Not Fun

But DONE!!!

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Terrible Tuesday

I'm not sure why I'm still trying, but I continue to try to get my Snowcatcher blog back up and running. Snowcaught just isn't filling the gaping hole. The continuing battle with my web host is not going well; I've lost access to the email address I set up through the web host, thinking it would be my forever email address. I've lost total faith in my web host, and I likely will have to change. Which probably means a new email address, too. Darn it.

I haven't thrown in the towel yet.

Hopefully these screen shots illustrate just a tiny sample of the heartache this extremly uncomfortable outage has caused.

And how all this makes me feel...

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Lessons Learned

I take my camera just about anywhere. But I recently learned that isn't always a good idea.

We had to fly out of state unexpectedly to attend a memorial service. The camera didn't get used at all. I did use my phone camera; quite a bit, in fact. But the real camera was unneeded weight and expensive cargo I had to tote around everywhere to keep it safe and to prevent it from getting hot in the rental car.

There were other lessons, as well. So I've made a list for future reference

1. Don't take the real camera to a memorial service. You probably can leave the crochet bag and magazines at home, too.

2. Always make sure your driver's license is current when traveling.

3. Make sure you take ALL your luggage when you have to change hotel rooms because the bathroom sink flooded overnight.

4. Always keep a mask with you, even if not mandated. (We walked to a restaurant to pick up an online order but could not be served because we didn't think to bring the masks that were safely stored back in our hotel room, and masks were required at that particular restaurant.)

5. Reading a eulogy from a phone screen is a LOT different than reading from a piece of paper.

6. Ask the mortuary for a location before running across the lawn in 100-degree heat to view a headstone you haven't visited in more than five years.

7. Don't try to change the name on every financial and/or utility account of the deceased right away. Said institutions run credit checks, which each individually ding the credit rating of the surviving spouse who is trying to secure a loan to pay for burial. And for family's sake, please buy funeral insurance. So worth it. (We both have it.)

8. Don't schedule a necessary virtual medical appointment on a brand new holiday and then expect to remember said 7:20 a.m. (different time zone) appointment after repeatedly being told by all 17 previously mentioned financial and/or utility institutions they will be closed on said brand new holiday.

9. Make sure you know how to put gas in the rental car before you go to the gas station. And go to the gas station the night before your 5 a.m. flight, not the morning of.

10. $7 per gallon?!?!?!?!?

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Mooned

It had been a very, very long time since I'd observed a lunar eclipse that started before nightfall. And I wasn't entirely sure I would be able to watch the May 15 event. We had clouds on the horizon just before moonrise, and I really didn't think they would clear in time. I thought I wouldn't catch a glimpse until halfway into the total lunar eclipse last weekend.

I was periodically watching out the window as I worked on the final border of my Green Batik Leftovers QAYG project and while I had a live cam view of the eclipse as viewed from Chile on YouTube. I nearly jumped for joy, pinned quilt strips in my hands, when I saw the very tip of the moon appear on my distant horizon. I hadn't prepared very well; I didn't think I was going to be treated!!!

I dropped the quilt strips back onto the dining room table then ran for the camera before heading out the back door and running up the hill to the fence. I shot through the chainlink fence (and even captured a few vignettes caused by said fence) only to discover my horizon was not as clear as I thought. Too many power lines in the way!!! I do not remember having to struggle with those before, alhtough I typically did not shoot the moon or the sun as they creep over the horizon from my backyard fence in the past. So much has changed in the last two years!

The sky was lighter than it appears in the photo above. I decided power lines would have to do (they do assist with the visual element of size) and underexposed the photos to enhance the red hue. The moon soon was enveloped by clouds, and I went back to sewing for about 15 to 20 minutes, continuing to check progress out the window every jelly roll strip or so.

I could have finished the quilt Sunday night. But I decided when the moon finally popped back out of the clouds the eclipse would be more fun.

