Laowai

You know the song When you’re happy and you know it clap your hands? I was thinking about it the other day – when I’m happy and I know it I take pleasure in my everyday tasks and projects. And also when I’m happy and I know it I tend to post on my blog. So it’s not that I’ve been unhappy really I’ve just been extremely distracted.

My good friend has been unwell – scratch that because it’s such a huge understatement – she has cancer! So I’ve been thinking about her all the time and I’ve been trying to support her. I’m so distracted I forgot where I parked my car at the hospital the other day so I wandered around for a silly amount of time trying to find it. I also put my trash bin out to the road but forgot to put the trash in it.

So it’s been too long since I’ve posted about the little things that generally fill my days and make me happy.

Here goes.

Starting with some photos from my botanic garden walks. I’m so happy to see the asters and, along with them, the hint of cool weather to come.

My mom will remember this from when Bea was born – the Evanston hospital labels its parking garage floors with universities. And when you go into the elevator lobby you hear the school songs playing. I can usually remember if I’m parked on the U of M level or the Ohio State level.

The hospital is close to the lake so on my way home I often go for a nice walk on the beach. I love to splash my feet in the water and feel the sand. I’ve also noticed that after school begins in the fall there are so many babies at the beach. Chubby little humans toddling at the edge of the water. Delightful.

In my garden the morning glories are showing off.

I’m able to pick lots of zinnias. And I’m growing one straw flower in a pot. I just love the papery blooms. I want to grow more next summer.

I picked raspberries on a perfect windy sunny afternoon.

And made some jam.

And now to the cat portion of this post:

Here’s Snoopy, our former foster cat who now lives with my friend. Since I’ve been watering her garden I get to see him (and chat with him) through the window. He believes he is supervising the watering. Who am I to argue?

Cats do love windowsills! Here are Pauline and Petra keeping an eye on me from my sewing room.

These two kitties are so very very different. Pauline the white one, is calm and gentle and quiet. While Petra is wild and funny and often naughty.

Pauline wants to cuddle and purr all the time. Petra runs around playing like crazy until she falls asleep suddenly in a goofy position. And even though they are sisters their shapes are very different. Pauline is round and soft and she doesn’t seem to stand up straight while Petra is long and slender and always moving her muscles.

We love them both because they are loving to us and they are so darn cute.

In other cat news, Brian was in Istanbul this week and apparently they are well known for their tolerance of stray cats.

A couple quotes from Wikipedia:

The Turkish city of Istanbul hosts a sizeable feral cat population, with estimates ranging from a hundred thousand to over a million stray cats. Many Turkish citizens view street animals as communally owned pets rather than traditional strays, and the country has a blanket no-kill, no-capture policy.

There is a positive attitude towards cats in Islam, the religion brought by the Ottomans, which remains most prevalent faith in the country.

Brian sent the photo below – that kitty gentleman kept him company at a bar.

So I guess I need to go there now.

Here’s a yummy photo he sent.

In knitting news I took this sweater I was working on apart because I was not happy with the fit.

So now it looks like this:

Ha. Actually it looks more like a sweater now since I’ve restarted the project. Stay tuned.

And in the meantime I made this little project to try out mosaic knitting. It’s a different kind of knitting that uses multiple colors but the technique is different from something like Fair Isle knitting. It was fun and I’d like to do another mosaic project.

And because you may be wondering – my friend is doing well. She has good days and very hard days. It’s going to be a very long journey but she’s powering through it all admirably.