no such thing as coincidence

my friend linda and i went to look at a house in east austin this morning - owned by a friend of hers who has, sadly, recently been diagnosed with cancer. it is such a cool house and she is such an amazing and brave woman. from there, being mid-day, we went to lunch and while we were waiting, linda read our horoscopes . . .

scorpio - 'why would you choose this bright, sunny moment to descend into the dark places and explore the fermenting mysteries? what renegade impulse would move you to turn away from the predictable pleasures and easy solutions and instead go off in quest of more complex joys and wilder answers? here's what i have to say about that: i think you long to be free of transitory wishes and fleeting dreams for a while so that you can get back into alignment with your deeper purposes. You need to take a break from the simple obsessions of your grayish, poker-faced ego, and reattune yourself to the call of your freaky, evergreen soul."

at first i thought - well, this clearly doesn't apply to me considering all i'm going through right now on the work front but linda looked at me and said, 'can you believe it? it's perfect.' and the more i've thought about it, the more i'm starting to think that what is happening at work could be a blessing in disguise. i even found the children's book i'd written over 15 years ago - and which i keep threatening to do something with - or try to. i'd not been able to find the manuscript in ages. all i knew was that it was in this house somewhere because i knew i'd seen it since i'd moved in. and today i got out of my funk (a big enough miracle) and found it.

while looking for it, i found a card - i love to buy cards but never seem to be able to find them when i want them - and it read: Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% what we do with what happens. (or something along those lines). point taken.

it's still a scary place to be but it could be so much worse. things can always be worse. and we can make them even worse still. we can also make them as normal as possible and make the best of what's given us and that's what i plan to do. i know life, or god or the universe will continue to throw her curve balls and blessings but - that's life.

for those of you who kindly continue to ask about her, gigi is fine and will be here next week and will be staying a week or two. my sister is driving her up on friday and on saturday morning we're all going to my nephew jeff's high school graduation. it's on the other side of the universe - something austin didn't use to have; everything was within 30 minutes - but not any more. so we'll be leaving here around 7:30 saturday morning to get to the 9:00 graduation on time. i can just see trying to get mom out of here at that time of day. i'm betting right now there will be 7 trips back into the house for me to get things she's forgotten once she's in the car. but this bus is going to leave at 7:30 whether she likes it or not. then we'll be home at some point for a nap and then dinner to celebrate jeff at 6. mom will sleep like a rock that night.

colleen has to go back to houston on sunday but mom's going to stay, as i mentioned above. buddy and shilo will be thrilled. they are both now housebroken and i hope to god they're not SO thrilled that they forget that fact. we need as many housebroken mammals as we can get in this place.

i haven't heard from cj yet again but noey has and everything seems to be going well. the fork on his new bike broke, however, and he called noey to ship him a new one until the manufacturer sends their replacement. brand new bike and the fork breaks. he is so hard on those bikes but i've got to think that so are some of the other mountain bikers - how many forks can these guys go through and why can't they build a bike with indestructible forks? yet another in the long list of questions that seem they should have simple answers.

still, at the end of the day, it's still about loving one another, being good to one another, doing the next right thing even when it's hard and trying to take the high road. not sure i've been the best in any of those departments the last two years. as hard as i thought things were when ali and i broke up; as many times as i didn't think i'd make it and then for this to happen at work on top of it all. . . .it's more important than ever for me to remember those things and to keep it together. as paula says, 'baby steps' but i have to remember that i know a lot more than i give myself credit for sometimes. just have to bring it to the surface.

hope to have some good gigi stories for you soon.

peace-
sharron