Looking for my Blogathon site? It's over here.

I don't often take this blog into the dark places of my life, but this is one of those times. I mentioned my struggle with depression in a recent post. This has been the most dramatic relapse I've had since I started taking medication for it. The recent post was about how I'd gone off the meds and was struggling with my insurance company to get back on the proper prescription. I have it now but it's only half the dose I was on before- 150mg vs. 300mg.

When I first sought help for depression it was because something scared me badly enough to do it. I'd been having a "rough patch", as I used to call them. And I was driving home one night and I was thinking about things and thought to myself "if [bad thing that was going on then] happens, I'm going to have to kill myself, because I can't take much more of this." I had never had thoughts like that before. Suicide has never been and answer in my book. I called my doctor the next day.

I go through periods where I think I'm better. Periods where I think I don't need my medicine and so I don't take it. And those periods lead to where I am now. Climbing my way up out of a downward spiral. A friend mentioned that he was surprised by my post- he's known me for a couple of years and had no idea, because it's not something I ever mentioned. I don't talk about it because if my depression bores me it's got to be boring to others. Also, when I was younger, I would say outlandish things to get attention. I know all kids do that, but that behavior lasted well into my teens. So sometimes when I think about mentioning something about it to someone, I question my motives for doing so. Am I mentioning it so they'll feel sorry for me? Am I mentioning it so they can give me advice? They can't fix this, so what good does it do either of us?

I don't have the answers to those questions. I do know though, that yesterday, for the first time in my entire life, I felt mildly suicidal. I was awash with overwhelming sadness and my heart hurt. I felt like I wanted to be dead so that the hurt and the sadness would go away. I'm not sure why. Nothing has happened recently to give those feelings any validity- it was simply a bad day for me and my brain chemistry. While feeling that way I carried on several IM conversations with friends, acting as if it were just a normal day. Because really, it was. I knew I wasn't going to do anything to myslef, I knew that I in no way was going to act on the feelings I was having. They were just there.

I have made an appointment to see my doctor on Monday. I'm not ignoring this like I used to. This is a serious problem and I know I need help fixing it. Because I want to be myself again. I don't want to be ther person who wallows in their misery and lets their depression define them. I guess I wanted to post this because even though I know it might worry some, it might help someone too. Someone who randomly googles and finds out that someone else has felt what they are feeling. And I wanted to post it because that's what this blog is for. It's for burdens I am tired of carrying, tired of keeping locked silently away in my mind and my heart, and it's a place I can look back and see where I was and how far I have come.

It seems that no matter how much I might want to, I should never live anywhere hot. Turns out I am incredibly temperature sensitive, which either makes me more of a wuss for being temperature sensitive, or less of a wuss because I had reason to whine about hot weather as much as I have in the past. I had plans to be camping this weekend. I drove up to site with some friends, planning to meet other friends and stay overnight. The friends I had driven up with were only day-tripping and planned to go home after dinner.

It was already hot when we arrived, at about 9 in the morning. Dee arrived a few minutes after we did, and we set to unpacking the cars and getting camp set up. Dee's pavilion only takes a few miutes, so we did that one first. Then we set about putting up the sunshade. We got the ends staked down and one pole up and it was time to take a break in the shade. Then three more poles, and another break underneath what we had already put up. 15 or so minutes later we put up the last two poles. Usually the sunshade takes 10-15 minutes to put up. In the heat, it took us almost an hour.

There were classes going on, but in the heat we had little to no motivation to leave the shade or our chairs. I was there to participate in a cooking competition and we had to pick up our ingrdients at 1pm. One of our ingredients for the competition was a chicken, which was still mostly frozen. "I get to hug the chicken" was the quote of the afternoon. That frozen chicken was almost worth fighting over, and it was sad that we had to thaw it. People called us crazy for cooking on a stove in that kind of heat. We didn't know the exact temperature, but it was HOT. Sticky, sweat pouring off in rivers HOT.

A group camped next to us went on an ice run and brought us some gatorade. Then they went to the movies to get into air conditioning. We kept cooking. Everyone was drinking a lot of water, trying to keep ourselves hydrated. Just before 4pm we cracked open the orange gatorade. Gatorade used to only taste good when you needed it. Now, to sell more, they've made it so it's good even when you don't need it, but when you do need it, it tastes like heaven. The bottle tasted to me like orange gummi bears- that was how badly I needed it. A few minutes later I looked a my friends and said "Should I be worried about the fact that my heart is racing even though I'm sitting still?"

