Belk is a very Southern department store. In Mississippi, I would equate it to McRae's. You go there to register for your china, crystal, towels, and stainless flatware. Sterling silver was registered at the locally owned Judy Martin's.

I have a Belk card. I love it because they do a nifty 30-60-90 program with no interest so I can do some shopping and pay for it in 3 neat payments and be done. Fabulous. If only I can find something I want to wear. Often times, they have great sales because the stuff I like is usually stuff that has been left behind by the women 20 years older than me who typically shop there. A great Calvin Klein silk skirt marked down to $25 makes my day.

So I called Belk today to change my name and address. It is the second time I have called their customer service line ever, and the second time I got a nice lady on the phone who sounds exactly like your grandmother.

Do they really hire grandmothers to answer the phone for customer service? They are certainly not outsourcing to India. But really, do they hire little old ladies to run their 800 line for customer service?

My theory though is this: no one wants to yell at their grandmother. It takes a seriously disturbed individual to yell at an old lady. The first time I got the grandmother on the phone at Belk, I did in fact have an account problem. They were posting my payments the day after the checks cleared according to my bank, and then charging me a late fee. I was pissed. So I call the 800 number, and found myself trying to be polite and angry at the same time because it was someone's grandmother on the phone. After a very long time and lots of lovely Southern chatting, I was eventually refunded the late fees they tried to suck out of me and Granny told me about 8 times to "Have a lovely day." I just couldn't be angry at them anymore.

I don't know about you, but I think Sprint could take a lesson from Belk.

So I went to post the link to McRae's and just found out that they have been bought by Belk. Interesting. Or maybe it's not.

My best friend has started a blog. It looks sharp, sounds intelligent, and has little details like a blog roll and such. I am mightily impressed and now want to figure out how to do more than type the inside of my brain into an unedited box and hit "publish post."

She is terrific really. I'm would like to say so much about her, but want for it to be thoughtful. Maybe spend some time as a draft for a few days first.

What I can say now is that not only is she creative, she really is a rocket scientist. I occasionally use this to excuse my own flakiness and general stupidity, because you know, my best friend is a rocket scientist. Then I remember that I have not once felt smaller or less accomplished in her presence. She has a beautiful way of making everyone she meets feel their most intelligent and their best while around her.

If anyone is out there reading, take a break from my rambling and go visit her at Toddler Planet.

Lately, I find myself angry and often I don't know why.

Friends tell me not to worry about it, that I have a right to be angry. I love them for understanding when really, I don't agree.

My parents have gotten the raw end of the deal. Instead of planning their retirement, now they are planning where they will die. Melodramatic? Maybe a little. Unfortunately, it is also true. Am I happy about it? Not in the least.

Hold it up for comparison though, and I end up wondering, "Do I have the right to be angry?"

If I was a nicer person, I might answer that question with the woes of the world and the scores of people who have it worse than me and my family does. Tonight though, I don't care about them.

This week, I actually got angry at my mom because she drove too many places. She drove too many places and did too many things and got tired. So I was angry at her. She spent 10 days in the hospital after her first round of chemo. Now, as soon as her white count is back to an acceptable level, she is back out and doing everything she did before. She is going to end up right back in the hospital again. And if she keeps it up, she will never be able to have the chemo and a possibility of getting better.

So am I angry, so just scared?

I guess identity is who we see ourselves as. It seems that I define my own identity in my career. If asked the question, "Who are you?" I would undoubtedly tell you that I'm the Executive Director of a music school for children from low-income families. An arts administrator. A grant writer. Cue John Williams music: I am a cape-wearing, hands-on-hips, fighter for children and an equal arts education for all.

Of course, I have now given notice at that job to be a family girl. A daughter, a stepmother, and a hopefully a glowing pregnant woman soon. So who does that make me?

I've been reading mommybloggers lately. A friend sent me a link to a musician mom's blog recently. The entry described some of the wedding music she has been subjected to performing as one of a few violinists who haven't yet fled the state of Mississippi. As much as I connected with the musician and certainly the anti-Mississippi feel of the post, the more I read, the more I realized I am missing something.

