Why Not Start Another UFO?

I wanted to finish some of the projects I have going, like the Moscow Slippers--which are pretty close to being done--but I had this new yarn sitting here and I just couldn't resist.

This yarn is, I'm pretty sure, Bernat Mosaic. But it's a bag yarn (mill end) from Joann. It doesn't matter. I love the color. Look at it!

I cast on for Alice Tang's (Red Heart) Open Front Shrug. I had a few issues, though. First of all, I did swatch. But I swatched in pattern, and frankly, it's pretty hard to count stitches in a lace pattern. I'm pretty sure I got guage with #7s, which would make perfect sense since the pattern calls for 9s and I always have to go down two sizes.

But then, I cast on for the ribbed cuff. And that was way too small. Like so small a child would have trouble wearing it. So I ripped that out and cast on for the large size. But that was too small, too. So I ripped that out and went up a needle size and cast on for the large. (Normally, I would make a M for M, but I guess I'm making an L today.)

This cuff would never fit my wrist, but M is considerably thinner than me, so I think this will work fine for her. Hopefully my guage is good, since I changed needle sizes. It still looks a bit small to me.

Shopping Trip: Joann

I was hurrying a little bit to get home from the store before dark--I'm really having a lot of trouble seeing at night. But, since I was driving right by Joann, I decided to stop for a sec to take a look at yarn. Not that I need yarn. I just wanted to look at it.

I don't have a problem! I can quit any time!

Anyway, Joann had another one of those bins outside with all the bags of mill end yarn. Why oh why do they do that? I can't resist digging through. And, of course, I walked away with a couple.

Not that I needed any more yarn.

Wash Your Face!

Have you seen that thing going around the interwebs? The experiment where a woman didn't wash her face for a month? She went to bed without removing her makeup, but then put more makeup on in the morning. After a month, her face was visibly aged.

Interesting, I thought. Although, I don't actually take my makeup off every night. Most nights. But sometimes I just forget.

What I found even more interesting was this: I was listening to something on TV the other night as I worked. It was on the History Channel, I think. It was explaining how uncommon it was to bathe from a time after the fall of Rome to about the mid-20th century. And one of the things the show mentioned was that Queen Elizabeth I had died with about an inch and a half of makeup on her face.

Now, hold your fingers out in front of you, an inch an a half apart. Now put that on your face. Think about that much makeup and how heavy it would be. How would you even talk? Or smile? Think of how it would smell while you were trying to eat. How did you keep it from flaking off into your food or your drink? How many zits were festering under all that?

And who would kiss you? Well, yeah, anyone you wanted to kiss you would have to. Because you're the queen and you can make them. But who would want to? "Kiss me hard, dear. I want to feel it through all this makeup."

That's pretty gross.

Wash your face.

Ornaments

I've been making some small Christmas ornaments. I have a lot of them in my Ravelry queue and I keep meaning to get to them. The problem is that I keep finding myself at a stopping point and then I just can't get started again.

Like, I'll make all the pieces, but won't have a yarn needle close at had to sew them together. So the pieces just sit there. Or, I'll need a bit of black for the eyes or a bit of red for a mouth. And so it sits. Grrgh. It's frustrating.

I think this is just my state of mind right now. I'm a little overworked. But also, my allergies are killing me. And for some reason, the Zyrtec isn't working. So my sinuses--we don't want to talk about that, okay? Let's just say, wherever I go, people say "You look tired."

I hate that, by the way. People may be showing concern (I think they just don't have anything to say.) but it sounds really rude. Why don't you just come out and say "You look like shit, Patwoman."? That's how it sounds.

I've just started telling everyone, "Thanks. That's the look I was going for."

Where was I? Oh yeah, ornaments. So that's what I've been doing lately.

Some Kind Of ADD, I Think

Like a creativity-related ADD, combined with my heavy workload, and my rampant Volutary Tourrette's. It's making me a little frustrated.

I keep starting and stopping projects, then starting new ones. That's with my knitting and my work. I have resisted the urge with my writing because that way lies madness. (Although, I keep having really good ideas... Stop it!)

I'm a little frustrated because it seems like I'm just not getting enough done. I'd like to clone myself (Nothing sexual. No, really.) a couple of times over, just so I can get a handle on this stuff. But then, I'd have the moral dilemna of being responsible for these clones. And you know, I just don't need that kind of pressure.

