Gorgeous Shawl

I'm participating in my first swap over at Ravelry, and my partner, cheetah2011, knitted this amazing shawl for me. The pattern is Olive Garden by Tanya Gobruseva, made with Aunt Lydia's 100% Viscose from Bamboo, in a beautiful sage color (one of my favorite colors). I didn't want to implode Rav's bandwidth, so here are photos of the shawl, showing all its gorgeousness. I am simply gobsmacked by its beauty and her talent, and am completely in love with this shawl. It has beads! I cannot imagine the patience to knit with beads.

Dudley at the Library

Dudley subbed for the regular Read to a Dog canine at the public library last week, and had a grand old time. He was a little restless, but he didn't know what was expected of him (nor, really, did I), so I expect him to be better next week when he does his second guest appearance. A 9-month-old baby crawled all over him; he loved it. Yes, that is a tiny, child-sized chair he has precariously positioned himself on. No, I did not teach him that trick. that's the one trick he came with when I adopted him. It's a pretty good one.

A Brief Respite

We took a brief respite from blogging to deal with the death of our beloved Mikolaj, a.k.a. Mr. Big, who died on June 9 at the grand old age of 14.5 years. While not unexpected, the death of someone you love (whether that someone is a human animal or a canine animal) takes a lot out of you. Miko's death has been the easiest to process, in one sense, of the five pets I've lost the past 10 years, because he essentially died of old age, but that doesn't mean that the gaping maw in my heart didn't hurt and I didn't need some time.

Dudley and Zima have needed some time, or, at least, Dudley did. He wouldn't go near the towel I carried to clean up after Miko in my car, and he backed away from Miko's ashes twice. He clearly senses that they are something to do with Miko, and something that distresses him. Zima was not affected this way at all, but her bond to Miko was not as strong as Dudley's. Dudley was quiet for a couple of days, missing his buddy.

But life continues. And even though  bad storms blow nests out of branches and leave wee birds homeless, as with this hummingbird nest blown out of tree Saturday, it is all part of living. And we can always rebuild, and always will.