I followed links from this blog to other mommyblogs and read for hours. There is a feeling of motherhood as an identity amongst them. As a new stepmother, I haven't just taken on the identity and run with it. I'm excited about it, but I still am surprised when Lovely wants a hug in the morning, or I'm supposed to check her homework. It catches me off guard a little. Don't get me wrong, I am loving the new role. It just doesn't feel like an identity yet.

The feeling of loss at leaving my job is strange to me as I never intended on being an arts administrator. As much as I have enjoyed the work and the people I have worked with, I have to admit that I have enjoyed the identity it gave me just as much. I fell into the job, and have felt so lucky to have done so. It made me a professional instead of just a musician.

But I'm nervous about the whole identity thing. I think I used my job to identify myself because I didn't like my life. Now that I'm starting to really like it, that doubt starts creeping back in of what I deserve, what I'm worth, and most importantly - who I am.

There is a bit of closing my eyes and jumping going on here. At some point I made a decision to change my life and never look back. Now I'm hoping that I can live up to it and that the strong mommy-identity comes from the hormones or somehow magically is instilled upon you during pregnancy and childbirth. It would be so nice to read the mommyblogs as a peer and relate as a mommy. We'll see.

From as far back as I can remember, my mother tried to teach me that it didn't matter what you looked like or what you wore. As noble as that was, and as glad I am that she taught me to depend on intellect instead of lipstick, there are some flaws.

For a lot of careers, it does matter. There is a certain socialital expectation of grooming and appearance. The studies are out that heavy people earn less than thin. An attitude of, "if they don't care enough to take care of themselves, then how much will they care about the job they do?"

I am guilty of this attitude. It isn't just weight though, it is how well put together someone is and how much thought it appears went into their physical preparation for the day. Ridiculous? Probably.

I have been in a job though where I am in front of people constantly asking for money or promoting the school. Do I think I get a better response when I'm down 10 pounds, freshly highlighted, brows waxed, and suit crisply pressed? You bet I do. Do I choose skirts that hit above the knee instead of below to show a little more leg? Absolutely. Am I ashamed of this? Not in the least.

There was a good reason my mother worked very hard to teach me that you shouldn't judge or be judged by the way you look. Her mother entered her in beauty pageants and found her own self-worth in other people's opinions that her daughter was beautiful. Momma resented it. My mother swung the opposite direction and I spent junior high and high school miserable because my peers ridiculed the way I looked and dressed.

Now, I find myself wanting to provide a happy medium for my stepdaughter. She is 10 and is already asking questions about clothes and zits. She is conscious of her weight and wants to wear clothes that are loose and baggy. She has told me that she is "the biggest girl in her class," and she doesn't mean tall. That part breaks my heart. She is a beautiful girl.

How do you teach a young girl that you will never be happy if you base your opinion of yourself on how others treat you when in order to be successful, you need to learn how to have others treat you with respect and even admiration?

Middle school will be cruel, and I want her to know that she is beautiful, smart, funny, and caring. I also want her to learn to eat right, take care of her body, and choose clothes that she likes and look good on her.

I think the bottom line is that I want for her to have every opportunity. I want for her to take the AG classes, be smart, and at the same time, I want for her to be attractive. Is that wrong? I want for her to be thought of as pretty. Not because I'm that shallow, but because I want her to have the respect that goes along with attractiveness.

On Friday, I will resign. For 6 years, I have been the Executive Director of a non-profit music school whose mission is to provide music lessons to children from low-income families. You really couldn't create a more fulfilling job.

The children at this school pay $1 per week for their music lesson. We give them an instrument to use while they are enrolled and even buy their music books if they need us to. Our teachers are professionals, and our graduating class of 2006 went on to Harvard, Duke, NCA&T, Wake Tech, and Barton College. Not too shabby.

I've been to the White House to accept an award from Laura Bush. There have been newspaper interviews, podcast interviews, and numerous TV interviews. We get funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, our state arts council, the city, the county, and usually just about anyone else I ask for it.

