we walk because we can't walk away

and so i begin another journey - i am participating in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, walking 20 miles a day for 3 days. with every donation given from my dear generous friends, i am amazed and honored and giddy, still a little shocked (in a good way) that i'm doing this.

please go to the 3-Day site to check it out and donate to someone walking in your area - i'm in the Twin Cities, so if you want to donate to my site, here it is. every donation makes a difference to so many women and men.

my life has been taken up with e-mail campaigns and gathering addresses for the regular mail campaign, reading survivor stories, inputting recipes for one of our fundraisers, and finding places to give bake sales. and my girl mb has graciously given of herself - she's going to help me stuff envelopes and talk me down when i get neurotic.

in other news, pup is healthy and happy and sweet.

life is good.
xxoo

old friends

i have been experiencing lately a profound need to contact old friends - from as far back as grade school, up to high school folks and college, people from Chicago - i have let far too many connections lapse. e-mail makes it so very easy - why have i neglected these people? i think i'm finally coming out of a depression that started mid-way into my now-defunct marriage. i've missed me! and i've missed my friends.

most of them have replied pretty quickly with their latest news and invitations to visit - i wish i could travel to them all and spend long evenings talking and laughing and giving each other our life stories.

i am better with my friends. i could easily become a hermit, stuck in my self-centered rut, only spending my precious energy on self-serving endeavors. but i am better when i am stretched socially, when i have lunch with these ladies and take a walk with those, when i have long-lost buddies over for a dinner i don't have time to make. i'm better when i surround myself with people who love me, and who i love, and who laugh and cry and hug and say. "why in the world don't we do this more??"

i'm so very, very lucky.

q: how many pills can one puppy take?

a: as many as it takes her to get well, dammit! yep, it's another bladder infection. the culture, i predict, will come back positive - vet has started pup on antibiotics and we'll change if the culture shows we should, but at least now she's on the way back to feeling better. so that's, what, 4 pills a day, plus one weekly, plus a little pred to help her heal and deal with the sick-stress. not too bad, really, meds-wise.

the worst moment of her being sick is when she doesn't want to play. even when i dance around the dining room table squeaking a toy, mock-screaming "aaaaahhhh!!!" which is, i'm sure, a sight to behold. she could only resist that if she really feels crappy. which she did/does.

the antibiotics should kick in tonight, and she'll feel better tomorrow or thursday. bless her furry little heart.

in other news, i have begun teaching! i share a class of Voice and Movement for the Actor - i take the Movement part, fridays and every other wednesday. a small class, which i'm working on not taking personally, and diverse. as always, i feel inadequate, and i work really hard to fill the class to the top with useful info, stuff they can take and apply outside of class.

i do wish i could teach full time, and maybe someday i will. my foot is in the door, anyway. such a wonderful, bright spot in my day OUT of my cubical!

xxoo