Twas Brillig

Hi. It’s me. Remember me? That girl who used to blog every day? That girl whose blog people used to read? That girl who used to read other people’s blogs? Ahhh, you’re beginning to remember.

I have a confession: I’ve been hiding from you. Yes, you. And you. And you. I’ve signed out of IM, I haven’t touched my email (even in a few cases where I was in the middle of a “conversation” with people, who were never offered an explanation for my dropping off the face of the earth), I haven’t visited cre8buzz, I hadn’t even deleted my thousand or so spam comments on my blog until just a few minutes ago. (Thanks, spammers, by the way. I wouldn’t have had any new comments without you…)

You’re not the enemy, of course. I know that. My hiding out is more of a coping mechanism for the insanity that my life has become over the last few weeks. There’s no end in site—in fact, if anything, the insanity is just about to get more insane.

When I signed on to my computer today, I had a handful of emails from you guys, asking me specifically how my little boy is doing. Thank you so much for your concern. I was avoiding talking about it, because I didn’t want every post to be about my sickly child. But hey, you asked. So here goes. Let the dump-session commence…

Today is the first day in over a week that I’m not rushing Fuzzles to the doctor, the hospital, or therapy of some kind. He’s been tested for everything under the sun— allergies, thyroid disorders, celiac disease, and even cystic fibrosis. That’s a lot of needles, a lot of labs, a lot of negative results. Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad the results are negative. But it doesn’t answer the questions. My son is perpetually sick. He hasn’t gained weight in nearly six months. He is “failing to thrive.” And no one has any idea why.

Finally we were referred to the gastro-intestinal department at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, but when I called to schedule an appointment, I learned that they won’t be able to squeeze him in until May.

Um… hi. May? Isn’t that a little far away? And that would be when they would begin their evaluations, not when they would actually have figured something out. Despite my impassioned pleas and explanations that my baby needs help right now, they wouldn’t budge.

Do you hear that sound? That’s me… pulling my hair out. By the fistfuls.

Did I also mention that Fuzzles has strep? But not in his throat, because that would be far too mundane for my little guy. No, he has strep on his BUM. Yup. This is excrutiating on his sensitive little hiney. Poor kid. Just one more thing to deal with.

Of course, none of this scratches the surface of his biggest problems, which are mental. The results of an evaluation of his mental development came in this week. It was shocking. I guess maybe I go into denial in between doctor’s appointments or something, because I start to convince myself that he’s really not all that behind. This evaluation says differently, and as I read through it, I could only agree with it. It shows that he ranks “very low” and that he falls into the 1st percentile (50th, of course, being “average”). In some areas of mental development, he is functioning at a three month old level.

My 17 month old son is the size of a nine month old and is mentally functioning as a three month old. And no one has any idea why, and no one has any answers for us.

But, fortunately, there is therapy, which we began yesterday. It’s a bit overwhelming, really, and it’s going to be a lot of work, diligence, and time. And that’s okay. I’m willing to do it, and I’m grateful for those who are trained and willing to help us.

He also has a screening set up at Primary Children’s Hospital for autism which is, of course, what everyone thinks (whether or not they say it) is going on here (though it clearly doesn’t explain a lot of his physical ailments). Unfortunately, he’s not eligible for this screening until he’s walking on his own. And, um, part of his developmental issues include lack of motor skills— meaning that one of his symptoms is that he can’t walk. And yet he has to be able to walk in order to take a test that will help to explain why he can’t walk.

Um…

In the meantime, my baby is the most gorgeous creature that ever lived. He is so happy and smiley and sweet. Whatever else he may be lacking, his sense of humor is perfectly in tact. His gigantic blue eyes will melt your heart, and his mad-scientist hair will make you giggle.

I want to make it clear that I am so grateful for this little person in my life. This is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through in my life, but only because I hate that his life has to be so difficult. But Fuzzles is special, he is perfect. And I’m the luckiest mama in the world to have him as my own. And I will do anything in my power, limited as it is, to make his life the very best it can be.

