katfolio

On Loss

kat — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:11:10 +0000

Haley was a Good Dog. I think if there was a limit to what I could say about her, those are the words I would pick. Sure, she was a pretty dog, sometimes a little slow, mostly game, and usually obedient. Always a Good Dog, though.

Haley’s the second dog we’ve had that I remember, there were a few before her but I was too young. She was the first Ohio dog, and the first dog after a tragic accident with our Dalmatian, Bruiser, that ended with my brother in the hospital, and Bruiser ‘on a farm’. I remember being sad when Bruiser left, but not for a long time. I was four or five, I don’t think I really understood it all.

Because of Bruiser, my mom wanted to really research the next dog. My dad didn’t want us to get a dog at all, and he kept resenting her for the rest of her life. I remember hours in the library with my mom as she researched training, and different breeds. When she narrowed down to English Springer Spaniels, the research didn’t end. My mom then researched bloodlines, for their disposition and their likelihood of inherited diseases. Meanwhile, my brother and I were doing a different kind of research. Names.

I don’t remember the other names we considered, but I know that when he read “Haley: Star” out loud, we both loved it. Mom liked it, too, and Dad didn’t care. He thought we should name the dog Jodi, for Joe DiMaggio, but that was as far as he got involved. Jodi was alright, so we made it her ‘middle’ name (of which she would end up with two). Meanwhile, Mom was still researching, and she’d tracked the perfect bloodlines from Florida, right up to our backyard practically. The breeder had a batch of puppies about to be born, so it seemed as if the stars were aligning. We met the mother, father, and several of her aunts and uncles before the puppies were due, and one of the aunts seemed particularly calm and patient, another Good Dog. So, Haley got her second ‘middle’ name, Leah, from her aunt, hoping she would also be calm, patient, and a Good Dog, by virtue of her name alone.

Haley Jodi Leah Jenkinson was born on April 22nd, 1993. She was tiny, but not the runt. Her brothers and sisters would always pile on top of her on our visits, and she just let them, without a peep. Mom had wanted a liver and white, but black and white Haley was too perfect temperament-wise to pass up. She passed all the puppy tests she was put through, and finally after waiting what seemed like forever to an 8-year-old, she was at home with us.

At first, I was disappointed. Puppies sleep a lot, and Haley just napped all the time. This never really changed much, and when people try telling me that Springers are high-energy breeds, I have to cite her as the exception. But even as a puppy, she was a Good Dog. Beyond accidents that were admittedly owner-error, there was only one time she ever did anything ‘bad’, chewing delicately on a wall while she was teething, and even that only lasted one day. Mom didn’t even have time to buy something to discourage her before she’d decided that was enough.

There were many visits in her first year to visit the breeder, who would give her shots as part of the purchase, and allowed Haley to mingle with her brothers and sisters. Though she wasn’t the runt when she first left them, she was now. She topped out at 40 pounds, when her breed typically hits 45-50. I remember being horribly offended at age eight that the breeder called Haley “that little bitch”, instantly wanting to proclaim that she was a Good Dog, not a bitch at all. Of course, I didn’t know the breeder just meant female at the time.

Eventually, Haley grew up, and out of her naps (for the most part). My brother and I loved stacking pillows up high in her path to watch her brain work out how to get around it, and eventually she’d always jump, until she couldn’t anymore. She was always willing to get to us (of course we were on the other side of the pillows), and would jump heights that I thought were staggering for a dog of her size. But she never jumped the baby gate we set up to keep her out of unwanted areas. She knew she wasn’t allowed. She was a Good Dog.

We put her behind that gate whenever we had guests. Haley had a problem, you see. She loved people, loved meeting new people. In fact, she got so excited, she’d pee. Everywhere. So we’d put her behind the gate and come to her. This seemed to work, and I brought many friends over to meet her this way. As soon as we sat, she’d be in our faces, licking every inch of skin she could find. Haley loved people, and loved to love people.

When we were alone, she had a specific spot by the couch that she loved to lay, and I would lay there with her, just being next to her. Sometimes my head would be next to hers, and sometimes I’d try to do like those old tv shows, and use her as a pillow. That never worked, by the way. She had more patience with laying around than I did, so I’d usually get bored before her and sit up, rubbing her body all over, giving her a doggy massage. I wish I’d done it more as she got older, and probably needed the touch, but her skin became riddled with external tumors that oozed and sometimes hurt her, so I was wary of hitting one accidentally.