Both of my friends turned and looked at me with faces full of concern, as in unison they said "YES." Thankfully the site had a shower that was very close to our campsite. They told me to go get in a cool shower and stay there until my heart rate went down. I walked over there, slipped off my leather sandals and stepped into the shower stall; underwear, bra, cotton dress and all. It took about 20 minutes for me to feel cooled off. I walked back to camp, hair and dress dripping, but feeling much better.

I didn't know it, but the rapid pulse I was feeling was heat exhaustion, which could have quickly led to heatstroke. Had the shower not been available, I would have been taken to the hospital. When Dee returned from her class, she told us that someone's thermometer read 115 degrees. Mairghread's meat thermomter (which we had to use to check the internal temperature of the stewing chicken) read 103 degress, despite having been in the shade, inside a bag all day long. The eggs we planned to use to make custard had been in the shade as well, but were hot to the touch. (We swapped out those eggs for eggs we had brought with us that had been in the cooler.) At another point Mairghread picked up a bottle of water and said it was hotter than she likes her tea. Ew.

I made the decision not to camp, but to go home when my friends i had driven up with left. While it was significantly cooler at home, it was still warm enough to make sleeping difficult. I had to fight Julie for the spot on the bed in front of the fan. When I woke up in the morning I googled "heat exhaustion painful arms" and found the part of the CDC's website that lists the different types of heat emergencies: sunburn, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The pains I was having in my arms were heat cramps; caused by potassium depletion which is common with dehydration. It also said that if they lasted more than an hour to consult a physician. Since my arms had been hurting for about 12 hours by that point, I called my doctor's service and had her paged. When she called back she said that coming home had been wise, to stay inside and drink gatorade, and to stay as cool as possible. If that didn't work and my arms were still cramping by midafternoon, to go to the ER and have my electrolytes checked.

I installed myself downstairs in the coolest room in the house and had a fan going, and managed to stay relatively cool until about 4:30 when our power went out. By 5:30 I was sweating and could feel my heart rate starting to rise so I called my friend Laura and she came and drove me to the ER (the ache in my arms was bad enough that I didn't trust my grip on the steering wheel). They got me checked in and installed in a room, which turned out to be the same room I was in the last time I was in that ER two years ago. The doctor came in and asked me some questions, and ordered a blood panel and an IV of fluid. Lucky me.

**(Warning- If you're squeamish skip this paragraph)**

I'm generally okay with needles. I don't love them, but they don't freak me out either. I was dehydrated enough that the nurse had a heck of a time finding a vein, and when she finally thought she had found one in my left hand (after trying my right and giving up) she said to me "no promises Ladybug, but we're going to try this one." That's never something you want to hear, and it was all I could do not to flinch as she dug around with the needle. Laura came and took my other hand, and I was able to squeeze her hand while silently repeating an order to my left arm and hand to totally relax. She got the vein though and was able to get the blood for the labs, and got the IV started. I had my eyes closed but could feel her wiping my fingers with alcohol pads but couldn't figure out why. Turned out something had happened with one of the test vials or something and I ended up with blood all over. She got it semi cleaned up, but there was still a good bit left. (I did have Laura take a picture, but haven't been able to get it off the camera yet.)

Two and a half hours, two blood draws (the cells from the first draw were damaged so they had to do a second one) and 2 liters of saline later they said I could go home. My headache and nausea were gone, the pain in my arms was still there but had subsided a lot, and I was actually hungry, which was a good sign. They said I'd have some residual muscle tenderness in the arms because they had been cramping for so long, but that they should be back to normal by tonight. 2 liters of fluid is *a lot*. I was shocked that I could be that dehydrated, because I really had been drinking a lot on Saturday and was following my doctors instructions with the gatorade prior to going in.

