Nipmice, Your Cat Will Love Them

Nipmice are proudly made in the USA by a demented cat lady trying to find a natural alternative for fiber stuffed made with who knows what mice from China found in the Dollar and Pet stores.

Not really.

Once upon a time, a Druid witch was looking for some yarn to make protection mojo bags. She saw a HUGE skein of red, black and white all cotton yarn and thought that it was perfect. Red works for all mojo bags and protection from crazy people. Black absorbs all energy and white reflects all energy so with the proper contents, these babies would work for all types of psychic attack.

So, she bought it. She took it home. She started crocheting a mojo bag and half way through discovered this was the most god awful looking piece of crochet in the known universe. It was coyote (no offense to the trickster god intended) ugly.

So instead of a Mojo Bag, she just tied it off halfway though and tossed it on the bed. Within minutes it has disappeared and instead of saying good riddance to bad crocheting, she went to find it. It took a week or two and was finally found in a cat's stash.

She began to watch and discovered the cats were passing it between themselves as a treasured object. Thus, she made another one on a night when she couldn't sleep. It was taken within minutes, thrown, chewed, loved and hidden. So, she made another one. You see, she had about a pound of this god awful colored yarn to get rid of and no ideas but these weird shaped creatures she now named nipmice though they had no catnip in them. The latest version has a pinch of nip in them.

Nipmice are often created in the wee hours of the morning when she can't sleep with an audience of cats. Often, it is a contest to see whether she can tie off the nipmouse before the cat takes it. As you can see, this nipmouse barely survived the photography session. We have no idea why the cats love them. It's a cat thing.

Since there is no chance of ever managing to get one made and shipped, here are the instructions to make your own. The Druid is allergic to wool so she uses cotton yarn.

If you can single crochet, you can make a nip mouse. Keep in mind the cat doesn't care what it looks like, they just love them. Hook size and gauge are not important. I make a chain of 5 and join the last and first stitch. Chain 1 and single crochet in every stitch until I have about 5 single crochets. Now comes the choice and just winging it is possible at every point but if you obsessive, there are several versions. If you want a head on the mouse, place 2 single crochets in every stitch making 10 then reduce by one making 5. Now you have a head. Single crochet 5 more stitches and go to making the body. Or you can just skip to this step. If you really want the typical mouse body, single crochet in 2 stitches and then increase one stitch in the remaining 3 making 8 stitches. Continue following this pattern until the mouse is the size you want and stitch the back end together leaving a long string end for a tail. I consider the front string to be a tongue. Otherwise, increase as you feel the need and then when the mouse is long enough start decreasing until you have one stitch and tie off. That is how most of mine are made.

The best time to insert some catnip is when you are at the widest part of the mouse. Warning, this can cause loss of fingers, loss of mouse and theft of the bag of catnip. Managing to actually get the catnip into the mouse may require locking yourself in the bathroom with it after spending an hour ejecting all cats from the premises. Finish the mouse in the locked room or you will learn the fine art of crocheting with a cat attached to the piece you making. A sixteen pound cat attached to your nipmouse makes turning your work difficult.

Good luck.

The New Pattern of my Life: Darning the Pillow

My new mornings and days.....

I'm not complaining, just adapting. It is sort of like you would decide on a new exercise routine or new job. Adjustments have to made and old habits discharged.

Habits are not a bad thing, though they get a bad reputation. Habits can have two functions depending on the type of person you are. My professor and mentor used to say there are two types of people: watch dogs and bird dogs. Watch dogs bark at everything new and retreat to their dog houses to hide if the new thing gets too close or they attack and try to kill it. Bird dogs are always out hunting for new things. You may send them out to retrieve a bird but there is no guarantee they will return with your bird or even with a bird. They just delight in bringing something new home to examine and use. Unfortunately for society, there are a thousand watch dogs to every bird dog. The actions of both dogs are based on habit it is just how they interpret and use the habit that differs. The Watch Dog uses the habit, its house, to hide from anything new. The Bird Dog uses the habit, its owner and retrieving pattern to seek out new things to learn. It works the same way with magic. At first every little thing must be coordinated and learned painstakingly and then it becomes rote and done instantly.

That was something I learned this morning to my amazement. All night I have derided the cats for tracking litter into the bed. When I got up this morning, I had the stuff attached to my leg and it was almost impossible to remove. The situation has been getting worse all weekend until this morning I thought I was in the kitty pan. In the bathroom with strong glasses on, now that I no longer have 20/20 vision due to the diabetes, I saw the pieces were strangely uniform in size and shape and prone to static electricity. This is why I couldn't get them off my leg. Now this was strange because litter is neither. I was ready to kill a cat when I discovered a few minutes later my favorite pillow, the little heart one that is the perfect size to prop my leg up at night, was bleeding microbeads due to several cat holes.

This presents a new problem as there is no way I can see to thread a needle. Then I remembered seeing a sewing kit on my nightstand when I cleaned up with what I thought were prethreaded needles. Thank you what ever hotel (It has an H on it so I am thinking Hilton) that put these in the rooms and Neutrogena for making them. (I don't make it a habit of staying at expensive hotels as I can't afford to travel any more, but back when I was working in psychiatry, I had to travel and take classes to keep my licenses up to date.) These prethreaded needles should be available in the craft store. It came with basic colors of thread, about two feet and lovely sharp needles. I set about darning the pillow which had a total of 4 holes in it.

It has been at least fifteen years since I hand darned anything. The first knot was awkward and the first stitches. Then I fell into a familiar, rote pattern. The little pillow was darned in no time without me even thinking about what I was doing. It must be the thousandth thing I have darned in my life and now it is as easy a breathing again, even with a decade break from darning.

Hence my new life will be a little hard to learn but eventually it will be a pattern, a jumping off point for the rest of my day. I awake and instead of grabbing the cup of Joe, I have to grab the test kit and test myself. Then I weigh myself and then I inject the insulin and take the pill. Then and only then can I have my infusion of coffee, now with a powdered whitener instead of the sugar laden organic milk. My PA suggests in case of a hypoglycemic attack to drink 8 ounces of milk because the sugar hits instantly and protein will carry you and maintain the sugar level for a couple of hours. All these years, I thought orange juice was the way to go but it just provides the sugar high and then you drop like a rock. I am learning.

I guess even an old Bird Dog can learn new tricks. Actually I think I am a cat because ordered to retrieve, I am more likely to give you the finger and go do what I want to......well, not any more....

The Unscrew Faery

George is plagued by a member of the Fae we have come to not so affectionately call the Unscrew Faery. This little creature is capable of unscrewing things. For example, if George places anything but a stick pen in his pocket, a few minutes later, it will be unscrewed and ink will be everywhere. His shoe laces will not remain tied. Given a month or so, Velcro doesn't even work that well. Buttons pop off and disappear forever......it is hard to keep than man together. I've given up. Duct tape doesn't work.

I cannot use a screw driver of any variety. I can't unscrew anything and forget actually getting a screw to go into anything. George can get anything to come apart.

He arrived in the kitchen and held out this to me and asked if I knew what it was....absolutely not. What kind of mess was this?

You are not going to believe this.

That mess on the left is what is left of his shoelace after it was blown apart by the Unscrew Faery. This little monster first removed the plastic tip from the shoe lace so George had glued and taped it closed. When he woke up, this was all that was left threaded through the holes in his shoe and no, it wasn't the cat's work.

Now I am wondering if the cat really has been tearing the toilet paper apart. I mean, she denies it and yesterday when I spun the roll of toilet paper she panicked and ran out of the bathroom. Maybe........Oh, I really, really don't want to think about that........