4-7 Tornados

... rolled over the state today.  Crazy!   Weatherman says he hasn't seen anything like this in the 20 years he's been reporting.

Stay dry and safe, everyone!

Back to NEVOG

We had a nice working relationship with the folks at New England Veterinary Oncology Group while Finnegan was undergoing his cancer treatment.  It's been a while since we've talked to them, but unfortunately it looks like we may be doing that again soon: the lesions on Echo's forehead and chin turned out to be cancerous.

We are getting a referral today and need to call them tomorrow to make an appointment.  Then we'll have a better idea of what's next. 

Fuzz therapy

(from left to right: Truffle, Echo, Tolly)

Nap time

Making book folders

Last night we regressed back to childhood with arts and crafts.

Via People Making a Difference, a couple of us helped to make book folders for Generations Incorporated, an organization that brings senior volunteers together with kids who are struggling with literacy.  

The book folders house storybooks, and include discussion questions, challenging words, author information, etc.  They are designed to present the reading material in a fun way to the kids, and provide useful material to the tutors.   (You can read a bit more about them here.)

We were given folders, construction paper, glue sticks, pens, and picked out a black-and-white photocopy of a book cover. 

I chose one from the "Clifford the Big Red Dog" series, and DH chose "Good Night, Moon," and our other friend chose an undersea book whose title I can't recall. 

Things I learned:
- it is hard to cut a straight line with a pair of kiddie scissors, but arts and crafts are STILL FUN!
- "eelpout" does not refer to the expression on the face of a miffed moray, but to a denizen of the deep
- I should have chosen "Good Night, Moon."  DH's folder looked fabulous!  Mine, not so much.
- We'll definitely be back to work with PMD again :)

Soap (now with pics)

We took a cold process soap class today at a historic school. (Since people were working with scary chemicals, it seemed like whipping out the camera would be an unwelcome distraction. Therefore, this post does not contain photos of the process, only of the soap after it was unmolded the next day.)

We arrived at the classroom and were given a handout on the history of soap and a list of resources. We were also asked to come sniff the scents that the teacher had brought so we could vote on the scents we would use. I was delighted to find that most of these were nice quality essential oils (rather than synthetic fragrance oils), and could happily have voted for almost any of the options. However, I put in my votes for lavender and coriander, while DH selected eucalyptus and peppermint. (The winners were lavender, by a landslide, and lemongrass, by a single vote over peppermint. Sorry, DH!)

We got down to business pretty quickly with a 2.5x sized batch of honey-oatmeal soap. For this first batch, student involvement was fairly limited. We weighed out the different types of fat and stirred them in a pot over a warm burner til they melted and combined. We also measured out lye and distilled water… then stood back and watched from a respectful distance while the teacher, holding her breath, added the lye to water. (That scary stuff, strong enough to eat through a sweater if it gets on you, also releases nasty vapors that you don’t want to breathe.) I think half of us in the room were holding our breath in sympathy!

After both mixtures cooled down (lye mixture with the help of a cool water bath), they were combined, and the whole mess mixed with an electric mixer. About 30 minutes later, after several liberal additions of grapefruit seed oil, and the honey and oatmeal, the soap mix reached trace and we could pour it into the mold. (It smelled so nice, like toast dripping with honey, or oatmeal cookie dough!)

We split for lunch at that time, following a local resident out to where we could grab a quick bite. (Yummy orzo salad!) I kind of regretted leaving my coat in the car. It looked pretty and sunny outside, but even insulated with the cockiness that comes of making it through another winter, it was still too cold for shirt sleeves.

Back at the school, we noshed and pored over the handouts, reviewing the process. Yup, looked quite familiar, now that we’d tried it ourselves!

The teacher returned and gave us more handouts (oh no!): additional things to do once you’ve invested in all the ingredients. How to tweak/alter your recipes. How to try to fix a batch of soap you’ve messed up (worrisome that she has a handout on this!). The qualities of various essential oils, etc.

