kitty and knitting

Took Annie to the vet this morning. I just wanted to talk about pain meds, but she wanted to do an x-ray to look for arthritic changes, so I said okay, left her, and picked her up after my haircut. X-rays look fine--pretty amazing for a 19-year-old; Stella (GSD) had really horrible hips and at 10 was developing spondylosis. Apparently feeding her canned food mixed with water is helping keep her hydrated despite the fact that she's peeing quarts a day; that made me happy. We'll have to do a blood test in September (annual checkup)--hope I have some money then. At any rate, between the x-ray, the shot (I forget what she got--it's a pain med), the bottle of durlactin, and 3 months' worth of Sentinel for the Ts, it was a $200 visit. But it's good to know she's in such good shape for her age, and if she gets a little less wobbly in her back end, it's worth it. (And at least half of that, maybe more, is the Sentinel.)

The good thing is that I mentioned I had a big cat-sitting job coming up, and Karen's face lit up: "Oh, do you do cat-sitting???" Apparently they get asked all the time if they know someone who does. So I'm going to come up with a flyer and some cards to leave with them, and maybe I'll start developing a clientele. Maybe I should join the two pet-sitting organizations; that would look good on the flier. Anyhow, hopefully, that will help with the financial situation a bit, esp. if I have to start making car payments (still looking).

I think I'm going to try one of the pay-as-you-go cell phones--I can put that number on the flyer and cards. The contracts and stuff are too expensive, but if I can add, you know, 60 minutes here, 120 there, as I need the time and/or can afford it, that would be a lot more workable, and K-Mart has a Motorola phone with TracFone for $15--can't hardly beat that with a stick. Walgreens has a Nokia, but it's $40. I think I'll start cheap until I find out if it works for me.

I've been working on the Bayerische socks, the ocean socks, and a lace shawl (very simple--trinity stitch on big needles). But the Bayerische socks are finicky and take a lot of attention, and the needles I'm working the shawl with aren't really sharp enough for easy lace knitting, so I've been feeling the need to work on something easier, so I picked up the circular baby coat again. Easy--HA! The pattern gauge is 18 st/24 rows = 4"; my gauge is 14 st/20 rows = 4". The pattern is written in terms of stitches and rows, so I have to translate that into inches, and then re-translate it into my gauge. And I'm so bad at math. I'm really glad this is a baby/toddler sweater and the measurements don't have to be that exact, but I'm afraid the sleeves will be too big or too close together or something else vital will be off. Gauge is good, but I think patterns should also include inch (and/or centimeter) measurements for those of us who either can't knit to gauge to save ourselves or else have the bad habit of substituting yarns.