Hatting on the Scots

PJ O'Rourke makes me laugh. Me, and everyone else. This morning he's busy imagining a terrible future for an independent Scotland.

Too bad he can't spell Chanel.

Read it here.

Dog Nails

I finally went nuclear on Boris's nails. It's just not right, y'all. Normal dogs have cute little nails. People clip them with wee, inexpensive, Petco-available clippers. 

Not Boris. His nails kill Petco clippers. His nails laugh in the face of clippers meant for "large breeds." If large means a dachsund, ok. A lab/mastiff mix? No. 

I Googled "clippers for a large breed dog," "cutting nails large breed dog," and other things but found nothing useful. Then I decided to ask people who really know what they're talking about.

Mastiff owners. And, sure enough, on a forum devoted to grooming truly, truly large dogs, someone mentioned farriers' tools.

Ah. Now there's an idea I can run with. If it cuts a horse's hooves, it might work on our house-bound pony. Sure enough, Amazon sells nippers and farriers' rasps. These are tools. Serious, not kidding around, 10-14inch long tools. And since the nippers are rated to cut "large nails [made of metal?]" they do ok on Boris.

He tolerates it with enormous grace, probably because he's used to the usual round of cursing and failure. At least this time, when he extends his paw, something actually happens. He even allows me to run his clipped nails across the rasp (filing is so important in a manicure/pedicure, don't you agree?).

Hooray for the internet! Hooray for Mastiffs! Hooray for farriers!

First Grade

Desks! Homework! Lunch in the cafeteria! Gold stickers! And, one day, college.

No Corn on the Cob For a While

It has begun. The great tooth replacement of elementary school. Our dentist warned us. But for months and months and months...nothing.

And then! In less than a week two teeth. The first popped out at the end of the summer. Iain got $3 from the Tooth Fairy.

A day later (!!!) the second bottom front tooth joined its neighbor. The Tooth Fairy was busy, though. She skipped this one.

And now...the top right tooth is very, very loose. First graders take school pictures next week. Will it last??? Stay tuned.

Busy Weekend

Miriam's quilt, finally pieced. This is the top, obviously. The back will be white. Because something has to balance the crazy.

Below, another quilt top I made this weekend. It's for Signal Hill. Iain went out of his way to comment on how ugly he finds two of the fabrics. I assumed (not unreasonably, I think) that he'd let us have this one and I would make something with kid fabrics for him.

Nope. He was all, "I like this one. I'll take it." Oh.

 The blue fabric with little green depictions of what appear to be Aztecs. 

Also the brown batik. Those are the fabrics Iain said he hated. And yet...

So now I'm making a third top, this time for us. All this to use up the fabric stash a little. Any quilters know what I mean: buying fabric is an unstoppable force. Eventually you realize that it's out of control. This weekend I used up a lot. Yay! I also used about 600 yards of white thread.

Now I need another holiday to get to the next step: the sandwiches. You know how much I love those. (Not at all).