I keep reminding myself of the old saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Strangely, that helps. And makes me hungry. Is that wrong?

Elephants Never Forget

I don't know if that's true or not. But check out this cute little elephant. I made him as an ornament for M. She likes elephants.

It's kind of strange that she likes them because my grandma liked them a lot. But she died when I was in high school, long before I ever thought about having a daughter. But M feels a connection with elephants. It makes me think of my grandma.

This is Mini Elephant by Aine Marriott. I knit with some Lion Brand Jiffy from the Bag O' Scraps on #4 dpns. Because I'm crazy like that.

I wish I'd stuffed him a little firmer, but I wanted him to be light, since he's a hanging ornament. I think he looks fine this way. Just very squishy.

I Never Forget

I was in Hobby Lobby the other day and found this sign in the clearance section.

Believe me, I never forget. It's not even something I can control. I just am awesome. Sometimes I might try to pretend I'm not awesome, but no one buys that. They see right through it. Clearly, though, some people need reminding.

Time Travelling... Of A Sort

I did something really weird today. I was reading an article about these people who were getting sick and couldn't figure out why. Then they had their house (which they'd moved into 5 months before) tested and found out it had 18 times the acceptable level (whatever that is) for meth. Now, to me, any level of meth is unacceptable. But apparently the government has their own standard, too.

But, whatever the standard is, these people were way over it. Their home used to be a meth lab. But this was not disclosed by the realty company. The company, by the way, is the same realty company that didn't disclose to us that the roof of the house we were buying had maybe a couple of good rains before it became more of a colander. Good thing we had an inspection first, right? They were really shady about it, too. We asked, "How old is the roof?" multiple times and they answered, "The owners haven't lived in this house." and "This house has been vacant for 14 months while the owners have been renovating it as an investment." Shady. Unethical. Dishonest.

Anyway, these poor people had all kinds of health issues (and their dog died of cancer) and so the article listed all the former meth houses in Indiana. So of course, I looked up all the addresses I knew to see if any of them were in there. I looked up everywhere I'd ever lived. None of them had been meth houses, by the way.

But I did find an address from my hometown that made me think "Where is that?" So I Googled it and looked at the street view. Then, because I found myself on a street I had walked down many, many times in my youth (That sounds bad. There were no meth houses there when I walked down it. Okay?) I decided to "walk" down it again. Using Google's street view to buzz ahead a little at a time, I "walked" all the way to my old house. And then, I "walked" to my brother's house. And then I "walked" to my grandma's house.

Let me just tell you, that is a weird feeling. It's very surreal. Maybe it's because 90% of my dreams take place in this town (that's weird, because I haven't lived there since I was 17), but it was a very dreamlike effect. The zooming from one end of the street to another--across town and back--had a very unreal, dream quality to it. But it also seemed very real, too. Like dreams do.

Especially my grandma's house--which has not changed at all. It even had the two painted metal chairs on the porch that Grandma and Grandpa used to sit on. The same clothesline at the side of the house. It gave me such a startle, I had to stop.

So weird. I'm tyring to decide if that was a good idea to do that.

Experimentation

I have this white top that I really like. It's not expensive or anything. It just fits nicely and looks good. It has kind of a wide (but not deep) scoop neckline and a little ring of rhinestones on the neckband. Like, the ring connects two pieces of the neckline. Oh here. I'll just show you what I mean and then you can also see the problem.

The problem is, all the rhinestones have come out in the wash. Now, maybe you're supposed to wash this in some special way so as not to dissolve the glue. I don't know. The tag says Machine Wash Gentle Cycle. Which, now that I'm thinking about it, is pretty stupid. Of course it's a hand wash. Because of the rhinestones. But I didn't hand wash it. I sent it through the gentle cycle on the machine.

I thought at first I might just glue some more rhinestones in those empty sockets. Or pearls. I thought pearls would be nice, too. But then I'd be right back where I started with a handwashed garment and empty sockets. Hm. So I decided to replace the no-longer-rhinestone ring with a different ring. So I cut it off.

And pulled it right out.

Inside the tube of fabric on each side were rhinestones that were still in the settings. Of course, they came out when I pulled the ring out of the fabric.

So then I took a ring that I had (It's actually a ring for purse handles.) and I was going to slide it in, when I noticed it was all... blah. Not shiny at all. Not the kind of thing you want right up there by your face. So I painted it with the copper metallic paint I used on the 3-dimensional letters I did a while back.

