Hi to everyone, and happy day before the 4th of July. Things have been busy and time has been flying by so quickly I can barely keep up with everything. I had friends visit, got busy busy at work, then family arrived.  I have skimmed through LJ as best I can, and I apologize to anyone who posted something mondo important to which I should have replied.

The Husband (westonochse) and I celebrated our fifth, yes, fifth wedding anniversary this past weekend. As I told almost everyone who asked or offered congratulations, "Yes, can you believe it? Five years and I haven't throttled him yet!" We spent the time at a swanky Tucson resort where The Husband manged to find an awesome deal, we ate (boy, did we EAT), saw Rise of the Silver Surfer (awesome), and even hiked in the very hot July sun on Sunday morning. We picked up the teenaged daughter for her summer visit by driving to Phoenix on Sunday evening (when she was supposed to have been flown into Tucson; boo on America West Airlines-- their treatment of passengers, particularly a 16 year old girl, goes so far beyond shabby that we weill never, ever, fly on them again). We now have Mom, Dad, nephew, daughter, and miniature Schnauzer staying with us for a bit. It's a houseful and actually great fun (yes, I really mean that). The look on Goblin's face when itty-bitty Finny grumbles at him is truly comical. Tomorrow we have a cookout planned with my Dad and a couple of work friends coming by to join in.

The menu:

• Citrus Orange Achiote Pulled Pork
• Chipolte Coleslaw
• Corn Pudding with Green Chiles
• Red, White & Blue Jello Triffle
• Von's Famous Deviled Eggs
• Whatever other yummy thing we find at the store.

Hardly any work on The Super Secret Project, despite having some time off work.  Really need to buckle down on that.  My good intentions just aren't getting me anywhere.

New pictures in some of the galleries:

    In the Dawgs Gallery, check out "Futility" and "Only If I Must."

    Life Shots has a picture of me and Dad, and me and The Husband's Blue Elvis.

    Arizona Stuff has a couple of shots of a new creature, and the latest update on the Cactus on Steroids.

    Friends has a couple of shots showing recent pals visiting.  Since we live so far away from everything, I have to import my pals, often from the east coast.  Shira comes from there, as do Marsha and Beth, while Michelle lives it up in the California sun.

Dad tells me he's adopted a little girl from the local animal shelter, a Russian Blue named Sushi (now there's a name for a cat!).  That's good news-- he's been lonely since cancer took Sugar several months ago.  Sushi is being spayed right now, and I can't wait to meet her and add her picture to the melting pot that's the Internet!

I have been in yet another training program all week and buried in homework each night, so I haven't said much.  armoire_man left us on Monday, and then when I thought I'd do a quick email check late this evening before bed, I found emails from two people back in Chicago telling me that my former boss, David Kayner, died yesterday.  Even though I left the firm in 1999, we'd kept in touch.  David absolutely loved to talk to anyone about everything-- he was just that kind of person-- and he loved to laugh.  Like everyone, he also had his "moments," which after leaving the firm, I could look back on and laugh about (even with him).  In fact, I'd just talked to him about two weeks ago.  He'd been ill for a long time, bouncing in and out of hospitals and rehab centers, and he had just gone back into the hospital after what everyone thought had been a great leap forward in his health.  I didn't get to say much more than "Hi," because he told me he had people who were there to visit.

David was a good friend to me while I worked for him, and he stayed a good friend afterward.  I spent 10 years of my life sitting at a desk within ten feet of his office door, five days a week.  I sure will miss him.

      There is a distinct advantage to living in a small town or small city over life in a large one, namely, the ability to actually socialize with your friends on a regular basis. Sure, there's always email and telephone, but most writers are also naturally reclusive and really good at hiding, especially if they have a full time job and/or go to school, as I do. We horde our free time jealously, not because we don't love our friends, but because our free time is also our time to write, and for most of us, there just isn't very much of it.
      Sierra Vista gave me something I never had anywhere else: friends who actually lived close enough so that I could be a friend in person as well as just in theory. Nothing here is more than twenty minutes away from anything else, and as anyone who has sat in Chicago or Phoenix traffic for an hour and forty minutes (one way) understands, going to someone's house for a party or meeting for lunch can be like scaling a mountain. Ditto for public transportation-- transferring buses, riding commuter trains, and heaven help you in bad weather. Here in this small city of about 40,000 people, for the first time in my life I actually had a group of girlfriends within reach-out-and-tangibly-touch-me range. This meant we could easily have lunch during the work week, or go to a movie-- just that-- on the weekend, or meet for dinner on a weeknight. Then everyone could go on about their business-- writing, school, kids, other plans, whatever. We could have a bite to eat and then head home to do whatever we needed to get done that evening. We could meet up and do a little shopping, then ditto-- back home. If someone needed help with a project or was having an impromptu cookout, it was easy to just buzz on over for an hour or two. We helped with garage sales, went to town art fairs, helped move, cooked and were cooked for. When we had the house before this one and Toni had her previous house, we were six blocks from each other; not long after we became friends I threw gold-colored dog goggles on Lily and walked her over to Toni's house just for fun. Toni answered the door with the phone in one ear, looked down at the dog, and said in that great Virginia drawl, "Oh, my Lawd!"
      But what Sierra Vista gave, it also took away. This is a military town, and almost everyone here with whom I come in contact is military-oriented. Because of that, I said goodbye to the last of those friends, Toni, today. She stopped by and gave back a sweater and mumu (yes, I said mumu) I'd loaned her and forgotten about, and she's headed off to Virginia while her husband goes to Iraq. Another friend, Jeannette, left for the east coast in mid-October, while Rochelle and her husband moved to, of all places, the Chicago area in May. Shira and her family also headed east in June. These were all friends from work and my cherished group has now been scattered around the U.S. I would have never thought that at my age I would cry in saying goodbye to a friend, but today is a repeat of May, and I did it both times. I guess you have to experience the downs to truly appreciate the ups in life, and it doesn't help that today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. It's hard to believe that Mom's already been gone a little over six months.
      Anyway, here's hoping I get these links right to post these two pix that were taken right before Toni and Jared drive away.



Toni and Me



Toni with Lily and The Goblin