I treated Laura to dinner for doing me the favor, and finally got home at 10. Our power was still out, as was everyone on our grid, which seemed to be roughly 20 square blocks. I went up to my room long enough to change into pjs and refill Julie's water bowl, but it was an oven up there. The temperature outside had cooled significantly, so I opened the windows and Julie got up on his cat bed that is attached to one of them, so i didn't woory about him overheating. I grabbed my purse, my laptop and some pillows and headed back to the cooler downstairs. The power came back on about 11, so the fans all kicked back on, but I stayed downstairs until 6am or so, then went up and slept another hour and a half in my bed. I'm exhausted, and would really rather be sleeping than working, but the office has AC and home doesn't.

I just had a dream that my best friend cleaned my room and I came absolutely unglued. Two of my old coworkers- Debbie and Carol- were there too. I came home from wherever I had been, and my room looked different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. Then she started showing my how she had rearranged my bathroom cabinets, and showed me where she had put stuff that had been on the counter (stuff that lives on the counter, not mess that she had cleaned up/put away). I started screaming at them all to get out, that this was MY SPACE and they should leave it the hell alone. Val and Debbie left, and I slammed around the bathroom putting stuff back and being all huffy. When I walked back into the bedroom Carol was sitting on my bed, and I screamed at her "Carol GET OUT!!" She started to cry and was like "You always yell at me!"

Yikes. I have issues. Serious issues. And when I woke up this morning I found that this heat wave is starting to send the ants inside, which means a deep clean of my room and a can of Raid when I get home from work tonight.

I posted that once the voices outside got too quiet to hear. But I think I wrongfully blamed the teenage daughter. They also have a teenage son I think. I'm not sure, because like I said, I never see these neighbors unless someone is making a ruckus, which has been all of about 5 times in two years, and never in the middle of the night. Honestly, they could have not lived there at all, just been friends of the kids next door, I have no idea. The girl I saw did not look like the girl I've seen before.

From what I can piece together from the bits I saw/overheard (because of course I opened my blinds just high enough to peek over my headboard and see what was going on. I'm totally the spying neighbor, but at almost 2 am, I think it's a right. It's not like I spy on them all the time) there must have been a group of kids together, and something got explosive. When I first looked out the window- the screaming had been going on for a few minutes- there were two girls getting into a car, with ScreamerGirl yelling something like "get that whore out of my sight!" or something like that. The driver of the car said she'd be back.

There was still lots of angsty yelling and crying, and the mom came out with a roll of toilet paper for the bloody nose. I'm actually starting to suspect that it might even have been the dad out there, and not a teenage boy, but who knows. Apparently ScreamerGirl punched BitchWhore square in the mouth, and got a punch in the nose in return. Guy said ScreamerGirl had been drinking, and he'd take care of it, so the mom went back inside. This is where I overheard that apparently BitchWhore had "fucked [her] best friend. Just fucked him for an hour" (she said variations of that same for a while, but you get the idea). Um, okay... I think another neighbor came out to see what was going on, because Guy said everything was fine, thank you. No apology for the disturbance, which irked me, but, whatever.

The girl who drove BitchWhore home came back about the time the cops showed up. That was when it got too quiet to hear anything so I posted and then went back to sleep. I was never like that as a teen, but I'm pretty sure I had friends who were.

My next door neighbors have a teenage daughter. Either she or one of her friends is sitting at the end of thier driveway drunk, crying and holding tissues to a bloody nose. I woke to her screaming that somebody was a whore. Apparently someone had sex with her best friend and she took exception to it. I dunno. I was asleep for the first part of it. I think she punched the other girl and her bloody nose is from getting hit. One of the other neighbors called the cops, so they're out there now too.

I actually live in a pretty good neighborhood, but teenagers are volatile I guess. This is not the first time the cops have been called to this particular house. It's funny though, unless there is an outburst like this I never really see or hear my neighbors.

I'm going back to sleep now.

Scene 1: A suburban living room on a Sunday evening. Judy sits in front of her laptop while Project Runway plays from the Tivo in the background. On the desk next to her, a cell phone rings.

Judy: Hello?
Charlotte: COFFEE!
Judy: What?
Charlotte: COFFEE!
Judy: Where are you?
Charlotte: On 280, headed for your house.
Judy: Um... okay?
Charlotte: Yay!
Judy: Where?
Charlotte: Starbucks by your house?
Judy: Okay.
Charlotte: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE!
Judy: I think maybe you've had enough coffee.....
Charlotte: NEVER! Never enough coffee!
Judy: Um, you're kinda scaring me.
Charlotte: Okay, see you soon. COFFEE!

