We knew we wanted to go biking in Minocqua this year. We were all set to do the trip last year, and then that pesky tumor of mine reared its ugly head. I've wanted to do the B.A.T.S. Trail for quite some time...Minocqua was a little place that I grew up visiting once a year, and it is very close to my heart. I wanted to rent bikes and do the trails the last time I was in the area, in September of 2005. When Miles couldn't find the time to go with me during the entire week we were there, my mother, whose liver was failing at the hands of Cancer, and my aunt, whose arthritic knee caused her daily grief, offered to do it with me. I kindly declined, thinking I would feel guilty afterwards...but can only think now what a fun day that would have been.

But, as I am so fond of doing, I am going back and crossing another item off of my list of "Someday" things to do. This time, I won't even have to rent a bike, being quite fond of my own, one that Brenda helped me to acquire early last Summer, before I knew that all of my months of not feeling "quite right" would be coming to a head shortly. It's the best, honestly. I love it. Anyway, I've made hard-won reservations now. Immediately, I looked at the local calendar to see what was going on, why lodging was so scarce—I found this.

I was hoping that we would be up there for the Colorama festival, and this was to blame. No, it is the other big festival that we will be present for: Beef-A-Rama. Jokingly, I emailed Nick a link for the event's Rump Roast Run, seeing as this is a dead period for fun runs now until our Thanksgiving morning 5K. And, well, what started as a joke, ended with me logging into my Active.com account and registering for the race. I talked to Brenda over drinks, appalled, that I was entering a race wherein the first place prize was a rump roast. She licked her chops and asked that I give mine to her once I've won it. I had to refrain from snorting.

"No way I'll win," I finally got out, tapping the side of my beer. "I've discovered this."

It's been a rocky path to where I am today, fraught with poor choices and matronly zeal—Aunt Brenda was the first to show me that lace can go there. And that was in my teens. And to my mother's chagrin, I liked lace there. I am sure she didn't appreciate my aunt's assistance that her nighttime commando regime should be the reason she's never suffered from the perils of yeast, but I was a teenager ready to question everything I ever did just because my parents did it, and so I found myself ready to shun my collection of white cotton briefs (and maybe try a pair in pink instead).

Fast forward many years, many uncomfortable experiments, irritating needs to tug at oneself in public, and my first pair of low-rise jeans, and I know...I know...that God had his hand in producing that first pair of hipsters. There can be nothing better.

It was a rough week for me due to multiple reasons, and I found myself distracted the majority of the time. Sophie did not think much of not being the center of my world, and I found her quite pushy, often slamming her body into me and lolling onto her back to look up at me and purr, "I'm irresistible, you know I am." The other morning, Nick was jauntier exiting the bed than myself, and I heard Sophie's collar bell as she walked around the bed to my side in curiosity.

"Morning, Sophie!" I crooned and she jumped to snuggle her little bunny's butt (all it's missing is the cotton ball tail!) into me, purring wildly and making sure I didn't ignore her this time. I stroked the downy fur on the crown of her head and smiled to myself. Was it so long ago that she would run at the sound of us, and hiss if we accidentally looked her in the eye? Was it so very long ago that I confessed my fears to my aunts that she had too much wild in her, that we had adopted a feral kitten that was too old and too unsocialized to human beings from the rescue shelter? It must have been, although we've only had this darling fluff ball a scant 4 months.

I hate to break it to you, Puss...but I think you're tame.

(And, if your love of potato chips, pretzels, melted butter, and microwave popcorn are any indication, you like it that way.)

When graphics artists share a computer...

Emotionally spent, I took a call from my father the next morning after what would have been Mom's 50^th. I was weary with crying, weary with longing, and weary with doing it all behind closed doors because this is now her second birthday that I've celebrated without her, and I wouldn't want to be accused of being overly dramatic. I am okay with her death most of the time (well, as "okay" as a person can be with choices that weren't theirs to make), but Mother's day and her birthday just hit me...the two days a year that I dedicated always to her.

"Hi, Dad."

"Hello, doing better today?" He had called the day before and knew I was having a tough time. He had told me that, just like last year, he was going to buy a birthday balloon and tie it to the iron planter at her grave.

"I think so," I replied. "Did you ever make it out to Mom's grave yesterday? I don't think you had been there yet when I stopped by." I had left work early to to buy flowers and place them there.

"I was there first thing in the morning! The balloon wasn't there!? I did stop, Laura, I did!" He had started to cry. I felt like crap for saying anything.

"Well...who knows...maybe Charlie stopped by and wanted it..." I tried to give a soothing explanation.

"No, Charlie didn't think he could go. Said it was too hard."

And then I stopped feeling like a loser for my 20 minute cry at her final resting place, which was really more of a whispered mantra of, "I miss you—oh, God, do I miss you..." because with my father crying in my ear and my brother momentarily dropping off of the face of the planet, it was obvious that I wasn't the only one that finds August the 14^th incredibly painful.

Dad later went back to the cemetery and found the balloon ribbon still tied, but the balloon gone. He called again to say, "Maybe your Mom just liked the balloon and snatched it up." I do rather like that idea.