As I mentioned in my previous post, my cousin Kelly had many photos of me and my family in the late 70’s – early 80’s.

Here are a few of my favorites…

Me in Oct 1979. Look at those chubby cheeks! Still haven’t totally lost them.

Mom cutting Dad’s hair… classic.

My Grandfather, Papi Claude, teasing my cousin Jill.

Group family shot. From Left to right: Renee (my grandmother), Chantal (my aunt), Barbara (my half great aunt) Edith (my great-grandfather’s wife), Claude (my grandfather), me (facing back), Christiane (my Mom) and Jean-Claude (my Dad).

Justin and I flew to Austin, TX for Christmas to see his lovely family. This year, I took advantage of the little extra time we planned to stay, to visit for the first time in many, MANY years, my family who also lives there.

Kelly is my grandfather’s half brother’s daughter. We had a wonderful brunch in their lovely home and took the old pictures box out! A treasure of late ’70s memories. Justin got to see me as a toddler, as well as my Mom with her super long blond hair and my Dad with his beard and dark sunglasses.

David, Kelly’s husband, who is a professional photographer, treated me with scanning all these photos and put them on a CD. What a precious collection!

Below, here we are all on their front porch.

From left to right: Justin, Aaron, Stephanie, Benjamin, Kelly and David

Oh and Kelly’s sister is Jill, who we saw in California last August. Just connecting the dots…

… playing with MacBook’s PhotoBooth and imagining an alternate reality. Fun!

This is me if I were to be a camel. My favorite! Except, I don’t spit.

So, imagine Justin and I growing old and bored…

… and packin’ on the pounds

Justin takes it all in the neck!

At times, Justin is so bored he wants to punch my cheek out…

…or pull my ear, little brat!…

…but I forgive him and we still love each other…

…and it fills me joy!!!

Check out other people’s photobooth pics on flickr :)

Since Justin and I both live in San Francisco, work in Sausalito and both ride our own Vespa, some nights conversations go something like this…

First stop light on Lombard St after crossing the Golden Gate bridge:
— Hey!
— Hey.
— How’s it goin’? (Light turns green)

Second stop light:
— Pretty good, you? (Light turns green)
— (Nod)

Third stop light:
— Good… I’m hungry! Are you hungry?
— Nah, not so much (Light turns green)

Fourth stop light:
— I’m reeeaallly hungry! Wanna stop at Trader Joe’s or something?
— Uh, I don’t know.
— Yeah I guess we don’t really have bags.
— Yeah, I don’t know… I mean we can…. (Light turns green)

Fifth stop light:
— Nah we don’t have to. We can just make some of that Indian lentil stuff we have at home.
— Yeah… (Light turns green)

Sixth stop light:
— Yeah, I was sorta thinking salad would be good.
— Oh, we can do salad. We can stop at Trader Joe’s and get salad. (Light turns green)

Sixth stop light:
— Well, I was thinking Cala*. To just get a bag of lettuce with… (Light turns green)

Seventh stop light:
— With what?
— What?
— Bag of lettuce with what?
— Oh, with ham and almonds with a little balsamic vinaigrette. (Light turns green)

Eighth stop light:
— Ooo that sounds great! Maybe we should pick up some bread too. (Light turns green)

Ninth stop light:
— Sho, that’s cool.
— So, should we make a left on Clay and a right on Hyde? Oh wait, we can just do a left on Bush and up Larkin and a right on California… Yeah, that’s probably too complicated.
— How about we just park the Vespa home and walk to Cala*? (Light turns green)
— (Big nods)

Tenth stop light:
— Ha, yes! Much better plan.
— Okie. (Light turns green and we ride home)

* Crappier grocery store but much closer to where we live.

As you can tell, the only way for us to exchange more than 2 sentences is to be stuck at a stop light. Conversations are very chopped up and sometimes hard to follow, but we somehow manage to make some decisions! And so tonight, we had a lovely, flavor packed salad.

Thank you Red Lights, we couldn’t have done it without you!

And so after dancing, working, hiking, working, dancing, working and dancing some more… my body kinda hurts. I was starting to get sciatic pains, my right knee was killing me when I was walking even on short distances, my neck kept getting tight. And all on the right side.

Today, I finally treated myself with a long over-due therapeutic massage. Jeff, who dug his fingers into my muscles, knew what he was doing. It wasn’t one of these relaxing, mmm, oh yes massages. It was more of an ouch, woa, man it kinda hurts in a weirdly great way massage, from a Filipino technique. He found all the spots I’ve been aching, all the muscle chains that were pulling onto each other. Sometimes it almost felt like he was digging below a group of muscles to reach other muscles. Wow!
Now, I feel opened and a little sore. We’ll see about tomorrow :)

But that’s not the end! I thought to myself… well, while I’m at it, why not get a manicure? And so I did. It’s been a year I haven’t had one. Felt sooo good! I love watching my hands now.

Look… this is me forgetting how to spell words typing this blog post with beautiful nails.

I don’t feel like I have a lot to say lately. Wait, that’s not true, I feel I have many things to say, but I’m lazy. Wait, that’s not true, I’m not lazy, I am just allowing myself to breathe. Yes, that’s right.

Many things are going on in my life, but I have no desire to spend a lot of time reporting them. Since dance slowed down, I’m allowing myself to daydream, take naps (sometimes 2 hours long!), fart around (sometimes literally) and not worry about how I didn’t get such and such accomplished.

It’s been a long while since I’ve let myself have mellow nights.

Hurray for nothingness! Hurray for ups and downs!