It was my first stranded colorwork project. After that experience, I do not anticipate that I will take up Fair Isle knitting.

In Jinx news, biting is down and snuggling is up. He continues to eat all the bugs. Good boy!

In writing news, my hand is about to fall off.

I’ve been writing a lot of letters lately (more even than usual): I have a friend laid up for months with a bum leg and a bunch who have moved lately. I figure it sets a good standard to receive a cheerful letter when you’re new to a home.

Letter receiving goes in cycles: people get on kicks, and for a while I was a member of an online letter-writing group that was mostly great, until I found myself scratching my head over one too many notes written to comparative strangers.

In general, it’s a very uneven thing: my ratio of letters sent to received is probably about 6:1. Mimi was a faithful correspondent, but I get more letters by FAR from Gwyn than from anyone else. She writes even more often than I do, and it’s fantastic.

This used to bother me (not the Gwyn part): I had a bug in my pants about “fairness.” Then I realized that I was being stupid. Yes, I love to receive letters. But I love to send them even more. It gives me pleasure to put time into choosing stationery and swirling words on a page. So I let go of the dumb idea that there is any sort of obligation involved in correspondence, and all of a sudden I sent more letters than ever.

For example: I have a friend who turned off blog comments on account of having a mild case of Being Famous. Now, every time I have something to say about her posts, I send her a letter. I hope she enjoys this half as much as I do. I’ve widened the scope of this idea, so that all sorts of random people have started receiving postcards containing comments to blog posts they made the week before. Perhaps this is confusing.

But I hope it makes them smile.

(Three letters sent yesterday, two today, plus two packages that I need to haul to the Post Office. I go through a LOT of stamps.)