By the time the moon emerged from the clouds, the sky was dark. The moon still wasn't high enough for me to shoot from my (new concrete) back porch without capturing the fence too for another hour. So I had to keep traversing the hill in the dark while creepy crawlies stirred alongside my careful steps for nearly an hour. I set the camera up on my (old) tripod once the moon cleared the fence. I was too lazy to run out to the car to retrieve the newer tripod, which hasn't been used at all since my mother-in-law bought the car for us just over a year ago.

The older tripod isn't set up for my current camera, which is why Lizard bought the new one for me as a birthday present about two or three years ago. The only way I could get my current camera set up on the older tripod was to attach it backwards, which made manipulating the tripod head haphazard at best. It wasn't long before I was deeply regretting my decision not to dig the newer tripod out of the trunk prior to nightfall. Yet, I made the circumstances work. I didn't get off as many shots as I would have, and I didn't always shoot as slow as I would have, had I used the newer tripod. But I managed to get a few decent shots, which will be featured for Wordless Wednesday tomorrow.

Sitting on the porch, however, I was visited by more (and now visible in the porch light) creepy crawlies, including an obnoxious cricket, as I realized my camera battery was beginning to run low. The cricket tried to invite himself in each time I went back into the house to hunt for another camera power cord. Four times!!!

The first cord I retrieved was from my most recent time lapse photography session, the blooming of one of our hoya plants. That first didn't fit into the Nikon. I'd used the phone for the hoya sequence. The second cord, which was near my personal computer I use almost every evening, didn't fit either. It was to my Big Gun, my first professional-grade digital camera, purchased back in 2008. I don't even know what the third cord goes to after pulling it out of my laptop case. The third cord doesn't fit in any of my Nikons. The fourth cord, which came out of my camera bag, which I haven't used for more than a year now, was the one I needed. But by this time, the camera battery had died, and all I could get that fouth cord to do was charge the battery. I guess the cord has to make contact with the battery while there is still juice in the battery in order to power the camera while charging.

Lizard had fallen asleep, so I decided I could be done for the night. It might have been fun to stay up and watch the rest of the show, but Lizard had an eye checkup at 7:30 the next morning, and I'm designated driver. I quietly put everything away and thankfully was out like a light maybe half an hour later. Lessons learned. I will be better prepared for the November 7-8 eclipse, and I hope the lessons stay in my head until the next total lunar eclipse 14 March 2025!

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Park it, Son

I recently announced Lizard and I would be taking our charitable fund-raising efforts in a new direction. My snowflake blog posts can get more than 8,000 hits per day this time of year, so I didn't reveal in that day's snowflake pattern the identity of the very dear loved one who has been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

On August 29, we got The Lizard's diagnosis, but our life began changing pretty radically about four or five months earlier.

He'd lost his sense of smell a few years ago. We didn't know then that was something to which we needed to be alerted.

The tremors began a few years ago, too, but they weren't serious enough to raise concern until this year. I thought "the shakes" were because he was drinking too much coffee. When the tremors began progressing and traveling from his right hand throughout his entire body earlier this year, Lizard quit caffeine cold turkey. It didn't help. That's when I first realized something might be wrong. I knew it might take six weeks or so for the caffeine to clear his system, but I didn't expect the tremors to get worse after he quit drinking coffee. They did.

His restless legs became almost unbearable. He couldn't sleep. He became hypersensitive, continually on sensory overload. His writing had become much smaller over the past couple of years, but I didn't know that was a symptom until we began looking up symptoms.

Sometimes I would say something to him, and it would take him longer to respond than I thought it should. Sometimes he seemed to be having difficulty making decisions. He couldn't tolerate crowds at all. His gait changed. He was hunching over more and more by the week. He was losing his confidence on his bicycle, and his equilibrium grew worse until it became downright scary. Ultimately, he was not able to ride any of the rides for which he'd signed up this year.