Then it was back to work for our scented soaps: first our lavender, to which we added loofah and colorant. We did a bit more of the work ourselves this time, two brave souls even tackling the pouring and beating of the scary lye. The new aspect was watching the teacher marble the top of the soap. If you have ever made cream cheese brownies, or any kind of marbled cake, you will have a general idea of the process. It looked very neat when she was done!

The lemongrass soap had the students collaborating (using the third different recipe) and tackling all the steps ourselves. Success! Not as visually arresting as the lavendar but, like everything we made today, it smelled absolutely delicious!

We’ll be able to go back and pick up the firmed up soap tomorrow. Then it has to cure in the basement for 4ish weeks (the chemical process is still in progress). The colors will change a bit too. We saw a honey oatmeal soap bar that she had made and it was quite a bit paler than our pumpkin colored soap mix.

I feel like this is something we could do at home, if we invest in all the ingredients and the (rest of the) equipment (the equipment has to be dedicated only to soap making, for safety’s sake); and if the cats can deal with being shut up in the bedroom for the duration. It was fun and - once we got over the eek factor with the lye - not really as scary as it initially sounded.

Socks for Japan



I gather the raw materials





Each bag is labeled and filled with a pair of socks and an origami crane

 



Now it is time to print the notes

 



Printing half a page at a time allows me to work around the chrysanthemum motif

 



My rotary cutter works for paper too (although I may need to change the blade) :)

 



Some socks look better with the chrysanthemum paper

 



Others shine with the rose paper

 



Eventually all 69 pairs are ready to go

 


Uh oh, will they all fit??




The box is bursting at the seams, but it's good to go!





http://jasonkelly.com/helpjapan/ to help

Hearts for New Zealand

From the eQuilter newsletter on 3/2:

I would say that those affected by the earthquake need money to rebuild their lives and repair their homes, but here is an additional way to send your healing thoughts to those affected:

Hello from New Zealand!

We are asking for Hearts for the thousands of Christchurch earthquake victims. Not the usual hearts, but "Hanging Hearts." Two pieces of heart-shaped fabric sewn together, lightly stuffed, and with a hanging loop of ribbon. These can be any size, any fabric, any style!

We will be arranging a venue where they can all be hung and people can come and take whichever one they like. If you would like to take part could you please send your hearts to [address]

Here are the ones I made. I made a heart template out of cardboard, then traced the shape on the wrong side of a piece of fabric. I sandwiched that with a second piece of fabric and then stitched directly on the tracing (leaving a small opening so I could turn it right side out later). It works very well. Actually takes longer to stuff the thing than it does to machine sew it :)

Family tree

I may have mentioned a while back that my family did some tests via the Genographic Project to trace our ancestral origins.  They looked at my maternal ancestry, and we also had them trace the ancestry of my father's paternal DNA.  (On order is a kit to have my dad do his mother's side, which may help us to figure out which of our ancestors was Cherokee - or at the very least will help us eliminate one option.)

I took the (free) option of transferring our results over into FamilyTreeDNA also, which has turned out to be an incredible thing.  

Based on my father's DNA results, we were able to identify a few distant cousins in the system.  I have been talking to one of the women with whom I share great-great-great-grandparents (I'll call this great(3)-grandparents).  It turns out that she has been an absolutely AMAZING source of research.  She's shared some published information about various ancestors and - what Laura and I agree is absolutely the neatest document - a transcript of a letter to our great(4)-grandfather Peter from his son Jacob (a prominent Lutheran minister) discussing the former's conversion to Baptism.  (The conversion was very successful, to Jacob's sorrow, and that line of the family remained Baptist for generations... I believe up until my father left the fold, although I am not sure about the spiritual leanings of my paternal grandfather either.)    