Scene 2: Starbucks coffee. A sign on the wall advertizes "Fruit Blend Frappucino" in Pomegranate and Tangerine.

Judy: Hmm, I like pomegranate. I think I'll try that.
Charlotte: COFFEE!
Judy: Okay okay. You get coffee. I will get frappucino.
(they get to the front of the line to order their drinks)
Charlotte: Vanilla nonfat latte please.
Barista: What size?
Charlotte: The middle one.
Barista: Grande.
Charlotte: Yes. Grande. (under her breath) coffee coffee coffee coffee....
Judy: (to Barista) How is the pomegranate frappucino?
Barista: It's my favorite of the two.
Judy: Okay, a pomegranate frappucino please. Grande.
(Judy and Charlotte cross to pickup bar and only have to wait a brief moment for their drinks)
Charlotte: (happily) coffee coffee coffee coffee....

Scene 3: Outside Starbucks. Judy takes a small sip of her drink.
Judy: Mmm. This is kind of good.
Charlotte: I wanted to let you make your own decision, because I tried one of those and it was the grossest thing I'd ever tasted.
(as she is talking, Judy takes a larger sip and makes a face)
Charlotte: It sort of steals all the moisture from your mouth and then spits it back at you, and not in a good way.
(Judy has had several more sips of her drink, realizing that it gets progressively worse with every sip)
Judy: It tastes like chewing on a teabag. (takes sip, makes face)
(this continues for a few minutes as they chat- sip, grimace. sip, grimace. until finally Judy decides she is getting a different drink)

Scene 4: Inside Starbucks. Judy waits in line and gets up to the counter.
Barista: Back so soon?
Judy: Yes. (places drink on counter) This is kind of awful.
Barista: I know.

(Beat. Beat.)

Judy: You know? You said it was your favorite.
Barista: Of the two.
Judy: I can't believe you let me think it was good. I'd like a blackberry green tea frappucino please. Grande, no whip.
(takes out her wallet to pay)
Barista: Don't worry about it. I'll just get rid of this. (takes pomegranate drink and throws it away)

Scene 5: Outside Starbucks
Charlotte: So what did you say?
Judy: I said it was kind of awful, and she said "I know".
Charlotte: Really? She did?
Judy: Uh huh. But she didn't charge me for this new drink, so that's good at least.

(Judy and Charlotte drink their beverages and people watch for a while)

Fin.

Yup, it's blogathon time again. July 29th I'll be posting here every 30 minutes for 24 hours. I'll be blogging for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation again this year. I raised $90 last year, which is nothing to sneeze at but I'd really like to do better this year. My goal last year was $250, but I didn't fundraise very hard and I think it showed. My goal is $250 again this year. You know you you want to sponsor me.

There are a lot of reasons I chose SFAF. Program wise they do a ton of stuff here in the Bay Area, and they run the AIDS crisis line for the whole state. The crisis line serves all level of questions, from basic inquiries about safe sex practices, up to people calling hysterical over their recent diagnosis. But I picked them because they were important to Scott. And I had an experience yesterday that reminded me exactly why I have to do this.

Scott was a close friend of my family's. He was the first person I ever knew was gay. I didn't know about gay and straight when I was a kid, he was just Scott, this cool guy my parents knew. Looking back at my memories of him, I can totally see it, but as a kid I had no clue. Scott was also the first person I knew with AIDS. He died when I was 16.

It'll be 14 years ago next week. I can talk about it no problem, because it's been a long time and time has healed that wound. I can say that Scott is a big part of what fuels the passion in me to support this cause. But yesterday I was going through an SCA awards list, and found his name. And I had to email the signet to let her know that he could be taken off the lists, as he has passed on in 1992. Something about that small action brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat; a wave of pain that felt almost as fresh as that day almost half a life ago when my dad told me he was gone. That's why I have to do this.

Come visit on July 29 and read more stories about Scott, and about others I know that also keep this passion alive in me- Lief, both Michaels, Boots and Gus. If you can't sponsor me, keep me company with an IM. Play the song lyric game. Leave an encouraging comment. It'll be a good day.

