Wendy’s having a contest – before 4 pm EST, January 22, send her an email guessing how the pictured sock was knit, and you could win a skein of Wollmeise.
Nikki is having a contest to celebrate her blogiversary, 200th post, and new WordPress blog! Simply leave her a comment by January 24 and you could win a fibery prize.
Dotty and Gladys are celebrating their blogiversary with a contest, too. To participate, leave them a comment with a link to a rectangular stole pattern by midnight PST, January 31.
Reading Update
Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn. Radio personality and werewolf Kitty returns for another solid installment in this series.
Crime Seen: A Pyschic Eye Mystery by Victoria Laurie. Psychic Abby Cooper is back in another light’n’fluffy mystery.
Back to the Bedroom by Janet Evanovich. These old, reissued romances from Evanovich are trite and boring and not recommended (even though there are four black kittens at the end of the book).
Cybermancy by Kelly McCullough. This is the sequel to Webmage, which I recently read and enjoyed. Decent writing and a heck of a premise that mixes cyberpunk with Greek mythology make this a series I’ll continue reading. I think McCullough’s influences include Jim Butcher’s series about wizard Harry Dresden and Roger Zelazney’s Amber series (particularly Corwin).
Wolf Moon by Charles de Lint. This is an old one (1988) and definitely not as skillful or involving as more recent works. It isn’t Lint’s trademark urban fantasy, but it does put a nice twist on some some fantasy archetypes.
Promises To Keep by Charles de Lint. This Jilly Coppercorn story seemed awfully familiar to me – maybe just because it’s described as a prequel to Widdershins?
Old Man Crow by Charles de Lint. Is Joey Creel “a man dreaming he’s a crow, or crow dreaming he’s a man”?
Paste Magazine #39. Many thanks to Margene for turning me on to this magazine! Each issue comes with a sampler cd – what’s not to love about that?
Mayhem (literally) Update
Mayhem had a busy weekend. Saturday she extricated the FM antenna from its supposedly safe perch, then gnawed about six inches off of it (I don’t think she ingested any, fortunately). Sunday I woke up to the sound of her tipping over a heavy oak kitchen chair onto the tile floor and cracking the floor… Maybe she really does have cabin fever!
“Quit telling tales, Mom!” -Mayhem
“I can’t believe you’d fib about me like that. I can’t even look at you.” -Mayhem
“I am so disappointed in you. Obviously, if such things had even happened, the big kitty would’ve done them!” -Mayhem
I still boggle over her tipping the chair over…….
Oh dear! I hope the tilr can be replaced – I bet your neibour heard it too 🙁
I have a chunk out of the ceramic floor tile in my kitchen, where a bottle of champagne slipped out of the fridge, no, it didn’t break.
It’s been easier to learn to live with it than to replace the tile!
Mayhem has been having fun, glad she hasn’t hurt herself.
Mayhem honey… you have to be careful. You could’ve gotten hurt when you… I mean when those things mysteriously happened all by themselves 😉
That is one rambuncious kitty! Was nip involved?
Btw, have linkage for Dotty and Gladys?
D’oh! Thanks for the heads up, Betty – I added the link. Oh yes, I’m sure my neighbor heard it… *sigh*
Oh no! Mayhem… Did she crack the chair, or the floor?
I woke up to *someone* knocking over a plant and the lamp and phone from the table used to get to the plant…
you really do have house panthers 🙂
Oh Mayhem… at least she didn’t hurt herself in the process! I’ll avoid the old Evanovich books.
Oh, I’ll bet your neighbor loved that noise!
Sounds like a cry for attention. Mom, why aren’t you always petting ME!?
Naughty kitty!
OMG! It’s gonna be a long winter for May.
Boy, you’ve done a lot of reading. Cold weeks are good for something!
I’ll bet your downstairs neighbour wasn’t too pleased with Mayhem’s busy weekend…
Mayhem – I TOTALLY believe everything your mom says now. You get no sympathy from me. Just wait until you hear what your little friend over here did yesterday!! You little black kitties have a secret club of some kind.