He'd planned to ride the 30th anniversary Triple Bypass, a grueling one-day 120-mile three-mountain pass bicycle ride boasting more than 10,000 feet of elevation gain. This is his favorite of all the rides in which he has participated.


I didn't want him to ride the Triple this year, but I didn't want to tell him he couldn't do it, either. I was really worried. There are some super steep drop-offs along the route, the highways are not closed to traffic during the ride, and it could get very hot on some of the toughest climbs. I'd witnessed the heat completely melt him during a training ride, and his whole stance on the bike, once so powerful and poetic, now seemed so wobbly...

Typically, we get up at 4 a.m. so he can start the ride before the sun comes up and finish before any potential thunderstorms build. At 5 a.m., he was still trying to decide whether he should try. At 6 a.m., he said he wouldn't be able to finish before the storms built. I told him he could ride as far as he wanted, and I would pick him up when he felt he couldn't or shouldn't go any further. By 8 a.m., he'd decided he didn't have enough balance to ride. I was relieved, but my heart was broken for him. I knew what this ride meant to him.

His doctor ordered an MRI, and then we had to wait eight weeks for an opening with the neurologist. During those excruciating 58 days, we didn't know if he had essential tremors, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's or ALS, or a combination thereof. For eight nightmarish weeks of further deterioration, we made plans, just in case it was ALS.

We would retire, and he would try to finish off what 14ers he could, if he could. We would sell the house and buy an RV so we could visit the loved ones we wanted to see before the end. We both tried to convince ourselves and each other that it would be okay because both of us had lived very full lives, and we didn't waste much time at all. We had so much for which to be thankful.

Lizard clung to his independence as mightily as he could and refused to allow me to go with him for his first appointment with the neurologist. I worked through the day and tried to be patient while waiting for him to call or email to let me know the diagnosis. He never contacted me. I assumed the worst. He would be mine for six to nine more months, and then he would be free of the misery he was experiencing. I would be alone, but with many happy memories and a love I'd never imagined could happen to me before we met.


I cried all the way home that night.

He was in good spirits when I walked into the house. I calmly asked about the results. He calmly told me he has Parkinson's, likely early onset, and he's probably had it for at least five years, if not longer. Medication would begin the next day, and if the medication worked, improvement would seal the diagnosis.

Relief washed over me, but I couldn't understand why he didn't tell me earlier in the day.

"Because I'm going to be okay," he explained. He thought I'd take no news as good news. It makes me giggle now, but at the time... oh, my gosh. Yet I was SO grateful I wasn't going to lose him in a few months!!!

That night and the next day, I had the chore of informing loved ones and friends who were waiting on pins and needles the whole time, just like us. My parents, who both have health issues of their own, both were so supportive and so loving. The first words out of both of their mouths was assurance that Lizard would be okay because, "Michael J. Fox has had Parkinson's for years, and look how well he is doing!"

Later I would learn Michael J. Fox is indeed doing remarkably well, considering. But the very same symptoms afflicting my Lizard take their toll on the actor, too. Parkinson's is a progressive disease. It gets worse and does not get better, although people affected with it certainly experience some good days to go along with the bad. There is no cure.

I like the attitude of Michael J. Fox. He has famously said, Parkinson's "is not a nebulous cloud of doom that hangs over my head. It’s a set of challenges, and there are rewards in meeting those challenges."

Lizard's medication did make a difference... almost immediately. He was able to sleep the first night of what he calls his new normal. His sensitivity isn't off the charts now, sometimes the tremors aren't very bad, and he's back on his bike. He's got his sense of humor back, and that makes me incredibly happy. We don't know how much of what he lost he will get back, but he says, "Parkinson's will find me to be a formidable enemy."


