Lately I've been worried about a colleague who has become a dear friend of mine. So on Friday, I sent her a note that I hoped would help lift her spirits. Of course, I had no idea that there was more to come for her.

This weekend, her sister was in a head on collision in Cancun. She has many broken bones, has lost an eye and is now in a coma. My friend was so level-headed on the phone trying to clean up some work before she gets on a plane tomorrow to go be there for her dad. Her sister was in a cab on her way to the airport to pick him up when the accident occurred. I can't imagine how my friend is managing anything right now.

So, I'm asking that if you have a few spare moments today, you send some good thoughts to my friend and especially her sister. Miracles are alive and well if only you believe in them.

I think I've lost a very basic survival instinct.

After many sessions in a row of being exhausted before laying down on the table, I managed to create a habit of falling asleep during my massages. And since they're usually painful when my lower back is massaged, I don't mind this at all. The massage therapist also mentioned that she can go a lot deeper into the muscle and tissue when I'm asleep so I took this as encouragement that I should continue to do so.

I knew I was going to need a little help to get through the massage session tonight without screaming too much so I tried to fall asleep. It didn't work before she got to my lower back so I figured I was out of luck and would have to endure. I mentioned this to my massage therapist just before she got to the really bad spot. And then, she got to the really bad spot (9 out of 10 on my pain threshold scale) and I managed to squeak out, "That's the spot." That's the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

I'm grateful for being able to spare myself considerable pain, but is it really healthy? I'm sure that there's some measure of trust involved in my ability to sleep through a painful massage. In fact, to fall asleep during intense pain, I really hope it's because I trust her and the environment. If not, I believe I have created a very bad habit that could indeed, kill me.

Having talked about all this pain of the massage, I forgot to mention how blissfully good it feels to be able to move after my massage. How much tension is relieved and how much better I sleep and move and live every day because of those painful massages. And it isn't all painful like when she's working on upper back and my shoulders and neck. Or when she massages my chest. Drool.

No, really. I was at Uncle Johnny's cabin this weekend. Buddy and Mrs. Buddy were there along with Mrs. Uncle Johnny. Cheruby and I went up right after work on Friday and came home this afternoon. I think I was a little tired because I slept for 13 hours on Friday night and then 11 hours on Saturday night. We played some games and Buddy pushed all my buttons and made me all competitive and cranky like I hate being. Someday, I'll get used to his style and relax. It might be when I'm eighty, but someday... Heh.

Cheruby and I played a little Blue Moon. And we (Uncle Johnny, Cheruby, Buddy and the Missus, and I) played Fury of Dracula. Only Uncle Johnny, Cheruby and I played Ticket to Ride which was Uncle Johnny's Christmas present. I was fairly pleased with Ticket to Ride because it is much better than Russian Rails which is one of Uncle Johnny's most favourite games.

There were 5 dogs and 5 cats at the cabin this weekend. It was a plethora of well behaved dogs and cats too. Except Jander (black cat) who had an eye infection and has always had sinus issues and snots everywhere. Ick.

I've made plans to head to Edmonton on the first weekend in March. Hopefully, I'll be heading to Calgary sometime in March as well. It's my niece's birthday and I'd like to take the rest of Clark's stuff to him. Driving around Calgary in a mini-van will just gain me entrance to the mini-van race league. I will crush them all!

My kittens at home sure did miss me. They haven't really left me alone since I got home. They're so darling. They are usually whiney when I get home, but this time they weren't. It was a very pleasant surprise.

And it's been confirmed that the February long weekend will be spent up at Little Bear Lake ice fishing and snowmobiling and sitting in front of the fire. It's going to be awesome.

It's a good thing I went to bed early. Now, I don't feel guilty about having stayed up for three or four additional hours reading blogs. And it was bad of me. I was lurking, actually. Lurking in Cheruby's ex's blog and in Granola Girl's blog. It's there for the world to read so I don't feel guilty about that either, but it still feels vaguely wrong.