There’s more here, more that I haven’t figured out how to put into words yet. Things that are completely illogical and irrational. Things about guilt, faith, love, hurt. My nerves are raw and my mind is spinning all the time. My older children have to make sacrifices too in all of this, and while they actually seem okay with that, I hate the unfairness of it. It makes me feel incredibly guilty, as though I were picking Fuzzles as my “favorite” and the other three just have to fend for themselves, because they only have what’s left of their mother after Fuzzles gets the lion’s share. That’s not the truth, of course, and again, it’s totally irrational, but it doesn’t matter. I know this isn’t making any sense, which is why I wasn’t going to talk about it and why I’m now going to stop talking about it until I’ve begun to unravel it in my own mind…

So there it is. My update. Thanks for letting me dump it all out. Maybe now I can come out of hiding. As soon as I catch my breath…

This post is my piece for Jen’s awesome writing game. Also cross-posted at the new official writing game website, where you will find all of the participants’ posts. The idea is that we all contribute a story idea, along with more detailed character descriptions plus a twist/conflict. Then, we are randomly assigned someone else’s ideas, and we write our own story. See Jen’s brilliant blog, A2EatWrite for more details.

My assignment was submitted by my dear friend Jenn in Holland and was as follows:

Story idea:

Long time, committed couple living, working, creating in ______________.

Characters:

Jade- artist, passionate, embraces life, quirky

Sam-professional, detail oriented, grounded, analytical, bright.

Dr. Branson- uh, yeah, the doctor

conflict:

Jade gets diagnosis of a terminal disease.

*********************************************

Emma Branson reprimanded herself as she realized that she was primping more than necessary before her hospital shift. Sam wasn’t going to be there to see her, after all. But it didn’t matter, she couldn’t stop. Just thinking his name made her heart flutter, and she couldn’t help but scrutinize her face one last time before grabbing her keys and heading out the door.

Emma absently attended to her morning rounds, keeping a close eye on her watch. Finally it was 12:30—Sam would have arrived by now. He always cleared his lunch hour on Thursdays to be at the hospital. Berating herself, realizing that she’d purposefully held off on checking in on room 432 until she knew Sam would be there, Emma headed down the hallway. She paused as she reached to open the door. “Keep it professional, Dr. Branson,” she whispered to herself. She put on her thick-rimmed glasses, as though they would remind her to be the doctor, and not the woman in love.

These feelings that she had for Sam were completely inappropriate, especially considering that Sam’s longtime girlfriend, Jade, was Emma’s patient. Jade had melanoma, and by the time she had been diagnosed, the cancer had spread to her lymphatic system. Even though Jade was only 29 years old, there was no stopping the cancer now. Bit by bit, Jade’s body was shutting down. She only had a few weeks left, if that. It was Emma’s job to make sure Jade was as comfortable as possible through these last days.

Emma walked into the room, and was greeted with the unmistakable smell of nail polish. “Purple today?” Emma couldn’t help but smile.

Sam glanced up from his attempt at a pedicure and said, with a grin, “yes, alternated with green. She was very specific today.”

These days, Jade was heavily sedated and often unconscious. Emma looked at the limp body, realizing that Jade wasn’t even aware of them right now. But when she woke up, she would see Sam’s labor of love on her toes.

Emma tried to picture what this odd couple had been like together. She felt like she knew Sam well by now— he’d spent hours here every week for the last six months. He was young, 30 years old maybe, fun and had a great sense of humor, but mostly he was very business-like: responsible, professional, analytical. From all evidence, Jade was the opposite— artistic, passionate, quirky. Both had obviously had to compromise, but they also seemed to embrace their differences. Emma realized that part of the reason that she admired Sam so much was because here he was, an important and dedicated lawyer, who made time every Thursday to come and paint Jade’s toenails. It was his love and respect for this free-spirited woman that Emma found so very attractive.

Emma cleared her throat, as though that would clear her thoughts, and moved towards Jade to do a simple examination, listening with her stethoscope to Jade’s heart and lungs. “Has she been awake at all since you got here?” she asked Sam.