She also developed old-dog smell, something that started with her mouth. Haley was the Queen of Dog Breath. If there is a remedy for dog breath out there, we have tried it. I even baked her cookies from scratch that promised to stop it. They didn’t. And she was always panting. Always. It seemed like dog breath was unavoidable, until it stopped coming from her mouth and started coming from everywhere. Then it really was unavoidable. My dad resented this, too, calling her a smelly dog and banishing her to her crate. She’d go along, not sure why she was being sent there, but happy to do what was asked of her. Like a Good Dog.

For years, Haley was taken out to the drainage ditch in the back of our yard to do her business, behind the shed, where I would lean until she was done, then race her back to the house. She ran like a rabbit, and almost always beat me there. Eventually, we all got lazy, and her new potty spot became the side yard, a quick run out the garage, and then back to the house. Then we got lazier still, and she was merely let outside, the extendable leash giving her a 50 ft radius to do her business in. I hated this, but life was too busy to wait for her to find The Spot to squat, and eventually it was just routine. In the last few weeks, she’d developed some kind of painful growth on the bottom of her left front paw, and I had to carry her down the stairs to let her do her business. She seemed to walk better in the grass, so I was patient with her and let her roam, just to give her the freedom to walk with relatively less pain. This past Saturday, we took the old route. I walked her back to the shed, just like all those years before, let her roam while I leaned against the building and waited. She didn’t run back to the house like before, but her tail wagged, and she didn’t limp as we went back, so I walked up the side yard, to the front of the house. By the time we reached the mailbox, she was tired, too tired to go on, so our brief walk ended then, and I carried her inside, though she would have walked if I asked her. Hopefully, if dogs are able to do such things, she remembered the good times, and I hope she appreciated some of it. If her tail was any indication, she did.

Haley was sort of something I took for granted, a fixture in my life that becomes so constant that you almost forget life without her. The summer of 1999, our family went on a vacation, and Haley was boarded for that time, and a little more than a day after so we could get our things in order before bringing her home. The whole day and a half, I kept calling for her, forgetting she was gone. But when she came home again, she grooved right back into her routine like nothing had ever changed. When I got home today, I’d been feeling the pain of her loss all day, so I didn’t expect to see her when I came home. But I’m not looking forward to the day when I do, and she’s not there. I’m sure if she could have chosen, she would be there if I do call for her.

Haley lived a long time. Let me rephrase that. Haley lived a Long Time. My brother went away to college in 1999, and even then we were preparing. “Say goodbye to her now,” we’d say, “she might not be here when you get back.” Chris came home in 2001, and Haley was still here. When I went to college in 2003, it was the same thing. “Say goodbye to her now, she might not be here when you get back.” But I came home and Haley was there. Chris got a job in Atlanta, and we were sure this was it. “Say goodbye to her now, she might not be here when you get back.” I got a job at that same Georgia company. “Say goodbye to her now, she might not be here when you get back.” But each time, Haley was here, still plodding along at her own pace. Content. A Good Dog.

The winter I was in Manhattan, 2007, I got a call from my mother. “Haley’s been having seizures. I think we have to put her down tomorrow.” I sobbed myself to sleep, and though I’d said goodbye, not sure if she would be there when I got back, I still felt robbed. Luckily our vet has always been a kind soul, not subjecting dogs to treatments unnecessarily, or advocating euthanasia just for the money. He said she was fine, and sent her home. Crisis averted. When I got home, life went on as usual.

The second time I came home from New York, I did something I wasn’t sure Haley would approve of, though now I don’t know why I thought she’d care. I brought Gracie into our lives, and Haley kept going like nothing had changed, except now she had more food to eat, stealing the little dog’s supper whenever she wasn’t paying attention. Gracie retaliated, stealing Haley’s treats when the big dog was too slow, and worrying incessantly that Haley was trying to get her rawhide. She wasn’t. Haley could have cared less. She was a Good Dog.

When the growth on her paw was getting far too painful, my mom made up her mind: Haley had to go to the vet. I knew she was taking her, but what I don’t know is why I didn’t spend more time with her last night. I guess I had hope that once again, he would say it was nothing, and she’d be back and snapped out of it in no time. But that didn’t happen this time. I didn’t say goodbye, and she wasn’t home when I came back from work today. She won’t be here when I get back ever again. I can’t really wrap my mind around that. Having a dog for almost seventeen years, and then not having her is not something you can adjust to easily. She was a fixture, a constant. She was a Good Dog. I will miss her, so much.

