Wow, what a week. As I write this, I'm sitting in my office, not exactly thrilled to be here on Saturday night, but resigned to it. I put in 60 hours before today, pretty much not leaving the office until 8, 9, 10, or midnight, depending which day you're talking about. Whee.

The worst was Thursday night, though. At 11pm, I called to check in with Ryan, and he told me Merlin - our fattest cat - had just started peeing all around the apartment, and it was bloody. He called our vet and they said they were still there (until midnight, apparently - good to know) and bring him on over. I met them there around midnight and we had to leave the poor boy overnight (the cat, not the husband!).

The next day they confirmed (via ultrasound and x-rays) that he has a mass of crystals in his bladder - Feline Urologic Syndrome. The blockage is bad, but not total, so they said it can be treated non-surgically. He stayed 2 nights there, and came home this afternoon with special food (Hill's S/D), an antibiotic, and a urethral relaxer. He's home with Ryan and is going to have to stay in Ryan's (rugless) office until he's back to normal a bit. They said it'll be about 6 weeks before he's fully better.

Poor Merlin. I feel bad that he's in such pain. Ryan said he'd seen him straining sometimes in the litter box, but I had never noticed it, and it wasn't until the past few days when he suddenly started exhibiting real symptoms. Poor little kitty. At least Ryan was home and able to catch it before it got even worse.

We did get a good excuse to replace our old, ripped up (by Merlin, who is too heavy to make it up on the bed cleanly and occasionally grabs on and falls anyway) down comforter. He peed just enough on it to make it unsalvageable. Actually, any pee on it is pretty much enough for me.

So, he's home with the kitty, I'm here at work, and no one is having any fun this Saturday. I hope tomorrow will be happier.

I was so excited about the Quiz sweater that I didn't get to tell you about my fantastic Saturday. First, we went up to the Dia:Beacon museum (which I mistyped as Dia:Bacon so many times that I now call it that). The museum is built in an old box-printing plant, so the space is just tremendous. Lots of white space, and lots of light.
 
I'd say it was about 50/50 interesting work and pretentious crap. I like the way it's organized. When you enter a gallery, there is a little box on the wall with 8.5 x 11" laminated cards discussing the artist and the work. Much of the work was actually more interesting to read about than to look at.  I did love some of it, including this hard-to-describe string sculpture by Fred SandBack. It looks like mirrors and solid space, but it's just friggin yarn (yay yarn!) Apparently, the artist committed suicide back in June of this year. Sad. His work was really interesting.

I think my favorite piece there was this really amazing piece made from painted metal scraps. The artist is John Chamberlain.


 
As you can see, it's tremendous and so colorful - one of the few colorful pieces in the museum! It's called Privet but it looks like seaweed floating up from the ocean bottom to me.
 
The thing about contemporary art is that a lot of it doesn't beckon you to stay and stare at it for hours, to study it. (Not that I often feel that urge anyway, but Ryan does quite often.) So, we were done in about an  hour and a half, and headed for some lunch. I had read on chowhound.com that there was a good restaurant called Cathryn's, in nearby Cold Spring. I had the most delicious gnocchi with gorgonzola-walnut sauce. So rich, so good.
 
After lunch, we wandered the quaint town a bit, but found it very yuppified, and thus too pricey for our desires. A few miles down the road, however, we discovered a cute yarn shop called Knittingsmith, and stopped in for a bit. The woman who runs the place was very friendly. I was wandering through the bookshelves and found my goal - Deb Stoller's Stitch'N Bitch!

As I was thumbing through it, my name caught my eye, which was awfully nice. It made me really miss the whole group. I haven't been to the NY Stitch'n Bitch in far far far too long. Once I moved to Brooklyn and we had a ridiculously cold winter filled with work and wedding-planning madness, I got out of the habit. I would like to start going to the new Brooklyn edition, but we're in the midst of an insane product launch at work so I don't know if that'll happen before Thanksgiving.
 
Continuing down the road, we realized we were just on the other side of the Bear Mountain Bridge from shopping nirvana, so we headed to Woodbury Common for some outlet shopping. We got there around 5, and had 4 lovely hours to spend. Holy crap, we discovered the evening is the best time to be there! The crowds are gone, it's much quieter, and you can actually get up close to the stuff you might want to buy. I got a shirt and a sweater at the BR outlet, as well as a cute-as-a-button pink sweater with an intarsia bunny face at Lucky Brand. and Ryan scored some great pants and a shirt at DKNY. We also got a really cute lasagna pan, platter with a cute fruit print, and a new bath mat at Williams-Sonoma, using only about $45 of a $140 merchandise credit.
 
You think this is over? No way, Jose! It's only 9pm and we're only an hour from home. What better time to go to Dave & Buster's? I hadn't been there since I met Ryan, and he'd never gone. Dinner, then we played lots of games. I beat 5 people at the Daytona racing game! We paddled down whitewater rapids, played basketball and skeeball, and got briefly obsessed with that game where you drop the coins down and hope they knock other coins over the edge so you get tickets. We're suckers for that shit. Dinner cost us only $25 and a $25 game card lasted us until half-past midnight, at which point we turned our tickets in for two D&B water bottles and a D&B thermal coffee mug. Ryan even got them to pour him a coke into his water bottle on the way out.

So, we saw some art, some pretty fall scenery, had a great lunch, discovered a new yarn store, bought a fantastic knitting book written by a fantastic person, went outlet shopping AND played hours of video games. How are we going to top that next weekend?!

I'm thinking I probably shouldn't be all that proud of this.



But I kind of am. Fun quiz, courtesy of Jackie. Go ahead and take it yourself

On the other hand, what I am immensely proud of is this.



I finished the knitting and seaming last night, and picked up the buttons today at M&J during lunch. (The best thing about my new office is its proximity to fabric and trimming shops.) I was even thinking ahead and picked up an extra button, which I will enclose for Lisa, for the inevitable moment when one pops off or breaks. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's even done that, but I felt pretty smart when it occurred to me.

Here's an odd note - Meredith, if you're reading this, I can't seem to get email through to you. I got the "your email is delayed" note from Verizon. But I really appreciate your offer of a stocking pattern and would love to see it if you can find it!