Bear With Me

Hahahahahaha.  Sorry, I couldn't resist.  All I did yesterday was go downstairs to play with the laundry and come up to sit on the couch and work on the Mitten Bear.  I got the body finished, one leg crocheted, and the ears and tail (which are oddly the same) made.  Three more legs, a little sewing up, and one more animal done.  Do you see that stick?  It came, wrapped in a paper sleeve, tucked into the cloud of fiberfill labeled "Special! Bonus Tool!"  They call it a "stuffing stick."  If it was lying next to a plate, it'd be called a chopstick.  Whatever you call it, it's a godsend for stuffing bear legs.

I couldn't remember where I stashed the book that started this odyssey of crocheted animals so I've been looking for it.  Do you think I can find it?  No, of course not.  So I'll stop at B & N when I'm out later for a copy.  Then I'll find the original one which I was so thrilled to find in a Little Free Library and put in a "safe" place which is now unknown to me.  Arrgh.  Well, when it turns up it can go right back into a LFL for some other child to enjoy.

There are no photos of clean (or dirty) laundry (you're welcome) and the weather is dreary and depressing so the partially membered (that's the opposite of dismembered, right?) bear is all there is.

November 28--Lewis Kemper, Children Discovery.  Marta followed the straggle of third-graders through the bright atrium into the murky green light of the freshwater display in the aquarium.  She thought the place smelled like her grandpa's bait bucket and she found the flickering light that filtered through the tanks disturbing.  She'd fallen off the dock at the lake when she was a kid and got disoriented in the weeds and pilings.  Her cousin James had dived in to pull her out.  The moving green light made her feel trapped and breathless again.  "Mrs. Appel," Clara tugged at her sleeve, "why are all the fish swimming upside down?"  Marta looked around to see that all the fish in all of the tanks were dead and floating.  She clapped her hands for attention.  "Children, we need to leave."  A dozen small voices protested.  "I know you want to stay but I think something is wrong."  She turned to lead the group back the way they came but the floor seemed to tilt and she slid down the glass of the nearest tank.  The children fell where they stood.

I'm thinking gas leak.  Or maybe aliens.  I've got a nice list of places to stop when I'm out and about and happily one stop involves lunch with a friend so I should probably hop in the shower and get this show on the road.  Stay dry and warm today.
--Barbara