Prom Night June 1999

Toronto Trip May 99

Audubon Marching Band

Just in a few short weeks, we've gone to so many places and done so many things. Lavinia and Sean went to the June 1999 Audubon Senior Prom. Sean is a graduating senior. I went to Toronto, Canada, with Lavinia and the Audubon Marching Band on their Band trip and festival in May, and this past Memorial Day weekend all three of us went to West Virginia. I plan to put up two new pages for these things, especially, West Virginia.

January 1999
The holidays are over and work sets in at a slow pace but inexorable. When all fails and I am sad, too much work, too little success, too many cares, my fur friends comfort me. The cat is one of a pair of twins who were born outside the house where my daughter takes her piano lesson. Over a long hard winter they peeked in the window at us and stole our hearts. My daughter begged and begged and finally one day, after a phone call from the piano teacher to tell us the local vet had captured the cats and spayed them and was going to release them back to the outdoors, I gave in and we provided a new home for them. They seemed happy here, too. One, the sister with a black chin, made fast friends with me and sat with me, when it was her turn and the dogs weren't watching. Then one day when I left a window open between screens and storm windows, she ran away. She didn't mean to, but she took that jump out the window and when I closed it to keep the other one from following, she jumped back up and hit the glass. One thing led to another, and by not simply leaving tuna out to coax her, I ended up driving her further away till she was gone from sight. We've never seen her again since that day. It plunged me into despair and the cold came and every night I thought of that little friend in the large, dark, dangerous, cold, unsheltered world outside. We've more or less resigned ourselves to her loss. Even her sister has her appetite back at last and has made friends due to having lost her own companion. She wasn't friendly when her sister lived here. We still look for her. I call the cat Ms. Bibs, and the dogs names are Coco and Whitey. As I type this, on a Tuesday night, the cat romps upstairs in my attic bedroom, with her fuzzy ball toy, and the dogs snooze on the carpet, one on each side of where I sit. Just their quiet breathing is a balm to a sore spirit.
November
An old friend got in touch, recently, after 15 years. We were young art school students together once, a long, long, time ago. She is in web site development these days. The phone call gave me the impetus to add a page to my home site - this one, for family and friends. That's me in the upper left corner -older, fatter, gone from young woman of the world to stressed out, middle aged, single mom. My 53rd birthday was two days ago. Coming to this page, bit by bit, will be family news. This is my 5th construction of this page - small errors, lack of experience, not backing up, various minor disasters have cost a great deal of time, but here we are at 9:30 p.m. and at least this much is up and running!