This has nothing to do with me. The program is magnificent. The idea is brilliant. The need is absolutely relevant and the results scream success and value. I have said many times and say again, "It is easier to give us the money than it is to tell us no." It is true. What this school does with $25 could not be replicated by another arts organization or another service organization of which I know. The one-on-one student/teacher ratio and quality of music education offered makes our program the most important program seeking grants in this town.

Modest? Not me. I reiterate though, it's not me. Thank God it isn't, because I'm quitting. After 6 years of throwing my entire being into this school, I am tired. The responsibility of being in charge of the music education of 200 kids, a six-figure budget, 20 faculty, another staff member, and working with a volunteer Board of Directors has finally gotten to me.

I want to be a family girl.

There is my new family. And there is my old family. My parents need me more than ever. Guy needs me and Lovely needs me. And I want to have a baby.

I don't think I've ever looked at that sentence before. It seems odd to come from me. I have been an independent woman, a career minded, socially responsible, civic concerned woman. Lots of my colleagues and friends have no children.

I want to have a baby.

Let me be slightly more specific. I want to have Guy’s baby. I want to be a mommy with his daddy. I want to change the diapers of our offspring, get hardly any sleep, have sore nipples, wash 18 loads of laundry a day, and take long morning walks behind a stroller.

The beauty of being a musician is that you make up your own job. I can be a stay-at-home mom and still teach. I can teach as many or as few students as I want to. I can take as many or as few gigs as I want to. I can record, write, or do nothing as I see fit.

I am looking forward to having more time for my family and for music. Guy and I are looking forward to recording together, writing together, playing together, and just being together. I have never looked forward to the future before. I have only looked at making it through the now.

Although I am sad and scared to leave my job, I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to something new. I hope that I have accomplished enough to have made a difference while I was there.

My mother's mother was called Honey. She moved to Jackson around the time I was born so that my mother could take care of her. From the moment I met her, she lived in a retirement complex called "Madonna Manor." It was a dump by the time she moved out, but pretty nice in the beginning. Of course nothing in Jackson is free from crime, and by the time I was in college, there was a woman a couple of floors down from Honey who got raped in her apartment. If I heard that now, I would be panicking to get my grandmother out of that environment. In Jackson, you just buy an extra lock for your door because you've given up on moving somewhere completely safe.

I digress. Honey was a remarkable woman. She became a single parent in the 1940's when her lovely husband walked out on her, my mother, and her older brother. Realizing quickly that she was going to have to support these children, she decided to become a nurse. With childcare help from her younger sister in Georgia, Honey managed to make it through nursing school (a feat my ex-husband couldn't do with me paying the bills and having no children), establish a home for herself and her children, and even managed to get a grand piano for my mother who somehow never missed a piano lesson no matter what food was or was not in the cupboards.

She did all this without a driver's license. Honey never drove. I don't know why she never learned to drive. It made her seem older and more frail than she was though. I remember my mother always having to drive across town and take Honey somewhere. To the doctor. Shopping. To church. To the library. Wherever Honey needed to go, my mother was there to take her. Until I turned 15 and got my driver's license that is. Then I picked up some of the responsibility. There was this time I had to take her to the podiatrist. It ended badly with me dashing from the room trying to make it to a bathroom before vomiting. From that day forward I vowed to take care of my feet and get pedicures on a regular basis from clean places.

I digress again. There are too many stories to tell about Honey. If I don't tire of typing to myself, I'm sure I'll hit on many more. The point I wanted to make today was that Honey was about my mother's age now when I was born. For all of her complaining, for the million times she said, "I'm blind and I can't see" to anyone she thought was in earshot, for all the hours I had to sit in front of her vanity and have my hair ironed into doodoo curls, I know that she was one of the most remarkable women I could have had in my life.

The endurance of that woman was incredible. She was strong, stubborn, and smart. There was no model back then for single moms. There was no child support or alimony. There was just her sheer will and determination. The things I learned from Honey could spin off into another blog altogether.