Looks shiny now, right? I don't know if that will work or not. It may flake off, too. We'll see. If it does, maybe I'll try a ribbon. Or else, throw the top away. As I said, it's not an expensive top or anything.

Doctor! Why Don't You Remember Me?

Ha! Here's another FO, albeit a small one. But, what it lacks in size, it makes up for in nerdy, inside references.

This is the Doctor Who Inspired Fob Watch For Baby. But I call it The Doctor's Watch. I made it for R, as part of a Christmas gift. (And, obviously, I'm not making this a rattle.) It was a really quick knit. Knitted flat, stuffed, and seamed. The only difficult part, really, was the embroidery.

Yet Another FB Rant

Well, not exactly a rant. It's not something that sends me flying into a Hulk-like rage, or anything. I just find it annoying. And it's really not so much a rant about FB as it is about the people who do these things.

You've probably guessed that I've logged into FB and witnessed yet another family fight occur out in the open air of the interwebs. (Not my family. But someone I know.) I didn't really read it, but when you see there are a million comments, you know it's drama.

What is it with people that they have to manufacture drama for themselves? Do they not have enough going on in their lives? These people are just regular people, mind you, but we see it all the time in celebrities. It's like, if no one is paying attention to them, they have to have some public feud with another celebrity or shoplift something or break a paparazzi's camera or punch someone... It's unseemly and classless, is what it is. No matter who does it.

But let's say you're a high maintenance person, who has to manufacture drama for themselves. Why must we be involved? Be Justin Bieber, if you want, and act like you're the shit. Be Amanda Bynes and act like you've lost your shit. But, seriously. Don't be that person who plasters their shit all over their Facebook status.

And what gets me the most is that these same people who post about how awful their husband or kids or parents are--they're the ones complaining about how their privacy is being violated. By everyone, apparently. The government, the insurance companies, those loyalty cards stores use, and--ironically--Facebook.

Really? I don't see how you can complain about that.

Graduation Speeches

I, like many of you probably, went to a graduation recently. This one was short, as far as those ceremonies go, and pretty nice. But one thing that struck me was the quality of the graduation speeches.

Full disclosure: I have not ever given a graduation speech. But I have, in fact, given plenty of other competitive speeches. In fact, my speech winnings and my articles (features, reviews, and news) pretty much paid for my college expenses. But, even if I didn't have that writer's background, I would feel this way as an audience member.

When I was a young Patgirl, graduation speeches were meant to reminisce and inpire. They were designed to say "This is where we've been and it's been great. But the doors are open to us now and we can go out and do whatever we choose to do!" And any speech given by a guest was meant to be encouraging, uplifting, and--uh--inspirational as well.

I notice, more and more though, that the speeches are... Well, let me just give you an example from the last commencement I went to. There were three speeches. The first was from a student. It was a reminiscing speech. That's fine.

The second was from a faculty member. It went something like this: "Before you leave campus buy this book by Dr. Seuss--Oh The Places You'll Go." Now she quoted about two pages of the book. Then she rephrased those two pages in relation to graduating college. Then she quoted another 8-10 lines and rephrased those. Then quoted another big chunk and rephrased it. In all, I think her speech might have been about 65% quoting Dr. Seuss.

The third speech was from a dean. He quoted a commencement address given by Robert Kennedy to a graduating class. Are you getting that? He quoted someone else's graduation speech. A lot. I would say his speech was 50% Robert Kennedy's graduation speech. Now come on.

The problem I have with these last two speeches is-- Well, okay. I have a couple of problems. The first is that they're just not very good speeches. Not very inspiring. Now, don't misunderstand--Dr. Seuss is inspiring. Robert Kennedy was inspiring. But to try and be inspiring by just repeating what they said? Seems watered down at best.

It seems like lazy writing. And I think that sends exactly the wrong message to a graduating class.

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day always makes me think of my mom, of course. As you know, she passed away when I was young, before I became a mother myself. She would have loved my kids, though. She would have loved their humor, generosity, intelligence, kindness, fearlessness, good looks, and sense of justice. All things she held in high regard. (I, by the way, do not have all of those qualities. And no, humor is not the missing one.)

I have told you on past Mother's Days that Mom was the one who taught me to knit and crochet and read and write--all things that have serve me well in my life. I've told you that Mom's theory on reading was: All reading was good. It made you think about why you liked it or didn't like it or how you would make it better. It made you decide whether you agreed or disagreed or it made you think about whether you should or shouldn't agree or disagree. It made you look at things through others' eyes and maybe examine or re-examine your perspective. This, too, has served me well.