Because we’d been preparing for so long for her departure, it’s surreal now that it’s happened. She’s gone. We’d joked that she was going to live forever, but I’d actually hoped, at 24 years old, that she would. More recently I’d joked that she was a Highlander, and would outlive all of us because who would suspect a dog? She’d be the only one still alive. But when you look at it, this timing also seems to have been perfect, just like finding her almost 17 years ago. I’m supposed to move away in one week. My brother in one month. My mother has three jobs, and my dad would be home alone with the dog that he never warmed to. If ever there was a good time for her to go, it would be now, while her family was all still at home. I guess she was just a Good Dog that way.

Haley Jodi Leah Jenkinson
April 22nd, 1993-September 16th, 2009

macarons, attempt 1

kat — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:15:29 +0000

please excuse the crappy quality. i need to get my camera fixed so i can stop using my phone

I made macarons. Yea, I said it. I finally made those candy-colored cookies that the blog world is going crazy over.

And? I failed. Sort of.

Mixing and baking? I did a great job! They came out with feet, and how I imagined they should be as far as texture (i’ve never eaten a real one) So, according to all the blogs that have documented failure, I have won.

Only, I didn’t get the color right because I was scared of adding too much moisture. Same with the flavor (they were supposed to be yellow, and lemon)

And let’s just say I learned a valuable lesson in using the right tools. I was like “who needs a piping bag?!” so I used a ziploc. Got scissor happy. Hole was far too large to do any good circles with.

Then I had to throw 1/4 of them away, because I used too much water in my “let them steam off the parchment paper” experiment. Soggy cookies disintegrate.

Finally, way fed up, I piped in buttercream frosting from a can and called it a day. Way too exhausting.

The good thing? I know where and how I went wrong, and they’re totally fixable.

A review: Yarn Bowls

kat — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:50:09 +0000

I was reading my blog list last Thursday, as I am wont to do, when I stumbled over Creativeadoration’s post on yarn bowls. This was an entirely new concept to me, so much so that I’ve been doing research on it since I read the post. Oh, and? I bought two that day. Because I have a problem.

One, which will be the main focus of this review, was from Fred Parker Pottery, in my old Georgian stomping grounds. The other is from LAS, and while I’ll be discussing it, it will mostly be a foil for the other bowl.

Fred Parker Pottery Bowl

LAS Designs Bowl

The bowls have two distinct ways of feeding the yarn. The FPP bowl has the distinct (and distinctly cute) J or pig-tail shaped feeder, as well as offering a bottom feed hole. The LAS bowl has only the side feed hole, with no connecting line to the outer rim. Holes that don’t have an escape route are problematic for people with multiple projects (or who have habitual WIP disease like me). To get your yarn from the bowl, you have to cut the string, or suffer through and finish the project. The J-shape lets the crafter remove the yarn easily.

So, that’s one win for the FPP bowl. This particular bowl, unlike his others, also has a bottom feed hole – an experiment. While it is fun and mostly functional, I have to say I don’t think it’s all that practical. As I got to the end of my ball of yarn, it shrunk to the size of the hole and -whoops!- my ball was free. I solved this with the J-shaped feeder, using it the more conventional way until my yarn was gone. This could be solved with a smaller hole.

One thing that is entirely my fault is the size of these bowls. I can never quite visualize with inches, and I thought both would be significantly bigger. At least big enough to fit an entire skein of yarn wrapped into a bowl. But, as I said, that is my fault.

Using these bowls, I attempted both center-pull and pulling the yarn from the outside. The balls were large (medium in my head but large for the bowls), so I had to re-size them to get them small enough to pull smoothly from the outside. Both bowls were immediately workable from a center-pull perspective.

I liked using either method, though the center-pull does have that advantage. It has a disadvantage in that the point where there is resistance from the yarn going around the interior loops can cause the bowl to reel dangerously and in a few cases fall over. I could fix this with a hand or using my feet to steady the bowl. Weighting the bottom or attaching felt to make a bit more friction might fix this.

Using the outside-pull method, there was no resistance, and everything went very smoothly. Of course, I had less yarn to work with, but there was also a certain charm in the way the ball rolled around, and it made a nice soothing noise.

