It would be a cute store name! I could sell all the things I love like Blythe dolls, San-x stuff, kokeshi dolls, Miyazaki stuff, Pinky St. dolls, Gama-Go stuff, Spicy Brown.. I could go on for days.

How's everyone else?

Hey Callavixen!

The baby Matilda is cute and 10 months.

Emmett hit a grand slam in the District championship game.

JZ is job hunting.

I'm temping and trying to finish my book.

Mwah!

Okay, calmer now. This shit is scary to do by yourself. I had totally gotten used to leaning on this one friend. He has my medical notes on his person at all times, and explains things I'm in too much pain to say, or just plain self-conscious. And, well, he yells at me too, but I suppose it's for the right reasons.

We grew up kinda like we had money. For Jamaica, we had money. And a standard middle class living there has trappings that seem a lot over here in the US--when we were young we had a live-in helper, who's pretty much maid and nanny. When we got older and didn't need so much supervision we didn't have a live-in anymore, just a woman who came in five days a week to do all the cooking and cleaning. They still do.

Diplomat has certain perks. My sister didn't mind being chauffered to school, but I hated it. We got to go to the Royal Garden Party, and my dad had to dress in full morning suit frock every now and again.

But we didn't have the money. We had the perks--my dad definitely had the prestige.

Jamaicans abroad have other stereotypes to live up to, which can look wealthy. I don't think my parents took out car loans--at least all my father's were bought with cash.

No, they're not drug dealers.

But all told, my father was a career diplomat for a third world country, and my mother a scientist. When power went out, it went out most places. When there was a chicken shortage, everyone had initial difficulty in finding the fowl. And on the flip side, pretty great educations were being had for free--even up to undergrad until a decade or two ago.

In England we lived in nice areas--Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Hampstead Garden Suburbs. Our J'can-govt subsidised educations got us into some very nice schools. But, still, I earned my own pocket money, and although we religiously took vacations, they were rarely out of the country, even to go back home.

And we always had private sector relatives whose kids flew all over and they had nifty clothes and lots of spending money.

We had clipped upper middle class accents instead, and were regarded as a bit high-faluting. I liked to say that my parents had what money couldn't buy, and that was true. My father had been practicing to be the most important person in the room since he was a wee boy. Not often you get a day job that can make that true--equivalent to heads of state, I later found.

And damn, if his parents weren't beside themselves with pride. His father ran a corner store, and my grandmother was a farmer with no running water or electricity in her house. But my parents' generation of Jamaican kids were busting out big time, with education both privileged and available at high qualities. My dad's little scribble of a village spawned a British Member of Parliament, even.

I have the normal unremarkable unprestigious job of my immediate family. I'm the least educated and the least travelled.

And the wealthiest. So it goes.

I want it all, but am way too lazy to lean over and pick it up, much less walk across the room for it.

Okay, dilaudid ita=typey ita. I'm a little appalled that I'm coherent on this much of it.

At least I hope I'm coherent, because I've kept sending work emails.

Hey, TPFKACV! 52 days, huh? Soon come, as we say in Jamaica.

I think you should invite two more people so you'll have 255 invited. It's auspicious, if you pray to the binary gods.

Cyber... er, CALLALUNA! Yay! I'd just been thinking about you and wondering if you and your boy had done the deed yet. And here you are, closing in on it.

Well, it turns out that the little things take a LONG TIME.

The little things are indeed insanely stressful. IIRC, Hec was still burning CDs the night before and I was assembling the CD covers the day of the wedding. But, still, probably less stressful than waiting on the big things.

So anyway, I am crazy stressed out bride these days. How's everyone else?

Crazy stressed out mother these days. Also with the soul-sucking job. Currently job-hunting and working my way through all the colds Matilda brings back from day care and kissing her belly and occasionally reading books written by Buffistas, and other than that not much.

So... tell more about your intended. And also the dress.

Good luck with wedding prep, Callaluna! Also welcome back!

CyberCallaluna!!! Welcome back and best wishes with all the wedding and marriage stuff! It's good to see your font again.

ION, I am hot and sweaty and gross.

ION, I am hot and sweaty and gross.

I've seen you sweaty and it wasn't gross.

Callaluna! Yay! How exciting! Glad to hear from you, and yup, we're all thrilled about the book.

Over here in Arizona, we're building a house, theoretically, and otherwise thriving in the desert.

Luna, my beloved! SMOOCH!