are we not like two volumes of the same book?

happy mother’s day, mom.

all that i am

is because

of you.

what happens in vegas

i’m heading off to las vegas next friday.

chuck palahniuk says that it, “looks the way you’d imagine heaven must look at night.”

it’s a business trip, so i won’t have much free time to explore the heavenly city, but i’m sure i can find enough time to hit the strip and maybe take in a show. at the recommendation of a good friend, i will be checking out the mirage’s ‘enchanted garden’ because i’m a total sucker for big cats and dolphins.

wish me luck.

thousand word thursday

here she is, my new iMac 24-inch 2.8GHz intel core 2 extreme, populated with leopard, office 2008, adobe CS3 design premium and other assorted goodies.  welcome home.

may 4, 1990

i remember the spring sun on my face and the smell of wild roses on the breeze. it was a friday.

i watched the sun set by his side and as the last bits of golden light danced on the water’s surface, he took me inside, into his arms.

with the darkness, the rains came, and we had to leave. thunder and lightning followed as he drove me home that night. he held my hand in his as he drove too fast on the dark, country roads, singing along to the music that pounded through the speakers.

he drove like nothing else mattered, just us.

trying to keep up with the music, the car, the rain, our hearts raced.

and it was then, with him, in the darkness, that i felt truly alive.

thousand word thursday

who would have thought to combine chocolate & beer? buzz has done just that with their guinness cupcakes — absolutely amazing!

roller skating

when i was young, my best friend, e, lived directly across the street from me.  during summer vacation, we  pretty much spent every waking moment together.  the only questions we had to answer were whether to play at my house or hers and whether to play inside or outside.  these may seem like simple questions, but to eight-year-olds, it would often take us hours to come to a decision.

one summer morning, e called me to see if i wanted to come over and play.  i told her to hold on while i went to ask my mother for permission.  somewhere along the way from the phone to my mother, i got distracted.  i totally forgot about e, the phone, her request, everything.  instead, i went into my room, put on my red and white roller skates and went outside.

e was such a good friend that she continued to wait for me on the phone.  a good half hour must have gone by and finally e’s sister asked e what she was doing on the phone.  e explained that she was waiting to hear if i could come over to play, to which her sister responded, “heather’s outside roller skating.”

like only a best friend could do, e hung up the phone, put on her skates, and joined me outside without a word.

i miss that kind of friendship.

thousand word thursday

this little piggy was a gift for my mother’s little brother, mark. sadly, he was stillborn and so the pig was given to me, the first grandchild.

bathroom renovation, part II

the new sink is finally in its new home. the old sink has moved on and was remembered with a moment of silence on saturday afternoon.

the wonderful building maintenance man, mark, did the removal and installation while i was out. as i was leaving saturday morning, i left mark a note of thanks and a friendly reminder to make sure he didn’t accidentally let my cats out during his time in my condo.

if you know me, you know that i have two cats, sophie, the young and outgoing girl who is white with grey and orange stripes (and wears a collar) and chloe, the old and shy girl who is a seal point siamese (and doesn’t wear a collar). most visitors to my condo think i only have one cat because chloe tends to hide under my bed when unfamiliar people arrive (this stems from her history of abuse and neglect before she found her way to me — a story for another time).

back to the bathroom. saturday afternoon, i received a call from mark.

“hi heather, this is mark,” he began, “everything is going fine with your vanity. i did want to ask you one thing: you only have one cat, right?”

i replied, “well, actually, i have two cats, but one is probably under my bed, so you will only see the one.”

“you mean sophie?” he asked.

“yes,” i responded, wondering how he knew her name.

“i saw that on her collar,” he started, “but the other one doesn’t have a collar, right?”

“right,” i answered, beginning to sense that something was amiss.

“okay, and that one is grey?” he asked.

“well, she’s a siamese. her body is sort of gray,” i started.

he interrupted, “with stripes on her sides?”

“no, no stripes,” i said, “there’s a picture of chloe by my computer, if you want to see.”

“okay. let me check that out,” he said.

silence.

“hmmmm. yeah, this is definitely NOT your cat,” he finally said.

yes, my worst fears were confirmed. mark noticed a cat out in the hallway and assumed that one of my cats had gotten out of my condo. trying to do the right thing, he brought the cat inside. but it wasn’t my cat. it was a grey striped cat and now it was loose in my condo. and he couldn’t get it out.

“okay. ummm, now that i know this is not your cat, i’ll take care of things. don’t worry. bye,” he said and he hung up the phone.

i had to finish my day out with visions of fighting cats swirling in my mind.

i was relieved to return home that evening and find exactly two cats and one new vanity in my condo.

i’ll never know exactly what went on that afternoon, but based on the looks i received, chloe and sophie blamed me for everything — from the strange man to the loud noises to the striped invader — it was all my fault.

they may or may not let me share the sofa with them again.