finished cats

The cats are in the bags and all finished up! I really like how it turned out and I used the same technique on a project I started today. Once I finish that project and post it I'll be selling the charts for the two fonts in my Etsy shop. That should be up in a few days.

The new project is fun and turning out very very art deco, which I enjoy. I felt better today for the first time in a week, which is a relief. The burn on my knuckle has also gotten a lot better, making every day things like dishes a bit easier. Those days scare me -- the times that are so bad I can't even go to the bathroom easily. Things are bad enough even when they're good, seeing the alternative makes me want to crawl inside myself and disappear.

Let me recommend a book to you. I do a whole lot of reading. Last year I read three to four books each week. I'm cutting back this year, as it's harder to find books I really enjoy. My dad's a librarian, I grew up spending eight hours at a time in libraries, so we all had to learn to love reading and learn to amuse ourselves (a skill this generation of kids with DVD players in their cars could stand to learn). So I know good books.

The book you should read is Don't Ask by Donald E. Westlake. It is a comic crime novel and one of the most hilarious books ever written. It's not a crime novel in any traditional sense, some people are biased against them and so am I, I hate all the normal 'crime' novels. There are numerous Dortmunder books, almost all are wonderful (the last three or four were weaker than earlier ones). The audio editions of the first nine are the best audio books I've ever heard, the reader perfectly captures each character. Most libraries have at least a few of the audio books.

This is the first sentence of Don't Ask:
Stuck in traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge out of lower Manhattan in a stolen frozen fish truck full of stolen frozen fish at 1:30 on a bright June afternoon with construction out ahead of them forever on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, with Stan Murch on Dortmunder's left complaining how there are no decent routes left from anywhere to anywhere in New York City--"If there ain't snow on the road there's construction crews"--and Andy Kelp on Dortmunder's right prattling on happily about global warming and how much nicer it will be when there isn't any winter, Dortmunder also had to contend with an air conditional dripping on his ankles.

Do yourself the best favor ever and read that book!