Here is a blurry photograph of the first beaded safety pin bracelet I made for Rebecca. If she likes it. There is a lot of pink in it, although I notice since the twins have been born that very dark pink has shown up in her wardrobe here and there. Or was that another of my hallucinations? I prefer that to brain farts or other references to my advancing age. I do admit it is coming on, but believe me, I know when I am 77, I will look back upon being 57 and thinking myself old at all will be a joke. It has worked this way before...

Back to the age thing for a bit, Nathaniel told me I dressed like a giant toddler, to which I could only respond, guilty as charged. If you look in my wardrobe, you will find either overalls or blue jeans for the bottom coverage, and any colors from pink, lavender, lilac, orange, yellows, greens, blues, to turquoise, all glowing away in rainbow order, for the tops. All 100% cotton and machine washable, please. My clothes are arranged by color - and almost all are free of any decoration. Or maybe too by how long they are, in terms of hitting the floor. So all the jeans are folded over those fat plastic hangers so as not to give them creases 1/2 down the legs, and ditto the overalls. Stevie figured out how to hang those up - I used to try to hang them from their straps which was difficult, to say the least. And at the very end is my little black dress.

There, I live in a forest, but I do have one little black dress, and one pair of shoes to wear with it, and even stockings and a slip. I can get decked out in about an hour and a half or so, right down to the pink stretch rhinestone bracelet that I wear with it. I have only worn it once, and Nathaniel and Rebecca happened to be here, and there were lots of whistles and 'woohoos' and other sounds of approval from my dear family. They hadn't seen me dressed up Since Miriam & Matts' wedding, but never dressed to go out to a cocktail party with Stevie at night. What a thrill for all of us! Even Maxx barked at me, didn't know what to make of me looking or smelling like that.

Staying on one subject is a huge challenge for me. It is part of the bipolar brain. Try as I will, sometimes I divert, and off I go in a newe direction, so I expect only the most devoted of readers to bother with these thoughts and observations. I write for myself, my family, my friends... I write mostly to learn. It is the process that helps me learn to keep focused, such as it is and also, a log of snippets of my life for those of you I've invited to read it. I find life to be hilarious and tragic, a situation not uncommon to many.

So Rebecca, can you see enough of the blurry safety pin bracelet to tell if you like it? It is nice and small, for your delicate frame, I know, I measured it on my delicate frame. Logical, you see. And I learned the number of pins to use for a generic size small. I know the number for a size medium, and that allows me to calculate the number for a size large. If you're interested, and want to make one for yourself, let me know and I'll put up directions. Harder to explain than make.

Big news of the morning? 6:30AM the huge English Setter around the corner was off leash as usual, and his person was running with her baby in the jogging carriage, when the dog lunged for Maxx! Thank the good Lord that Stevie was fast and scooped poor terrified Maxx up just as the setter was at him... if the setter had pinned Maxx, we can't imagine what would have happened, because he was wearing an Elizabethan collar to keep him from getting at some problem of his own; so it would have helped pin Maxx out of sight, nearly, and the consequences aren't worth considering.

She was terribly apologetic and Stevie, quite forgiving as always. Me, I am infuriated. Poor Maxie boy is, as I have said, 10 1/2 years old, far too old to be terrorized by a crazy off leash enormous - to Maxx - setter. it is against the law to allow your dogs off leash in our town. A man on this very road was mauled by a dog. 'Nuf said, I am all shook up, but really, I wish people would at least be good enough neighbors to leash up their hounds!!!