I don't think I've told you that I have my mom's sense of humor.

Mom loved goofy pictures. She took plenty of them when we were kids. There's a picture of me pretending to be hanging on a cliff at Yosemite (It was actually a rock several yards away from the cliff that I was standing behind, but it looked scary because of perspective.) But, like the adult me, Mom didn't really like to be in the pictures herself. In fact, once her kids come along, there aren't a lot of photos of my mom unless it was some special event like the trips we made to California to see my grandma. It's sad, too. My mom was a beautiful woman. I don't know why she stopped being in photos. I imagine she, like me, probably just didn't even think about it.

My mom loved a stupid joke. What kind of animal should you never play cards with? A cheetah! And word play. (Keep in mind that my mom grew up in an environment where you did not want to be labelled as "egghead" or "bookworm", even though she was very smart, so it was very daring that she was so amused by this.)When I was a kid, there were comedians on TV who would do skits full of malopropisms. ("I went to a wedding and then to the conception afterward." "I think you mean reception.") And the Marx Brothers. Groucho could always make Mom laugh.

So, here's to Mom. She deserves top marks.

On FaceBook, And Getting Older

I got a message from a lady I'd not talked to in years on FaceBook the other day. (You know I don't spend a lot of time on FB. I just get those notifications in my email.) Like, not "Join me playing this game or that game," but an actual message. So I logged into FB to respond.

While I was there, I noticed my newsfeed was filled with posts from people I went to high school with. Like 90% of them. And a small amount from people I know from present day. It looks like people my age outpost younger generations by about 10 to 1. (I know the math doesn't add up. Just go with it.) I suppose that's not surprising, considering everything I've read indicates young people are making a mass exodus away from FB specifically because the old people are using it.

The other thing I noticed is that everyone looks old. I don't mean that to be unkind. What I mean is, I wouldn't recognize most of them in person. Like, I wouldn't make the leap from the high school face I remembered to the today face.

Of course, that's not true for a handful of people. There are some who look the same, just older, maybe heavier. And one annoying person who looks exactly the same. How dare she?! I, of course, look pretty much the same.

Just older. And heavier. A lot older. And a lot heavier.

Don't Blink!

This is a quick little knit. It's Donna Peyton's Knitted Weeping Angel.

I used some grey worsted I had laying around. Very little of it, too. I still have enough yarn to do another one of these. The only mods I made were needle size (I used 4's.) and I added a crocheted loop to the back of the neck so it would be a Christmas ornament.

Pretty happy with this.

More Commercials That Annoy Me

Those terrible late night "Chat Line" commercials are the worst. The one with the girl who looks like she might be all of 14, gyrating while the sultry voiceover tells you how anxiously she's waiting for your call. Makes me want to puke. Mainly because she looks like a child.

Maybe it's some undercover pedo sting? Like Chris Hansen is waiting to bust whoever this commercial appeals to. I hope so.

I also hate the eHarmony commercials. Not that I disagree with programs like eHarmony. I think the concept is good, and you could definitely meet someone that way. (Of course, that would only be the meeting. You would develop the relationship in person.) I just hate the commercials.

Especially the one where the grandchild tells the company president that her teacher met someone but not through eHarmony, so she told him it would never last. Great job, Grandpa. You've encouraged your granddaughter to be a bitch. LOTS of people meet in LOTS of other ways and it lasts. In fact, I think that if you compare meeting your spouse on eHarmony.com to not meeting your spouse on eHarmony.com, the majority of couples fall into the second category.

So wipe that shitty little smirk off your face, little girl.

I also hate the Sarah McClachlan animal cruelty commercial. Again, I agree with the message. I support the ASPCA. I am an animal lover. So I don't deserve to be tortured like that. That's why I change the channel whenever those commercials come on. No matter what show I'm watching. I change the channel and I don't go back, in case Sarah's bought a block of commercials during that timeframe.

Because I love animals. And I can't watch that crap.

I also hate the commercials that take a popular, but older song and change it to fit their product. Like the Mio commercial that uses The Gap Band's "You Dropped A Bomb On Me." It's been mutated so badly that I didn't even recognize the song until about halfway through the commercial.

Seriously. If you're going to change a song that much, why bother paying royalties? You could've just had someone in your ad department work an original tune up and paid them an hourly rate for it.

