Dog sitting and little stitching

Ok, before I put it off AGAIN, I'll brief you on my latest adventures in house/dog sitting. You've met Buster. He's an old, rescue boy. His owner had to give him up after the Northridge earthquake when their apartment was destroyed and they couldn't find a place that would take Buster. That was in 1994 and he was probably a couple years old then so now he's a veritable sage of dogdom. Hence he's earned his deafness and semi blindness. Still he cracks me up. Allow me to share Buster and the Cat.

One summer day. next to a yard sculpture, on a bench in Buster's backyard sat a very proud cat....

Buster wandered straight down the front of the cat's bench not 3 inches from said cat's nose, and stopped to explore the other end of the bench.....

Suddenly something clicked for Buster. He saw a CAT! A cat in HIS yard!!!! He backed his arthritic hips up and headed back to the other end of the bench to oust the interloper. .... [Please note: cat tail escaping through vines]



I think of the above shot as "He was just here. Wasn't he? I mean, I saw him. Uh, did you see him?"
Oh how I wish I had a movie of the next few seconds where Buster sniffed the cat spot, stared at the cat spot, looked at me, looked at the spot, looked at his feet, sniffed the spot, and finally resorted to sniffing the yard sculpture in case that was the cat and he was just being really, really still. In the meantime the cat, having realized his leap through the grape arbor may have been less dignified than necessary was doing a slow stroll out of the yard not 6 feet away. lol

Cat's aside, Senor Buster and I picked figs YUMMMMMM

and grapes (also yum, just not as big a yum as figs)

and lounged around. Well, he lounged and I worked. Kind of a division of labor thing.

Oh, another thing you should know about Buster is he's very strict with bedtime and he gets very peevish if you don't get in bed when he thinks you should be there. If you don't obey his pointed stares and deep, meaningful sighs/huffs and his natural Australian Shepherd tendency to try and herd you where he wants you, there will be a comeuppance. You see, Buster likes to get up at 5am. If you haven't annoyed him the day before, he lets you go back to bed. If you have mucked with his sleeping arrangements, he trots around the bed bumping into it and jangling his color of tags. When you tell him to knock it off he gives you an innocent "who me?" look and smiles his best dogie smile. Somewhere around 7:30am I locked him out of the bedroom. So I'm not to swift of thinking before the crack of dawn!

Stitching? Oh yeah I have GREAT PROGRESS to report -- Yesterday was needlepoint shop working day, so a couple canvases got to come out to play ---

Remember the penguin ball --

What? You note no differences? Hey, he's got a beak and feet now! lol

And then there's my Zuni bear --

No difference there either? Oh, please! I put in maybe 100 stitches! I finished the row of navy perle at the bottom of the turquoise satin stitches and started the Kreinik overdyed line.

Yeah, you're right. Pathetic. But hey, I get to go to Denver. I get to go to Denver. (If you go that in the neener neener neener sing song, you'll get the mood.)

Back to clearing off my desk. I swear I'll check everybody's posts. I will honest. I just have to make it through tomorrow -- then if I'm lucky Tuesday will be easier and Wednesday..... I'll be in DENVER!!!! lol

Thoughts on going to Denver for WorldCon -- to paraphrase Sharyn McCrumb in Bimbos of the Death Sun ----
“For one fateful weekend the annual science fiction and fantasy convention," Denvention," has all but taken over a usually ordinary [series of] hotel[s and an unsuspecting convention centr], now the halls [and streets] are alive with Trekkers, tech nerds and fantasy gamers in their Viking finery, and one of them is a killer....” {Actually, I don't suspect our folks will be murdering anyone in real life.... at least not during the con.}