Overall, I am pretty happy with my purchases. I don’t think I’ll be using the bottom hole on the FPP bowl just because of the small ball issue, and having no escape route. And both look gorgeous on my shelf with a ball nestled in them.

Pictures taken from the respective etsy shops of the sellers of these items. I claim no ownership

Edit: This review was done both for my own fun, and to help the maker of the FPP bowl. After posting, he had additional questions:

Would it be too much trouble for you to get out a tape measure and “guesstimate” dimensions of an ideal yarn bowl? Specifically I need height and diameter of mouth and bowl (if they are different). whether you like or don’t like the way I “collar in” the neck of the bowl to produce a slight narrowing to contain the ball would also be helpful. The alternative is to have a straight side more like the other bowl you tried.

As for the size, I measured a few and came up with about 5 by 4 inches as the average size of the ball (the difference was about a quarter of an inch either way). I would guess than an ideal bowl would have a mouth about the same size as the one I received (yarn balls are squishy and upon measuring it appears to be about 4 and a half on the inside) and then 6 inches for the ball to roll about in. Currently, I am measuring 5 and a half on the outside. Also, maybe make it taller so that the inside has a bit more of a rounded shape to it. While I measured the (outside) of the width to be 5.5, the height of the bowl was just shy of 3 and a half. I imagine this working out with a bowl with these dimensions:

Diameter of opening (inside): 4.5 inches
Diameter of the width (from the outside, top view): 6 to 6.5 inches
Height of the bowl: 4 or 4.5 inches

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way you collared in the neck. That way I was able to squish the ball in and it would be fairly secure, it also helped to curb the rolling ball’s enthusiasm as it got to be a smaller diameter. The straight sided one did have one or two jump outs that enticed my puppy to come play. Plus it just looks so much more elegant.

I made a piggy

kat — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:52:53 +0000

He’s not the most handsome piggy in the world. I don’t know why haphazard looks so cute on other people’s things and hideous on my own. I am almost embarrassed to use him what I made him for. Oh well.

He was originally (in his pattern) an ornament, and riding a box with wheels. I am hoping to use him for the white elephant at work. A couple of us bought Heifer animals. I got chicks, and my box has little chicks. My neighbor bought part of a piggy.

Pig tails are hard!

on Cincinnati

kat — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:22:12 +0000

Since I was old enough to start seriously thinking about what I would do when I became ‘an adult’, I’ve wanted to leave Cincinnati. I wasn’t born here, and, beyond people here that I enjoy, I don’t have any real ties to the city.

Most people, on finding out that I live in Ohio, ask if I have a cow. Or live on a farm. Our football team is laughable, our baseball team is average, and we have no basketball team. There was a hockey team, but how could you take a team named after a Disney movie seriously, anyway? The public transit consists of buses only. Once, we tried to have a subway, but failed. There is nothing notable or noteworthy about Cincinnati to outsiders. The few times I’ve seen the city show up in outside news were related to race riots, T.I.’s entourage being shot at, or a dude who bought his car with coins. There is nothing inherently cool about Cincinnati. Or, if I am being honest, most places in the midwestern United States. There’s Chicago, that’s about it.

If there is a restaurant to frequent, it’s probably a chain. Even our local delicacy of Cincinnati-style chili is a chain in most places. Sure, there are a few non-chains, but to me it feels as if the ratio of local/independent to national/corporate is heavily skewed, in all aspects of life- very different from what I experienced in Manhattan, or observed in my limited time in other cities such as Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle. And I love the local/independent feel of things so much more. There is a bit of it around, but I find that I either have to leave the city (going to Kentucky is a fun night out here in Cincinnati) or go to a place I am uncomfortable being (“Oh, this is where I was mugged”).

So, needless to say, I’ve always felt the urge to get the freak out of here before I find myself “stuck”. I don’t want to think about saving up to buy a condo here because I don’t know if I will honestly be here long enough to make it worthwhile. Then I go and remember what one of my teachers told me my freshman year of college, lamenting that all of the people who have the power to change Cincinnati and shape it into the kind of place that I would enjoy living in end up moving to one of the places that’s already established as being ‘cool’.

