another goodbye

I lost another friend today...goodbye Palma. Thank you for your friendship, empathy, support, and love...

tearful symmetry

Years back, I'd been visiting the Pets in Need shelter in Redwood City off and on for a while; when I was ready to get another cat, I went into the rooms and sat down on the floor with the cats, watching them interact and play. One rather large, rather wobbly cat walked over and just plopped herself into my lap.

Decision made.

The day we went to the vet's office for the last time, I was sitting on the floor with her as she wobbled around the room, sniffing at things, checking out the toys, watching the cat-friendly video they were playing [she was fascinated by it]. And five or ten minutes before the vet tech came in to insert her IV...

...she crawled into my lap.

saying goodbye to a sweet friend...

Had to make a very hard decision today...I said goodbye to Bean. She's been having a progressively rough time...she's been having more and more trouble getting up after lying down, and the nerve and muscle damage have been taking their toll on her ability to use the litter pan; when she is able to make it in, the effort causes her to collapse and fall, then she cries as she tries to stand back up, flailing and unable to make her back legs work properly. If I'm not there to help, she often ends up having to drag herself for many feet before she can get her hind legs under her enough to stand up. It's been getting worse, and the number of good days is being overshadowed by the number of troublesome ones, so I knew this time was coming.

It's never an easy decision to make, and this one is all the harder for the fact that she is still a sweetheart, still wants to snuggle and be with me...it's her body that is letting her down. I've been giving her pain meds, but that doesn't help the weakness of her back legs, the troubles she has going to the bathroom and keeping herself clean, or her inability to stand and sometimes even to walk. I promised myself years ago that I wouldn't let selfishness and sentimentality stop me from making a humane and caring decision; I knew that this burden of responsibility came with the act of taking in an animal. It isn't a choice I make lightly...I've been going over and over and over the alternatives and the reasoning and the 'yeah but, what ifs' for a very long time now. I know it is the right thing to do...

...but that doesn't make it any easier.

fancypants

Our first Thanksgiving in our new house... :^)

disconnected connections

I posted this to Facebook after watching Felix Baumgartner's record-setting high-altitude jump this past Sunday:

"I just spent three hours watching live footage of an amazing collaboration of nationalities and specialities, streaming from one place hundreds of miles away and another 24 miles up, while chatting online with a friend across the country, seeing live updates from people around the world, culminating with all of us cheering the achievements nearly simultaneously.

I love these times."

I'll admit that the internet and its anciliary products have done their part to actually lessen the quality of our interactions in a way...instead of calling or sending birthday cards, people post to walls; instead of sending gifts, people forward a cute cartoon; instead of bringing a casserole, people text heartfelt condolences; email and texts have taken over as primary contact methods. I'll also admit to being just as guilty in many cases; being the introvert, the socially-awkward penguin that I am, asynchronous communication is definitely easier for me. It's the way the times are going...the days of dropping by and saying hi are fading away.

But that same technology also brings us closer...we can now share events and news faster than ever, and with more people, in more locations, in more ways than would have seemed possible a while back. Good news, bad news, celebrating, mourning, pondering, discovering, sharing...it's there at the beep of a button, click of a mouse, tap of a finger. There are definitely drawbacks to losing that face-to-face personal connection, but there are advantages to be had in the extended reach that the times we live in can offer. Like it or not, the future is happening now...we are all time travelers, moving forward one second per second, with the future unveiling itself bit by bit.

It's pretty cool.

once in a lifetime [sadly]

On September 21st, Will and I headed to Moffett Field to see the shuttle Endeavor; it was crossing the country on its last piggy-back flight before being grounded at a museum in Los Angeles. It was a bittersweet day...awesome to see the flyover, but sad to know that this was the end of the shuttle program and there would be nothing comparable to replace it any time soon [and if so, it will only be through the private sector]. The folks gathered around were definitely kindred spirits, there to see an amazing sight...and most everyone seemed to echo the same sentiment: such a shame to see a dream fade.

Some pics from the day, and after them, the video I took of the flyover:

I had always planned to see a shuttle launch "some time"...it just never occurred to me that they might stop happening someday. This was my last chance to see a shuttle other than in a museum...I'm glad I went.