My fourth of July was a whole lot of sensory overload, but highly enjoyable. I try to dress patriotically on the 4th of July, because I am just that much of a nerd. But my favorite shirt (it's got three cherries on it, two red and white striped and one blue with white stars and it says SWEET! on it. I got it at Target like 3 years ago for about $4.99) somehow got a spot on it so I couldn't wear it. I wanted to wear jeans because the beach is typically cold, and so I dug through all my tank tops and stuff and tried to do that layering thing that seems so popular these days, but no dice. The thought occurred to me that my bathing suit is blue, but decided I didn't really want to deal with wearing a bathing suit all day. I finally settled on a red tank and a blue tank, though the blue was by far the wrong shade, at least I had tried. All that stalling around trying to figure out what to wear left me about 5 minutes to eat some lunch before I left.

I had to be at Daymon and Laney's by 1:30, and almost got a speeding ticket on 85 trying to get there in time. Daymon's brother has a 15 passenger van, but took one of the seats out so it only sat 11. There were 15 of us. We drove out to Santa Cruz, parked at the harbor and hiked out to the beach. There were cops checking bags for fireworks and alcohol, but they weren't doing a super thorough job. Daymon had to take a 6-pack of beer back to the van, but the cops didn't notice the other 15 or so cans mixed in with the diet cokes. Nor did they check deeper than the top surface of Dee's box, which had all the hard alcohol in it. Hee.

We got our spot set up nice with a bunch of blankets on the sand and an E-Z-Up sunshade, and people started stripping down to swimsuits and rolling up pants to go play in the water. Somehow I had not expected that, and I could not believe that I had made the conscious decision *not* to wear my bathing suit to the beach. I mentioned that to someone, which prompted one of the best quotes of the day: "You know you're in Northern California when you go to the beach and remember your jacket but forget your swimsuit." Classic, and so true. Thankfully, my new jeans have really wide legs and are stretch denim, so I managed to roll them up pretty high and have plenty of fun in the water with everyone else. (Sadly David seems to have had a bit too much fun in the water, as about halfway through the afternoon he realized his wedding ring was missing)

Finally it started to get dark and people started shooting off fireworks. I had heard that the previous year had been comparable to being on Normandy Beach, or as Dee put it "It was like frickin' WWII" (yes, she really said frickin'). People ad the expensive, professional grade fireworks, the kind you see at the "official and legal" fireworks shows. A group about 50 feet from us seemed to be made up of mostly teenagers having a bonfire, and at least 4 fistfights broke out before the group wised up and split up. I think all the fights had a common combatant, but it was hard to tell.

By the time it was fully dark it was hard to know which way to look. Sparks and explosions and earth shaking BOOM!s were all around us. We were surrounded by people with huge arsenals of fireworks. It was pretty indescribable. The best description I can think of is take a professional fireworks show you might see in your city, multiply the fireworks by about 8, being shot off pretty much in a ring around you and exploding right over your head. Close enough that of they go off too close to the ground they might hit you, Close enough that you are hit by the ash. Now make all that last for over 2 hours.It was insane. I think Liz put it best when she said "This is the fireworks show you've waited your whole life for. And being the true lover of fireworks that I am, she was totally right. It was a little bit freaky having them going off so close, but sooooo cool.

It was a long day in the sun, but I had a great time. The hard part was the trip home, tired and sunburned (but only a little). The drive back to Daymon and Laney's seemed really long, and the trip to my house from there seemed like an eternity. (Major shout out to my friend Henry, who is totally the call-in-the-middle-of-the-night friend, who got called at 4 a.m. his time (he's in DC) and talked to me for the last 10 minutes of my drive to keep me awake. He was a little miffed at first when he thought I was calling him at 4 in the morning just to chat, but when I was driving and about to fall asleep, he woke right up and stayed on the phone with me.)

