The world keeps turning ‘round.

My dear friend and former roommate e-mailed the other roomies at midnight the other night. She wanted to let us know that her father had just died, and she and her husband were traveling across the country immediately to be with the rest of the family.

My heart hurt, still hurts, and wants to smother her in love and chocolate and impractical but decadent gifts. Anything to make the pain go away.

I cried. And I cried to my mom, standing in the bathroom doorway. She was here for … for genetic testing. We’re trying to figure out if the breast cancer in our family is genetic.

We are both operating under the assumption that it is. And we hope to be pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

So in the midst of my “am I going to be a good stepmom / no one talks about anything but kids / do I want a(nother) child” mental breakdown, I’m also throwing in “should I even have a biological child?”

Because it’s good to go all out and just become completely psychotic.

While there were plenty of tears, my mom and decided that we were being women of action. We were on a fact-finding mission. We were like Simon & Simon.



Except we couldn’t decide which one of us would be Rick, and which one would be A.J.

Geriatric Poodle woke up with a nasty eye infection, so we traipsed off to the vet. While we were waiting for his prescription, my mom pointed out a burly man in the waiting room. He had asked if he could bring back a half-used bag of dog food. He was waiting while his wife and daughter were in the back having their dog put down.

He looked wholly uncomfortable. When the mom and little girl came out, the little girl embraced her dad and sobbed. He embraced her and tried to keep his shit together. And I had to turn away.

We had ice cream for dinner. And we hope for the best. Because life keeps going on.