“Just long enough to instruct me on her toenail polish.” He smiled sadly. “It won’t be long now, will it.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“No, it won’t be long. Have you made all of the arrangements?” Emma asked quietly.

“She made them. I think she was afraid that I would make it too boring. She was probably right.” He laughed. “For instance, she’s already made up the invitations for the funeral, leaving a blank space for me to fill in with the date and time. She wants her funeral to have a Hawaiian theme. All of the guests have to wear Hawaiian shirts and tourist-length shorts, though the women can wear mumus if they prefer. There will be a luau complete with hula dancers and ukulele music and a roasting pig, though the pig will be made of tofu, of course.”

“Of course.” Emma giggled. She couldn’t picture Sam in anything but his perfectly pressed suit and starched shirt, carrying his briefcase full of important corporate law documents. A Hawaiian shirt? Emma hoped, though doubted, that she would get an invitation to this funeral.

Sam laughed harder, “Jade made me promise not to tell her family about the funeral plans until after I’d mailed the invitations to everyone, so that they wouldn’t have the chance to alter her arrangements at all. Can you picture her mother’s face when she hears about this?” Now both of them were laughing so hard that their faces were bright red and tears were streaming down their faces. Emma had only met Jade’s mother once, but it was clear from her demeanor–cold and disdainful, and clothing—pressed slacks and a mock-turtleneck with an off-white pearl necklace— that Mrs. Livingston was not a fan of her daughter’s whims.

Somewhere during their fit of laughter, Emma realized that she’d subconsciously removed her glasses and had thrown her arm around Sam’s shoulders, and he had put his arm around her waist.

As their laughter petered out, he kept his arm tightly around her and leaned his head on her shoulder. Emma realized that she was rubbing his back gently in a friendly, comforting, and entirely inappropriate way. He lifted his head from her shoulder and looked at her in a way that made her heart stop. She knew he was going to kiss her, and for a moment her conscience wasn’t going to interfere. He leaned closer to her and…

CRASH!

Emma’s glasses slipped right out of her hands and knocked the jar of nail polish over which, in turn, had splattered nail polish all over the table and floor.

Flustered and furious with herself, Emma rushed out the door to find Suzanne, her nurse, who could clean up the mess. She then locked herself in the supply closet and leaned her forehead against a shelf. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she whispered angrily at herself. How dare she let something like that happen— or almost happen, she corrected herself. The man’s true love had been lying, dying right there next to them and she, a focused and determined doctor, had been flirting like a teenager. At only 29 years old, she was the youngest female doctor in this hospital and her whole career had been an uphill battle. She’d finally gained the position—and respect— that she’d been working towards throughout her whole life and she was now on the brink of throwing it away!

When Emma finally emerged, she went to the bathroom and washed her face, and then found Suzanne and asked if she’d been able to get the nail polish off.

“After a bottle and a half of nail polish remover and three packages of sterile gauze, we got it cleaned up,” the nurse smiled. “And Sam wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry.”

Just with the mention of his name, Emma’s head was spinning and her face was hot. She had never felt so embarrassed or ashamed in her whole life. She leaned back against the wall in an attempt to sturdy herself.

“Dr. Branson? Emma? Are you all right?”

“Suzanne, I’m not feeling well. Would you mind calling Dr. Call and asking him to cover for me today? I need to go home.”

Emma barely heard Suzanne’s “of course” as she grabbed her coat and keys and headed towards the parking lot.

Emma got the phone call that evening. Jade had passed away.

Five days later, a brightly colored floral invitation with an embossed image of a hula dancer arrived in the mail.

(To be continued. Maybe. Or maybe not. Um…. for now let’s just say, “The End.”)

Hey, y’all… Anonymous Soapiness is hosting Soap Opera Sunday this week.  Head on over there to see the list of the rest of the participants.  Find out more about Soap Opera Sunday here.

Today we finish up the Adam saga. Click for part one, part two, or part three.

Well, my title here pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

That’s right. We all fell asleep (how I possibly fell asleep with Adam snuggled against me I’ll never know) and I woke up somewhere around 5:00 and I don’t actually remember how it happened. But suddenly he was kissing me. And I was kissing him back.