Our correspondence today - email, primarily - contains nothing like this level of detail or historical value, which makes me kind of sad.  On the one hand, our future generations may never even have genealogical mysteries to solve as everything will be already tracked and available online...   but, then, without the challenges and mysteries to get them excited, I wonder how much they will really care?  

First attempt at a holiday mantel

We don't feel safe putting up a tree because of our two energetic cats, so I decided to try a mantel instead.

I got some apothecary jars (50% off at Sears) and brought down a curly framed mirror from upstairs. With these items, it seemed to be going in an old-fashioned direction, so I collected all the vintage and vintage-look ornaments (including some that belonged to my grandparents). Looking for things to fill the jars, I found whole walnuts, pods for the coffee maker (LOL!) and some stick candy... and then I thought, oh, nutcracker "sweets"!

So the little nutcracker ornament was joined by two big guys and we ended up with this (so far). It may not look like a decorator (or someone with a clue ;)) put it together, but it makes me smile!

(As always, click to "biggify" the image.)

Tea for 2x2

Yesterday the four of us scavenger hunters went to a holiday tea party at Gore Place, the 19th century home of one of Massachusetts' early governors. (And before you ask, yes, I asked, and they were only distantly related to Al Gore.)

While we were waiting to be seated (there was a children's tea with Santa immediately prior), they funneled us into the gift shop. (Oh clever, clever people!) I found traditional Christmas crackers on sale, and immediately thought they would be a perfect addition to the box I am sending out to my family. What fun for the kids!

We were then ushered in for tea. We were struck by the very grand, high ceilings but noticed that the lines of the room and ceiling lacked the architectural ornamentation that you might expect to see in an old European mansion: all the detail was in the elaborate French wallpaper! The paper in that first room was stripe in salmony pink (with grapes and leaves) and teal (with either corn stalks or acanthus). Imagine a whole room filled with this going from chair rail all the way up over 15 feet the ceiling! As Tim Gunn would say, "that's a lot of look!" You can see it in the background of several photos here. Lovely, eh? Of course, by candle light in the evening it would have been a lot more subtle. ;)

Tea soon arrived (perfectly brewed English breakfast-style tea), followed by blueberry scones with clotted cream, an array of finger sandwiches, and miniature frangipane tarts, lemon squares, raspberry thumbprint cookies, pumpkin bread, and other little bites of yum. I don't know what 19th century ladies and gentlemen would have eaten at an afternoon tea, but this menu did seem designed for modern tastes and obviously with modern resources. (It would have taken some good magic to get fresh berries in December back then.)

Well, old or new, the tea was delicious. In fact, our 'menfolk' agreed that the scones were the best they had ever tasted, and Sara successfully petitioned her father (with much urging from the peanut gallery, ahem) to procure an additional scone from another table. ;)

After tea, several costumed tour guides led us through the rest of the house, introducing each room and its furnishings and purpose, and presenting Jane Austen quotes of interest. Lovely! I was left, as always, with a sense of just how very much has changed since then - so much we take for granted that they could not even imagine - and yet, how much still endures...

Shifty Nifflers

We used our latest free scavenger hunt card this weekend to do the "Wizard School" (e.g., Harry Potter) themed scavenger hunt at the Museum of Fine Arts.

DH had not read the books, so he took charge of the navigation, which was invaluable (especially since some of us don't really have a sense of direction!).  After he got us to the correct room, we'd read the clue, then would translate the creatures and character names for him.  Then we all just had to figure out where they were in the works of art!

For the most part, we managed to do that pretty well, although there were a few questions that were perplexing or just plain unclear.   Happily we ended up with extra time so we could revisit those stumpers.

One of them involved counting the instances of a particular facial feature on some Japanese demons pictured on an accessory smaller than the palm of your hand.  This was above our line of sight, so the guys dutifully boosted (hauled?) the girls up so we could get a closer look.  Oof!  A magnifying glass sure would have come in handy!  But after conferring, we reached consensus on a number, and came out of that room feeling better about our answer.

