May His Memory Be Eternal

My friend R.D.'s father died on Monday. I just learned about it tonight, a few moments ago, which doesn't bother me in and of itself. I understand the chaos that happens and the weird time warp one enters when a loved one dies. But I wish I could have been there sooner for my friend. He's exhausted, naturally, and grieving. I'm bitter that lung cancer has claimed another victim. My mom would have adored Mr. D, who was a wonderful jazz musician. I'll call my friend tomorrow and see how he's doing.

How Am I? "Miserable, darling, as usual!"

I'm constructing a Cruella de Vil outfit for Halloween. Here's how it's working out:
- From home I'm using a long slinky black skirt and a sleek black tank.
- From TJ Maxx I bought a pair of red pointy flats.
- From House of Humor, a local costume shop, I bought a cigarette holder, a pair of elbow-length red gloves, a white wavy wig, and some black spray-on hair color. I'll spray half the wig black.
- From JoAnn fabrics, I bought four yards of white fake fur and four yards of dalmation-print lining fabric, four packets of red bias tape, four large black buttons, four large snaps for under the buttons (I don't want to bother with making bottonholes in fake-fur fabric), and 2 smaller red fabric buttons.

I drafted a pattern for a wide-collared white "fur" cape that'll be lined with the spotted material. All seams will be bound with red tape, to go with the red gloves and shoes. I'll do dramatic brows and red lipstick. I wish I had the movie so I could study the character, but I'll have fun regardless.

Back to the cape: I spent a good deal of time measuring and drafting, then cut out the pattern pieces. Tomorrow I'll cut and begin pinning and sewing. I figure Monday evening will be devoted to doing the trimming (sewing buttonholes on the inside tabs that'll make the cape close into "sleeves" when needed). I'll buy red lipstick on Tuesday, then be all ready for Wednesday's big Halloween party at work.

This is the first creative project I've been really interested in since my mom died. For some reason, the wedding planning interests me deeply, but not consumingly so. But a good Halloween costume...now there's a craft worth obsessing over at least a little.

Sad news from the east

My paternal uncle, the father of my dear cousins out in Boston, is gravely hurt and has been in the hospital for the past week. He was supposed to have surgery this morning, but at 6 a.m. today, his family got a call that their dad was back in the ICU, on a respirator, and they'd best all get down there as soon as possible. We'd all been praying daily for his recovery, and what a crushing setback we've gotten instead. Again, I'm left wondering (childishly, I'm sure) about the usefulness of prayer in doing anything besides making people feel like they're doing something at the time they're praying. Of course, I continue to pray, and in faith, but there's this weird little stream of thought going at the same time that says "pray all you want; it won't matter. What's going to happen is what's going to happen, and your prayers will have nothing to do with it." Maybe that's why a lot of people say we should pray for God's will to happen, and for ourselves to accept it with strength and with grace. I just want my uncle to pull through, so my aunt can have her husband and my cousins can have their dad for a few years longer.

My priest would not approve. Nevertheless...

Thanks to my cousin Wednesday42.

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

*honk*....*snrfl*...$&#@!!

Sick again. I had a few days to enjoy being over the flu and then a cold virus jumped me. Damn. I hate being congested; hate it with a white-hot hate. I don't get to go to the gym. I had to cancel two fun weekend events I'd really been looking forward to. *Sigh*. And I just IM'd with a friend whose dad's lung cancer, I found out this very moment, has spread to his liver and brain. Which makes me feel like an utter loser for complaining about a cold. Errggghgh.

Gave me fever

I came home on Wednesday feeling tired, strung-out really, and with my back tingling in that special way that means I'm probably coming down with something. But I went to 24 Hour Fitness to meet my trainer anyway, because (1) I'm bad-ass, and (2) I thought maybe a workout would kick-start my immune system. I was wrong on the latter count. As I warmed up, I was feeling pretty OK. Almost normal. But then Mr. Evil (my nickname for Mark, my trainer, who I really like) came along and started putting me through my paces. It's a given that at the end of each workout with him, I feel like an overcooked strand of linquini. But on Wednesday night, I thought I was going to either faint or hurl. I'm kind of stubborn when it comes to taking everything that guy can dish out, so I just kept my head down and did my reps on each exercise until my muscles trembled and threatened to fail. Normally I sweat like a dock worker when I exercise, but this night I noticed that no matter how hard I pushed, I didn't perspire. Finally, Mark looked at me and said "We'd better stop. You look kind of green." I crept home and took a long bath, and two hours later found out I was running a temparature. I ached all over and my eyeballs felt like hot marbles. My heart rate was 111 per minute, and it stayed there for hours. Flu bug anyone? Arghgh...I laid off of work for a day, napping and gabbing with friends on the phone. Old pal Ron called me up from Bozeman. He asked if I was feeling sorry for myself, and when I said "no," he said "Oh yeah--it's us guys who feel sorry four ourselves when we get sick. Women just start throwing kleenex all over the house." Ron cracks me up every time we talk. I drank juice and watched bad TV and scanned the 'net for weird news and slept more and let my fiance pamper me a little and I felt better by Friday morning. Whew! Just in time for the weekend.

Silence of the homecomer

I got a check in the mail yesterday. Which, I suppose, is better than having to put a check into the mail. This is a cash disbursement of one-fifth of my late mother's stock holdings. So. Money in the mail. Money I have to start a checking account for. Money I'd rather not have. But I'll bank it, and I'll use some of it, and invest the rest, and I'll work up some gratitude, eventually.

The last few weeks weren't easy. I found myself so deep under the water of grief that my best defense from it was to just try and hold my breath and live my everyday life. But that's about all I could muster. And so whenever most people asked me how I was doing, I'd say "fine" and leave it at that. But "fine" had been redefined. It no longer meant carefree. It simply meant I was still here; I was maintaining. The hunky scientist fiance and I have been watching recorded episodes of Ken Burns's "The War," and after seeing the images and hearing the veterans' stories, I began to understand why so many of them came back and never said much about what they'd experienced. What could those young men say to their relieved mothers, to the wives they'd grown up alongside in those loamy farming towns, to explain the shattering their lives had undergone in the bloody mud of far-off places with names like "Peleliu"? No words could begin to adequately explain, except to others who'd experienced a similar thing, and then no words would be needed.

i've never occupied a world where words have lost their power. But it didn't matter, as motivation for wordworking was in short supply. But I've come back above the surface and am back to writing, to the imperfect striving that at times brings me closer to grace. And I'm back to wedding planning. We moved our wedding date up by three months (no, I'm not pregnant), to late February, so there's a lot to do.