Where Do You Store Your Tools?

I'm a little ashamed to tell you that I usually store them wherever I happen to stop using them. I have the Batman Needle Holder in the living room and a wooden bowl that holds some small skeins and wips. But what about those tiny things that always go AWOL when you need them? Like seaming needles and stitch markers and crochet hooks, for that matter?

You know I lose one of those seaming needles a month.

Here's what I started doing: These are the plastic tubes from M&M Minis candy. (The perfect ratio of candy to chocolate, btw. I highly recommend them.) The small one is the regular size and the larger one was one that I got at Christmas.

The small one holds my seaming needles and a couple of buttons that I wanted to keep track of. I have another small one that I keep my stitch markers in. The larger one is the perfect size for crochet hooks. How cool is that?

The only issue I've had with these is that once in a while, I will momentarily forget. Then I see the candy tubes and get excited for just the briefests of seconds. So, imagine me: "Hey, candy!" Then, "Awwww."

I probably shouldn't have shared that with you.

Lace Candle Holder

Another FO!

This is Knit Lace Jar Cover (Lace version) from WEBS. I'm using this Caron Simply Soft Party from the bag of partials Bre gave me. This color is Royal Blue Sparkle, so I'm anticipating some pretty spectacular candle shows. (Or at least some blue glints of light.)

The skein was a partial, so I don't know how much was there. The pattern calls for about 60 yards. However, the pattern also calls for size 5 needles and I used a 3 and this is still much bigger than the 1 quart jar this is supposed to fit. In fact, it fits this jalepeno jar pretty well.

Still, I'm happy with it. It's not like it had to be knit to a specific size, right? Candles don't care. I'm using a fake tealight, though, because I fear "cooking" my knitting.

Pinterest Makes Me Feel Inadequate

I love Pinterest. Especially the DIY and crafts sections. People do the most creative things. And so many people are posting all these wonderful projects. It's like everyone in the world is more creative than me. But I wonder if that's actually true, or if it's just a small percentage of the population who are creative people, but they all post on Pinterest?

I mean, really. I thought I was creative. I thought I really did fantastic things with no money--food, decor, games, child raising. I think I certainly did stuff nobody else I knew did. Like Dance Time At Commercial Break, or walks where we would explore plants and rocks and stuff, or drawing games, science games, or even my famous Can Mom Make A Pancake That Looks Like A...? Breakfast. But Pinterest moms are all doing crazy-fantastic stuff.

I made little diorama dinners of broccoli trees, cheese lakes, and chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs. I made cookies that looked like sunflowers, with mini chocolate chips for the seeds. I made a heart cake out of a round cake and a square cake. But I never made those crazy Bento Box lunches or rainbow cupcakes or homemade fruit rollups shaped like the real fruit.

And room decor... When R was born, we had no money. We lived in a little apartment that we weren't allowed to paint the walls. But, a baby can't live in a white room, right? (Well, they can, but it's much better if they have something to look at.) So I hung dozens of stuffed animals on the walls so he would see them wherever he looked. (For some reason, the apartment complex had no restriction on how many tack holes you put in the wall, but you couldn't make a room yellow or blue or anything other than white.)

Well, that was pretty clever, I thought. All my friends seemed impressed with that. And back then, I'd never seen a baby's room decorated with anything other than paint and curtains. Of course now, a half-assed search on Pinterest will show you treehouse rooms and Lego rooms and princess castle rooms. People are making skateboard shelves and plastic animal coat hooks and rugs that look like game boards. Makes me almost ashamed to remember my shitty little stuffed animal room.

Of course, that was a long, long time ago. R is a grown man now. So I suppose it's possible that people, as a whole have just gotten more creative over the last couple of decades--like the evolution of the caveman to the modern man. That seems infinitely preferable to realizing you were Kool-Aid, when you thought you were Champagne.

Glasses Case

I started going through all the scraps that Bre had brought me, trying to see if there were any colors that went together, etc. Okay. Who am I kidding. I was just handling all the yarn.

Anyway, I came across about a third of a skein of this Serenity Chunky in Stormy. I like this color mix a whole lot, so I decided to make something that's been in my Ravelry queue for a long time. It's a quick, 2-hour project that I thought would be very useful to me, since I pretty much always wear sunglasses outside.

