Cindy and Rick are amazing and wonderful and generous and just a miracle in my life. Alas, they are also kind of private people, so they won't let me paste their pictures all over the internet (darn!). I'm working on a solution to this problem. Cindy and I have had an idea, so hopefully some pictures will be COMING SOON..... (See below....)

Meanwhile, I am very happy here and healing daily and hourly. Abigail has two kitty siblings and two dogs. Alas, she still wants nothing to do with any of them, especially the dogs who are big and noisy and very curious about her. At present she is a lump under the covers on the bed much of the time (photo to come...)

As for me, I'm doing much better. I am walking more easily and steadily with each passing day and my stamina has at least tripled. Despite the fact that the "kids" are both gourmet cooks, I'm losing weight rapidly. They have made me promise to eat three times a day, a habit I had some resistence to and I think it is having a good impact. One of the days when I forgot to do that, I realized that I had started to slump into being depressed again. Very interesting.

Here are the chefs and a very fine meal of mussels and clams deluxe which we had one evening. Yum.

Cindy loves to shop at Target (big store out here) and yesterday I had my second outing with her since my arrival. The first time out was a week after I arrived and I had a much harder time of it. Got panicky and tired pretty quickly. This time I lasted quite a while before retiring to a bench while she finished her shopping adventures. Cool. AND - this is a biggie... I was able to put the seat belt on in the car. Easily. I know I have not talked much about my weight. I carry deep shame and pain on that subject. My mother obsessed about my weight almost from the minute I was born and I grew up feeling fat even before I achieved her fear for me. To be among people who love and enjoy food and don't fear it is proving to be profoundly healing. I'm eating more than I did in New York, enjoying it and losing weight. WAY COOL!

More to come. I'll post pictures of the dogs and such. Meanwhile, I was blessed with the gift of a 5 day excursion (free!) into the mountains outside of Mesa in a place called Snowflake. Also very healing. Boy am I lucky!

Ok... So here's our solution. My lovely pictures of my beautiful niece and her handsome husband - with smiley faces covering their true magnificence. This is a shame because they are so wonderful to see, but I also understand their desire not to have privacy and this is what we have worked out. I made the smiley faces myself. I'm so proud.

I wish you could really see this picture. I took it on the night I arrived in Mesa. The "kids" gave me such a warm welcome that a lot of my anxiety dropped away right then and there.

Rick and Cindy have a lovely home. We are in the process (well we will be) of planting a garden in the back yard. The front yard has some very pretty plants. The flowers out here seem to have extra color to them. I'm not sure if that's just my imagination or if it's a desert thing, but there is a real richness to the colors. The architecture here is so very different from the east coast too. Adobe instead of wood. I like it, but my eyes are still getting used to it.

Afraid this isn't a very organized section. What to say next? Abigail has four "cousins" here in Mesa. Two of them, Lars and Fitz, are cats. Lars and Fitz are girl cats with boys names, but they seem reasonably well adjusted in spite of that fact. Both cats have pretty much ignored me until last week when Fitz decided that she loves me. Fitz gives very passionate hugs. She likes to work at the computer with me. This is a mixed blessing. Lars is softening about me. She rubs my legs now, but no hugs for me yet. Two things they DO like are my big grey chair and Abby's litter box. Fitz is a black and white "tuxedo" cat and Lars (also known as Petunia) is a soft grey. That's Lars looking down from a high cabinet where she loves to sit. Still need to get a good picture of Fitz. Both cats would like to be friends with Abby, I think, but at the moment she will have none of them.

Abby's REAL problem is her other two "cousins," Charlie and Sadie. They are of the canine persuasion. They think Abby is evil and she thinks they are evil. There is no talking to any of them about it. Sadie is all snuggles and wants and needs lots of love. She also provokes Charlie to naughty deeds sometimes while looking incredibly sweet and innocent herself. Charlie is a big goofy tender heart. I think he is an old soul. Perhaps in his next life he will come back as a cat. In this one, he believes cats were made for chasing.

But despite their determination to keep Abby penned in my bedroom, Charlie and Sadie are good, sweet dogs. Here's a great picture of Charlie dancing with Cindy. Sadie is more committed to bellie rubs than dancing.

Well, that's it for the moment or I'll do violence to my computer. More pictures to come, though...

Well, here it is October 22nd and I have not posted anything in ages. My niece's baby is almost due. I have been learning to drive (!!), I've met some wonderful people who meditate twice a month and a couple of cyber friends have materialized into actual human beings. I've been to the Phoenix Airport to meet my nephew during a brief lay-over and survived (barely) the walking entailed. Also had my first Frappachino. Yum. Also have had a wonderful visit from a friend who lives in Seattle and life in general is getting better. I've lost some more weight and I can walk for longer without pain, tiredness or panic. My hope is that by January, I'll be a "real person" again. I'll definitely be a Great Aunt... any day now.

Then I just wanted to share some of the pictures from a ride we took with my friend Lorraine. Our house is right near the Superstition Mountains (very beautiful) and we took a ride past some lakes and mountains to Tortilla Flat and back. Here's a bit of the scenery. Decided to put Superstition Mountain last and let it be a bigger sized photo. It's an amazing mountain. Someone sent me the legend of how it got it's name and I'll add that information here shortly.

That's it for the moment. Isn't Arizona beautiful?

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!!

OCTOBER 30th 2000!!!

A GLORIOUS DAY! I am a Great Aunt. Cindy had a beautiful baby girl named Annika. The incredibly beautiful Annika weighed in at 6 lbs 7 ounces. She was 20 inches long. She is awesome. Alas, you will have to take my word for her beauty but she really is. Even though you can't see her face below, you can see that she does take after both her parents....

Packing Is Not My Favorite Sport

On the Road

My Arizona Home

Snowflake