Watching this powerhouse cyclist become a mass of tremors while not being able to do a thing to help him was one of the most difficult challenges I have encountered in life. Today, he asks me to go with him to see the neurologist. I sometimes have to remind Lizard to swing his arms when we walk around the lake, and life is a bit slower and a bit more relaxed than it has been for 13 years. I'm back up to 45 miles in a day on my bike, and although his mileage is not building yet, he's doing some single track he didn't think he'd ever be able to do again. He said he's learning to coach himself. He's had plenty of practice - he's the best coach I've ever had!

We don't know if next year's Ride the Rockies will be a realistic goal for either of us, but we'll have fun training and trying to build upon what we've already gained. Not one training ride will ever go to waste, even if we can't do big rides anymore. We're keeping our bodies healthy, and we'll never stop looking forward to the possibilities the future might hold.

There have been some dark days this year. But spring is on the way. The light is coming. We just have to keep reaching for it.

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Friday Fun

He pre-recorded all the background tracks and practiced, but Murphy's Law still got the best of him. I got the shirt, and I'm wearing it today!

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Headless

I couldn't wait to finish this year's Christmas quilts so I could make something for me. Specifically, I cut out a dress to wear to my niece's wedding in April, and the pieces are still sitting next to the sewing machine, waiting to be made into a dress.

However, the annual craft fair at my office was the week after I finished all seven quilts. I didn't make much new stuff specifically for the craft fair, but I displayed a bunch of things I've made over the last few years, including the Noro Lanesplitter skirt I hoped to one day fit into... That was four years ago. I decided the skirt is so beautiful, it deserves to be worn. And it actually sold!


I typically don't take special orders during the craft fair because by the time I set up my little booth, I'm tired of making things and meeting deadlines for everyone but my own family, and I want to spend the last couple of weeks before Christmas with my true love and making things for him, if I can sneak a project or two in without him knowing. (Fingers crossed for this weekend...)

But how can I refuse when the request comes from a very dear friend? Or two? Or more...


My flip flop necklaces were a big hit, although they did not sell. However, one of my co-workers asked if I could make five more, with one flip flop each and a chain to coordinate with each flip flop. The flip flops work up pretty quickly, so I agreed. I thought I could be done in just a couple of hours, leaving me two weeks to make Christmas gifts for The Lizard.


Then came a request for six tiny snowflakes for a tiny tree, and could I make them pink and/or purple?

This project took another night, plus stiffening and stringing, but it wasn't a heavy burden.




I'd just finished a cute little hat for Baby Molly, and I had enough yarn left to make another one. So I whipped up a second one, and it garnered lots of interest and compliments at the craft fair, but none of my customers had baby girls on their gift lists. One of my friends, however, has a not quite as new "chunky little nephew" and asked if I could make a monkey hat, tail and stuffed monkey for the six-month-old bundle of joy. This, obviously, was going to take more than a couple of hours, but how could I say no?


I had never made a monkey or a monkey hat before. I'd thought about a sock monkey a couple of times during my crazy sock-crocheting phase, but I'd never even looked up patterns. I didn't have time to look up patterns this time. So I improvised and nearly finished a hat from the only brown yarn in my stash, not quite a full skein I received from a destashing friend. I guess it's a good thing I didn't have enough yarn to finish the project. I didn't have a clue what fiber was in the yarn, and there won't be enough for a burn test, much less a monkey, if I finish the braids and ears. I dreaded having to make another hat, but I had no choice.


I searched the yarn section of the closest craft store, and nothing was even remotely close enough to even semi-match. I bought two more huge skeins (to make sure I wouldn't run out again) and made (and finished!!!) another hat in just a couple of hours.


The monkey was going to take a bit longer. Perhaps a lot longer.

I got the mini monkey's head done but didn't like the shape of the mouth. I wasn't able to unravel the yarn to rework the head because I'd bound off so efficiently. I used the first monkey head to stuff the second monkey head. Yes, my little monkey is a cannibal. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of either of the first two heads. While walking to the park and ride, the cannibal escaped in a clandestine manner. So somewhere out there in the Denver Metro area, a body-less cannibal monkey head is roaming the streets.

