Reader Questions Part 2

Since it's a slow stitching week, I think I'll do some more reader questions today. These come from Karen:

1. Why do you like Flamingos? If you could keep one as a pet, would you?

The flamingo obsession actually started as a silly college thing. When I was a sophomore at Purdue I lived in the Windsor dorms with a roommate and one day late in fall (late enough that most of the leaves were already off the trees) we had really nasty thunderstorm with lots of big wind gusts. Next day we were walking home from class together and on our way into the dorm noticed that somehow in the storm a lawn flamingo had gotten stuck in the big tree outside our window. It was a big tree too and of course the flamingo was way up near the top so no way anyone was going to get it down anytime soon. We thought it was pretty funny that a lawn flamingo of all things had gotten stuck in our tree and made some jokes about it. The poor flamingo ended up staying in the tree for almost a year before maintenance finally got it down but we kind of unofficially adopted it as a mascot as it made us smile on bad days to see the silly thing up in the tree. This was all around the time that Ty Beanie Babies and the bigger plush Ty animals were very popular and we found Ty plush flamingos at the university bookstore shortly after our flamingo got removed so we each bought one in memory of our tree-dwelling buddy. That's where it started and I still have my Ty flamingo:)

As for keeping a real one as a pet, no I don't think I'd like to. I've watched them enough at the zoo to know I don't want a real one:) I am putting a few of the plastic variety in my backyard though.

2. What's your favorite Anne Rice book?

Ooooh, that's a good one. I think my favorite will have to be The Tale of the Body Thief because I thought it was very interesting and entertaining to observe Lestat try to live as a mortal after all his time as a vampire.

I should share a bit more about how I met Anne Rice because it is a pretty good story. She did a book signing at our local Barnes & Noble when I was in high school. I was just reading her books for the first time at that time so I was pretty excited about it and wanted to go to the signing not realizing quite how long the line might be. At that time I didn't have a driver's license yet so Mom was my only way of going and she agreed to drive me but warned me that we could only stand in line a little while because she would have to bring my little brother who was only about a year old at the time.

So we went and loaded Adam up in his stroller with juice and some toys. The line wrapped all the way around the store and almost outside by the time we got there and I was crushed because I knew we couldn't wait in that. Mom told me to go ahead since we were there and we'd wait as long as we could so we stepped up to the back of the line after purchasing Servant of the Bones, which was her new book at the time. We waited about 5 minutes and had shuffled a few steps closer to the front but not much when a store employee approached us. We thought she might have come to give us a hard time about the stroller but it turned out that she was inviting us to the front of the line instead. Apparently, at Anne Rice's request, all those with young children were to be moved to the front of the line immediately so that they would not have to wait. So we moved all the way up to about third in line and met Anne Rice. She signed my book and we talked for a few minutes. We thanked her for her consideration of those with children, talked about her books, and she asked me a few questions about what stories I'd like to see. Oh yes, and she complimented my penguin t-shirt:)

3. Favorite thing to do while stitching (TV, movie, radio, etc...)

It used to be movies. I used to pop in my favorites-Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, chick flicks, etc and stitch while listening. Lately though I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks while stitching and I've really enjoyed that. So far I've listened to the whole Harry Potter series, Angels & Demons, and The Da Vinci Code. I'd like to do the Lord of the Rings series next but I have to dig it out of Erich's truck first as he's been listening to it on the drive to and from work recently.


Wedding flower update: I got the arch piece just about finished this morning. I've got a few pearls to glue on tonight because I need Erich to be home so he can hold it while I glue. The silly thing won't quite sit right on a table for me to do the placement and hot glue. The memorial candle's all set to go too. Just have the unity candle left and I'm going to work on that tonight and maybe Thursday afternoon, depends on how tired I am after work tonight.

Not much else going on though I did put a few stitches in QS Dragonfly today because I took an hour to stitch for sanity's sake this morning. Are you sure it's not Saturday yet?