So maybe I ought to start cultivating that kind of mindset. Stay here, find the places that I enjoy and support them, shun the parts I don’t, making it my Cincinnati. Have pride in my town (nevermind the fact that I am forced t live in a suburb of a northern county- I work there, dammit). Nurture and help that community grow. One of my favorite local artists is Julie Hill. She just did a fundraising event for ArtWorks that I missed, and now I’m kicking myself at the lost opportunity to do just that- support my Cincinnati.

Being fair, the city is trying. New projects in Over-The-Rhine. My own company is helping to revitalize Findlay Market. There’s supposed to be a project by the river. So maybe I should stop thinking of staying here as being “stuck” and actually enjoy it. I mean, minus the shitty music, the city looks kind of cool in this video by 3 Doors Down.

Miscellania

kat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:38:35 +0000

Maybe it’s silly of me, but whenever I am driving (which is a lot), I always expect more of the people who sport stickers with my chosen candidate on them. I also watch the people with the other candidates’ stickers more closely to look for idiotic behavior. Honestly, the only thing I can come up with from my observations is that everyone is a shitty, selfish driver.

I am proud to say that Erica, the recipient of Lumpy Bird, has posted some beautiful pictures of him in her blog. I look forward to making more, with the added bonus of magnets in their bellies so that they stay perched at work! I’m also working on a pattern for a heart-shaped face sort of bird. Well… my mom is helping. Because that’s what moms do.

Speaking of work, I have a shelf, and soon plants! They are sitting downstairs and awaiting transport. Maybe tomorrow I will borrow the Canon and get a shot or two in. When I’m not shooting myself in the head.

Amazon’s Universal Wishlist

kat — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:12:29 +0000

So I’ve had my Amazon wishlist link in the right nav for a while now, mostly as a lark, and more frequently as an easy way to get the link that others can access, versus the link that I get as the owner of the list (I am logged in 24/7 because sometimes I NEED something at 3 am and dammit my password is long.)

One thing that’s always gotten to me around Christmas and my birthday and other gifting occasions was that it was much simpler to give someone the Amazon list, even though it might not have EVERYTHING I may want, than to give them a billion links to a billion places.

Now, Amazon has answered that need. Last night, as I added some books to my list, they offered me the option to use their Universal Gift List. It works by giving you a link that can be dragged to your bookmarks bar and allows you to add whatever page you are viewing to your universal gift list. No more emails full of links, just a one-stop place where someone can fulfill your wildest dreams… /hyperbole

~~The only thing I haven’t tried yet is from the gift giver’s side. Does Amazon help fulfill the order (doubtful) or just link you out to the other product’s page?~~

I just tried it, and it links out to the page, with a nice little graphic. You can input the price when you add it, and flip through the various picture offerings so that the purchaser can see the item before they buy it and see if it fits in their price range.

In short, and I am so not getting paid or reimbursed to say this, the Amazon Universal Wishlist ROCKS.

I made something!

kat — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:51:13 +0000

I have no idea where my camera cords are right now, so here are crappy phone photos of my latest creation. If you will recall:

Now, I made this, THEN read that these birds were hand-stitched. Mine was made on the machine.

Side view… sort of awkward in the breast area…

Bottom of lump.

Anywho, Erica was the recipient of Lumpy Bird, as I called him. And I bought some things for hand-sewing one while I bought supplies for her birthday craft, which I will also post. And if she is sweet, she might post REAL pictures of Lumpy Bird.

flickr meme

kat — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:16:01 +0000

flickr meme

Originally uploaded by kat.folio

The idea:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker).

My Answers:

1. What is your first name? Kathryn (might I suggest you NEVER SEARCH THIS ON FLICKR?)
2. What is your favorite food? Today it’s bagel sammys
3. What high school did you go to? Ursuline Academy
4. What is your favorite color? today, lime green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Hmm… Josh Kelley
6. Favorite drink? Double Choc. Chip Frap
7. Dream vacation? Versailles
8. Favorite dessert? Pumpkin Pie
9. What did you want to be when you grew up? Equine Vet
10. What do you love most in life? Internet
11. One Word to describe you: lol
12. Your flickr name. kat.folio

This was funny when I thought of it

kat — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:22:41 +0000

I was reading a McSweeny’s list on things this guy’d take on a desert island.

So here is my list of three things I’d take on a dessert island:

A spoon
Wet naps (no jam-hands after I abandon the spoon)
Something to make me not feel bloated after eating an entire island of desserts.