We drove to Langley, BC in a downpour. We visited the lady who has our doggie. He's still a baby so we're gonna bring him home after Hawaii. He's cream colored and fluffy. He bounces, like Tigger. When we came back in the door tonight, the katz looked at us with distain because we smelled like DOG. In truth, we'd had a litter and their parents all over us for about three hours. So. Well. Yes. We smelled like dogs. The nice lady gave us a dog toy the katz can sniff. They were (properly) insulted.

Then we fed them and they were mollified, at least for now. They don't understand what is about to happen to their pampered world. The'll have to get along.

Now I'll have a boy I can go on walks with, o joy o rapture.

We're getting a dog. And no, we won't make him wear his hair in bows or put Halloween costumes on him. I promise. We're getting a dog because we're nuts. And I miss Yogi.

And we're nuts.

No good reason for this photo

I know y'all were wanting a 'special' toaster.

The check engine light is on on my dash. I hope it's because the gas cap wasn't screwed on tightly. Please o please let that be the answer.

I have been remiss. I know. What with digging out and burning toast and the like. Tonight I go dancing again with my dance people. We take off our shoes and we let the music enter and we move around the room. I close my eyes a lot and go into an alternate reality. Like an acid trip in the Deep South without the sliver fish and Spanish moss. Humid, sensual, a bit slithery.

Holly and I went to Tiger Mountain and found this. All along 'our' trail, the Lingering Trail. At least 20 downed trees. We weren't hiking, we were on an obstacle course. Eventually Holly said the trees were 'spiraling' in the wind and we'd be clobbered for sure so we came back out.

My new life: hiking and dancing and swimming.

Amen.

I tried to make asparagus soup like the kind I had last week. You roast the asparagus til it's crispy, then into the blender with (soy) milk, then a generous dollop of (fake) sour cream. It was so delicious, I swooned in the restaurant. The waitperson patiently explained how to make it. He must have forgotten some SECRET ingredient. My honey said she thought it was good but it wasn't the same.

Pretty however.

The sun came to visit today and shone on all and everyone. We came out en mass to walk around the park and shade our eyes and exclaim about the numerous madrona trees that fell with the wind and ice. They have the most beautiful bark, smooth and tawny. I stroke their bark. Dogs and children and couples. Sabbath observers with their many offspring. Walking into the brilliant windy sun and whitecaps.

The tiny fist of winter let go.

Today I slid down the hill to clinic in time to rush to the hospital because one of our mommas was having her babe too early and way too fast. Missed the birth but babe and mom are fine. The streets are giant puddles of slush and ice. Cars still can't make it up hills, even wee hills.

There is nothing for it. We're gonna watch Blade Runner:Director's Cut. A pure Ridley Scott beautiful nightmare. And drink hot chocolate.

Still in bed. Just called all our clients to tell them not to come to clinic. The windows are iced up. Rain fell all night, then froze. No traffic, no kids outside. Just the sound of rain on snow on the skylight.

Today I wish we had a fireplace. Grateful we have power and heat.

Worried about anyone sleeping outside now.

Ok, now there's snow in my hood so I went for a massive ski, down the hill around the lake, to Seward Park, all around and back up the hill (big, gnarly hill) to the house where I collapsed with hot chocolate. And a hot bath.

The geese in formation by the lake, no visibility and calling to each other. O, I love them, flying into the snow.

Here in South Seattle, there is no snow, nada.

I can get to a birth if we can meet at the birth center. I could walk. Might take a few hours. I could do it. Seattle weather forecasters are positively delighted, de-lighted. Woohoo, big news, snowflakes.

From this Northeaster, sheesh. Really???

Sunday mornings I go dancing for two hours, then a hot tub, then lunch. Today it was a blizzard for about an hour, no really! See?

But. The best part. As I walked along in the hood, I was grinning because everyone was outside, building snowmen and playing with their children and dogs. One man built a lying-down snowman who was tied by twine to little snowmen, Gulliver's Travels style.

But wait. The best part. A man walked ahead of me on Broadway in a full length fur coat and Russian style hat and black boots. I turned to look at him as I passed and he was pretty near NAKED underneath. His coat was open. He had a criss-cross leather strap on his chest and a leather, um, codpiece on his area and thats it. Two girls asked him if he was cold and he said nope cuz he had a hat on. Well, of course.

Anyway, I fell down only once. I walked for about 113 miles and came home with wet boots. I love snow. And naturally, there are three ladies in labor tonight. The babies think it's funny to wait until the weather is interesting (snow storm, hurricane, 60 mile an hour winds) to make their grand entrance. Silly babies!!!

Last night we went to see West Side Story. Live. On stage. In person. All singing and dancing. Some of the songs and dialog are now in Spanish, as it was originally written.

I swooned in my seat. Yes, I did. I wanted to savor it; I wanted to turn it over in my hands and study it, slowly. The two hours went by in a jiffy. Way too fast. Jerome Robbins. Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein.

Sigh.

Two Against One from Anthony Francisco Schepperd on Vimeo.

