friends

It's nice to have friends, isn't it? It was nice to hear from Barbara, most forgiving AND prompt of blogging friends, who saw my post yesterday and immediately dropped me a quick comment letting me know she's still there. Hi, Barbara, and thanks for the idea to put up some pics of Simba. He's lookin' good, isn't he?

It was good to hang out with friend R after church this morning for a half an hour or more, catching up on her news and sharing mine.

And it was nice to have friends over for dinner tonight for the first time in ages, F & J, parents of the late Zeke and new parents of zany Zane, who came along for dinner but didn't eat much. At least not much of what I cooked, which was (for the foodies amongst us) organic spring greens w/ tomatoes & celery and a mix of some very garlicky leftover homemade caesar dressing and a vinaigrette; roasted veggies (golden beets, fingerling potatoes, mushrooms, sweet potatoes seasoned with cinnamon, cumin, and sweet paprika, and spicy cauliflower), seared shrimp with a balsamic-brown sugar reduction, rice, and for dessert some vanilla Haagen Daz with cubed mangoes and optional chocolate sauce. A bit of wine, a bit of sun tea, and a good time was had by all. Most especially BY me, because I got to hang out with friends, the Huz, Simba, and a sweet-tempered baby boy. It was so relaxing, with good conversation ranging over acting, travels, work, family, and a tiny bit of current events. They stuck around till little Zany just really needed his own bed, and afterward my very best friend of all and I washed dishes & cleaned up the kitchen together and talked about the upcoming week. It was all so blessedly NORMAL!

photo shoot (for barbara)

I'm going to pretend I don't see that camera. I'm just not interested. Really. I'm not.

Does she still have it glued to her face? Dang, still there.

I hate to look, but I just gotta know ... is the flash up?

Oo, oo, quick, close your eyes!

Ah, come on, enough with the torture already!

more pictures of Simba

hello? hello?

No, it's not a cloudy Monday, but this photo is appropriate because I feel like one of those really lame fair-weather friends, you know the ones, they love to hang out with you when there's nothing more interesting going on in their lives, but the minute there's any other possibility zoom! they're gone in a cloud of dust as you raise your hand to say, "Hey! Wait a minute! What about me?" You know? One of those kinds of friends. I have been missing in action, remiss, misappropriated, misplaced, Miss Where Are You for just ages!

But I'm not one of those kinds of friends, really I'm not. My life just got a teensy little bit out of control and I've been buried under a veritable landslide of two things: work (and the heading says "not very much about work" and I promise I'm going to spare you the details) and acting. All of it good stuff, but truly without enough time to even get the bare essentials done, never mind the things I love to do that unfortunately don't help pay the mortgage. The phrase I've been using with my local pals is that I've been setting a "personal best" for busyness. Not that it's good, but it's definitely been extreme, even for me.

But all that is behind me now, and I'm back, and I'm so glad to see you, and how have you been? Let's settle down here on the couch with some frosty mugs of diet root beer because we are that fabulicious and sensible all at the same time and get all caught up with the goings-on, and did you really? and no way! and gosh it's been a long time, I've really missed you and the laughter and the tears and let's not ever let it be this long again OK?

So I'm back, with a stack of digital photos (didn't know you could stack them, did you?) and some stories to tell, and I'm not going to start right this minute but I really think I'm back, so please stay tuned, and oh yes! My friend ... have you forgiven me enough to leave a little comment to let me know you've dropped by?