Back from the Dead and Ready to Party!

Sorta... At least I'm back from the dead!

At this point I suppose I should give a warning/reminder that I'm a very heavy picture poster and also reigning Queen of the Run-on Sentence. That much has not changed. I don't seem to have all the spacing issues down since I'm back so your patience is appreciated.

What can I say? What a long strange trip it's been? Nah - boring and mundane life and health struggles. When we went to London on the way home from India in 2005, we both got the flu and the dear husband had some long-term stent problems. I stalled and sputtered to a halt, blog-wise. Always good not to bore the reader with these struggles until post-angst humor makes them more readable - or unless you can do it with cute pix.

One of the biggest changes was losing my darling Cardigan Corgi "Miss Scarlet" in April to Lymphoma. She was a darling girl and I miss her every day... See her little cute pod feet below. Pembroke feet are more like little tree trunks.

Now for comfort and companionship of the doggie variety - I am left with "Trixie," a Pembroke Corgi and a fear biter. TMK and Ryan's "Frankie" and some of Frankie's furry friends are Pembroke Corgis - without the biteage part. A Corgi without a tail (Pembrokes have the vestigial teeny bit docked soon after birth) you might think would just ignore the whole idea of a tail to save face. But no... Trixie chases the missing tail just as if she had it - wiggles the stump of bone where it should be located when happy, and all in all acts as if it's not really gone. Fear biter dogs - if you're not familiar with the term - bite and get aggressive out of fear rather than being naturally aggressive. They are often especially submissive to avoid any confrontation that makes them nervous. When they feel cornered, they turn into Cujo and it's not pretty.
Scary - ain't it? Fortunately these are rare occurrences and she is mostly a very sweet and loving dog. Adores licking the leftover foam from my latte, doesn't mess with dropped yarn balls, waits patiently for accidentally dropped morsels, and is very affectionate.

Pretty much the only biting behavior is when we're all settled in bed and asleep. All is well until one of us has the NERVE (or the bravery) to turn over. She is instantly awake and sure that there are demons under the covers who are coming to get her. She jumps up barking, chomps at whatever body parts are making the highest hill under the covers, and jumps off in a snit - not to return for hours - when it starts all over again. It's quite the wake-up call I can tell you. Why don't we keep her off the bed? Sometimes we do, but she's very sweet and the snuggling part is sometimes worth the inevitable chomping part.

So about the almost-2-year dead zone of blogging. I have lots of pictures from that time so I will fill in here and there with posts-o-the-past bits fit for publication. This is mainly a fiber blog, with travel thrown in - so the next post will be all about the fibes.

Dear huz and I will be leaving for India next month for another 3-month stint. I didn't go last year - due to Scarlet's health and other things. This time we'll be staying mostly in Chennai (formerly called Madras). Chennai is a couple hours north of where we were last time - in Pondicherry. India is having so much fun changing the names of cities that they just can't stop themselves. Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkata made sense - they went back to the original names that that the more English names were derived from. Madras to Chennai? Not so much. Now they are changing Pondicherry back to Puducherry. Enough already! Fortunately you don't have to feel guilty about using the old names for everything when most of the residents can't be bothered to use the newer names. I'm hoping we'll get to travel North to Delhi this time and see the Taj Mahal and some very famous temples. BFF Natasha will hopefully coming to visit with the last of her inherited Frequent Flyer miles. (Who knew you could inherit FF miles!?!) Much romping with a fiber-oriented friend will enhance the trip a great deal.

It will be great to see Lakshmi again in Pondicherry. Remember Lakshmi? Visiting temples where there are elephants to give blessings for donations is a high point for me.

Always wondered how much time temple elephants have to spend in the makeup tent before they come on for their shift. They put on lots of jewelry too. The Husband found out on his last trip that they are absolute fools for cucumbers.

Glad to be back, and hope to stay back!