"Strung out in heaven's high, Hitting an all-time low" - Bowie

Things have been such a mess lately. It's like my life is maniac depressive -- incredible highs and devastating lows.


** Wednesday the 14th, Dirk and I met Bella and Brian for a nice dinner downtown.

** Thursday the 15th, Maxwell winds up in the ER with bloating in his lower intestine. He's fine now, but man, did he give me a scare.

** Saturday the 16th, Dirk buys me a beautiful 2004 Passat, a new stainless steel fridge and stove and my dad calls to tell me that my mother has been diagnoised with breast cancer.

** Monday the 19th my friend Mary from Ohio tells me that she bought a plane ticket to come see me at the end of May. Yaaayyyy!

**Wednesday the 21st was my mom's birthday as well as the day that she was told she needs to have masectomy. Most likely it will be the weekend that Mary was to come visit, so I'll be back in Cincinnati rather than here.

I asked some friends to send my mom birthday emails -- and she was so overwhelmed at the kindness of complete strangers. I have to laugh because she first thought she had an email virus because of all the messages from people she didn't know with the subject line "Happy Birthday". Brought a much needed smile to my face.

Good news? I went to go see Bowie last night for the second time this year. Wonderful concert, with great friends. Bella and Osran were both there. Also, Dirk and I finally got the carpet pulled up in the living room and dining room and replaced with hardwood. It looks beautiful, now we just need to paint the rooms which means I need to decide on what walls I want what color...

"Working on the chain gang...."

Ok, so it's not really a chain gang, but it's work. I finally got my own website (www.PixiesMusings.com) up and running. I need to finish adding the pricing code later tonight and I want to add an additional page to archive the herb articles that I will post on the home page. Fun, 'eh? If anyone has any suggestions for the site, please drop me an email!

Other good news in my life, I was approached by the president of ABRA, The American Boxer Rescue Association, with a request to consider running for a National Board Position. Doesn't that sound important?

This weekend I had a nice Saturday night of movies, good food and good company. Heather and crew came over to hang out and would up staying until the next morning. Heather, if you are reading this I want to you to know how badly I wanted to write on your face with a Sharpie marker when you fell alseep on the couch...but I resisted.

"Viva las vegas, viva las vegas" - Elvis Presley

(ok, I am cheating and just copied my post to the Grove rather than retype all this...)

I had a wonderful weekend and *so* enjoyed meeting many of our Vegas Grovers!

Meeting everyone was such a blast -- especially since it was like walking into a family reunion of people that you hadn't seen in a million years. LOL Dirk said that Shonna is one of his new favorite people and he and Elen had a great time together. I had to hug Chelle more than once because I was just so excited to finally meet in her in person. Kass is such a wonderful person, and Cameron was the greatest (and I can't wait to listen to the CD that Cameron gave to us). Dirk and I had a fab time with them and so appreciated being given the chance to see Red Rock Canyon and can't wait to return the favor in showing them Red Rocks in Colorado! Luke was the sweetest and gave both Dirk and I a big hug when we left and their dog, Mysti was beautiful, sweet and made me miss my own dogs just a little less for a few hours.

When we were in the car driving through the canyon, Kass was telling me about how she meet Barb for the first time out there. I tell her that she's crazy for picking a remote place like that to meet up with a total stranger off the internet -- not thinking that there I am in the CAR of a complete stranger with nothing to protect myself with except my pointy wizard hat. Kass laughed a manically laugh and reminded me that she *is* a serial killer. LOL

The singing hamsters were funny the first three times, but after about 50 times I was ready to disembowel them. )

Barb was so sweet -- and she brought me a gift of a can of Skyline Chili from Cincinnati -- now we just need to drag her out of the lurker's lounge and show her sweet personality out in the Grove. Corey was funny, upbeat and a ton of fun and I would love to have spent more time with her. Billibob was a stitch and I almost pee'd when he and Dirk were showing off their legs to each other; and he looked so good in Elen's pink hat.

Dirk was so worried about going to the Cacklefest. First he wasn't going: "Why would I want to sit around being bored listening to a bunch of people I don't know talk about other people I don't know?"

We got to Kass' home (which is beautiful) and Dirk disappeared into the kitchen with Cameron and Elen to play with a plunger -- don't ask... but only two men would respond to the question of "Did you know that is a plunger she is playing
with? with the comment "Yes. But, she didn't put it on her face...we would have taken if she did...". At one point, Dirk and Cameron were in the garage having an in-depth discussion on the mechanics of building some big ass dome to take camping on our next trip to spend time together. (I was assured that it would be pet and kid friendly. LOL)

I can't impress upon you just how at home it was to sit around with the Grovers chatting, eating strawberries & cream and that having sex in a pan. It all felt so natural being with everyone -- if you ever have a chance to hook up with any
of the Grovers, do. However, I was so excited and overwhelmed that I neglected to get a group picture of us all together. I did take some random pictures that I will share later today.

Dirk and I are already talking about where to take another long weekend and who we can meet up with. Bella -- we MUST have our camping trip this year and it would be so wonderful to have out of towners be able to make it....sigh....can you imagine Roxanne, Anna, Mab, all the Vegas grovers, Britgrovers, Georgia etc.... joining us? Oh, how I would love to cook for them all...... Each of you need to promise to consider taking a long weekend to Colorado and spending time with the Rocky Mountain Grovers?

One of the highlights of the whole trip was when I hit it *big* on a slot machine and had to find a casino employee help us since the machine didn't have enough coins to pay out the rest of our jackpot. We had to wait about 20 minutes, but by gods I wasn't going to leave without those 15 nickels. LOL However, yesterday I did give playing poker a whirl and turned my $10.00 into $212.00!

Friday night Dirk and I got to see Cirque Du Soliel's Mystere -- if you ever have the chance to see one of these shows either in Vegas or on the road -- beg, borrow or plead for the tickets -- it's worth it. Our goal is to see as many of the different shows as we can and we will be returning to Vegas to see 'O' and hope that Osran will come with if she can!