Coffee With An Octopus

I like to use coffee mugs that remind me of beloved places and people, and today's mug does both.  I love to scuba dive in warm water and on one of our trips to Bonaire I saw at least three octopuses... octopi?.. and a couple years back DS gave me a couple of coffee cups for Christmas.  One has a shark swimming up out of "the deep" at you and my favorite one has an octopus sitting on the bottom with its eight tentacles curved up to greet you as you sip.  When it's a hundred-million degrees below zero a person needs a little humor to wake up to. 
 
And we've still got that gorgeous Wolf Moon in the icy clear sky to wake up to.

I got to learn something new (again) all day yesterday!  Mrs. Boss (and, to be honest, I was right there with her) got to the end of her rope, patience-wise, with the "upgrade" of our old POS system and started the new year off with yet-another new POS system.  This one seems a whole lot friendlier and an incalculable lot less buggy.  I'm taking it in little bites, learning a couple things at a time and making copious notes to share with Mrs. & Mr. Boss, so things are going well, although I did realize quite suddenly that the tech lady neglected to tell me how to make a sale.  I was selling a class and manual, had the customer's credit card in my hand, and realized I didn't know where to go from there.  Then I noticed a big green Total button on one side and tapped it.  Whew!  Payment choices popped up and there were just enough prompts to get me through putting in a credit card.  Either I'm smarter than I thought I was or this system is waaaaay more intuitive than the previous one.  (personally, I'm going with me being smarter)  Adventures in computing, ya gotta love it.

Then when I got home from work, after standing in the icy night filling up my gas tank (hey, it was down to a half-tank [bad in weather this cold] and gas is $2.08/gallon which I figure is worth standing in the cold for 5 minutes), our renter showed me that one of the garage door cables had snapped.  Great.  There was no way I was paying for a middle of the night service call so I've got some poor schmuck of a repairman coming sometime today to fix it.  Wouldn't you hate to have that job in this weather???

And after supper I piled myself up on the couch with a blankie and knitted on the second Fast Mitten.  I want to have it done for Thursday's Knitting Guild meeting.  That should not be a problem even if learning that new computer thing gets in the way of my work knitting time.  *sigh*  Having to work at work?  Aren't there laws against that?  Or at least statutes?

January 6--InVincible Productions, Lucy with Catnip Mice.  Clary's arms and hands were scratched and bloody and Abe still didn't have the shot he wanted.  The studio was too warm and the air was thick with floating cat hair.  Six long-haired cats were sprawled in a thick cluster of catnip mice.  Clary thought they looked like a bunch of frat boys after a kegger.  "Can you fluff the fur and straighten the bow on that black one?" Abe said, "and see if you can pose his back legs a bit better.  We're not shooting cat porn here."  Clary pulled down the sleeves of her denim shirt.  Maybe the thick fabric would protect her from Mr. Tibbles claws.

Time to start layering on the warm clothes because I get to go to work today to learn more computer stuff.  Whoop. Ee.  I'd rather burrow under all the lap blankets and afghans I can find and knit.  Stay warm, peoples.  Hot buttered rum for everyone!  Okay, soup first, then the rum.  Mmm, lentil soup.  I don't have any right now, this week we have turkey and chickpeas with green beans, but I foresee lentil soup in my near future.  Hasta la vista, babies.
--Barbara