Six Years Ago

Six years ago I had two books out:

And I was working on a third:

Squish, Big T, Zoomboy and Chicken all looked as you see him in This Right Here.  We called Squish "Ladybug" then, because the true awesomeness of Squish had not yet been discovered, and we called Zoomboy, 'The Cave Troll' because he had us outnumbered by a ridiculous amount--and that was before he could even talk.  (I may have mentioned this before--he didn't talk AT ALL until I was home with him right before I had Squish.  His first words were, "Oh, mama, I like chocolate milk!  Chocolate milk is NUMMY!" which was damned awesome because I was about to call the frickin' school district and have him assessed!)

Dennis Quaid the cat was still alive, and my hair was really that color without dyeing it too often.

I was working full time, and I had not yet lost my faith in my job or my bosses or much of the world in general.

I had not yet had it restored by Elizabeth and Lynn and the wonderful people at Dreamspinner Press, either--but that's another story.  

And I had just started blogging, and throwing my thoughts out into the world.  

And one of the first people to respond was Roxie.

And she was wonderful.  She sent me advice and good humor and showed me that the world got even better and kinder and more exciting as one grew wiser in it.  She sent me rum balls and funny hats for my kids (and damn if I can retrieve ANY of these photos from my computer right now, because I've got some lovely ones!) and talked about her cats the same way I did, and...

I loved her.  

I had never met her, but I adored her.

And now, my kids and cats all look like this: 

And Roxie and I look much the same (I have more fat, more grays and more wrinkles-- she still looks fantabulous.)

And we are going to meet for real on Saturday, when I drag all the kids and none of the cats to visit with Mate's father in Portland over the weekend.  

I can not wait to meet Roxie.  In a summer that's looking to be pretty damned spectacular, this could be one of my BEST THINGS.  

I'm so excited, I won't be able to sleep:-)