Seasons Greetings!

the secret to happiness

any day without my dog is automatically a bad day.

Ruby Slippers: part 1

i had a sangria party once while sharing a sublet on 8th Street in Troy (the one where i used my orange sectional couch as a bed - i wish i still had that!) with 2 uptight female grad students.

they must not have been around that evening...

i made the sangria with my secret recipe (which includes an entire bottle of wormless tequila).

Cole wore the boom-boom skirt (i think this may have been the last time i saw her in it, since this would be the night i introduced her to her future husband, John).

i wore THE silver v-necked pantsuit, pink rhinestone studded cats-eye sunglasses, black & white striped leggings and a pair of ruby(ish) slippers that left a trail of glitter everywhere i went.

i made the ruby slippers from a pair of over-sized women's blue suede(ish) shoes that i had previously worn as part of an Elvis H'Ween costume (i need to remember to get that story up here some time soon!). I covered the shoes in Elmer's glue (a bit too liberally) and then doused them in glitter. I didn't have enough red (I always had glitter on me in those days) so I mixed in some pink .

if you've ever tried to do this the way i did, you know it didn't work well.

i think Conon may have been at this party- although i'm not sure.

i may have just met him.

i don't think anyone appreciated the ruby(ish) slippers as much as i did. They were relatively difficult for me to walk in (being too large and having clunky heels), and as a result i kept clomping around in them leaving chucks of glittery still-wet Elmer's glue all over- which in turn was finding it's way onto everyone else's shoes, etc...

i didn't last in them the whole night and by morning they were a bit of a wreck, but i kept those shoes.

and later i used their symbolic power in much the same way Dorothy did...

i've been poisoned twice so far this year

the first time was H'Ween.
(i made it all the way until October for the first attempt!)
i'm sure someone at Jamie's party put something in my drink(s). Jamie was dressed as Eve (although i thought she was Tinker Bell until she put the snake back on), and there is that whole poison apple thing.
OK- so it wasn't a poison apple, just a forbidden one and i didn't even eat an apple.
But i WAS definitely poisoned!

the second time was the night before T-Day.
I had dinner with Rick at the Tavern that evening and i'm almost 100% sure that Tess put some Visine or Liquid Plumber in my onion ring batter.
OK- maybe she had someone else do it.

i guess the good news is that it's December, so perhaps i've reached my annual quota of attempts on my life (or at least on my health).
although if you look for a pattern, perhaps i should skip X-Mas...

1 little, 2 little geishas...

now there are only 2 left.

i think there were once 7 - maybe even 9?

the geisha figurines i bought at THE Art on Lark with Heath. it wasn't actually Art on Lark (same day, slightly "out-of-bounds" location) but a rummage sale across from the shops on Hamilton Street.

i think this might be when we met Gari-Lynn and Richard.

or did Heath already know Richard? i guess i actually did too, from the night Conon tried to deliver him to me in Colonie.

regardless - my point is that the 2 that are left are from BEFORE.

before 9/11.

before Mike died.

before the BID.

before Lola.

everything is so very different now.

these days i look at the 2 figurines, each encased in their glass dome and balanced on top of the TV that i use for video games, and i pretend they are mini-statues of Heath & I, timeless and preserved for the sake of posterity.