I had to make a third monkey head.


By the time this project was finally finished, I never wanted to see another crocheted monkey again as long as I live!

On the bright side, all my craft fair customers said what I made was worth far more than what I charged. Some real warm fuzzies there!

On the very dark side, after I posted an Instagram snapshot of the monkey project, my aunt called to request the hat pattern so she can make one for her youngest granddaughter.

So, instead of sewing that night, I had to begin writing a pattern for the monkey hat!

Christmas might be a little late at my house this year. And I probably can't wear that long-forgotten short-sleeved, warm weather dress until spring anyway, so might as well put it off just a little bit longer.


Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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Missed Again

As I was logging off Blogger the other day, I noticed a pretty cool number. I thought I could stay on just a few minutes longer and catch the sevens as they rolled.

I refreshed and did a screenshot. It was darn close!


So I refreshed again without making an image of the previous screenshot. We're talking seconds. As long as it takes to hit the refresh button.


DANG! I can't believe I missed it!

I logged off, and up popped my blog again, and I got lucky in a different way. Three pairs!

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Murphy's Law, Episode 378, with a twist

We'd planned to drive to Leadville last weekend to watch the start of THE mountain bike race, then ride around Turquoise Lake a time or two. Decided at the last minute our time would be better spent riding Deer Creek Canyon, which requires no driving. We ride to the start and ride home after the finish. The Lizard is participating in the Deer Creek Challenge next weekend, so this was his final chance to train.

Good climbs, legs ready, whip up a whole wheat pasta salad while we search the internet for Leadville 100 results. We were really hoping Fat Cyclist would finally nail his sub-9 finish, the 100 mile course in 9 hours or less for the prized belt buckle. Fatty had added incentive this year. Specialized offered to GIVE him the S-works 29er he was demo-ing if he could claim the sub-9 on it.

He did!!!!!

All those years of trying, and he finally got it. He drove to Leadville chanting, "Sub-9, and you're mine!" And he got it!

So inspirational for the big rides we have coming up! If Fatty can do it, so can we!!!

Then comes Monday morning, and blood red fluid all over the ground beneath the car just a few miles from work. Lost the brakes. Oh, my gosh. We lost the brakes.

If we had driven to Leadville on Saturday, we would have scaled three mountain passes in the 4Runner. That trusty OLD, official SAG vehicle pushing 285,000 miles. And we would have lost brakes. A lot further from home, and possibly on a descent. Probably on Kenosha Pass. A steep two-lane highway with plenty of traffic and no runaway truck ramp I can recall.

It could have been a disaster.

Thank you, God, for keeping us safe.

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Eye Tunes

Now that the daylight hours are growing shorter, my bicycle commute to work is inching further and further away from sunrise. In a month, I'll have to use the headlamp again in the mornings. Even though our daytime highs will be the hottest of the year.

When I commuted in darkness in winter and spring, I didn't need sunglasses in the dark. The bugs aren't active then. It's too cold!

I found out the hard way last week I can't pull that in summer.

I thought I could go goggleless for 15 minutes one morning. The sun would be up soon, and then I'd stop just long enough to put on the sunglasses.

Not a mile from home, a seemingly microscopic bug - probably a gnat - took up residence in my right eye. Dang it. I didn't pull over. I tried to rub it gently out of my now teary and stinging eye with my sweaty bicycle-gloved fingers while steering with the other hand. I thought I had successfully evicted the uninvited guest.

By the time I got off work, my eye was pretty sore. By bedtime, it was unbearable. We decided to take a closer look, and sure enough, body parts had been left behind. Although I was unable to identify them. We successfully removed the severed appendages, we made use of "get the red out," and I took pain reliever. A few minutes later, I was gone for the night.

Next morning, my right eye looked as if a golf ball had been embedded beneath my lids. And glued shut. Once again, we cleaned up the mess, and I put a bag of cold water over my eyes.