The point? My grandchild will not have these things to say about my mother. For all the praise I have for Honey, I think my mother is twice the woman with twice the smarts and twice the determination. I can only imagine what she could teach my children. And what stories will they tell if their family is gone before their memories start?

This is not the way I imagined it would be.

Honey lived to be 97. She did eventually really lose her sight and became quite dependent the last 5 years of her life. However, she also picked up and moved across the country at 92 years old. When my parents decided to move to California, Honey didn't bat an eye. She said, "When do we leave?" She made new friends, experienced new cultures, and loved to tell her stories to anyone who would sit and listen.

Honey and my mother didn't always get along so well. They loved each other dearly, but I think 30 plus years of caretaking to someone as negatively vocal as Honey could be took a toll on my mother. In the days before she died though, Honey told my mother that although she wanted to live to be 100, she was content to know that she had lived long enough to see my mother fulfill God's plan for her life. Isn't that what every child wants to hear? That their parent thinks they done good?

Honey gave that to my mom, and it meant the world to her. Momma has given that to me all along though, and it has made all the difference in my life. I'm grateful she didn't make me wait until the end to let me know that she is proud of me.

In my first marriage, there were no children. I knew this was part of the deal going into to the union. He was sterile. Now I know that it is a huge deal. Then, I thought, "we'll just adopt."

Adoption is a terrific idea. I am all for blended, adopted, united, and patched up families. For me and husband #1 though, it didn't work.

There was much work and follow through to be done in adoption. It also involved a lot of money. What I am going to say would not be popular amongst adoptive families, but since I've been through the process up to bringing home baby, I'm going ahead.

I think the adoption process in America sucks.

As I was packing up my previous home, I came across the "lifebooks" that husband #1 and I sent to one of the adoption agencies. Here we are. We are cute, thin, white, young, and oh so incredibly hip. Here we are at church. Here we are with lots of attractive friends. Here is our extended family full of nieces and nephews for your child to play with. Here is our tiny house.

Oops.

Tiny house. Old cars. Jobs with no benefits. A husband perpetually in school and a wife working 60 hours a week to keep him there.

We are dysfunctional and yet somehow get approved to adopt a child. Had we possessed $30,000 in October 2003, we would have done so.

Thank god for our poverty.

However unsuited to parent we were though, the American adoption process was perfectly willing to let us go ahead, provided some girl chose us (pick me! pick me!) and we had enough cash to fork over.

Positive point now.

I had to sit through (and pay for) an entire counseling series where I learned how to parent someone else's child.

As of July 24, 2006, I am officially parenting someone else's child. The bonus is that her father is parenting her too.

I am a stepmom.

Lovely is now part of my family. We will always be connected, and yet there will always be something in our way. Wait, I know this one; I will be her family and she will have her other family.

Blah blah blah.

The bottom line is that I have a child. What I have wanted so badly for these past years is here. Well, she's here 50% of the time. Which is about 50% of the time less than I wish she was here.

I got to pack a lunch last week. I didn't pick out the lunchbox, and sure, there is her oh so dear mother telling her that I'm a whore, but I got to pack her lunch.

There was a PB&J, some blueberries because she told me she loves blueberries, some applesauce, a napkin, some organic string cheese, and some totally bad for you yet containing no transfats cookies. All I lacked was a note, but I can't do that lest her mother finds it and yells at Lovely for eating food I prepared.

She is such a good kid. I'm sure there will be bumps in the road, but man, she is such a good kid. I don't know how I got to be so lucky.

People have been telling me and Guy that we have been in the "honeymoon stage" since the day we started dating. There are those who are rooting for us to continue that way forever and those who follow the observation with their sentiments of how it won't last.

I'm here to say that it hadn't even started yet.

Two weeks as a married couple and we can't seem to even come close to getting enough of each other. Today was Saturday. We had all sorts of mature plans to do yard work and run errands. Before we knew it, 11:30 rolled around and we had just finished breakfast after laying in bed talking all morning. Yes, talking.

