Red Bear, Blue Jeans

Red Bear has been humming to herself, 
"When I wake up in the morning light, 
I pull on my jeans and I feel all right..."*
patiently waiting for me to make her a pair of blue jeans for fall, which I finally did.

Here she is this October afternoon, wearing her poppy crown from Marz, and a knitted cap my auntie made me.
(I haven't made her a top (yet), but she doesn't care. Naturally bears do not get cold--clothes are purely optional for them.)

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I seem to sew new bear clothes when I'm a bit shook up:
this weekend my father is in the hospital for observation after having a heart attack. 
They say he's doing very well, but a strange thing happened:
my sister showed him a photo of my new haircut yesterday, and he called and left a message saying he "really liked it."
This is weird.
In contrast, last month, I sent him a mug with a cute squirrel on it, and he replied with an e-mail saying only that he was "dubious of its provenance."
??? (It was made in China, but what's not?)
That's more his usual style. 
I know he loves me, he just doesn't usually give praise. If he wants to start, I'm all for it. 

Also, he's all signed up for a cardiac exercise program to start this coming week. He, at almost-86 years old, has gone to the gym 3x/week for twenty years, but now he will get monitored until he's quite steady again. So that's good.

I've gotta say, it made me glad I've started exercising again and is a good nudge to start to think about eating better again too. I went to the farmers market with bink today and bought from an old Czech guy a bottle of homemade sauerkraut that seems like it would protect you from anything, including bears. 

Meanwhile, my auntie is learning to spin wool at the knitting shop and has even bought a wheel. 
She said, "What's a 91-year-old doing buying a spinning wheel? 
I'm living as if I'll live forever!"
 
Why not? Why stop if you don't have to?

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* David Dundas, "Jeans On", 1976