Another one was a "which one of these items is NOT depicted somewhere in the room" question, which required all our eyeballs to scan everything in the room over and over.  Ultimately, we could not find two of the things exactly as described, but deciding that, although a type of animal and receptacle were slightly different than in the description, we had to regard them as close enough given that we couldn't even find the approximation of the other thing.

(I am being kind of general and vague here so I don't ruin the hunt for others if they happen to sign up!)

Finally there was a massive carved fireplace that supposedly had a particular mythical creature in its vicinity.  We spent forever staring at it, and just could not find this particular beast, although there were plenty of others (including lots of mashup monsters).  The question specifically asked the construction material of said beastie, so we just went with the material that appeared in the greatest quantity.  ;)

That was because we needed to start heading back to the entrance so we wouldn't be late - museums are big!  We debated team names on the way back and settled on with DH's variant of my suggestion: the Shifty, Nifty Nifflers.  

We ended up winning - and the guys thought that they heard that we won best team name also (although I wasn't sure.  I did hear the hunt host mention the name, but wasn't sure what she had said about it).  The people who came in second were two cute little kids with their parents, so we figured that, since we'd won before (plus the kids were small and had done really a great job), it'd be nice to share.  So we passed the prizes down to them.   :)

It was a fun afternoon.  (And I think we will probably go back - to linger over the art, this time, instead of the questions - to check out the new wing of the museum soon :))  

Happy Tolly days

We took kitty pics this afternoon so we could include photos when we send holiday cards to our vets, animal rescue orgs, etc. 

Tolly posed like a champ! 

I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

The crew prepares before the flight

After the balloon is partially inflated, the pilot turns on the flame

The balloon expands

Now inflated, the balloon is ready for lift-off; we climb in the basket and marvel at what we see

Up, up, and away!

We look out over a misty forest to a newly frozen lake

Drifting down over the lake, our balloon's reflection is visible in the ice

We gently tap the surface, breaking the thin shell of ice that has formed

Rippling water and cracked panes of ice are visible in our wake

We drift on through new, grassier terrain now

All too soon it is time to land.  Hovering ever lower in a clearing, we throw a rope down to the crew member on the ground, and he hauls us in

Back on the ground, we pause for a few moments to bid goodbye to our balloon before enjoying celebratory mimosas

Mine!

I had the laptop on the floor. Tolly came over to see what I was doing, so I played his fetching video for him. He had no idea it was him on the screen (of course; cats have no idea what they look like) but he absolutely recognized that toy: he pawed the screen every time he saw the mousie go by in the mouth of that "other" cat.

A gift from Eisa

When little Eisa was suffering from kidney failure, our vet shared Eisa's kidney panel numbers with us over email, and we were able to update her over email as well. We learned a lot that way.

Because I was (somewhat) familiar with some of the names of things, I took notice when I saw that one of these values was elevated on Tolly's allergies blood test.

The vet who ran these tests wasn't too worried. But because of Eisa, I asked Tolly's new vet to run a kidney panel and urinalysis on him, just to see.

From there, we progressed to an ultrasound today. Where we got the diagnosis of kidney disease: chronic renal failure, just like Eisa's.

Because we have the diagnosis now, we can start him on the kidney diet now, and keep him in peak shape for longer. And from personal experience, we know what symptoms to look for, what to do, and what measures we'll probably end up taking.

Because of what Eisa taught us, I am more sure than ever that we are the right parents for Tolly, and that here absolutely is the best place for him to be.

Tolly fetches!

Eating joyfully without gluten

DH is gluten sensitive.  It's not enough of an issue to show up on tests (so, not full blown celiac disease, lucky for him), but it does make a difference to his health when he cuts out gluten. 

For his birthday gift this year, I signed us up for something neat: a gluten free cooking demo/class at Stir.  It took place last week, and it was really yummy and fun!