I thought I'd settled my thoughts about her and now, I've had to come down a notch from my high horse. Looking at things from just your own perspective and not wanting to think about it from someone else's is wrong. I mean, the only perspective I knew was that of what Cheruby told me and nothing from her own mouth. There was always a filter. Not so with her blog - I'm reading her thoughts directly. It's hard to stay focused when I can finally see her as a real person. I really hate being wrong.

So, what I learned was that her friends love her dearly and you don't get to have friends like that if you don't earn them. And that forced me to face reality and see that even though she hurt my angel, he hurt her too. Nothing is ever completely one-sided unless your arguing with furniture and even then, the coffee table may have jumped out to bash your shin to get back at you for the water stain. On the plus side, these good realizations about her put me in a spot to fear her again and I didn't. She doesn't have any, well not very much, power over my angel anymore. Not as more than a friend anyway and I whole-hearted support that one because he still cares about her. She's important to him and therefore, important to me. I really don't see it outside the realm of possibility to actually become friends with her at some point in the future.

Everyone gets a little crazy when it comes to the one they love, right?

So it turns out that I didn't get the flu from Cheruby as he is now very sick with fever from me. I do believe that I not only got the flu, but his cold last week. And now he just has the flu. Poor Cheruby. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm better at being sick than he is and I really suck at being sick.

My mom was wonderful when she was here. I mean, other than the avoiding me part where she wouldn't sit with me in my room because I was too sick. That never stopped her before. I doubt it means she loves me less, probably just that she's moving over and making room for Cheruby. [grin] Before leaving on Thursday, she took the time to carve the pathways to my house again. She's so great.

Mage on the weekend was really a lot of fun. I spent the entire afternoon with my good friend playing City of Heroes. My poor laptop was quite done with the whole things about 7 hours of playing straight. Heh. Then the game on Saturday night went well. Umbrella was late because she had to work and then one of the student's husband's was really late picking her up making us even later. Oh well, it gave us an excuse to go get burgers. Cheruby really, really enjoyed himself which was awesome. He skipped on coffee though cuz he had to work in the morning like a sucka!

We spent Sunday playing Cheruby's Playstation 3 and In Nomine. His cousin came over and partook of the PS3 goodness. We didn't get to play In Nomine for very long because Umbrella was feeling a little out of it due to lack of sustenance and longing for home. We ordered pizza, worked on the puzzle on my dining room table, and finally called it a day at 8 or so. Cheruby and I continued to PS3-out in the evening with Marvel Alliance or some such game. That game stole my Monday evening as well.

Today, I stopped by Dragon's Den to get a few more decks for my Blue Moon game that my angel got for me for Christmas. I got the Mimix and Aqua decks today. Mimix looks pretty cool, but Aqua looks freakin' awesome!! I'm really looking forward to having a go with them. I got a chance to review all the cards in the car while I was waiting for Umbrella to get done work.

Upon arrival at my house, I found my angel and his cousin doing the PS3 thing (gasp!). Cheruby's cousin took a piece of paper out of his pocket to show me. He passed, he passed, HE PASSED!! All that hard work studying for two months last fall paid off! He got 90 percent on his carpenter's journeyman exam. Wahoo!! Congratulations go out to Buddy on that one. Well earned and deserved.

So before I got sick on Tuesday night, I was having a very good time with my friends roleplaying. First some Mage action and then some good ol' Dungeons and Dragons. Batty was kind enough to take this picture of our cabal.


And then a very awesome friend dropped by Cheruby's and my miniatures for D&D. He got a very big hug from me.
Here's Mira and a Bahir.


And here's the whole party - Syllinea, Oskar, Aurora, Mira, and Eddie (on Bahir). We didn't actually have to fight the bahir, but we might have. We were smart though. Kudos to us!

Good times were had by all. Well until 9:20 when I got to feeling the yuckness that is sick.