My annual physical had previously been scheduled for the following night, after work. I really didn't want to try to get in twice and have to pay for two office visits. But I would call if we didn't get the swelling down.

An hour later, I decided I was well enough to go to work. All day long, co-workers thought something horrible had happened. They thought I had been crying. Both eyes were horribly bloodshot. Seems the left eye had sympathy for the right eye and decided misery loves company. I had no pain, so I thought I was just getting over bug guts in my eye socket.

The following night, I asked my doctor if he could check my eye while he was doing the rest of the stuff, most of which I don't really care for, but I know it has to be done.

"Good thing you told me about this," he concluded a few minutes later, after a thorough examination and a bit of eye stain beneath a snazzy blacklight. "If we hadn't checked this tonight, I think you would have been screaming by Monday morning."

Ten days of antibiotics. Learning how to put eye drops in my own eye without a mirror and without a third hand. Learning not to sit up too quickly after the self-treatment so said drops don't immediately spill down my cheek, requiring me to do it all over again. Six times per day. For ten days.

About 15 years ago, I learned the hard way my teeth need to be checked as soon as possible after I take a sunset line drive in the mouth during a competitive co-ed softball game. Teeth don't look as white when blood you didn't see after the botched catch slowly oozes inside the injured enamel. Six of them. Root canals. Owie.

I also learned softball are NOT soft.

This time, I learned it's worth the extra effort to put the clear lenses in the sunglasses before I ride in twilight. Even if only for a few minutes. I will never ride without eye protection in summer again.

I'm certain there's a lesson in there somewhere about rubbing eyes with grimy, perspiration-soaked, fingerless bicycle gloves, but I can't guarantee I've learned that one. Sometimes my fingers are on autopilot.

I also learned my eyesight is worth a heck of a lot more than an extra visit to the doctor. Eye Tunes 101 was a successful education for me, and no permanent damage is done. Literally, thank Heaven.

Now if I could just teach the bugs to stay out of my mouth when I ride...

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Friday Funny

Sometimes I see funny things along the bike path. Such as this huge turtlegator. Or maybe this is what happens when a lizard mates with someone as slow as a turtle. Perhaps a very good thing The Lizard and I were unable to reproduce. :-O

Even though I am an avid wildlife stalker, this was my first time ever seeing a snapping turtle, and I honestly wondered if it might be an escaped pet alligator upon first sight because I had never seen a snapper. Ever. I had never seen a turtle with an alligator-like tail.

After my ride, I researched turtles to figure out exactly what I'd shot. Turns out the females bury their eggs in sand, often far from the water, in June. So this could well be a female on her way to motherhood. She could lay as many as 80 eggs, and the young 'uns could winter in the nest if weather conditions are not favorable in the next couple of months when they hatch. Mom, who has savage claws and a nasty bite, enjoys dining on small birds and mammals and has a worm-like tip on her tongue to lure fish into her powerful jaw, could live to be 30 years old. As long as she stays on the muddy river bottom and off the bike path.

Along this very same bike path, I was planning to ride 70 miles last Friday. I was feeling strong even though I had a headwind and bugs were prolific. Apparently the wind was 1 mph too slow to keep the bugs out of the sky. And out of my mouth. (Extra protein!) So I was keeping my head down. Not watching the sky...

After the final tunnel, I felt a couple of drops on my legs. I thought my nose was running again. I kept feeling drops. Then I realized the sky was spitting at me.

I rode on.

A third of the way up the dam, I felt the equivalent of a pinprick. Then another. Then another.

Oh, hail!

I looked up. I was right on the very edge of a black, dark, heavy cloud. On the dam. Not the safest location during a hailstorm. The sun was poking out at me. And yet, here was this shower of hail.

Next thing I knew, I was being pelted by crystalized projectiles.