What I remember most distinctly about the day I met Guy is the sound of his voice. I am not a person with a long attention span. If there is other conversation in the room especially, I cannot concentrate on a single person for very long. If you mix that in with work, I am even worse. I met Guy at work, and there were several other people in the room, yet somehow, I could not quit listening to him. Usually, I want someone to say what they have to say and move on at work, but not Guy. If I thought he was going to quit talking, I found myself asking another question just to see what he would say next. I didn't think I was attracted to him, and there wasn't anything to it then, but I can't help but look back now and wonder how I missed that significant point.

Two and a half years later, I'm sitting next to him on the couch, our dueling laptops running, as his wife. His Schmoopie, in fact. We made it to Montreat and did get married in our Birkenstocks. The preacher wore flip-flops.

Our best couple friends went with us to be witnesses. She is a violinist and he is a hot air balloon pilot. I always follow that up with, "It's his for real job, no joke." She gigs on the weekends and he had a job in Asheville later in the week, so we opted to get married on a Monday. This time, the marriage was the focus and not the wedding. We didn't care what day or what time, just that the end result left us as husband and wife. I did make a bouquet of red roses and ordered a cake from my favorite bakery, the Square Rabbit. Guy and I picked up the cake with fair warning from Rebecca that it probably wouldn't travel well. She was so right. It completely fell apart on the drive through the mountains, but that didn't stop us from taking spoons to it later and eating chunks and lumps of lemon-y buttercream goodness.

Here's to the honeymoon. Day 20 and counting.

Jackson. I can't freaking get away from it. My whole family systematically moves out of Jackson, Mississippi and now they are all going to end up in Jackson, Tennessee. Amazingly enough, I would prefer that they were still in Jackson, Mississippi.

The southern Jackson at least has some really good restaurants. Jackson of the north, not so much. There is my brother's kitchen, but it's only open late, and you don't get to order off the menu. At least I don't have to leave a tip.

The southern Jackson has some of my friends left there. Jackson of the north, none that I know of.

The southern Jackson has boutique shopping. Not that I want anything from the boutiques, mind you. If I wanted to dress like every outing was part of a beauty pageant and even my panties had to be monogrammed, I could do some good shopping in the southern Jackson. There is the Gail Pittman outlet and then crazy woman who sells ceramics out of her garage and donates the money to the nuns. If she isn't home, you just leave your money in a Mason jar. The northern Jackson has 2 Payless Shoe stores. You choose which one you want to go in by how many potholes you would like to swerve around in the parking lots that day.

The southern Jackson would still feel like home. No matter how long I've been gone or how deeply I've planted my roots in North Carolina, the southern Jackson will always feel like home. Jackson of the north feels like my brother has relocated his family to a larger version of the most redneck town he has lived in thus far.

I will have to go to Jackson of the north on a regular basis now. I guess that will be okay since I'm only going to see family. The visits will most likely only consist of doctor visits and errands, so I guess I can't complain. Maybe they have a Krystal there.

Wherever my parents moved, I still need more time in my life. I will be quitting one of my jobs and keeping my piano studio going. It is more flexible and I don't want to lose my students anyway. If they had chosen to come here, I would need the time to take care of them. Now, I will need the time to travel. My brother won't travel. I think that is the unspoken reason that they are going to Tennessee instead of North Carolina. He went to California one time in 7 years to see them. He just won't leave his job long enough to go anywhere. I don't know if it is an inflated sense of self or an inflated sense of responsibility, but somehow, he always ends up being the one to forego vacation and put his family last. There would never be enough money in the world to make me work in a church ever again. I have watched my entire family put the church in front of all else time and time again. I think they even put their church work in front of God sometimes. Ironic.

Guy and I almost bought a painting of Johnny Cash last week at the Loveless Cafe. It was an abstract kind of painting with quips around the edges of "we're going to Jackson." At the time, I found it amusing. Now, not so much.

I hope that my parents have thought through their care and the people with time to give it to them. I have a feeling that when my mother dies, we'll be moving Daddy all over again. She said this morning that she thought she was going to die sooner rather than later. I don't understand then, why she won't go ahead and get Daddy near me where he belongs. Daddies and daughters go together.

