Chewing the Fat of a Cat

The thankfulness upon the fact that I have no readers make the feel of guilt of not writing anything in a year a little lesser. Should I tell what I have been doing all this time or do they know that the people inactive in the Internet are active in the real life? That I have dozens of unfinished stuff that I won't publish here? Why do people put pictures of unfinished stuff on the Web anyway? To feel to have accomplished at least something and but irritate readers by publishing a picture of circular needles, a ball of yarn or two, and something knitted by the name 'socks'? If had readers I would tell them to tell the other bloggers to not to do that. At least those pictures should be tagged with 'wip'.

And I? I traveled 400 kilometers to have a place to stay inside of, to hear a fat cat snoring upside down while listening to Alice Cooper and have a continuously breaking Internet connection. What did I have before?

Yes, my cat listens to Alice Cooper. 'Poison' is her favorite.  And yes, she did snore lying on her back on my sofa in the old place too. I promised myself not to bore people with the endless tales of my big fat snoring tuxedo cat. That was before I understood that if I ever get something to write about that will be about the cat, because I don't bother to take bad photos in bad light of crappy knitting. And before I understood that no one is reading this. There's something in the Finnish weather! Whenever I have time to document my works the light goes hiding somewhere. If ever the good light would make my work look better.

But the cat! Oh yes, the cat is a fat monochromatic beast in yellow light, gray light, darkness, shadow, forever. She's easy to describe. Only two non-colors on her round, hairy body. And if you think cats are slender this one looks like Jabba the Hut in a smocking. She has a short tail that makes a bump before reaching upwards as if the tail was not made of cat bones but wire and hairy play-doh. She has a lot of flab under the belly and a round face that looks even rounder because she has a black cat mask on her white face and a double chin. She looks a bit like Garfield. The eyes are perfectly round and her facial expressions are perfected to beg more food with those perfectly round eyes that get a sad, teary glow when I show her the pet food bowl filled with dry food. And she goes meow-eh in a sad tone and looks at me with even sadder and rounder eyes telling me that her overfed body does not cope with dry feed but needs something in gravy or jelly or sauce. And I tell her to either eat it or leave it. Her sad meowing and me pointing at the bowl continues a while until she either eats some or goes to lie down. When I had two cats, which is only a month ago, I had to leave food for the old and skinny cat by the consequence that the fat one stole her food.

The fatty kitty even stole ham from a package by opening the lid when my flat mate had left some night snack materials next to her while sleeping on the floor in our cooler living room during the summer heat period. And the next morning her big, sad, round eyes told us that she was totally forced to it because the cat food was either finished or of poorer quality. And she was so sure no one would ever feed her again. She had been fed every morning before and after work for thirteen years. How could she not know that we had not abandoned her now? Meow-eh.

A Close-up to Latvian Wool Wonders

These pictures are taken by my travel companion Merja Liimatainen.
The knitted and crocheted critters on the window sill are in the Hobbywool store I wrote about earlier. The entrance with knit graffiti is there.







The well-organized and a bit soulless store with sweet hanks of shiny yarn is the Filati store in downtown Riga not far away from Hobbywool located in the Vecriga, old town. The prices of mercerized cotton hanks is about same as in Finland, but some mohair and kid mohair blends were a lot cheaper.

If you are in the mood of experience and some unique ready-made bargain gifts, you should visit Hobbywool, especially if there is time issues. They have a huge collection of hand-made items of very affordable prices. For instance, a hand-made tunic costs about 50 lati, when you would expect 150 lati for the excellent work. The young ladies speak English rather than Russian, and Hobbywool was the only place in Riga where I needed to change to English.

Just a reminder; Russian can be considered as a language of war intruders so please remember to be extra nice and use some Latvian compliment words for "thank you" and "please". Telling how wonderful the country is always helps too.


I also liked the Filati store, because there are none in Finland. The sales lady was friendly and bought me cardboard boxes to fill with yarn. They accept credit cards too, but luckily, I had left mine in the hotel. I only spent all the cash I had on mohair hanks. The lady also showed me some of her work for inspiration how to work with the mercerized cotton. The tunic was of exquisite work and the fiber is very comfortable to wear in hot weather.

More about great Latvian yarn stores later!
Please check addresses on-line before your trip, they may change so I don't write them here.

Hobbywool on-line
http://www.uzadi.lv/en/shop/_catalogue/salon_in_the_old_town

http://www.uzadi.lv/en/facts-1/facts

According to a quick Google search there appears to be several Filati shops in Riga.