[for best results, view in Youtube and choose the highest resolution your bandwidth is happy with]

clarification

A while back, I made a blog post about lessons I learned from a past relationship. I was very careful to not include anything that clearly identified who I was talking about; the point wasn't to cast aspersions on a specific individual, but instead to talk about the lesson that a person can be a very good human being and still not be a good match for you. It's looking like I was a bit *too* effective at obfuscating the subject, as I've gotten some folks making assumptions as to who the post was about [which also shows that I seem to keep some details of my relationships a bit quiet as well, since no one [other than the other person involved, of course] knew who I was referring to]. Since the point was to avoid making anyone the spotlight of the post, I need to be honest and make sure that someone else doesn't bear the brunt of what I wrote...so folks, just to let you know, it wasn't about Greg [who was also a good person, just not the one I was writing about]. There were lessons learned in that relationship as well, but not the ones I wrote about in that post...

So here's to learning lessons, to having good people in your life, to being able to move on if your paths diverge, and to constantly trying to improve yourself.

trip report: 07/17-07/25/2012

[warning: lots of pics in this post...formatting should be good for 90% of the browsers and resolutions out there, but your mileage may vary]

Around the last week of July, Will and I headed to London for a week [we made sure to get out of town before the Olympics started, to avoid the craziness]. First bit was touristy/relaxing stuff, and it was much fun...the weather was typical London weather, grey, cool, damp to outright wet. It didn't disappoint. :^)

We stayed at the Thistle Marble Arch hotel, which was...fine. Location was good, walking distance [a few miles] to some major tourist attractions [the Palace, the London Eye, and so on], lots around it. Paid a bit extra for the "deluxe" room, which included a stand-alone shower [as opposed to the more typical "handheld shower and a small glass panel along half the tub" setup], a heated towel rack, and access to a lounge with breakfast, snacks, and drinks. The room was a decent size, the room service was tasty, there were shortbread cookies and cocoa and tea in the room for us. But there were small, piddly things that kept it from being great: room service took our washcloth [I've learned that many/most international hotels don't provide flannels/washcloths, so I bring my own...they replaced it when we asked, but it was still annoying]; there was mold in the shower vent; the hallways and towels often had a slight curry-like smell to them; when a car came to pick us up for a day trip, the front desk told them we weren't registered there [lovely]; when they served dinner for two, they only gave us one glass for the large carafe of water; one of the outlets at the desk was flaky and didn't work reliably [even causing some impressive arcs and bzzt noises]. Basically a bunch of stupid little things that you normally wouldn't notice, until they add up one on top of the other. So while it wasn't a bad hotel, it's not one of my favorites.

One silly thing I did like: the old-school "do not disturb" sign, with the switch inside the room and the lighted panel on the wall outside. That made me happy. <grin>

We did a lot of wandering: we meandered down Oxford Street, walked along Hyde Park, stared at Buckingham Palace, watched the guards guarding, looked up at Big Ben, listened to the chimes, toured Westminster Abbey, rode the London Eye. We stopped at a fire station and chatted with an awesome guy who took time out of his busy day [they were drilling and prepping for the Olympics] to show us around, chat with Will about fireman stuff, and trade t-shirts with him. Boggled at the work the city had put into preparing for the Olympics, including creating "Olympic traffic lanes" to channel the various official Olympic vehicles [and snarling non-Olympic traffic because of the lost lanes]. Sat for a while and rested our feet in the aptly-named Green Park, enjoying the cool calmness of the grass and trees. A dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe [the first one!]. Giggled at how my hair does *not* like humidity. We couldn't get enough of the juxtaposition of old and new: buildings hundreds of years old with ATMs set into the front facade, beautiful new cars pulling into old cobblestone driveways, centuries-old architecture standing side-by-side with modern glass and concrete. So much fascinating history packed into a city, with so many stories accrued through so many years...

An interesting thing we noticed: there was no one "dominant" side to walk on. In the US, people tend to walk to the right, just as we drive [not everyone, of course, but in general]. In London, not so much...it's catch-as-catch-can, every pedestrian for themselves. I even sucked it up and asked one of our drivers, and he confirmed that you just walk where you can [and seemed surprised that the US did otherwise].

Another one: Londoners are somewhat fascinated by the fact that many US states allow right turns on red. It came up two or three times on the trip, and always with envy. Something I never thought of, honestly...

And another: tea just tastes better in the UK. Even if it's just a prefab teabag and water from an electric kettle, it's tastier. Purely psychological, I know, but it's true. <grin>

Yet another: no standard "fire hydrants" like we are used to seeing; instead there are plates in the ground [like rectangular manhole covers] that have the hydrant hook-ups under them.