10 of us sat around a table while a professional chef and assistant cooked a beautiful gluten free meal for us, and led us in discussion of issues, resources, etc.  Everyone was really nice, and the food was absolutely delicious, definitely worth having in the repertoire.  It didn't taste like 'dietary restriction food,' just like good, hearty, satisfying fare, so even gluten eaters are likely to enjoy it! 

It turns out most of the recipes are variations on ones that appear online.  Click through for delicious photos, recipes, and discussion!

* Gluten-Free Gougeres (Pão de Queijo) are little cheese puffs made with tapioca starch that really fulfilled the bread yearning.  If you need the recipe (which, fair warning, the chef said was finicky), let me know.
* Pumpkin Polenta with Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa Fresca was comforting and warm with a nice fresh brightness in the salsa
* Along with our entree protein we had Red Quinoa with Roasted Butternut Squash, Cranberries and Pecans.  If you have not had red quinoa before, it has a lovely nutty taste!  I think we'll definitely go red instead of white next time.
* Maple Frosted Pumpkin Cake.  This frosting was so good that I would happily have eaten it by the spoonful, and I generally find icings to be too sweet.  

Apparently every time they teach this class they offer a different seasonal menu, so if one wanted to splurge one could take it again and again for a new experience each time.  Yum! 

P.S.  Speaking of dietary restrictions, Tolly has now tried the duck and green pea and venison and green pea cat food, and likes them even less than he does the rabbit and green pea food (so Daffy and Bambi are safe from Mr Tolly).  He is now sampling the "hydrolyzed protein" food.  I was heartened to note when I opened the bag that it smells more like beef bouillon than like dehydrated peas.  We'll see how it goes...    

Scavenger hunt

A few weeks ago we went on a scavenger hunt with some friends.  It was a little different than your traditional scavenger hunt:

You’re not hunting for things (put back that Ming vase!) but for answers to tricky and humorous questions about the intriguing places and objects you discover. The team that answers the most questions correctly WINS.

The hunt we tried had us traipsing about the Harvard Square area, examining everything from statues to historic plaques to modern day eateries.  And in fact, food was the overarching theme here: it was a snack themed hunt, and our list of clues also included recommended munchies to sample along the way.  We didn't know how long the hunt might take, though, so we opted to hunt first and chow later.  (Turns out there was plenty of time!)  It was a lot of fun, and in fact, our group actually ended up winning, which meant that we got passes to do another hunt for free!

So this last weekend we headed up to Salem to take advantage of those passes.  As befits the time of the year, this haunted hunt took us through a cemetery, to several memorials, and to other locales that were significant in the witch trials.  We did most of the searching with flashlights in hands, which made it even more deliciously spooky!  If anything, I think we had even more fun this time.

Astonishingly, we actually won again, though just by a single point.  The second place team won 'best team name,'
and hearing the double entendres they crammed in, we couldn't help but bow to their outrageous naming prowess.   The fact that they managed to get the hunt coordinators to recite that naughty name aloud, three times...   well, it was almost worth turning over our free hunt cards to them in gratitude ;) 

Sorry, Daffy

Tolly has eosinophilic granuloma complex.  As I understand it, his body, in response to some irritant, ends up overreacting and attacking itself too.  On him, it seems to manifest primarily as a 2-week long Jay Leno chin or Angelina Jolie lip, but it can show up elsewhere on the body as well. 

It is hard to pin down the cause.  It can be triggered by something as simple as mosquito or flea bites or a food allergy, though, so once it's clear that the animal is bug-free (which he is), the vet will often have you feed them a hypo-allergenic diet.

I am sorry to say switching up dinner to "rabbit and green pea" was not a runaway success.  After some initial interest because of the novelty, Tolly gives it two paws down and says he would rather go hungry.  I guess we try "duck and green pea" next.   

Somewhere, Bugs Bunny is rejoicing.  My deepest apologies to Daffy. 

(Read more on eosinophilic granuloma here.)