I knew my feet were dirty from the sand, but I had absolutely zero energy when I got home to wash them off. Ordinarily I'd be sort of "yeah, whatever" about that, but I recently decided that it would be a good idea to buy white sheets because they were 600 thread count and on unbelievable sale. White sheets are never a good idea. And I had just washed them and put them on my bed on Sunday- I didn't want to go through that again so soon. I kicked off my boots as soon as I was in the door to my room, and laid down on top of my bed, pulling the comforter I keep folded up at the foot of it over me, and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillows. I was groggy this morning and sore most of the day from carrying heavy things and trekking over a lot of sand, but I can't wait to do it again next year. You should totally come.

*Bacchanalian
** Credit goes to Heidi for this title

Several of my friends have four day weekends. I have to work tomorrow, but of course I have Tuesday off. I had nothing really planned this weekend, which was nice. I was able to just go with the flow and do whatever I felt like doing. I saw Charlotte a lot. We had dinner Friday night, and then had plans to go see The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift (again) and The Devil Wears Prada on Saturday. We invited Nicky and Dee, but it ended up being just the two of us. Dee joined us after the movies for a trip to Great America (an amusement park here) and her husband joined us at the park very shortly after we got there.

We stayed for a few hours, rode some rides- including the new Survivor ride which I totally don't understand but is pretty fun anyway- and walked around a lot. Dee REALLY doesn't like line-jumpers. We started getting hungry and there was a bit of a debate as to whether to eat in the park and stay til closing, or to leave the park, go to a restaurant across the street for dinner then go back to the park for the fireworks. I said that if we left the park there was no way we were getting back to the park before it closed, which proved to be right.

We left the park, and the road was all coned off in a really weird way. Firstly we could only make a right out of the park, and then had to go three blocks before we could make a u-turn. The right lane was closed at every corner, and there were police cars everywhere. I managed to make a right turn onto the street Bennigan's was on, but Dee and Chad both got waved on by a cop and had to cross the freeway and make several more random u-turns before they could get to Bennigan's. As we pulled into the parking lot we were asked if we were there to eat or to park for the fireworks. We said eating, and they charged us $5, saying that we'd get it back inside, they were doing it to keep people who wanted to watch fireworks from taking all the parking spaces and leaving none for the restaurant patrons. I was fine with that, paid the guy, got my little ticket to get my money back, and parked.

Dee and Chad pulled in shortly after, and after a few minutes we were seated. That was pretty much where things went downhill. Our server came and took our order, bringing drinks and appetizers in a fairly reasonable amount of time. My dinner salad came out at the same time as the entrees- something that I really hate but rarely complain about. But it turned out they brought me a bacon burger with a beef patty instead of the black bean burger I ordered, so I sent it back and had time to eat my salad while they fixed the error. Dee discovered her BBQ burger had no BBQ sauce on it, so she requested that and some mayo and some ranch after we managed to flag someone down.

We had asked the hostess to find our waiter, because he had all but disappeared. She didn't get him for us, so we managed to ask another waiter for what we needed. Another burger came out of the kitchen for our table- a huge double decker affair with a knife stuck in it. So I again said no, I ordered a black bean burger. I think Dee requested BBQ, mayo and ranch again, but I don't remember. We were all sort of annoyed at that point. Finally my black bean burger arrived, and while it was yummy, I felt bad for Dee, whose burger was now quite cold. We ended up talking to the manager and getting about half our dinner free- he took Dee's burger off our tag, took half the price of mine off since they messed it up so many times, and bought everyone free desserts (everyone being my three friends- no dessert for me, though I did take a forkful of Dee's chocolate lava cake and just smelled it a couple of times- I didn't eat it). We left a pretty crappy tip too, which I felt guilty about even with how truly awful the service had been.

When I got home I realized my wallet was missing. I figured I must have left it on the table when I had gotten cash out to pay the bill. Charlotte had kept some stuff in my wallet while we were at the park and so when I took her back to her car she said she had to get her stuff out of it. I reminded her that I had given it back at the restaurant, and she checked all her pockets and discovered that yep, I had, so she didn't say that my wallet was not in my purse because she didn't look. I called the Bennigan's, they said they didn't have it, but to call back in the morning to see if it had turned up. At that point I completely lost it. I haven't lost a wallet since I had my backpack stolen in college, and I was exhausted and overwhelmed and totally started crying on the phone with the manager of Bennigan's. The same one who had had to deal with us while we were there. Then I called Dee, who said she'd tell Charlotte. I went upstairs and laid down on my bed, and called my friend Henry who got the ever so fun job of calming me down enough so that I fell asleep.

