D is for Dragon

Dragon is my kitten. He was a present from Alex for one Xmas, and he was named Dragon because that way I could have a kitten *and* a dragon. Later on, I read a book that featured a dragon named Kitten. I laughed for hours.

Dragon was a present that came together because of my depression-triggered kitten obsession and because, well, it's dangerous to go alone.


Dragon is a very brave kitten, and sat my final exams with me, to the confusion of everybody else. He followed me to the Netherlands, and then back to the UK, always in my hand luggage, and I always sleep cuddling him when Alex is not around.


Dragon sometimes hunts and eats mice!
     

He also likes the same things I do.


One day, when I both live in a house that can have them and I'm mentally stable to take care of someone else, I will have a kitten. But for now, I have Dragon, and he is the best kitten in the world.

I would love a baby otter

A little pick me up in case anybody is feeling a bit sad.

A little baby otter was rescued by a postman.
As a follow up, now the baby otter has a kitten foster brother.

Be careful when you click on those links. My head nearly asploded of cute.

Still alive

So, I spent most of last week ill with the plague. Two plagues, actually: I had both a very bad cold (viral) and a throat infection (bacterial). Not fun. It did, however, result into a lot of knitting, so my healing cardigan is just missing weaving in ends (this might take a while) and blocking.

As well as knitting, I did some web surfing while I was ill, and I got this.

This is an awesome dpn roll, bought from knitonebeadtwo at Etsy. The service was very good, the quality of the roll is good, and it only took a week to get here from the US (it arrived today!).



The first day I was well enough to go out, I went yarn shopping. I ordered yarn to make a Wisteria, and I got this lovely mini project bag from Get Knitted.


It's at the moment holding my second pair of fetchings. Some of you might recall I made some last year, although I made the mistake of making them out of bamboo. While lovely, it stretches. More. No, more than that. And a bit more. Ok, maybe not so much. I'm making this out of cotton, matching both gauge and yarn weight this time, so hopefully they will work out better!



Yesterday I went to Forbidden Planet, and bought this cute dead kitty mints box, to use as a pill box or stitch marker box (or both!).

I opened it today at work to have some of the mints, and I squeed. I mean, look at it. The mints are shaped like teeny bones!



I am less plague-ridden now, although still with my bacterial infection. Not likely to die any time soon, though! Normal service may or may not resume!

xkcd *always* knows

Today's xkcd is very sad, and it speaks directly to me, as it is about depression (or so I make it out to be).



(full page link here)

At least the hover comment does bring a little smile to my face.¹



Yesterday I was down in the evening. I started to go down at lunchtime, and I was depressed again. At least it was not sad and crying depressed, but more apathetic, "meh", nothing matters depressed.
I might not be getting better on the depression, but I know I am getting a lot better at identifying and knowing about my depression, which I think it's very important. Know your enemy, etc.
So I left work early, went home, and made a cup of ginger, lemon and honey tea, got my blanket, my book and I curled up in the sofa. It didn't make it go away, but I think it made it stable, which sometimes is just as good.

Alex is getting better at dealing with my depression as well. He did not sound upset once, and was cute to me, being a bit silly, rather than try to reason. It made me feel a lot better and, while it might not have got me up, it certainly didn't get me further down, as there was very little guilt. I think he also saw that I was trying hard to control it to at least a stable level, and that is a lot more helpful than when I just let the depression engulf me. I don't know how long he can manage without getting upset, though, because I know it's difficult for him too.

When I got tired of reading, I watched the Matrix and knitted. I have now reknit all the mouse pieces for a hopefully not speshul mouse. Although speshul mouse is going to have a good life: at the moment it's quietly sitting on my office phone, while the rest of the mice will be given to a kitten, Alfie, to live in fear chased by him all day.
Alfie belongs to one of Alex's coworkers. Alfie and I will get to meet next week, because Alex has been arranging a kitten meeting for my birthday!
Alfie is like me and he only likes meeting new people only for a bit, because he gets nervous when he's been too long around new people, so we'll just meet for a bit, while both of us are feeling well. I've been obsessed with kittens for a while, but I've never met one in person, so I hope it all goes well.



¹ If you are using Firefox, you might not be able to see it all. Go and download the Long Titles extension. In the mean time, the text says Oh, look, the 'make everything better' button was here behind the bookshelf all along.