Well, not completely true. I've been doing the costumes in between my addiction to The Sims, watching the new seasons of the TV shows I like to tape, making dinners, hanging out and then folding clothes, and running the odd errand outside of the house. I feel pretty proud of myself because I'm nearly done with the costumes. Pictures will be forthcoming. Mainly what is left is handstitching. I must say it's been rather fun making these costumes. I always knew sometime in my life that I'd be sewing a renaissance dress for myself. I don't know why but I knew it like I knew I'd visit Florida some day, and Canada, and that I'd move out of Ohio, and that I'd be a birdwatcher in my old age, and that I'd experience owning a house on a lake. All of these were little goals I had etched on an imaginary list in my head. There are still others but it's too early in the morning to work the brain that hard to recite them.

The one interesting spot in all this sewing was to learn how to work around Kaboodle. No matter where I laid out my material and patterns, there she would be right on top of them, and no matter how many times I'd scoop her up and show her to the floor she'd pop right back up on them. Even while I was using the sewing machine she had to be right in my face. Well, that was mainly because Dusky would push her out of the favored spot in front of the window.

That Dusky is a corker. Wherever it is that Kaboodle has picked to sit, he has to toss her out of it. He used to do that to his brother, too. If she finds a new spot to sleep in, you can bet on it that you'll find him sleeping there a few days later. If she's in a spot anywhere that he has decided HE wants to sit, he boldfacedly jumps up near her and stares her down till she'll leave. If she doesn't leave fast enough, he'll paw at her and even bite her. She doesn't argue anymore. She, the lady that she is, just retreats. Every now and then she whaps him back but then always graciously exits and lets him have his way. The only sleeping spot they don't fight over is my lap. I'm bigger than he is and he knows it.

Back to the subject at hand, odds and ends of pictures. I always meant to show you the wonderful, amazing pumpkin vines that we grew in the back yard. I think they set the world record for length. They started out innocently enough by the house and then snaked their way across to the cat enclosure and overtook it. One vine took to blossoming about halfway up the wire. The other two poked their way through the holes in the wire and grew merrily along the ground. The cats took it all in stride.

Then there was Bernie, the bumblebee. The vines had snaked all over the place and put out tall lovely yellow flowers on spikes for a month before Bernie the Bumblebee finally found them. The tall spiky blossoms are the male flowers. They lead the way to the lower female blossoms closer to the vine. The pumpkins can't grow unless the female flowers are fertilized by the male flowers. Or maybe just some other pollen will do it. But the trick is that they need a bee to do the transplanting of pollen. Bernie did a good job of fucking the flowers and within the day the green bulbous protusions under the blossoms swelled up like fat pregnant women. Once the flower's job was done it curled up and withered away. And here is the finished product. We actually got three pumpkins for our efforts. The other two were smaller and not as well shaped. Kinda hate to carve it open for Halloween. Haven't decided yet.