And it was the most disgusting thing ever.

Morning breath, chapped lips… it just makes for a really unpleasant experience, as I’m sure you can imagine. I’m not even sure if there would have been any chemistry anyway. It was just… ewwww.

I was terribly disappointed. Just as I’m not sure how it started, I’m not sure how the kissing ended either—which one of us finally broke away and stopped pretending like there was magic in this utterly unmagical situation. I remember that I had early play practice, and so I ran out the door, leaving most of my possessions—and Adam—behind.

Which meant that I had to go back.

I realized as I was heading back to Tara and Adam’s that I was going to be interrogated by the girls, who were all going to wonder what was up with me and Adam. He hadn’t exactly been sneaky, as you recall. I contemplated what to tell them— perhaps that nothing happened, perhaps that we’d accidentally kissed and it would never happen again, perhaps… well… certainly NOT the truth.

Plus, I wasn’t quite sure what Adam was thinking in all of this. Would he be calling me? Did he have as awful of a kissing experience as I? Did he think that this meant that we were an item? Yikes…

When I got back to Tara’s, Adam wasn’t there, but all the girls were. “So, we heard you made out with Adam!” Aha. They had already been informed. There was much squealing and giggling, though none from me. I hadn’t expected him to tell them all, and since I wasn’t sure what to make of it (besides the obvious unpleasantness) I fumbled a bit, and acknowledged that yes, there had been some kissing.

Then Monica blurts out, “he said it was AWFUL.” She announced it as though it were the best news ever, and I died laughing and acknowledged that yes, it was AWFUL. Hahaha. It was a bit embarrassing that he’d felt the same way, I confess. I’d rather hoped that he could spend a few years pining for me, the way I’d pined for him all those years. Oh well. It had been a fun run, and now it was over, which was, truly, just fine with me.

The next time I saw Adam was when my brother J was in town, several months later. J and Adam had been best friends once upon a time, so it was natural that they’d be hanging out. I knew I’d run into him at some point, and I wasn’t sure how either of us would react. But one night we all ended up at the same barbecue in the canyons that I attended with J. I saw him as soon as I got out of the car. He came towards us, with a smile on his face that made me smile and he reached to give me a hug. I hugged him back and without speaking we both started laughing—washing all the anxiety, awkwardness, flirtatiousness, past weirdness away. He kept his arm around me, and I swung my arm around him and my other arm around J on the other side of me and the three of us joined the party.

And we’ve been friends ever since.

Wordless Wednesday

My dearest co-founder, Kate of Walking Kateastrophe, is hosting Soap Opera Sunday this week. Be sure to head on over there for the list of other SOS participants!

(More Adam—Part one, part two.)
Tara and I began hanging out on a regular basis, and I therefore ran into her brother often. Every time I saw him, it was as though electricity was surging through me.

Neither Adam nor I were what you’d call “shy.” We were both flirtatious, overly-confident, and well-versed in the art of playing. Neither one of us was looking for a relationship. In fact, if memory serves, I was already in a relationship with someone else… (Y’all remember Chad, right? Epic proportions of unhealthiness…)

I became infatuated with the idea of conquest. I HAD to make this boy, who I had adored so obsessively once upon a time, adore me.

And I found, from the way he kept manipulating situations to be near me, that I was in the drivers seat. He did seem to adore me. I was winning. It was such a thrill!

I never talked about this Adam-game I was playing with any of the other girls. I wasn’t quite sure how to talk about it with Tara, after all. And Ginny and Monica were clearly pining for him. So it had to be my little secret, I decided.

One night, Tara invited me, along with Monica and Ginny (who were now living with her and Adam in their parents’ house) and Sara to watch the MTV Movie Awards at their place and then just spend the night. Perfect.

Adam would be away that evening, but somehow I knew he’d find a way to make an appearance… This crazy magnetic pull was affecting both of us and I knew he’d be there.

