I really wanted to cancel this party... but I'd just invited so many people, some when I bumped into them randomly, that I was afraid that people would show up anyway.
So we carried on, and it was kinda nice to see people and see people having fun. There were flower crowns and butterfly backdrops for selfies and a bonfire for wishes and people stayed late into the night...
Books are some of my best friends and my friends are the best. When I asked Jan Shoemaker if I could bring my people to book club, she told me to bring anyone I wanted--kids and puppies included. I didn't expect her to have a cake with my mom's and sister's names emblazoned on it.
Nor did I expect L to flout all the rules of cake-cutting and delve straight into the center of the cake to pull out the piece with my mom's name for her to eat.
I have the best friends.
Pic: Mom with "her" piece of cake. My name was on there too, and I made a lot of "who wants a piece of me" jokes.
We're reading Angeline Boulley's Warrior Girl Unearthed for book club. Much of it takes place in northern Michigan--on Sugar Island where L had disappeared to last week, in fact. It is YA, but deftly deals with NAGPRA and the book is wonderfully infused with details about indigenous Ojibwe culture.
So we took a road trip yesterday to visit the Ziibiwing Center where I was happy to introduce my fam and Mr. Ray to each other. On the way home, we stopped by my office for a picnic lunch.
Pic: Nu's photo of us by the college sign. (I cropped some of it out.)
I loved SLE very much. I loved who she was. I loved what she had made of herself. I loved how she talked to everyone. I loved how life had been unkind to her and somehow it didn't seem to hold this sometime foster kid back. I loved how she made At feel. I loved how she made me feel. I loved all the kisses and hugs she gave me. The kisses and hugs she told At to give me. The breakup was recent and I was going to wait a few weeks before I reached out. I should have reached out sooner. I want to keep these words here to remember how much she meant to me. I see it's Aaron Bushnell's birthday and it connects to something about how people are trying to do the best for themselves and others and get by however they can. Life is so heavy. I don't think I will ever get used to how final death is.
(At and I sat around on At's stoop talking through things and crying yesterday. Today, Big A reminded me that my mom and sis have come halfway across the world to spend time with me so I need to pull myself together. I'd made a detailed plan for every single day when I booked their tickets, so I may be able to pull this off.)
We heard that At's 28-year-old ex died.
I expected that everything would have stopped when I opened the eyes I shut in disbelief.
I kind of want things to stop.
I'm still finishing up some last-minute chores. I guess I could do them after they get here, but then they'd want to help... and they don't know how to do things as they have a lot of domestic help. I don't want to make them travel all this way to do housework!
Big A sweetly tried to reassure me that everything would get done, and I snapped at him that I was aware of that as I was doing it all myself. Poor Big A, trying to be helpful. And poor me, so irritable.
Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky are voting with democrats to block Trump's horrible spending bill... keep up the pressure!!
Pic: Lansing Pride was lit this year, so many people!
our words tear paths as if we are oracles our touch gathers courage as though there's no law for it mosquitoes now follow us home kno...