The katz are out of control. Deb came upstairs this morning before she went to work to show me the peanut butter cookies I had made the previous night. Someone had eaten a bite out of several cookies. BITES NOT MADE BY HUMANS. ((((cue Count Dracula music))))). Tonight when I came home, Hugo and Lolla set up a horrid yowl about how hungry they are and no one ever feeds them ever and they are starving etc. As I sat on the couch drinking tea and eating a cookie, they sat side by side at my feet and stared at me with their big round cat eyes. When I offered Hugo a bit, he ATE IT. He eats peanut butter cookies. Lola toys with her bit and leaves it on the floor.

Why do they do this? I have katz that beg. They beg at the dinner table. They carry on like they haven't eaten in weeks and weeks. Although nightly, they are fed expensive cat food.

But peanut butter cookies? Really?

When I was eighteen, my parents threw me out of the house because I was sexually active. It was 1968. I couch surfed with my boyfriend before we moved to Boston so I could go to art school. I didn't see or speak to my parents for a year and a half. I dropped out of school because I couldn't pay the tuition. Eventually I drove across country in a 'drive-away car' with my friends and a backpack. I landed in LA where I lived on the beach with other hippies. And that's just part of the story.

What I mean to say is that I will never understand how a parent could throw away a child. I know it happens all the time but as a mother, I don't get it. I was a naive eighteen year old with barely any skills. And I'll always be terrified that I won't have a place to live, no matter how hard I try to secure housing and enough money. I stole food. I lived hand-to-mouth on temp jobs and the kindness of strangers. I only got busted for hitchhiking once. I was lucky.

My children always have a home with me, as long as I live. I know that and so do they.

I never really feel safe.

By the way. Last night while attempting to remove the pit from my avocado, I inadvertently stabbed myself in the hand with a wee but so sharp knife. Blood everywhere. Dang, the hand can surely bleed, all over the sink. I called Patti who came right over cuz I was sure I needed stitches or a tetanus shot or something. By the time she arrived, the bleeding had stopped (hooray platelets and clotting factors!!) The nice nurse-who-answers-the-phone at my ER told me to wash it and come in if it started bleeding again, which it didn't.

In future, use a spoon to remove avocado pits, K?

Sheesh.

Inspired by Ms Moons' post, I'm gonna tell on my dad. RIP, poppa.

Way back when in the dark ages when I was young, the house my parents lived in had a broken spigot outside by the garage. So dear old dad decided to fix it one day. He turned off the water at the main which, I believe, was in the house. (By the way, my mother was gone to the store). He goes at the spigot with a soldering gun and, um, sets the shingles on fire. In his haste to turn the water back on, he ran up the front stairs and grasping the railing too firmly, broke it off. He turned the water back on and put out the fire.

Whereupon, my mother returned to find a) a broken porch railing b) scorched shingles on the house and c) a still busted spigot.

That's my father. He believed he could fix anything. And he tried. It just didn't always work out.

I bet an argument ensued.

I just bought a plane ticket to Kauai. Shite. It might rain the whole week. No matter. Whales come through in the winter, And the water is warm. I know right where my goggles and fins are. Besides. There's a swimming pool next to the house they rented.

Even so.

It feels so, It makes me feel scared because it's a lot of money and I ponder travel for a while before I do it. Travel. The plane. The terminal. The baggage that could get lost. The plane. The person next to me on the plane. It makes me anxious. Very anxious.

Besides.

The few days before, I'll be in Atlanta performing a wedding for two girls. I get back on the 12th. I leave again on the 13th.

{{{{{{{}}}}}}}

And that's all.

Dare I admit this? I went to the dance thang last night and danced for TWO HOURS to LOUD MUSIC and sweated and acted a perfect fool. It was fantastic. I'm going again on Sunday with friends who also want to sweat and run around in their bare feet in a dark room to the Pointer Sisters.

My brother called today and offered to put me up on Kauai in February for a week if I can get there ie: buy a plane ticket. Uh, don't know. I can't bring my honey cuz she doesn't have any vacation. So I'd be going by myself.

Can I be with my brother for a week? He has a nice wife. Can I justify going to Hawaii in February, the month of gloom? Can I afford it?

Stay tuned for these and other mysteries.

I'm watching about 57 Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. They're my people, the Brits. And manors surrounded by formal gardens. Riding to the hounds (blech). HIgh tea. Dressing for dinner. Twitchy upper lips. Massive dining room tables and servants bringing soup tureens. O, and Miss Marple is always stumbling into a murder. Amazing.

New year, new year. Spent the day in my pajamas, still with a dang cold. But, it's so warm and sunny, I must go for a walk along the lake and greet the pintails and coots and mallards and geese. Winter sun on the bare branches.

Last night's dream: with Raven, my friend from the res. We're at his house, miraculously polished up in a ragged neighborhood. Clean walls, new paint, a brand new dining room his mother doesn't want us to go into. Then bullets coming through the door, the walls. We're crawling on the floor to the basement where, lawd above, there is a tunnel under the yard that leads away from the fracas into the woods. We're saved and I'm feeling so grateful we weren't killed or injured. We're free. We're on the edge of the forest looking back at the house where a great garden is growing, very tall plants and abundance. No more gunfire.

Probably fireworks from downtown.

The first seed catalogue came yesterday. We crave the solar powered dryer and the dehydrator. And the pages of beets. Purple-red beauties. it's not time to start anything but I'm tempted.

Bless all in this new year, for health and family and love, right or wrong.