We girls filled their family room with blankets and pillows and snacks and settled in for the long haul, just like a slumber party right out of Jr. High School, except that we were all in college…

A few hours into our slumber party, Adam appeared. Hahaha. Shocker. I knew he would come home. He boldly marched towards me, lifted the side of the blanket that I was snuggled under, and made room for himself there. I’m sure the other girls were arching their eyebrows about this, but I wasn’t paying any attention to them. I was completely focused on this gorgeous grinning boy… whose legs were resting against mine, whose heart was pounding as frantically as mine, and whose lips were close enough to…

(to be continued…)

“What’s wrong?  You’ve been on edge all night!”  Hubby blurted out as I was kissing him goodnight.

Um… I had no idea what he was talking about.  Nothing was wrong, and I didn’t feel “on edge.”

I started thinking, “okay, what would he be talking about.  Am I upset?  Did something happen today that I forgot to tell him about?”

As I’m just about to the point where I’m whacking my head against the wall, trying to figure out what on earth he’s talking about, he announces, “you’re really terrible at hiding your anger!!!”

Again, I’m flabbergasted.  I’m not angry!  But the more I insist that I’m not angry, the angrier I sound…

Finally, I give up trying to convince him that I’m fine, I put my arms around him and tell him that I’m sorry about whatever it is that caused him to think I was upset, and I’m sorry for the stress this must have brought him.  He seems to accept that, and he goes right to sleep.

But I don’t.  I’m still perplexed by all of this.  I go back over my day in my mind.  Actually, as I think about it, it’s been both a great day and an awful one.  Great because I  had fun with my cute little family.  Since it was Monday, we had our weekly “Family Home Evening” where we had a Gospel lesson and then we all went to a local museum, and then milkshakes for dessert.  So much fun!

The bad part of my day was that the trip—you know, the one I filed for a passport for, the one I wasn’t going to talk about because I didn’t dare jinx it?  Yeah, that fell through very suddenly last night.  I confess that I felt some bitterness and frustration over that (just ask Kate… she was on IM with me when I found out) but I got over it, as I always do, and I was fine.  Still disappointed, but not angry by any stretch of the imagination.
Finally,  I decided to stop figuring out why Brian thought I was angry.  It was just making me… angry.  I was analyzing myself to see if there was any reason to be angry, and the truth about life is that if you look hard enough you can ALWAYS find something to be angry about.  I decided to stop looking.

Part of me now wonders if he was just using me as a science experiment or something.  haha.

I think tonight, just before we go to bed, I’ll ask him why he’s so angry.  Let’s see how he reacts…  hahaha.

I’m hosting SOS today because, um, I kinda forgot to secure a guest host this week. haha. Oops! So, you’re stuck with me again! The Mr. Linky is at the end of the post.

About a million years ago, I started a Soap Opera Sunday saga about a guy we called “Adam.” Remember? Seriously, it was so long ago that if you’d like to go catch up, it’s here (and it’s very short). I’ll wait.

Back already? Great. Moving on.

So six years went by…

I’d heard that Adam and his family moved to Ireland and then he went to serve a mission for his (our) church and then he went to college… somewhere.

I’d been great friends with Tara, Adam’s sister, while we’d all been in Jerusalem. But once they’d left, we all lost touch.

A few years later, while in high school, I met a girl named Sara who had also spent a lot of time in Jerusalem and, though we’d never actually known each other there (she left before I arrived), there was a certain bond by having shared similar experiences— both the magnificent and the horrifying. Sara and Tara had been great friends in Jerusalem.

Over those six years, I… well, I grew up. I was no longer the insecure 12-year-old child that Adam had known. I was 18, confident, flirtatious, and comfortable.

I was a freshman at BYU, majoring in looking good and making out with virtual strangers, when Sara called me to say that Tara was in Utah and they wanted to come and hang out with me. Sounded great! So we all went to lunch, along with a couple of Tara’s girlfriends from Ireland who were also at BYU. It was great to catch up, to see how we’d all “turned out” etc.

We had such a good time that we all began hanging out regularly.