I refused to wake up this morning until I could call the restaurant. My cell rang at about 10, and it was Charlotte. She had gone out to the car this morning to run an errand and discovered my wallet on the passenger's seat of her car. She must've not only taken it out of my purse last night, but had taken it with her when she got out of my car and into hers. She doesn't remember doing it, I don't remember her doing it, but the important thing is that it was found intact (there was quite a bit of cash in it- much more than I ever carry- and my brand new Great America season pass, which is not replaceable if lost or stolen). She said she'd bring it by in about an hour when she was done with her other errands, and I called Bennigan's to say that it had been found and thanks for looking.

She got to my house and we decided to go get some breakfast and get our nails done, which was fun, and then I came home to do some cleaning and laundry. On my way home there were the cutest little girls who had set up a lemonade stand about a block from my house. I'm a sucker for kids with lemoande stands, because didn't we all do that when we were little? So I always stop. Then I managed to get all my laundry sorted and my room is still sort of a mess but now the mess is piles of sorted laundry. I also got a few loads washed, and tust me on this one- never wash pillows in the washing machine. They massively overbalance and your spin cycle sounds like your washer is doing to explode. So I currenlty have a very wet pillow drip-drying in my shower, and two more that I managed to get most of the water out of got run through one dryer cycle but are still damp and are air drying on top of my laundry sorter. Now it is getting quite late and I'm waiting for one more load to dry so I can put the load of work clothes currently in the washer into the dryer and go to sleep.

Charlotte and I had lunch on Wednesday. We both recently cut our hair short, and I was wearing a shirt that hasn't fit in almost two years- a shirt I'm pretty sure she's never seen me wear before. She is semi notorious for being late, so I wasn't entirely surprised, even though I was running late as well, that she did not seem to be there yet when I got to the restaurant. I did a quick walk through, didn't see her, and so I requested a table for two and sat down to wait for her. When 20 minutes had gone by I pulled out my phone and called Nicky, to see if charlotte had a company cell phone that day. Nicky said she'd call me right back with the number. As I hung up the phone, Charlotte came up and tweaked one of my curls. She had been sitting two tables away the entire time, but we were both looking for the other's "old look". We had a pretty good laugh, and so did the waitresses helping us.

My birthday was on the first Sunday of June. A lot of my friends were out of town or busy with family, which I completely understood. I had a very nice birthday hanging out with my friend Laura. It was very low key, but I have no regrets, no unfulfilled wish for it to have been another way. Would I have liked to have had all my friends around me? Sure. But I had a lovely time the way it was.

My book club meets on the last monday of the month. Several of my closest girlfriends are in the book club with me. Audrey was hosting this month, and she sent out an email saying that she was going to be doing dessert and needed to know who was going to be there so she had an accurate count for ordering dessert. I sent an email saying that I would be there but not to include me in the dessert count.

I showed up to book club with every resolve not to have dessert. We read this really awful book that took place in France, and we've all tended to do food that was loosely in the theme of what we were reding, so I figured Audrey was going to do some sort of individual French desserts. Instead she did this really need Chinese tea service.

While she was setting that up, Bonnie and Dee asked me to get out wahat was in the box next go me. Inside the box was a paper crown with grass and flowers. Perplexed, I held it out to Bonnie, thinking it was for Audrey. Dee told me to turn it around. I did, and immediately smiled. It said "Happy Birthday" on it. They had emailed each other off the book club list and planned a surprise party for me. Apparently there was also a bit of a freak out on Audrey's part when she found out that I don't really eat sugary foods anymore, because she planned to get an ice cream cake. She still got the ice cream cake, but Bonnie made really neat jello jiggler flowers as a lower sugar alternative for me.

I was blown away by their thoughtfulness. I have great friends. I didn't make a big deal about them missing my birthday because I understand having obligations. But it means an awful lot to me that they felt bad enough about missing it to do something like that for me. I didn't have birthday cake or any sort of dessert on my birthday, so I did have a small piece of ice cream cake, but I feel good about the decision because it was a responsibly small piece, not a piece the size of which I would have eaten previously.