Memorial Day Week

Yesterday RJ the Calif. filmmaker came in for a few days; he's doing a pre-screening of American Threnody at the library tonight. th'Mr barbecue'd ribs, and his cousin FB came over, and our other Calif. film maker friend CF drove down "just for the ribs," and drove back home afterwards. That's a five-six hour round trip... Tomorrow we're heading up to CF's to house/dogsit for him while he and wife go to Chattanooga for the weekend. I invited RJ to come over this morning and I'd "fix breakfast," and so I had to go to the store and get a pound of sausage this morning. That gave me an excuse to get out, since I'd also ordered a birthday cake & needed to pick it up. It's hidden in plain sight in the fridge, th'Mr will never see it.

Yesterday I started "landscaping" the pet sematery by putting some of the good horse pasture dirt on Boo's and Cuz' graves; what was left went on Amos' but I need to get another barrowful to finish up Amos and cover Tick & Wolf. A lot of the millionbells flowers have bloomed and dried. I don't know if the seed is encased in the dry flower petals or if it grows out of the green part the petals fall from; at any rate I picked off about a million of the dry ones and put them on Boo's grave. I laid them in a big square along the outside (on the inside, if that makes sense) of the dirt surface. I'm writing this here because if I don't, I'll forget what I planted and where. This way I'll be able to look it up. Also, alongside the garage in the north-side planter, in the section nearest the house, I put five plums along the front edge, and this morning I put grapes behind them. That's not a permanent place but rather a baby bed, just to see if that stuff will grow from fruit. The grapes are fat purple ones, the plums are dark blue-purple ones.

I finished one soldier sock and am in the gussett decreases in the other. I thought I'd unvented an easier way to kitchener, but it doesn't look as good as the conventional way so I'll pick that out and redo it. Yesterday I spent some time on the "mystery cross stitch" which I've lost the picture to. There's a sewing machine and quilting stuff innit; I can sort of see what the picture will look like. The pattern book is for two cross stitches; "Rocking Chair Quilt" and "Country Closet Quilt" from X's & Oh's. Two things that make me think I won't be buying any more of their designs is there's going to be a fuck of a lot of backstitching to finish these, and the designer seems incredibly fond of half-stitches, which irritate the hell out of me. But they'll be nice pieces --either as wall hangings or throw pillows-- for my sewing room, whenever I get around to transforming the stoveroom into that.