One day, we were all having lunch together when the conversation turned towards their plans for that night, which was to stand in line all night for tickets to some big movie that opened the next day (I’m thinking it was the new Star Wars Episode One or something equally nauseating that I couldn’t have been LESS interested in…). Did I want to join them? No, thank you. Who all is coming? Sara, these Irish girls (whose names were Ginny and Monica), Tara, Tara’s brother and his roommates…

Now I had, of course, already moved on from my obsession with Adam. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t become suddenly VERY interested in the various details of their conversation. It didn’t mean that my heart didn’t speed up. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t instantly contemplating ways that I would run into him and dazzle him with my grown-up-ness.

“So, Adam’s here? Is he a student at BYU?” I tried to sound as casual as possible, but I watched Ginny and Monica glance at each other, and I suddenly realized that of course these girls were also interested in Adam. As I thought about Adam’s excrutiatingly handsome face and his dark wavy hair, I understood that every girl within a ten mile radius of him would bask in his perfection. I almost wondered if that’s why Monica and Ginny were such devoted friends to Tara…

And yes, Adam was here, and he was a student. He was living in an apartment, but only for a few more weeks until Tara and Adam’s parents finalized the purchase of a house here, where Tara, Adam, Monica, Ginny, and one of Adam’s friends would all live together in the basement. I smiled at Ginny and Monica’s transparent delight over this arrangement.

I was thrilled that Tara would be living here on a more permanent basis. I’d enjoyed catching up with her and I knew that we could all have a lot of fun with her nearby.

After I left that lunch, I confess that I considered joining them for their sleeping-in-line-for-tickets-to-see-a-dumb-movie fun. But that was just so not me. Still, I couldn’t get the idea of seeing Adam again, SOON, out of my head.

So, I did what any other good friend would do… I enlisted Matt’s aid (Matt was an invaluable accessory in any social situation… and he had a car… plus, he and Sara had always been friends, as she was one of the few people who didn’t run for the hills when he’d come out of the closet a few months before) and we took hot chocolate and cookies to our friends out in the cold.

I was a bit disappointed as I approached the line of crazy people waiting in the cold—Adam’s face wasn’t in the group. Sigh. So much for that. Still, I greeted the girls joyfully and distributed my goodies to the eager recipients.

As Sara was introducing Matt to the group, there were some guys right next to them, playing cards as they waited in line, who were clearly checking me out. Ever boy-crazy, I flashed them a flirtatious smile and one asked me if there were any more cookies for them. I laughed and brought some to them. There were four of them and they were funny and flirtatious and easy to talk to. But after a minute, Matt was bored and I was cold (and Adam wasn’t there…), so we decided to move on.

Just as we were walking away, I heard the guys I’d just been talking to yell, “Adam! You made it!” I turned and saw Adam sitting down with them— realizing that this wasn’t two groups after all, but the same group, and that my flirtatious new friends were Adam’s roommates.

My heart was racing. I found myself moving back towards the group. Tara said, “Brillig, you remember my brother Adam.” Adam instantly jumped back to his feet. I couldn’t believe that the real Adam did, in fact, live up to my memory.

“Hey,” I said, smiling, but doing my best to appear poised and confident.

“Hi,” he said, grinning like an idiot.

to be continued, natch…
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Playing too? Enter your link here! To learn more about Soap Opera Sunday, read here.

So I thought I’d better make a list…

1.  I can’t tell you how excited I am about SMID’s “Day to Read” tomorrow.  I have my books all lined up (thanks to Kate, who brought me a pile of books on her birthday.  That’s right, she brought ME books on HER birthday!) and I’m excited to report to you on Friday how it goes.   If you haven’t read SMID’s post about this yet, go do so right this instant.  She’s got some amazing, chilling quotes in there, along with her own brilliant style of writing, and it’s absolutely worth the effort of clicking on over there.  Go.