I'm not pretentious. I have very light blue eyes that don't adjust very well in changing light and that can't take bright light at all. So driving west at sundown or east at sunrise pretty much blinds me (not exaggerating). Also, going from indoors to outdoors makes it impossible to see for a good 30 seconds.

I wear sunglasses, alright?

So I whipped up this little sunglass case to keep them in, using some of the yarn in the bag-o-yarn Bre gave me. Pretty cute, eh? Took me a little longer than 2 hours, though. Mainly because I apparently didn't pay attention to the fact that this is chunky yarn, not worsted. So it was a little stiff to knit with #5s.

I hope you realize I could have told you that I meant to use the chunky weight so the case would be more rigid and protect my glasses better. But I was honest and confessed to my mistake. You see what good friends we are?

I like the stiffer fabric, though. I think if I do this again, I will make it with a chunky yarn again. For the record, the mods on this pattern--which, by the way, is Sandy Sunglasses Clutch--are: chunky yarn, #5 needles, one yarn instead of two, and I just continued knitting I-cord on the flap once I'd decreased to 2 stitches. (Since the I-cord would just be sewn there anyway.) And I steam blocked it under a wet towel once I'd seamed it together.

I will probably do this in-the-round next time, though. Maybe add purl stitch on the sides so it stays folded straight. We'll see.

Scrap Bonanza!

It's Yard Sale Season again! But this year, like last, my schedule does not allow me to go to them. Boo! Too bad, too, because I really love going.

But Bre has been going on Saturdays. And how cool was it for her to think of me when she was there? She found a bunch of partial skeins at a sale and snagged them up for me! (She's helping me build my new Magic Ball, the little minx!) All kinds of stuff in this bag--different colors, different brands, different textures. Just the kind of thing to make my next afghan!



What's pretty cool about this is, if you can tell from this picture, the lady who put these in the sale actually labelled all the yarn. So either the bag has all the info like brand, weight, fiber content, etc., or else she's included the label in the bag. That's pretty handy. (I don't even label my scraps at home like that!)

Yay for Bre for getting these for me!

Have You Seen This?

Have you seen that commercial for the Norelco 3-in-1 Groomer? The guy starts out with a scraggly beard and some hair on his chest. Then he starts shaving himself--beard, mustache, sideburns, chest, and presumably elsewhere. Each time, he gets a little more creepy with himself--"I'd wink at me." "I'd have a wine with me." etc. And finally, "I'd (pixilated) me."

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of was Buffalo Bill, talking to himself in the mirror?


The next thing I thought was "Yeah, you'd (pixilated) yourself. Of course you would. How bad do you have to be to say no to yourself?" I mean, that's really not an accomplishment. I assume that, even if nobody in the whole world would say yes to you, that you would at least say yes to yourself. So is this really selling the 3-in-1 Groomer?

Then, it occured to me, that I'm really not that good. I mean, I'm not crap or anything. But I'm pretty average. Like, sometimes I'm tired and I don't really try all that hard. You know what I'm saying? I'm not spectacular at (pixilated).

So I guess I'd wink at me, have a conversation with me, have a wine with me... All of that, Norelco 3-in-1 Groomer or not. But as for (pixilated)? I don't know. Is it just me or nothing? Or are there other choices?

If I Were...

If I were an animal, I'd be a tiger. Tigers are badass. Think about it. They're like the sharks of the land. But, a shark can't get you on land. And tigers... Well, tigers go wherever the hell they want to. Water included. What? Are you going to be the one to tell a tiger it can't swim? Because, my friend, I think that tiger might disagree with you. While it was eating you.

But listen, tigers would not only eat you, they would kill you slowly. They might even maim you a little and let their cubs "train" on you. Yeah, you'll be wishing a shark ate you then. At least with a shark it would be over soon. Tigers make it last.

Plus, tigers are cats so they're automatically awesome and smart. And they look good. I see no down side to being a tiger.

If I were a car, I'd be a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Not the best looking, but looks good. Not the toughest, but pretty tough. Not the fastest, but fast enough. Not the most popular, but not trying to be. Not the most expensive, but not cheap.

If I were a plant, I'd be the grass in my yard. Because then I could grow and grow and grow and never get cut. Ever.

If I were a tree, I'd be one of those trees that are covered in thorns and look really scary and mean. But those are also the trees that grow those really beautiful and sweet smelling flowers and produce those fantastic fruits that are so exotic and wonderful.

What? There's no such tree?

Shut up.