Axolotl - Is That One? Or Two?

My husband and I were in Bellefonte for a funeral. One of my very best friends - one of the ladies I have lunch with regularly - just suffered a family tragedy. Her husband, whom she'd been married to for 53 years, died while on a safari vacation in Africa, and shortly after that, my friend fell and broke her arm and hurt her knee. It took weeks to get his body home; she spent nearly that entire time in the hospital and then rehab.

It's been a difficult and stressful time for her, and my heart hurts for my friend. Sometimes there isn't much more that you can do for someone than to show up and put some love on them. So I've been trying to do that. I check in on her regularly, tell her I love her, visited her in rehab, made her friendship bracelets. 

In a strange twist of fate, my dear friend worked with my husband before he and I ever met. In fact, she was his secretary at a place where they both worked in Bellefonte, many years ago. She's a big Beatles fan and he is, too. She and my husband sat and cried together the morning after John Lennon died. The one bracelet I gave her says: All U need is love. The other is quite simple: Faith Hope Love.

So services for my friend's husband, with full military honors and a flag-draped coffin (as he'd served his country for several years in Vietnam), were in Bellefonte on this day, and we attended. We ended up parking our car on the street not far from the library. And so when things concluded, we popped into the library for about half an hour to select a bunch of books before heading home.

I always stop for a minute to say hi to the axolotl that lives there. So this is Axl Prose, who was named in a naming contest. He is alone in his aquarium and I always wonder and worry about that. But in this case, the reflection of the axolotl made it almost look as though there were two. And just look at those cute little "hands!"

I looked it up when I got home, and the experts say that you can keep an axolotl alone, or keep two together. But the two should be an identical size, or the one that's bigger may EAT the one that's smaller, thinking it is prey! Wow! Now, I have learned a thing. Anyway, say hello to Axl Prose, the axolotl at the Bellefonte library.

In honor of my friend, let's let our soundtrack song for the day be a Beatles tune. I'm picking the one I put on her bracelet, so here are the Beatles, with All You Need Is Love. Here's another fun version by Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton, and Rod Stewart. With so much love to my friend and her family.