I'm going to have to be patient. I suck at being patient.

Last Sunday, I called my mom. She had told me to call her before I left town to elope with Guy. She had received her second chemo treatment that Friday, so I knew she wasn't planning on going anywhere.

So why did I get the answering machine?

I left a message, thinking that maybe they were napping. No one called back. First thing on Monday morning, when it is late enough Pacific time to call, I dial.

Answering machine again.

I turn to Guy and say, "Mom is in the hospital. Something has gone wrong, and she is in the hospital." Another man would have told me not to worry and that there was no way to know that. Guy said, "You are probably right. There isn't anything you can do about it now, but if we need to go to CA instead of on our honeymoon, we'll work it out." God, I love that man.

My brother has not heard from them either. I wake him up I think, and he tells me to go ahead and get married and not worry about it. He will find out what is going on and let me know.

Don't worry about it.

That is completely ridiculous I think. I'm on my way to Montreat, North Carolina to marry the man of my dreams in the most beautiful town in the world, by my favorite minister (second to Mom), by a, I kid you not, babbling brook. It could not have been more perfect, and yet I'm supposed to not worry about it.

There is something that my parents are quite confused about, and it is that even though I worry about them, I am still able to function in my everyday life. Even though eloping with no family present was not at all how I wanted to get married, I made do, and pretty damn well, thank you. Yes, I want them safe, healthy, here, and happy. In the event that I can't have all that right now, I'll take what happiness I can get.

The happiness I have now is my new family. Aside from being the new bride of the most wonderful man in the world, I'm also a new stepmother. Lovely is now officially my stepdaughter. I tried to work the dogs into the equation as well, but nobody is buying the whole stepdog thing.

There is always some amount of happiness. And I truly believe, from the course of my life in the past few years that there will always be that amount of sadness too. You can't choose your circumstances, but you can choose how you react to them I think.

I am scared to death for my mother. She is still in the hospital. Daddy is staying at the house by himself. I'm happy about neither, and can control neither at the same time. I could though, go ahead and take care of marrying the man of my dreams. A long term investment if you will.

My mother and I are both making new life long commitments. Mine is to the love of my life. Hers is to chemotherapy. I hope her new commitment is not going to replace the one she made to my father.

When she told me that she would be on chemotherapy "indefinitely," I thought to myself, "You mean until you die." I don't know why I have to be so morbid some days. It is hard to find hope in this situation though. She will be on chemotherapy until she dies. Not until her cancer goes away, but until it kills her.

I see this as the opportunity for her to drag her feet on moving again. Even though she told me last week that she was going to submit her resignation to the church, she has not, and has no date in mind for doing it. There is this issue of the other pastor needing knee surgery.

I'm sorry. Did she say knee surgery?

Can I just state for the record that I honestly don't care one bit about the overweight senior pastor's knees? Why is that my family is affected by the fact that he is an idiot and has waited until it is a dire situation for him to have knee surgery? Did they all forget that my mother has cancer and my father can't remember what day it is or tie his own shoes? Buy the fat guy a scooter and get on with it.

It is so past time for her to have secured help for my father. When she and I talk now, it is all about her, her treatment, her job, and the decisions that weigh her down. Can I really accuse my own mother of being selfish when she is trying to face terminal cancer? Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. I think she is being extremely selfish by not having resigned yet and especially for continuing to leave him at home unsupervised.

Neither of them have much longer in the grand scheme of things. As I get ready to commit myself to the man I love and respect, I can't help but feel slightly bitter towards her. I would drop anything and everything to take care of him. At this moment in time, she has forgotten her commitment to my father. He needs her. He needs her to help him and to be with him. He needs her to quit working and move him closer to his family. He doesn't need her to talk about it, plan it, re-plan it, or even think much about it at this point. He just needs her to do it.

My mother will start again tomorrow. Chemo. 8:00 AM Pacific time.

