My grandmother never expected me to stick with yarn work. When I asked her to teach me, I think she was surprised, and even moreso that I persevered and became good at it. Later, I added knitting to my repertoire, but was never able to master the art of tatting (using carefully-crafted knots to create delicate lace).

(Apologies to everyone who knows how to pronounce 'New Orleans' correctly, including myself.)

Heather and Jess:

Oh, domesticat,
you should have seen
this knitting shop
in New Orleans!

We saw the yarn
and thought of you.
You love to knit
(and crochet too)

So…

We bought you just a little bit.
We thought you'd have such fun with it.

This single skein
was Japanese
(and cost a lot,
forgive us please

Well, it would be, if I had one left. Really. Last I saw of it, it was marching out the door with a suitcase and a beer, muttering an obscenity-laden set of phrases that sounded like "See you later!" and taking my code with it. That was after the cats napped on it for an hour or two this morning.

It was, apparently, squishy and warm. The cats like that.

In the living room, Gareth works on code and listens to David Gray. In the computer room, I switch back and forth between working on code and working on this post, hoping that no one is noticing that I've been gradually notching up the volume on the techno every few minutes.

The walls just need to shake a little bit. A little bit of shake and the code shall flow forth.

We stared down the aisle of jarred spaghetti sauces. "Well, if you don't mind my asking, what does squashing insects have to do with whether or not you cook dinner?" We exchanged looks—I, the look of blinding obviousness; he, the look of complete confusion—for a few moments before comprehension dawned.

"Oh. You mean squashing bugs in code. Ok, I get you now."