Hey Strix, it is good to see you here. It also gives me an opportunity to wish you a good birthday. I hope you are being spoiled and that you have a year filled with delight.

I wish I had words, but I can't find the right ones. It helps when I envision JZ surrounded by love and the sounds of her dear friends and family. When I had my glass of wine last night I thought about the circle of love, and drink, and smiled.

We finally have ltc’s teacher assignment for this year, and it looks like she’s going to have a good group of kids in her class. School starts a week from today!

Seeing all the back to school pictures on FB is one of my favorite things. I hope ltc and the rest of the kiddos have a lovely year of learning and socializing.

The teacher page said reading for 20 minutes a day will be their homework. So not a problem in this house.

"Do we have to keep it down to 20 minutes?"

But I will fucking remember you till either I go or my own body fails my memory. The older I get, the more I realize our lives only matter in relation to the impact we had in the people we leave behind when we go...and my dear, you touched so many, and with love, with grace, with a great good humor, and with your elegant eloquence and gentle heart.

That's a lovely way of stating it, Strix. I think you speak for us all here.

I know it's very late in getting this out but I kept struggling with the right thing.

I feel this deeply. I bought a card for JZ in Martha's Vineyard the second day I was there, but spent a week and a half trying to figure out what to say. I finally got it in the mail on Saturday (the day I was leaving) because I had some silly notion that it had to be mailed from the island. If not for that, I'd probably still be procrastinating.

Matt, that’s pretty much the problem. We have to set a limit for reading time or ages up all night.

but I didn't talk about when I met Emmett (when we took y'all to a Durham Bulls game) and Matilda (a knitting lesson at the apartment in the Haight, when I was in sore need of getting away from All The People at a tech conference). Editorially, this is totally the right choice, but now I feel urgently like including them in the big love envelope.

Those are both such happy and vivid memories to me. I'm glad I have the pictures of you and Matilda knitting on the couch.

And Bev, you don't just have baby-huffing as a connection with JZ, you also gave us the Christening gown that Matilda was wearing during her baptism. That was such a kind gesture.

When I look back on the baby pictures, it's so fun to see things like the little tiny sweater and hat that Megan (of Hallifax, now Toronto) knit for Matilda, or the dress that vw crocheted for her. The little onesie that Raquel made with Invader Zim's "Perfectly normal human worm baby" on it.

Well said, Strix.

And Vortex, I still haven’t mailed my card and may not ever. So.

I’m in a new role at work that involves managing just one or two people and I cannot get anyfucking thing done myself.