She will be on a 3 week cycle. Week one, she will have two drugs, taxotere and gemzar. Week two, she will just have the gemzar. Week three, she gets to recover some.

And then she will start again.

Neither of these drugs list ovarian cancer on their website as something they treat. Both state that they can be used for metastatic breast cancer. I don't understand that, but I guess that's alright.

There will be no surgery. She was given the false hope of actual tumors that could be removed with surgery. That turns out to not be true. She thinks I've given up on her just because I never believed the surgery option. That is also not true.

My daddy is supposed to have a cat scan on Friday as well. I don't know how they will arrange transportation for both of them, but they have not asked me to come.

Momma insists that there is something else wrong with my father besides Parkinson's. I disagree. His weight has dropped to 127 pounds. He is 6'1". I can barely understand him on the phone anymore because he does not have adequate control of his facial muscles. She has disregarded the diagnosis of Parkinson's with Lewy Body disorder, so I'm not sure of what else she is looking for. It's quite enough.

I don't know which disease is more cruel. If I had to choose, I would say that it's the Parkinson's. Cancer comes and goes until one day, you know it is going to kill you. There are means to fight it and ways to stave it off. It will most likely kill you one day, but there is at least "the good fight." Parkinson's has eaten way tiny pieces of my daddy until there is nothing left but this shell of a man who used to be my foundation. There is no fight. There are drugs that "slow the progression." Unfortunately, if you are diagnosed so late like I believe Daddy was, there is no slowing things down.

And once again, I am left sitting here wondering, "Which one is going to go first?"

I pray that it is Daddy.

Start again tomorrow. This was something that my grandfather always said to me. He used to be the one I would call when I had a bad day. By the time I was done unloading my horrid tales, we would both be laughing because really, they were never that bad. I miss him.

I'm starting over. A week from Monday, I will marry the man of my dreams. It has taken time, pain, destruction, and rebuilding to get there, but we have almost made it.

In Montreat, Presbyterians fill the town. Not to mention, it is the most beautiful place on earth. It's the perfect place for a wedding. Ironically enough, the minister who will marry us has already done this for me once. I suppose you have to have a strange sense of humor, but it really is funny. I'm finally going to be married in the mountains by a stream and get to wear my Birkenstocks doing it. Life is good sometimes.

Start again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

I'm going to keep on trying. There is no reason why we shouldn't make the best of the lives we've been given.

There are three souls in my life who have been constant comfort the past few years.

There is my 10 year old American Eskimo mix who I took in as a puppy while I was still in college. She is the smartest dog I know, with a large vocabulary, both human and canine.

There is also my 4 year old English Setter. She and Lovely are the best of friends. They sleep together each night, and she has been a real therapy dog for Lovely's transition into living with her parents separately.

Then there is Tippy Tail, a 3-5 year old Irish Red & White Setter. I never did know how old he was. Tippy (not his real name, he would have you know), got sick I think sometime in the last 6 weeks. There was not a moment that I can put my finger on, but looking back, there are so many signs that connect.

Last Thursday night, Tippy Tail lost it.

There has been a problem with fence jumping for awhile now. Not just a little 4 foot fence, but a 6 foot wooden fence, with an invisible fence buried along the inside so he wouldn't go to the edge. Tippy didn't care, he would run through the shock, jump the fence, and be off to roam the neighborhood.

There was the day that my fiancé caught him and tried to bring him back to the house and Tippy bit him on the arm.

There was the change in the other dogs too. Tippy bit the older dog on the ear one day. She had started nipping at him in the house and trying to keep him separated from the rest of us. We thought she was just being old and ornery, but now of course, everything looks different.

Last Thursday night, the three humans were in the music room and Tippy was with us. My fiancé and I were sitting in chairs, practicing a song for our friends' upcoming wedding. Lovely was sitting on the floor, petting Tippy. There was nothing unusual about this. He loved that little girl. He would come to her for pets each night and often would sleep next to her bed at night. Everything should have been fine.

