Thanks.

I tend to put up a hard front, and keep my important cards close to the vest. Either that or I make fun of everything. That said, I really am thankful for all of the people in my life that I consider to be family, blood relative or not. Life is a lot easier when you know there are so many people just waiting to hold you up.

Gobble, Gobble...

Time to take a break from the self-indulgent boo-hooing that I've been doing on here of late. Hopefully a long break. What can I say, the occasional late-night glass of wine tends to pave the way for the occasional late-night posting of whiny blogs. Also, I'm a whiner. Obviously. At least I'll put that card right out on the table. Instead of the clichéd whiny girl rant, I shall post a clichéd list of things which I'm thankful for this year. That's how I roll, my friends.

• A pretty rocking family, including the most adorable baby in all the land. I dare your baby to compete with her. That baby will lose.
  
• Friends willing to not only put up with, but encourage the kind of behavior that makes most people want to either roll their eyes, laugh in my face, or slap me upside the head. The kind of friends who concur with the brilliant plan to do a Photobooth photo shoot of baby dolls in a bar are better than gold.
• The ability to recognize my own whining at face value and laugh at it.
  
• Dinosaurs
• Hand turkeys
• Things made from and flavored like pumpkins
• Sister
• The ability to find a picture of a pin-up girl dressed as a pilgrim, holding a turkey who is making the oddest face to ever grace a fowl's head.
  
• Uncle Fun

We had a promise paid, we were in love...

The day we went to that concert, a homeless, drunk man harassed me outside my apartment for the first, but not the last time and I'd never felt so violated, and yet I felt that you didn't care much. At least not as much as you should have. It was a gift for your birthday, those tickets. José, a special pact between the two of us. You never knew that I'd hoped to play those songs at our wedding, but I know that it wouldn't surprise you. You always pretended that nothing I said could surprise you. What would have surprised you is that my feelings about that had been stripped away like the peel of an onion. José would have once brought me to tears, but I can see the beauty in his music again, without you.

A friend discussed the idea that a mate is the person whom you can see yourself with down the road with, five, ten, twenty years into the future. For me, that person was once you. For you, that person wasn't even yourself. You have no concept of a road into the future. It's pretty hard to compete with the vision of nothing.

Time to do the nighty night....

This Fraggle book truly is an essential when it comes to forcing your children to go to bed at bedtime. Oddly enough, this book, which was never a favorite bedtime story of mine, (those top prizes went to my mother's two most hated books "Karoleena's Red Coat" and "The Very Special Badgers") is one that sticks with me to this day. I try to make myself remember the message of what I dub "The Wembley Book" when I'm getting grumpy about going to bed at a reasonable hour. The basic premise is that there's nothing that you're missing, no party, no goings on, by going to bed when you should. Tonight is yet another night when I could use the benefits of "The Wembley Book" to coddle me and ease my fears that I could be missing something so exciting and exhilerating... and yet, I'm just puttering around and drinking a glass of wine. In all seriousness though, on nights like this when I'm left to my own devices, dreading the oncoming work week and the not so bright early morning, I could really use someone who could read me "The Wembley Book" and pat me on the head and turn out the lights.

S.S. Snack Attack

Some photos from the opening of S.S. Snack attack, an art show by myself and Stina Kaczmaryn. I'll let the fun speak for itself.

I am prepared for amazing things to happen. I can handle it.

We have a whole life to live together, you fucker, but it can't start until you call.