One Small Finish

I did make up the pillow.  Unfortunately I discovered that I still should have worked with the way I applied the stitchery to the pillow top.  Hopefully the wrinkles will not be too noticeable. 

The picture is a little dark because I ran outside with the pillow and camera this morning before the rain began.  Needless to say, there was no sunshine.  I probably ought to wait to send it to its new owner until I have had a chance to take a picture of it in the sunshine. 

Nela's comment about iguanas eating in the gardens where she lives reminded me about a certain pet iguana named Sweetheart.  One of my sons' second grade teachers had an iguana that she kept at school.  It was a little more than a meter long including its tail.  Just before summer break, the teacher told the students that if they brought a note from home saying it was okay to bring the iguana home for the summer, she would draw a name to see who would take the iguana for the summer. 

When our son told us about the drawing, I thought we could handle this because we never win drawings.  Just look at this:  Have I ever won a Blackbird Designs drawing?  That's right, no.  How many have I entered?  I cannot even begin to count.  And the same goes for the Needleprint drawings. 

A couple days before the beginning of summer break, our son came home from school to tell us that we were going to keep the iguana for the summer.  It seems that if your child is the only one who brings a note with parental permission to keep the iguana, you get to keep the iguana for the summer.  I could not bring myself to call it Sweetie which is what the children called it.  I decided to call it Peetie with the hope that if it could recognize its name, it would think that I spoke in some strange dialect or had a speech impediment. 

The teacher told us that she cleaned out the tank - Did I say tank?  It was a large box made out of wood, screen, and  plexiglass; it measured about 4 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 3 or so feet deep. - once a week.  She said that Peetie was quite lethargic; she could pull the large branch out with Peetie on it and he would stay quiet. 

I cleaned the container out once a week and let Peetie out while I did that.  I probably began by pulling the branch out with Peetie on it but Peetie gradually became comfortable enough to walk out of the box on his own.  Eventually he decided that he liked to run around the house.  His favorite thing to do was to climb up the drapes and drape himself along on the top of the drapery rods.  We began to take Peetie outside to run in the backyard.  He liked to climb our six-foot privacy fence and arrange himself on the top of the fence to sun himself. 

This was probably the last time the teacher let a student take Peetie home for the summer.  She was quite surprised that Peetie did not stay on his branch when she wanted to clean the box and that Peetie wanted to run around the classroom.  She was also quite surprised that Peetie wanted to run around the classroom longer than she wanted to let him and he was a little vocal about being coaxed back into his box before he was ready.