Cheruby and I are definitely sharing everything thiese days. He kindly gave me whatever it was he had, but he had a lesser version of it. I got the whole punching bag feeling, chill inducing fever, hacking, coughing, sniffling, and everything else that Benelyn eight in one commercial talks about.

My mom and her friend got stuck in Saskatoon for a second night last night because of the blizzard. I kind of missed the blizzard while I was asleep.

I think it's time to sleep again.

My time in Edmonton has been swell so far. I've had a fabulous time visiting with friends including Detail Girl and Oilers Fan and Stephanie's Mom and Rilla and Neuba and Bne. Even though I kept insulting everyone, it seems that they still like me which is all good by me.

We played Skallywaggs last night. Bne won two turns after whining about how far behind he was and that everyone was picking on him. Bne and I did win at kaiser which was good, although tonight, Neuba and Rilla beat us by 82 points. It was a short game. The third game was 56 to 56 and then Bne and I made a fantastic bid for the win.

Work was great this week. I felt like accomplished something and stuck up for my team. It's one of the only times of year that I get to do that. The month between December 15 and January 15 is so busy with new accounts that I actually get to say no. It's awesome.

And tomorrow, I get to hopefully visit my aunt. Two fabulous friends are coming up from Calgary - Ms. Pants and Mister. Yippee!! Then there's a movie night tomorrow night at another friend's place so we'll likely go do that.

And we were invited to a co-workers costume party on Sunday even though we can't go because Rilla and I have to drive back to Saskatoon. By then, I'll be totally ready to go home to my angel and my kittenses. Thinking about them now is already making me want to be there and curl up with my sweetie.

Even though the number of people heading to Edmonton this weekend went from a potential 5 to just me and Ril, we decided to go anyway. And Ril left yesterday with Neuba. I'm heading up tomorrow night on my own. I'll be working out of the Edmonton office for the remainder of the week. It's really quite convenient - only 7 blocks from where I'm staying.

Work today was fabulous which was surprising since I didn't really want to get out of bed this morning. I think there were several factors. The first is that I didn't just have carbs for breakfast. I forgot my oatmeal at home so I ended up eating my brick of cheese for breakfast. Then lunch was brought in and then I had a caffeinated beverage. Oh, and I got to say no a lot today and have people listen. I felt powerful today in that I was able to help my team and help my internal partners and help our clients - part of that help was in saying no to the things we couldn't reasonably do in the next two weeks. It was a good day.

We also got presents at work this morning for being named one of Canada's 50 Best Employers - electronic wine bottle openers. Makes me wish I drank more wine. It can open more than 30 bottles of wine without charging! Just imagine!

And I bought a bath sheet for Cheruby today because I felt selfish for having only one for me. Oooo... and a pretty bundt cake pan. And some little stuff at Michael's. Everybody needs more sprinkles - pink, purple and red. Wahoo!

Oh, and my pretty ring...

I'm looking very much forward to the coming year. I'm expecting great things.

It started with a wonderful kiss from my angel and lots of hugs from his friends. I was a little sad to not be with my friends. I told Ril that I'd kiss her if Cheruby was working, but he wasn't. I heard that she had two married fellows fighting for the honour of her New Year's kiss which made me happy. She also reminded me of how fortunate we are to have the wonderful circle of friends we do. We had a really good visit and shared lots of stories from the great evening and stories of our friends and the trials we went through in 2006.

So far today, I've run errands, visited with Ril and sat on my couch updating my blog links and look. Cheruby is off visiting his cousin, but I get to see him in a few hours when he plays in the Irish session at Cluricaune Pub in the Parktown.

I was also reminded of how amazing and fragile my sweet angel is. I've been lucky in my life to have such great role models and friends who care about me. All these people taught me to value myself as much as they do. To be cared about is a privilege and to be cared about by the people that care about me is a luxury. It has let me become the person that I am that I like.

Speaking of caring people, Annie is on and I haven't seen it in years. This deserves my full attention. My mom and brother hate the movie because I loved it so very much and watched it so very often. Carol Burnett is amazing.