The Blackburn Digest

God Speed, Heath Ledger! Unlike so many of the *train wrecks* who’ve occupied waaay too much news space recently (IMHO), he seemed to come from a stable home and have a solid set of values. He was talented and showed great promise. It is too soon to assume suicide (Yes, sleeping pills were found near his body. However, he had an appointment for a massage this morning) - it is not too soon to rue the loss of a young actor who died much too early.

MLK Day - DH was off for the day and DS is home between ten-day work-shifts. DSIL (Daddy to my adorable 10 month old GD), however, was committed to office projects which wouldn’t end till 9:30PM!

The weather was pretty awful for the MLK parade and errand running; fairly dense fog (which thickened to travel-advisory status this evening) with rain dripping through it. Good reason for a gathering of the clan - minus DSIL - at Casa Blackburn for a computer fest and beef curry!

Our grand-daughter was pulling out her new “magic tricks” in fine style: she loves to wave Hi and Bye-bye; has become quite adept at walking her way from play table to terrarium to grandfather clock (not “Look Ma, no hands!” yet - but she’s getting close!) and definitely has added a new word to her vocabulary. “Cat!” (said without the troublesome T) announces each sighting of one of our fur-kids.

As a Mom, today is one of the Really Good Days!  DS is flying in from his temporary assignment in “Sandy City, TX” this afternoon and all of us are gathering at his sister’s this evening to celebrate (a tad late) DSIL’s birthday. (Stretched-out-birthdays are rapidly becoming a Blackburn tradition - LOL!

Of course, yesterday’s decision to stay warm, dry and near DD & GD has a fee to pay today. The extensive/expensive tour of the supermarket, stashing many bags of food-stuffs in their assigned places and getting SIL’s gifts wrapped must be accomplished before I point my little red sporty-car toward the airport and let out the reins.  (Sure wish the local police weren’t *packaged* in a rainbow of hues - makes them very hard to detect! Yes, I do realize that is their plan.)

I’m looking forward to being surrounded by my family this evening:)

I reeealy dislike alarm clocks on weekends. It’s not as if the RA allows me the luxury of “sleeping in” very often anyway, but arising at the demand of a chirpy-voice radio DJ or the beat of a C/W song should be exclusively a work-week activity! Still, I dutifully arose and put bare foot to cold floor at 7 this morning; it’s the third Saturday of the month, my day to “herd cats”, Club Day.

The morning challenge (of converting me from stiff/sore ogre to presentable human being) was rendered somewhat more problematical by yesterdays’ thorough ‘wetting and chilling’ episode. It was also accompanied by an on-going internal dialogue; “You have to attend, you’re the president”, “You can’t hold a hair brush, how are you going to hold an art knife”, “You need to be there to keep activities moving along”, “You haven’t even worked on the current project”, “You enjoy the social time with them”, ‘You’re not going to be pleasant to be around”, ”You have to do the two-week food shopping today, and you don’t have a menu or shopping list yet” and on it went. 

Well, yes, I did know it was going to be quite cold today; that is why I built “cat tents” out of old blankets, last night, for the front & back yard feral cats. That was also why I put the protective covers on the outside water faucets. Throughout this morning, as I tried to tame my incoming e-mail, I could feel the cold radiating from the nearby (double-paned) window. I knew it was a *nippy* 36 degrees at 1:30 PM. What I failed to note before venturing forth to do errands was that it was also quite wet! Rainy weather usually causes the driving public of my fair city to behave very oddly. They drive faster, signal even less often and apply their car brakes  later than they do on dry and sunny days! Aware of this phenomenon, I was not thrilled to be joining the fray, but cat food needed to be purchased and DS’s abode needed a quick security check.

Should have checked the WeatherBug this morning instead of wondering, all day, why I felt incapable of getting up and accomplishing anything tangible and useful! It took the evening news to tell me what i should have suspected; we’ve a serious cold front bearing down on us. Shifting air pressure -1/ Christy -0 ! 

You are growing so fast!