[photo by Editerna]

Very efficient, and leaves the sidewalk more open for traffic. And everywhere you went, you saw metal plates inset into the walkway that said "Smoke Outlet from Basement" and variations thereof...a bit of googling helped us find out that these were essentially large vents from underground areas that would funnel smoke up and out if there should be a fire [the fire brigade would smash in the concrete or glass area at the sign, allowing the interior smoke to vent away from the underground source]. Brilliant.

A tasty thing: so many different crisp flavors [potato chips for us here in the States]. Roast chicken, steak, prawn, sausage, and of course, salt and vinegar. Tastiness.

A random thing: our first real run-in with the nickname and reputation that Stella Artois has. How did I not know this?? Now I feel like a badass punk for drinking it. <grin>

Another random thing: I got a bit better at converting from Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head. That's actually the easy direction: double the Celsius temp, subtract 10%, and add 32 [so 20C would be 40 - 4 + 32, or 68F]. It's interesting: having grown up using the Fahrenheit scale, my ability to judge warm/cool/hot weather is tied up with those temps. Because of the unfamiliarity, the more compressed Celsius scale is harder for me to judge; for instance, the difference between 18C and 23C is the difference between wearing a sweater/jacket and wearing shorts. Like anything else, though, you get used to as you use it more.

My temp calculating exercises came in handy on this trip...in the week that we were there, the daytime temps ranged from about 19C [66F] at the beginning of the trip to about 28C [82F] towards the end. Everyone was talking about the warm weather...London hadn't had a bright, shiny, non-grey/wet day in months, so the sun and heat were catching everyone by surprise. And as beautiful as a sunny day may be, the heat can be a bit much when you are used to cool grey days.

One thing that made me happy: my ankle held up surprisingly well for still healing from the break...I credit the awesome ankle brace I found for a lot of it. I overdid it one day [apparently six+ miles of walking on city streets was a bit too much], so I was forced to stay off of it the next day, but all in all, I was quite pleased [or should I say, "I was quite chuffed"]. Another thing that made me happy: Will and I continue to travel well together. We both like the history and back-story of places, we both like observing the little differences and unique things about day-to-day life, and we are both socially-awkward penguins [introverts], so we both understand how draining constant interaction with people can be for us, and take it into account when traveling. It's a good match.

The last bit of the holiday involved heading out to the historic Goodwood track and driving fast cars as quickly as our skills and courage would let us...more soon.

[badly-done panorama, but you get the idea...be sure to notice the freaky half-guy in the bottom right :^) ]

huzzah/boo

Boo: my credit card number was compromised.

Huzzah: Chase rocks. The number has been cancelled, charges blocked, new card being UPSed my way.

This is the second or third time this has happened to me in the eleven-plus years I've been with Chase, and each time they've been awesome [in fact, they tend to catch the bad charges before I do]. The interesting part about this time is that every one of the bad charges were made *in person*, with a physical [counterfeit] card being presented. Odds are they didn't have the three-digit security code, which is why they resorted to a fake card and didn't make any online purchases...and that in turn likely means it wasn't an online breach that led to the number getting out.

It's funny...so much attention is given to online shopping and security and the safety of your credit card information. But we barely hesitate to hand our card to someone at a restaurant or a shop or a corner market, don't even blink as it walks away completely out of our sight for some amount of time; lots of us don't think about how often we stand in line somewhere with our credit card in our hands or lying on top of our purchases, easy to see by anyone standing around. It's getting harder to tell when or where or even how a number gets compromised nowadays.

Long story short: do everything you can to safeguard your data, pay attention to your bills when you get them, follow up any discrepancies as soon as you notice them. Sometimes you can do everything right and still have troubles...

4077th, revised

I was watching "MASH" on tv just now, and it brought back an old, old memory of a close friend of mine in high school. At one time, they mentioned that their third- or fourth-grade class had been taught the theme to MASH, and they sang it before an assembly. If you aren't familiar with it, the song is called "Suicide is Painless", and it has lyrics like:

"The game of life is hard to play

I'm gonna lose it anyway

The losing card I'll someday lay

so this is all I have to say.

That suicide is painless

It brings on many changes

and I can take or leave it if I please.

The only way to win is cheat

And lay it down before I'm beat

and to another give my seat

for that's the only painless feat."

