Poor Maya. Today Dave went out for a day in downtown Leeds. When he left, she went into an absolute panic. She even managed to squeeze out the front door and go flying after him! Luckily, she was easy to catch, as she raced straight up to him and flopped down on her back for tummy pettage (her ultimate tactic of persuasion: Look at this tummy! How could you possibly leave it behind?). He scooped her up and carried her back to the house, she gave him big puppy eyes of desperate appeal, and I held her collar firmly until the front door was completely shut. Ever since Patrick left a week and a half ago, she does not trust any of her people to walk out the front door alone! She's been whining desperately, off and on, ever since then, making it about 3 hours of whining now...luckily, I do understand why she's upset, so I'm not irritated at her, but we'll both be relieved when her wait is over! And less than 48 hours until Patrick's back, too - yay!!!! Without spoiling any info from his next journal entry, I'll say that it sounds like his first MFA residency has been absolutely fabulous, fun and inspirational and challenging in the best possible way, and I am so glad he's doing this - but Maya and I will both be very happy to have him back home again when it's finished!

Meanwhile, Dave's introduced me to a new-to-me band, "Cake", which I've totally fallen for. My two very favorite songs out of the album he gave me (Comfort Eagle) are "Opera Singer" and "Commissioning a Symphony in C"...and yes, that would be utterly predictable to anyone who knows me and knows those 2 songs! If you don't know those songs, though, they are both so worth listening to (although I could only find a link for the second one)...

And for anyone else who has already read & loved Harry Potter 7 and would like to revel in the joy a little longer, here's canarynoir's wonderful entry about the book, which I loved (the entry, I mean, as well as the book!).