Most of the yesterday after a wind storm I had no cable and no internet. But I did have a novel, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. I loved the way the author was able to gracefully slip from character to character and past to present using dialogue. I read it pretty much in one sitting. I did not enjoy the loose ends left in the final chapter, but I'm a closure kind of person.
Little Frida got an extreme makeover. Her 6" long hair is pretty and very soft, but to properly care for it, a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes a night of brushing is required. Skip a couple nights and you end up with mats behind her ears and in her armpits. (Don't you hate it when that happens?) Anyhoo... The mats were on the verge of getting to be too much and off to the groomer she went. She went from looking like a bearded collie:
to a long-tailed schnauzer-y looking dog:
She wasn't too terribly traumatized by the whole thing, just a little shivery in the 50 degree weather we have just now. And we had Sofie as a weekend guest. She is generally a low maintenance pug, but the two dogs together can get pretty rambunctious:
Which brings us to another good thing to do when the cable is out. You can pass the time pleasantly by knitting a pretty baby sweater. My daughter's friend Amanda is expecting a little girl soon. I am making an Elizabeth Zimmerman February Baby Jacket from one of the best knitting books ever, the Knitting Almanac. I chose a periwinkle raw silk yarn. Although I know it's dicey to present a hand-wash garment to a new mom, Amanda is a girl who can appreciate the accomodations which must be made for the finer things in life. The sweater is coming along beautifully:
But, alas! there is a complication. The dogs were fooling around and got into the knitting bag. This is what a $9.00 skein of raw silk looks like after two mutts have a tug-of-war with it:
This might be considered a Gordian knot solved by Alexander the great with a bold stroke of his sword. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I'd make the naughty dogs work on it, but they have no thumbs.