The rest is just as poignant and dark...now imagine a bunch of bright little voices lilting away off-key, singing this in front of friends and family. I still boggle at the mental image...

So anyway, being the idealistic high-schoolers we were, we decided it was much too depressing a song, and we came up with other lyrics for it...I can't remember them all, but what I do remember, I sing to myself every time I see the show or the song comes to mind. Our revised lyrics included this bit for the chorus [the only part that is still stuck in my brain cells, many years later]:

"'Cause suicide is painful

It really is quite shameful

So don't you take it,

Leave it, if you please."

Needless to say, my opinions on the subject matter have expanded and deepened as time went on and, as they say, shit happened...but those words are still there, taking up storage in my brain and triggered by hearing the first few notes of the song. And every time, I grin a bit and remember more innocent times, before shit happened and life happened and time happened...but it doesn't make me sad. Instead, it just reminds me of where I started, where I am now, and what was on the path getting here. And while I could have done without some of it, I wouldn't be who I am now without having gone through it...so all in all, it's not a bad thing.

[yup, all that from the theme song of an old sitcom/drama...welcome to my brain >.< ]

another goodbye

Love you, Aunt Christine...

ankle fest 2012

Time to document my grace for posterity. That broken ankle I mentioned a while ago? Yeah, it was because my black cat decided to nap on a dark step. :^(

She's fine [though she was a bit miffed at the rude awakening]...the break came about when my bare foot sent a panic signal to the brain saying "WRONG TEXTURE! NOT CARPET! IDENTITY MATCH = CAT! ABORT!! ABORT!!!" and my brain sent a lightning-quick response to my motor system, causing me to near-instantly throw myself sideways off the cat to prevent ending up with Stacey-induced flatcat [and a lifetime of guilt].

I really need to work on those landings. >.<

The ankle is doing much better. I still don't have full flexibility, but I can walk with just an ankle brace now. Doing physical therapy, pain is there, but the level is going down [except after I exercise it, which is to be expected]. All things considered, it could have been much, much worse.

So for fun, here is the blog version of the Facebook album I posted...so that in later years, I can look back at it and cringe, shake my head, and laugh at the random chance that brought it about.

May 16th, 2012 - The offending limb, awaiting attention at the Urgent Care clinic.

May 16th, 2012 - Another ankle angle. At this point, I was hoping it was just a nasty sprain [silly me, taunting the universe like that].

May 20th, 2012 - The right side of the left ankle. A tiny bruise started up...looks innocuous, doesn't it?

May 23rd, 2012 - By far the most spectacular picture of my ankle. This was a week after I broke it.

May 24th, 2012 - A week after the breakage. Swelling is going down a bit [I'd been staying off of it, thanks to the help of an amazingly patient husband]. The bruise on the shin was [and still is] annoying...there were times when that area hurt worse than the ankle. Doctor says it's likely a bone bruise that will continue to cause troubles for a while [buh].

May 24th, 2012 - Healing bruises are fascinating...it's like someone took a highlighter to my foot and leg. The bruising went up into the knuckle of the big toe, between it and the next one, and down underneath to the ball of my foot. If you're going to break a bone, might as well do it right, right?

May 26th, 2012 - The right side, showing some solidarity with the broken left side...it couldn't let it have all of the bruising fun now, could it?

June 8th, 2012 - This was *really* interesting. Three weeks after the break, I was starting to move around more, stand for longer periods of time. This meant more swelling, and some awesome swelling at that...Will and I called this my "memory foam" foot, because when you pushed lightly on it, it would dent and then come back very, very slowly. [The fluids were pushing into the tissue itself, causing the squishyness.]

Freaky.

May 26th, 2012 - The follow-up xray, six weeks after breaking it. The bone is healing, but interestingly, the break is actually bigger and wider than it originally was, due to bony resorption [the body likes to reabsorb bits of bone and calcium]. It's going to be quite a while before it's whole again.

[Those screws are from the first time I broke it, twenty-some years ago. According to the doctor, they haven't used that type of screw in a long time...the heads are so large that they caused complications. Nice thing to find out many years later... >.< ]

So there you have it...Ankle Fest 2012, in all its glory. Okay, some of its glory...I didn't document the hilarious hobbling, or the laughable awkwardness of trying to use the shower chair the first couple of weeks, or those annoying nights that the vicodin just wasn't enough to dull everything so I could sleep. This is now officially the second broken bone I've had in my life [not counting my crushed vertebra], and I would like to stop there...that's plenty. So far, my pattern seems to be twenty-ish years between ankle injuries...so come 2032, don't be surprised to see me wrapping myself in bubble wrap for safe-keeping. >.<

scary exciting grown-up stuff

It's official: as of today, Will and I are home owners. Eep.