2.  I’ve deleted the post about my mom (though I left it up at Cre8buzz, because I liked HOW I wrote it, I just didn’t like what it said…).  It gave many of you the wrong impression of both her and me.   It was an attempt at creatively explaining a complicated relationship and some of the pain that I’ve felt, even though, really, she’s an amazing woman and has always been one of my greatest friends.  Maternal nurturing was never really her strong suit, and that’s okay.  It really is.  She more than compensates in so many other ways.  My post was more about my frustration that right now, with some of the things going on in my life, I sorta yearn for a mommy, as opposed to a brilliant, strong, devoted, amazing friend.  But many would kill for the mother I have, and I’m going to be grateful for her rather than bagging on her publicly.  Still, as I said, I enjoyed the way I wrote the post and I’m therefore not killing it off completely.  It now lives at the ‘buzz.

3.  Speaking of the ‘Buzz, y’all know that I still have invites if you’re interested in being one of the beta testers, right?  It’s a cool place, yo.  Leave me a comment or launch an email at me and I’ll make sure you get an invite.  They’re now allowing you to peruse the site without joining (though you can’t rate or comment on anything if you’re not a member) so go check it out.  You’ll notice that I’ve fallen from grace over there (demoted from #1 overall to #5, and demoted from #1 woman to #2) and it looks like I could SERIOUSLY use a few more friends there!  (That’s not really my motivation in offering up invites, I promise…)

4.  In the vein of self-pimping, I thought I would mention that it has been brought to my attention that I was nominated for the 2008 Bloggies for “Best Writing of a Blog” and “Best New Blog” (a blog created sometime during 2007) and I’m astonished and delighted by this news… and would love it if any of you wanted to… um… nominate me too.  I think I’d fly over the moon if I were to make it to the finals.  You only have until this Friday to submit your nominations. (You can read all the rules and details about nominating and who moves on to the finals, etc, here.) And now I’m feeling very sheepish at having brought this up at all, so I’m running off to the next thought now…

5.   Princess Fluffy was home from school today because we were snowed in.  (I had to call  in and excuse her— her school is located in a part of the valley that didn’t get nearly as much snow as we on the “benches” did so everyone else seemed to have made it just fine, which means that Fluffy had to take an absent, and I hate wasting an “absent” when my kid is perfectly healthy and eager to go to school.  Holy tangent, Batman.)  But Fluffy was determined to make the very most of our snow day.  She headed to the basement and turned off all the lights, and turned on my awesome new disco ball and announced that it was time for a dance party.  So Fuzzles and Fluffy and I all gathered in the basement where I turned on “disco-on-demand” (yes, my cable company offers disco-on-demand, for which I think I may write them a cheesy love letter) and we had an awesomely hilarious time, all made possible by my dearest darlingest Jenn in Holland, whose discoball-lamp-giving could not have encountered a more grateful recipient.

6.  The Colbert Report begins in just a few minutes—with a NEW episode.  The joy that this brings me gives me tingles from the tippy top of my head down to the tippy tips of my toes.  Hubby is already snuggled down in front of the TV waiting for me to sign off the computer and join him.  This is glorious, precious time, friends.

7.  I filed for a new passport today…  I don’t want to jinx it by telling you any details, but it looks as though a grand adventure is in my near-ish future… and I’m kinda giddy.  You know how I dig adventures abroad.

Ending this now, and loving you all.  May you have a WONDERFUL “Day To Read” tomorrow!  I know I will!

Wordless Wednesday

(Many hilarious and heartfelt thanks to Jenn in Holland,

who apparently took my comments on this post

much more seriously than I ever expected her to.)

1. Sue 2. Kateastrophe 3. Tiany 4. Catie’s Pages 5. ellen b 6. jams o donnell 7. TorAa Music 8. Hay 9. SandyCarlson 10. ValleyGirl

11. Andrée 12. Wirelessbliss 13. napaboaniya 14. Secret Agent Mama 15. MamaGeek 16. Wholly Burble 17. liza 18. denz techtronics 19. Shelia 20. tiff (three ring circus)

21. pelfy 22. Yen 23. jenn in holland 24. elijahssong 25. Diana 26. Table for Five 27. Amy Shipp

Welcome back to Soap Opera Sunday, gentle readers! Here’s a list of everyone playing Soap Opera Sunday. Don’t you wanna play too? Find out how here. My post will go up later…