GET OFF MY FOOT...

So Kittencat has been walking for some weeks now, but more importantly, it occurs to me that without some important task for Blogger to distract me from, I'm often curiously silent. My last spurt of blog spewings related directly to a perilously close deadline combined with a significant lack of work due on the subject (Open University course on double entry booking - I got 93% for 3 weeks work on a 12 week course, YAY!!!) but since then we've been overthrown a little with visitors and mayhem, culminating in a trip to Dorset at the beginning of September for EOTR, which was beautiful and lovely and there were peacocks and EVERYTHING. Main highlight for me was probably Sam Amidon, and seeing him do some of the King Speechy such he's been tweeting about on stage.

Anyhoo, the point of all of this is that everything calms down a little, and since little four tooth Kittencat will not do anything but read, it seems that now is the time to start doing the writing and the knitting and the generally doing and making things. September is cordoned off for doing little, but it's nearly October, and a plan lies a foot. GET OFF MY FOOT...

Kittencat is on the brink of the momentus

Kittencat walked the length of the rug today, holding only one of my hands. This is very new. She was very unsteady, but she did it. She has been crawling up the big victorian flight of stairs for a good couple of weeks, and climbing unaided onto sofas, but her confidence in moving on her back paws has hitherto been lacking, or possibly just pushed back in favour of a speedier way of getting around. Now though, little three teeth Kittencat is standing strongly, and ready to go. It won't be long. Oh no.

Procrastination

I'm trying to focus on doing an Open University course. It's only a 3 month job, but there are about 4 weeks to go, and about 3 months of work still to achieve. Of course, it's the normal state of affairs that I work better under pressure. But this applies pressure to the Boy as well, who is taking on all the standard evening chores, like tidying up after Kittencat, for the duration of this mini marathon of learningness in which I shall hopefully rediscover my brain.

In other news, the Kittencat is 9 1/2 months old, and running around everywhere. Well, crawling to things she can run around, and then running around them whilst holding on. When we go to get peas out of the freezer she enjoys stealing and eating the still frozen peas. She has quite a sense of humour, and looks pleased with herself when she decides to steal the phone, and more so when the mission is accomplished. She doesn't miss me when she's with the grandfolks, and is happy as can be in their company, which is smashing news in time for End of the Road.

And lo! The Lord said let there be record stores, and there were record stores, and it was GOOD.

Incidentally, the boy has reminded me that it's Record Store Day on Saturday. Now, I'm a bit out of the loop these days, what with Kittencat preferring reditions of Baa Baa Black Sheep and The Grand Old Duke of York to anything lovely put out by Kill Rockstars or Secretly Canadian, and I'm really unsure how she feels about Bedroom Community, but I do know that Record Store Day is a wonderful day, and that you Manchester types should get out of bed, put on your dressing gowns and shoes, get on a bus and stop by Piccadilly Records for a browse and a buy. Anyone not in Manchester can just sub their own location, the principle is pretty much the same. Now, I'm not going to tell you what you should be buying or what you should like, but there's some pretty awesome stuff available for Record Store Day, and going to record shops in your pj's really is what Saturdays are all about.

See you there, I'll be in the blue check pj's and my snazzy blue mocassin slippers!

In which the former made way for the latter...

Kittencat did good today. She knelt for a time whilst playing without the need for any support, and she did good eating of beans and vegetables, which is pretty good for her mere seven months of existence.

Woodcat sat proudly on the mat, batting toys around with Kittencat, thinking "I made that."

Turns out drinking gives you cancer

But it's bloody nice, isn't it?

I miss gin. With tonic. With a dash of vermouth. Oooh. Yes. Martinis. And vodka martinis. YUMMY.

Everything kills you these days, but it's an awful lot easier to bear if you're soused in booze.

Possibilities...

I've not been to a gig for ages. I think the last gig I went to was Wu Tang in August 2010, and the at-that-stage-not-yet-born small person got the hump, turned back outwards and elbows out and sulked. Horse Feathers played in Manchester about a week after the small person was born, and I missed it. In fairness, I never expected not to miss it, but I'm becoming increasing aware that I've not been to much in the way of anything for a long time. I miss music. I miss the cinema. Anyway, on Friday 27th May The Mountain Goats are playing at the Academy. The boy has suggested we go, and I'd really like to, but I can't plan for anything until the small person can be left with the mother, which is uncertain as to when that will be. Gah.