[It's actually going to be a while before we move in...current tenants are renting back for a bit as they look for their next home, plus my broken ankle is making things interesting. But it's ours, with all the fun and responsibilities that entails. Yikes/whoohoo!]

sadness

Goodbye, Uncle Fred...

consistency...I haz it

Broke my left ankle.

Again.

Damn it.

my kind of marathon

AMC Theaters did an Ultimate Marvel Marathon...all five released Marvel movies, then a midnight premiere of "The Avengers". Fifteen hours in a theater with Will and a couple hundred other true believers, seeing "Iron Man", "The Incredible Hulk", "Iron Man 2", "Thor", "Captain America", and then the new Avengers movie.

I had a blast...and the new movie frickin' ROCKED. Joss did us proud.

he loves the feets

I don't know what it is, but Pepper frickin' *loves* Will's shoes...he goes into kitty ecstasy over them, rubbing and rolling and then just blissfully lying on them. He doesn't do it for anyone else...just Will. It's adorably hilarious to watch...sometimes he doesn't even wait for Will to take his shoes off first. Will must have catnip feet or something...

[Those are my shoes there behind him, being totally ignored...I don't have the magic feet pheromones, I guess. :^D ]

monkeys

Talked with a close friend for a few hours the other night...they've been going through some really rough times, and I'm continually blown away by how strong they are. We talked about life, and choices, and things in our control, and things forced upon us...it was one of those "we laughed a bit, we cried some more, we commiserated" kind of conversations, the good ones that are rare and all the more precious for it.

We talked about those awful hours in the night, when you are desperately tired but can't escape into sleep...and how even when you do, it sometimes ends up being more of a trap than a respite. The brain can be a right bitch sometimes...it fights you at every turn, fixates on things you'd rather it let go, lets go of things you'd rather it kept hold of. My dad and I both struggled with brain monkeys, jumping around, keeping us awake longer than we wanted. And my friend is a member of the brain monkey club as well, memories and thoughts and wishes and if-onlys and I-should-haves and yeah-but-what-ifs all running and jumping and climbing and refusing to acknowledge our authority over our own brains.

They own our brains, those monkeys of thought. We can occasionally wrest control away, through distraction or diversion, but they come back fighting...the only thing that stops them is time. Time to process, time to accept, time to work through and work out whatever issues have them buzzing about. Which sucks, to be honest...I want an instant fix, damn it.

Tonight is a brain monkey night, another one in a streak of a few too many in a row. Usually I can tire them out with books or solitaire or television or the internet (or various combinations thereof), but they are being especially distraction-resistant tonight (the little bastards). So I'll finish typing this up, then re-fluff my pillow, roll onto my side, shift the cats a bit, turn on some late night telly (hello "Cold Case" and "Without a Trace" and "Criminal Minds" and "She-Ra" and "Bravestarr"), and play a few games of solitaire...eventually I'll drift off. After that come the dreams...but that's a whole different blog post.

G'night...

a lesson learned over time

Many years back, I shared life with someone who, time would show, wasn't good for me. They were smart, funny, brash, had strong opinions, were a bit on the 'asshole' side [externally confident], driven...it took a while for me to see that even generally good people can be bad for you.

It was slow, it was subtle. We started out well: my over-empathy and 'mediator' personality fit well with their 'in your face' extroversion, giving me a stronger base and helping to soften them. But it started building, bit by bit...I was told that my introverted nature was 'wrong' and 'holding me back', that we should work on it. I was told that I was lacking in imagination because I loved what I was doing at work and didn't want to move into managerial roles [when I argued that I had gone the manager route and it didn't appeal to me, I was told that I was just being stupid and that I needed to climb the corporate ladder in order to make something of myself].

I was made fun of for my singing [I can't sing worth shit, I admit, but I still love music]. I love to write, but when I would proudly show something I'd done, I was told that I "was trying too hard". I used to draw [again, not well, but I enjoyed it], but got tired of every effort being criticized...so first I would stop showing things to them, then I just stopped doing it. My fashion sense was mocked [I wasn't girly enough]. I was teased for liking food that was less-than-gourmet. The music I liked was mocked, and they spent a lot of time trying to educate me on what to listen for in 'real' music. I was taking guitar lessons, but got tired of not being able to practice without being laughed at for bad attempts or having a wrong note causing them to cringe and complain. I found myself avoiding friends, because I often felt that I had to apologize later for things that offended them...eventually I just stayed quiet and distanced myself from the conversations.

