MADAME AMBASSADOR, I PRESUME

Please forgive the delay in sending Madame Muriel on to her next unsuspecting victim. (Um, I mean hostess.) I was all ready to stuff her into an envelope (um, I mean, carefully package her in her traveling compartment), when Aunt Chrissy pointed a few things out to me.

"You know", she said as nicely as she could given the circumstances of having to put up with me (and my little dog too) on a daily basis, "People are going to think that the only thing that this part of the state of Indiana has to offer is spoiled rotten little dogs in smoking jackets, sushi restaurants, and a Michael's. That's rather unfair, don't you think, especially in light of all of the negative publicity that South Bend has been getting about being such a crappy place to live."

I did what I always do in these situations. I hung my head in shame and promised to get my proverbial act together and just go out of the damn house already for something other than newspaper retrieval or a Target visit. I decided to really go show Madame Flat Flossie Her Very Self the sights around these here parts.

And then it got hot and humid.

I mean hot and humid enough that when I took Stewey outside for a constitutional, he asked me if we had moved to some sub-tropical place in the middle of the night and whether or not I had appropriately altered my Clinique three-step to reflect the changes in the atmosphere.

So visiting attractions and photographing them and writing about them has been ceremoniously pushed to the big fat back burner with hopes that Aunt Chrissy and I will be able to spend a few minutes on Saturday tooling around with Muriel stuffed into the Vera. (Um, I mean, with Muriel happily along for company.)

As final evidence of this, you will be happy to know that I called the South Bend Chamber of Commerce today and asked the seven year old intern who answered the phone in the Convention and Visitor's Bureau if she would be kind enough to send me a guide. We'll see what comes.

On the stitchy front, progress continues on Stars. I finished up the Ava Gardner block after several nights of extreme angst, but seem to be plowing through Marlon Brando lickety split:

I am still enjoying this piece immensely, and hope that the final result will thrill me as much as the stitching of it has. And may I just send you all a very big and very teary (and somewhat sweaty) THANK YOU for all of the encouragement and lovely comments that you've sent my way about this one? I can hear you out there cheering me on to the finish line. Woo Hoo!

That's all for now. I really should go see what Stewey is up to. His back is feeling a little better, I think, but he and I are having some really really bad "getting along" issues. If I can get him out from under the big girl sleigh bed, I think I need to issue an apology and kiss him a few times on his little nose. He is, after all, my Stewey Little, and I need to keep reminding myself that life without him would not be worth living.