Oh no about the floor! Is it too much to hope that your downstairs neighbor didn’t hear it?
The cat we had in high school knocked our TV backwards off the TV stand once–she was sitting on top of it and *launched* herself forward (and the TV backward). Luckily it didn’t break. She was a plus size kitty…..
Chris- Look at that face, I find all this very hard to believe.
I guess this isn’t helping the neighbor situation.
Ahh. Kittenhood. I say it lasts til they’re about 5 yo. Good thing they’re so darn cute, huh?
Mel is fond of the FM antenna, too–mine’s full of toothmarks at the end, from before I learned to hide it.
Clearly instead of reading you should be spending more time with Mayhem … 😉
I don’t know … Chaos seems awfully pleased with things. In my experience, that’s never a good sign!
One of mine is always the one into everything too. Naughty kitten, and then trying to blame it on Chaos.
I bet your downstairs neighbor didn’t like THAT sound. Probably even the white noise machine wouldn’t help for that.
We get chairs tipped over, but not this weekend. R&R spent the weekend curled up like hibernating squirrels.
Had to be a poltergeist, black kitties don’t cause problems. Evangeline NEVER does anything wrong. (Well..unless you count walking on the keyboard or plucking everything out of the basket and throwing it on the floor.) However, brown tabbies! THERE’s a hooligan, a paschkudnik, although her Da insists anyone with such innocent eyes couldn’t really be doing anything wicked. Could she?
There must be something in the air. Clyde has been getting into all kinds of trouble this past weekend.
Gee, and here it was just Friday we were all concerned that Chaos would be causing the trouble this weekend. Well, next time we will be prepared. Evanrude has been an absolute nussence (sp?) this week too.
Reading the comments I can say with certainty that there is either something in the air or the windows have been shut for too long. Benny has been out of his mind all weekend long & is acting nothing like himself. Jack – is always nuts.
Mayhem was certainly living up to her name! Too funny.
Oh, would you mind mentioning that I’m having a stash sale.
Hope you and the kitties are having a great MLK day!
You know, your downstairs neighbor may have had a point.
We’ve had a pack of coyotes running through our neighborhood, the boys (Kona and Ozzie) are blaming them for EVERYTHING. Mayhem can borrow that excuse if she wants to.
The horror! Telling fibs like that. Tipped over an oak chair? Mayhem is a good name.
I really liked Old Man Crow. (As if there are some Charles deLint books I don’t like….)
Wow Chaos and Mayhem indeed, or at least Mayhem, as Chaos was not implicated in the dastardly deeds… yet… Glad no one was hurt and the items are replaceable!
Pogo and Puck nearly dropped something off my desk onto Esme’s swing the other day and got summarily tossed outside in one tangled heap of dog and cat legs.
Well that’s what you get for calling your kitty Mayhem!!!! 🙂 She is certainly living up to her name.
What a naughty kitty!
Hmm, I think perhaps Mayhem and Mittens have been communicating. Mittens bit through our telephone wire not once, but twice, this weekend. And he ate the end off the radio antenna wire in the bathroom (fortunately, he didn’t ingest either of the wires.) What’s up, kitties – too much cold weather?
Now I’m not going to get a cat. No. Nope.
With chair tipping? What next? cow tipping?
Wow! What a naughty naughty girl!!
May appears to be kindred soul to Raven. quite the trial….
oh dear May – it must be Chaos caused (poor guy, we’ll blame them for everything) of course no lady would be knocking over chairs!
Hey, let your Mom know I read a new-to-me book that she might enjoy: The Witches of Eileanan by Kate Forsyth
Is it time for a Mayhem crate? My goodness, May, don’t get Mom in trouble, okay?
(((hugs)))
I love Charles de Lint–good to meet a fellow fan!
The full moon was yesterday…my cats always seem to act up around that time, so maybe that’s why May is on a binge?
How could you even supect such an inocent looking kitty? Shame on you.
Oh dear, naughtly Mayhem. Full moon or PMT lol!