Of Life, Death and Tattoos

Firstly, let me say that I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, full of family, food and fun. (And if you didn't, there's always next year!) :)

I had a really good holiday, with lots of diversity and new experiences. Instead of staying home and doing the cooking, I went to Atlanta to spend the holiday with extended family, and spent four days enjoying the break from my own routine.

I walked in some quiet woods, all by myself, just me, the falling leaves, and the faint strains of my brother-in-law playing his grand piano in the distance. I got soundly beaten at several games of pool, and kicked pinball machine butt (465, 500 points on a vintage machine!). I helped my sister (the florist) make and deliver last-minute flower arrangements for people who'd forgotten to send flowers to their family over the holiday (you know who you are!), and helped deliver arrangements to a grieving family at a funeral home. I enjoyed a chicken pesto panini in Little Five Points with my son, who in a case of "real-life-being-stranger-than-fiction", recently moved to the same neighborhood I chose to use as setting for the Nicki Styx books. (Needless to say, he loves it, and has become an L5 regular.)

I visited the tattoo parlor where my nephew (on the right) works, and made a new friend when he invited the guy who does the piercing to join us for dinner.  I visited with my one remaining uncle (still sharp at 83), got to know my pre-teen niece and nephew, and missed my mom the entire time. I laughed with my sisters over our lack of napkin-folding skills (among other things), and marveled at how my life has changed through the years: many of those I still love are gone, but there are new loved ones coming into my life all the time.

Diversity, my friends, is what life makes life interesting. :) I hope mine never stops being diverse.