t-5!!!!!!!!!

home again.

it was good to hang with bro. we should definitely do it more often. hopefully we will now that he's only a 2.5 hr flight and 300km drive away.

i got to meet the crowd at elhart's and denisse at dq. and claudia and jaime, to whom i'll forever be indebted to for their friendship to my brother.

i've lived in california for over 10 years. i'm used to a smoke free environment. medicine hat is anything but. however, they'll have to become one on june 1. can't imagine it'll be easy. i also can't imagine it'll be pleasant to have to step outside to smoke when it's -35 celsius outside.

on the home front, still having difficulty wrapping my brain around the collapse of the maze. that's just mindblowing. the traffic mess everybody expected failed to materialize today. i expect that's bound to change soon.

going to see this exhibit with a friend soon. we've been talking about it for a while, looks like it's finally gonna happen. woohoo.

oh yes, my shoes arrived today. not the kodiaks i'd originally ordered, but a very cool looking pair of terras. they don't look like steel toe shoes. but they are :) stylin' i tell ya!

stormy's sleeping next to me. on his back. this cat has no concept of self protection. and he loves me. and missed me.

and, last but not least, here's the one brick blog about our upcoming trip.

t minus 8

reporting live from the hat!

as advertised, the plains are... well, plains. i have been on some boring roads (slc to cheyenne and juarez to chihuahua come to mind) before, but this one pretty much is topping the list right now, farms on both sides of the highway, smaller roads that disappear into the distance, 3 different (or 4, i lost count) ways to get to the royal tyrell museum of paleotology...

i stopped trying to find ways of amusing myself after maybe 2 hours.

anyhow, i am glad i came.

i forget how much i miss my family when i'm home in the bay area. it's only after i see them (seldom as that is), and the void i normally carry inside me gets filled with them that i notice it was there at all.

maria decided to marry hector 38 years ago. they had 4 lovely children together, 2 boys, 2 girls. the children grew up and fate handed them out their cards (the boys got married and started families of their own; the girls have, so far, had other priorities)... fast forward to today when they are scattered throughout north america. 2 in mexico, one in the states, and, now, one in canada. but there was a bond created through pain and loss and there is always a void in each of them where the other 3 used to be. it´s been more than 4 years since they were all together.

so, here is the oldest of those 4 kids, happy to be with one of her brothers, but missing her other 2 siblings all that much more.

maybe there is something to that theory that distance makes the heart grow fonder after all...

and on that note, i bid y'all a good day.

t-11

my clothes dryer died a couple of days ago. this was most unexpected; and the timing is not good at all. so now i'm drying my clothes the way god intended: hanging them on a clothes line. i'll get a new dryer eventually... got a few things to figure out first. and a couple of trips to take.

i'm talking to a friend i hadn't chatted with in a while, and he asked about my other cat. had to tell him he died. and now i'm all sad again. i miss my squishy, lovely, soft, sweet baby al.

t-12 days almost t-11

my shoes have been mailed!!!!!!!! yeah. and i got my very own pink toolbelt :) i'm so gonna be stylin'

i'm so vain. tres pathetique! (no, i don't speak french, but i've seen a few words written somewhere)


stormy's grooming himself next to me. i'm gonna miss my baby boy while in the plains of alberta. oh yeah, forgot to mention, going to go visit bro on weds. haven't seen him in a year. looking forward. also, i've been given the mission of spying for his kids, they want to get the real scoop on Medicine Hat, and who can blame them, they're the ones who may spend the rest of their formative years there. i'm flattered that they trust me enough to spy for them.

and on unrelated tv news. the sopranos last night, uncle junior's letter to dick cheney was PRICELESS. the best bit of tv i've seen in a while.

oops it's past midnight already, guess the title for this post is wrong. oh well, somehow, i don't think my non-existing audience will care.

t-13 days

starting to panic.

the steel toe shoes i ordered are back ordered!!!!!!!! (yes, i am a woman, ergo, it's all about the shoes)

on unrelated news, had moroccan food last night. the food was delicious, the belly dancer inspiring (i want to balance a sword in my head like that), and the company lovely.

welcome to the land of happy sox

greetings all,

bienvenidos a mi blog (yes, i still remember my spanish... most of it).

some of you may wonder: "why is she writing a blog now?"

let's break down that question into its two main components:

fist part: why is she writing a blog?
answer: why not?

second part: why now?
answer: well.... there's this upcoming trip i'm taking soon, and i want to document it, mostly for me (so if i ever need a quick pick me up i can always re-read what i wrote then and remember: i was there!), but also for the few of you who may be interested in seing a bit of it through my eyes. so, in an effort to be proactive, i'm getting started now, a full 2 weeks before the event!!! (woohoo!!! progress!)

"so, what's up with that mysterious trip you've just mentioned diana?"
funny you should ask dear reader.
i'm going here to do this!

I can't wait to go.