I am, however, thinking that we should be able to plan to leave the small person with the mother for a time in time for END OF THE ROAD!!! And Sam Amidon is playing, and Emmy the Great, and Joanna Newsom, and Bob Log III, and a veritable cornucopia of beautiful music for a musically starved Woodcat. Who could wear her wellingtons and cowboy hat and dance in fields with gin and her friends (order of priorities clear methinks).

And the prize for best newcomer goes to...

I haven't written here for a while. Much has changed. I met a boy. I had a baby. She is small, and beautiful, and right now she's asleep. I don't go out right now, but I'm having a whale of a time with my baby, and the boy and I are learning a lot about each other's television preferences. I can't believe I've never watched Seinfeld. It's A-MAZ-ING.

A (bottle of) Bulleit to the head.

I'm reading poetry. And getting drunk.

Marvellous.

I sleeped for the first time in living memory

without waking up. My world at the moment is full of bad situations and bad decisions and the knowledge of hurt I'm yet to cause. And Trying to plan in when to do it. I hate these things. I don't like to cause hurt or grief to other people. But I can't and won't sacrifice myself.

The Sound of Emptiness Part 1

Woodcat is without joy, but without sadness. There is a strange emptiness lurking within

Never Give all the Heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything's that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows the cost,
For he gave all his love and lost.


Advice I take from Yeats, and pass on thus to you.

I went to ninja school so that I could murder you with just one little punch...

I think that's how the song goes. Anyway, it sums up a lot of how I feel a lot of the time. At work, we've been engaging in all these internal projects. Mine is involved with designing and building a behemoth of a database, and a GUI front end to talk to it. Up until now, I was part of a team, some of whom had coding experience, some of whom had more experience writing documentation, so I could learn lots from them. But now they have been re-deployed to external projects. Which is good. Except the entire company database project has become the ME-show. And I don't even know how to code html that effectively, let alone build a complex front end database application with php.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An Apology. And A Promise.

The BNP have done rather well, Nick Griffin having acquired the role of MEP for the north west, and Andrew Brons for Yorkshire. This is entirely abhorent to me, and yet I cannot bring myself to go and stand in a pointless protest in the centre of Manchester. I say pointless, you wonder why. Whilst I despise this, and whilst it is not right, it is a democratic decision, and more importantly it is my fault, and the fault of every other apathetic sod who didn't find the time to sort out voting this year. Protesting after the appointment will not change things. These men will not stand down. By our apathy we stand by, and the ignorant and feckless and racist and awful are able to clamber to power, and ruin our country with bigotry and hate. But I promise you this. I will never forget to vote again.

Infestations

I have a house pest. It's name is Phil. It lives in the spare room and grumbles, cheerily. Welcome house pest!

And I'll never sleep again

I'm a mess. It's funny. Yesterday I existed as I always do, in my bubble. I was woefully behind in getting the spare room ready for the onslaught of having a housepest, and I'm still not prepared, but from tomorrow morning the spare room needs to be habitable. But this doesn't concern me, other than my slight worry as to how much crap I appear to have accumulated. And yet. Yesterday everything was fine, and in the evening I went to watch a film with a recent acquaintance. It turned out that this was a sort of date, and that was pretty cool, albeit pretty surprising, and he seems really nice. It doesn't seem to be related, but today I'm suffering from a certain degree of melancholy. Maybe it is related. My bubble is a solitary metaphorical space, and it suits me that way. And I'm awake and a little sad, with no clear ideas as to why, other than concerns of losing my solitude. And I'm awake and sad. And I'll never sleep again.

When I grow up...

... I want to make cakes. And brownies. And sweets. General confectionary. And I would like a shop, where I sell tea and other various liquids, and have a long counter full of goodies. It will be AMAZING.

The Woodcat is sad today

There were more redundancies at work today. It's no good. I don't know at the moment what the future holds, but I'm sad for those who are gone, and apprehensive for the future.

What I dun

It's been a while, so I feel I should catch up. Here are some of the things I've been doing.
1) Going to my cousins wedding
2) Babysitting my nephews
3) Making new friends
4) Going to the book club
5) Making brownies. And other cake
6) Going to see lots of gigs, including Ghostface Killah, and Machinefabriek, and Murcof, and a bunch of other stuff.
7) Making arrangements to do things I haven't done yet
8) Finding a room to rent in a house in September
9) Eating chocolate
10) Dancing like a fool

I've had a fun couple of months :D

Recent discoveries

Espresso powder is amazing. And versatile. But so far, the best use I've found has got to be the banana, blueberry and espresso milkshake. Sounds icky, tastes AMAZING.