I called The Lizard from atop the dam, and he ordered me to take cover. No nearby shelter! He would come get me, but he wanted me to find a safe place to wait out the storm. Down the other side of the dam I cruised, and the storm was gone before I reached the bottom. I descended slowly and conservatively because the pavement and my brakes were wet, but not THAT slow! The lightningless thunderboomer was just a tiny cell. Thank heavens electricity didn't find a way to make loud sparks.

If I had been ten minutes slower, I would have missed the entire storm. Now I was soaked. Cars were passing me. Most drivers went out of their way to try to keep from splashing me, thankfully. One motorist apparently thought it was hilarious to blast me with a wall of dirty water. I went from soaked to worse, if there is such a thing.

Luckily, I had a big climb to get to where The Lizard was waiting. The climb kept me warm. Shooting the rainbow with the iPhone while The Lizard loaded up my bike diffused disappointment caused by the 20-mile shortage in my day's goal. A hot mineral bath at home chased all the rest of the blues far away!

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Challenge Obscuredom

The plan was to attend my very first knitting machine group meeting. I bought a used machine in about ’96 from a graduating student who had used it to put herself through college and hoped to never need or see it again. I never took the non-wheeled Toyota out of the box because I was afraid my then young, rambunctious and hyperactive adopted kids might accidentally knock it over, and it would be ruined.

Now I have a place to safely set it up and a husband equally as anxious to learn to use it. Yes, for real!

The knitting group told me to bring my manual to the meeting. They would take a look at what I’m up against, plus teach me how to make a hat.

I had looked forward to the meeting for nearly six weeks. Murphy’s Law stepped in just as I was getting ready to go, and a pinched nerve in my neck flattened me for a good 30-ish hours. No knitting machine wisdom for me this month. (The plan is to try again next month; fingers and toes crossed, nerves threatened with pain killer.)

After my bundle of uncomfortable nerves finally let go of my insanity, I decided I would challenge myself anyway. I decided to learn a new knitting technique in spite of my heartbreak.

Ever since I learned to knit (which I initially thought was just another crochet stitch but with a second hook) when I was still single digits, I have wanted to try knitting with thread. Perhaps because my grandmother taught me to crochet with thread. Thread is just so different from yarn.

I put that fancy hand-colored thread I received last week to work once again and crocheted my tiniest sock to date. And then I knit the cuffs. With toothpicks!

Knitting with toothpicks wasn’t as bad as I’ve always feared it would be. In fact, it was rather fun, and I can’t wait to do it again.

However, that’s not what I really want to write about today. But I must camouflage my real purpose because I don’t want The Lizard to figure out what I’m doing. He actually reads my blog almost every day, and I’m hoping he’ll get bored before he gets to this paragraph and won’t figure out what I’ve done.

I hope you, Dear Reader, have not grown bored and have actually read this far. This is a contest!!! A challenge! With a prize!

The best comment left on The Lizard’s blog here by noon Mountain Time on Monday, March 28, gets to adopt Snodgrass!

That’s right! Snodgrass is looking for a new home, and I’m looking to tickle the toes of My Favorite Lizard by surprising him with comments from more than just me and a couple of other regulars.

But shhhhhhhh! Don’t tell him I put you up to this!!! It’s a secret!

Snodgrass
Snodgrass was born late in the summer of 2009 en route to the Gothic trailhead prior to a successful mountain bike climb of Schofield Pass. He then layed in stasis for several months awaiting assembly, which was accomplished during the 2010 Ravelympics, in which his maker medaled. Snodgrass shares his name with a singletrack trail and mountain above the Crested Butte side of Schofield Pass, both popular with backcountry skiers in winter. Snodgrass is nine inches long and has a four-inch armspan, and he's made of incredibly soft and bright Noro Kureyon sock yarn imported from Japan. He loves to watch humans work on the computer, never argues when it's time to turn off the lights, doesn't run up the phone bill and is completely house-broken. He eats dust. (Psyyyyyche!)

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