Eventually, I got stronger, and realized that the relationship wasn't good to either one of us. I ended it.

When I write all this down, it seems like it was a horrible relationship, like it should have been a Lifetime 'movie of the week'...but it wasn't like that. It had some very good parts, and the bad parts started out few and far between. It was over time, over years, as the patterns built up, as my frustration and hurt grew, that I started making the connections...and as I started pushing back, it got harder for us to get back to an even keel. So things escalated, until eventually, something gave.

As weird and stifling as those years were to me, I learned from them, learned very important lessons from them. I learned that I need not, should not, compromise the things that matter to me. I learned that sometimes the dysfunction is subtle, creeping in slowly over a very long period of time...like the apocryphal 'frog in boiling water', I didn't realize the detrimental effect that these seemingly isolated incidents were having. I learned that being mocked, however smiling and 'for your own good' the mocker may be, can wear you down. I learned that a person can truly love you, and still be bad for you. And I learned that being alone can be preferable to being with someone with whom you can't be yourself.

So now I occasionally look at my life and try to apply those hard-earned lessons. I try harder to pay attention to patterns, to see and acknowledge something 'bad' before it becomes ingrained. I am trying to keep in touch with the people who help me be a better person, and to let go of the people who don't. It isn't easy, and a lot is risked by pushing back or letting go or moving on. But a lot can be gained as well...

[Addendum-20120412: LOL! Relevant XKCD (be sure to check the hover-text) ]

more random memories

Some good, some not...all part of me:

Raking pine needles at the cabin.

Buying the awesome Target brand maple nut goodies for Mom [they were so much better than Brach's...I can't seem to find them anymore now, sadly].

Trying to get the office chair into Karen's Boxster...and eventually succeeding.

That incredible moment of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge after a long and too-eventful drive cross-country so many years ago...goosebumps, tears, relief, uncertainty, anticipation.

Seeing the German candy and merchandise at Cost Plus, which sparks all kinds of memories of childhood and family and adventure and a big wide world.

The same German merchandise making me sad for the Christmas ornaments from my past, lost during an upheaval.

Buying a four-foot teddy bear and getting him home from work on Bay Area public transit...so many smiles that day.

Trying to help a friend who had overdosed, and watching the friend who gave him the drug just stand by and watch, frozen.

That first trip into the outside world after my ankle surgery, to a local mall, and how exhausted I was, and how surprised and disappointed I was by that.

That 'clink-clink-clink' sound that Dad's wedding band made against the salt shaker as he salted his food.

That time at Roscoe Village when Mom swatted away a hovering bee...and knocked it straight into my neck, stinging me [to her horror and chagrin].

Playing on the giant wooden wire spools that Dad brought home. The best part was threading a long metal pole through the center of the large one, and putting two smaller ones on either side...two of us would sit on the smaller ones and roll the large one with our hands. Tah-dah, instant transportation and much fun.

Trying to convince Dad that the light switch in the basement really did shock us...his 'years as an electrician' hands didn't even register small shocks anymore, so he finally had to bust out his multimeter to see that we were telling the truth.

Fluff and his bubble gum. Little Bit and his cheese. Darwin and his greenies.

Feeling like such a stud with my big-as-a-brick Nokia 9000 phone...it could dial up to Earthlink and get internet on it! I was the envy of the office with that thing. <grin>

The 'sunroom' in the little house in Moss Beach...I loved that room. Futon, lamp, music, filtered light...a perfect little reading room, a place to hide away for a bit.

Breakfast with Mom on my balcony overlooking the marina. Just the two of us, the rising sun, coffee, cereal, conversation, quiet. One of my favorite memories.

almost forgot...

The Saw Doctors were in town [well, in San Francisco]...saw them Saturday night, awesome show as always. Joked on Facebook that the last time I saw them, I got engaged, and that this time I was a newly-married woman...a good way to start the marriage. :^)

ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...

...Mr. and Mrs. William Lawton.

love and thoughts...

Hoping Chopper found the peace he so desperately wanted and deserved. Sending my love and thoughts to his mother and his girls...love you.