In an instance, I see Tippy lift his head and his eyes were like nothing I had ever seen. I had time to stop singing and think to myself, "That doesn't look right." Then he was on her.

He attacked Lovely right there on the floor with us sitting there. Completely unprovoked, and with no warning growls or anything, he jumped at her face and nicked her right above the eye. In that regard, we are very lucky. She was physically not hurt much, but emotionally has had a really hard time.

Tippy had to go. Right then. I did call his rescue group before I made any final decisions, but no one wavered on what had to happen. The unpredictable and unprovoked attack on a child could not be explained or tolerated.

I took him to the vet myself. The rescue group said that they would take him back, but they would euthanize him. I wasn't going to send him away only to do what I could have done. It took me about five minutes to get the story out to the vet once I arrived. Between sobs, they understood that I had Tippy in the car and needed to have him put to sleep.

I stayed with him until the end. He was scared I think, but then again, there has been a nervousness in him that lately that goes on the list of things I didn't connect with him. I had promised him that I was his forever home, so I stayed with him for his forever. I stroked his head and told him that I loved him, and then I said goodbye.

The next couple of days I spent beating myself senseless about the whole thing. Not one person doubted my decision, except me.

Then, yesterday morning, I woke up and realized something very important.

I am an adult.

There are people and pets and things for which I have responsibility for now, and I am competent enough to make tough decisions. Tippy was my dog, and I was responsible for him, his health, his safety, and most importantly in this case, the safety of those around him. Lovely is going to be my stepdaughter. Not only was she not safe, she didn't feel safe, and there was no way I was going to let her be afraid to come in her own home. Plus, if he would bite her, a little girl that he loved, he would bite anyone. This erratic behavior doesn't exist in a healthy dog. There was something wrong with my Tippy Tail, and even though I will never know what it was, I am confidant that I made the right decision.

That doesn't mean that I don't miss him. We all miss him. I miss his cold nose in the mornings, the way he would throw his head back and give a hearty, "Roo, roo!" when it was time to go outside. I miss him laying by my feet and looking up at me with those huge brownish red eyes that perfectly matched his brownish red spots.

Tippy was a great dog who had come a long way in his life as a pet. I loved him very much, all the way to the end.

For the past week, Daddy has been staying with my brother and sister-in-law in Tennessee. Momma was going to the Presbyterian General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama.

Each day she has been gone, Daddy has gone into his bedroom and packed his suitcase. He thought Momma was coming back each day. She has been gone for almost a week.

Each night, he has kept my brother and/or sister-in-law up all night, calling them every 15 to 30 minutes to come and help him get up, get down, straighten the sheets, go to the bathroom, pack his bag, get a doughnut, or just to ask if they were still there. No one has slept more than 3 hours in a row since his arrival.

Each of his declines comes with a fall further than he had been before and a fall too far to get back up to where he used to be. Last night, he called out for his dad all night long. When my brother went in to help him, Daddy called him, "Daddy."

Each time a new development occurs with Daddy, my mom tries to analyze it. She talks about medicine changes, differences in their schedule, him being in an unfamiliar environment, or how she hasn't taken good enough care of him. It is time for that to stop.

The fact of the matter is that is doesn't matter anymore why he is getting worse in leaps and bounds. What matters is what we are going to do to handle it. If it is medicine, then how quickly are we going to fix it? What are we going to do to make sure that all his different doctors are on the same page? What are we going to do to make sure that Momma gets to sleep?

What are we willing to give up? Work? Privacy? Space? Pride? Location? Friends?

There comes a time I think when it is just time to shut up and act. I obviously think this time is now for my parents.

Denied. Denied. And denied again. Never mind the fact that they are wasting time and now probably money for not just approving the scan.

It doesn't matter in the end. She is of course, getting it anyway. Next week. Then she goes back to her oncologist on June 30.

Now we continue to wait.

And the answer is no. Again, the insurance company has said no to the pet scan that my mother needs. There has been no treatment yet for the cancer we know she has. The pet scan is a "treatment planning" procedure. Blue Cross has delayed her treatment by weeks and shortened her life by who knows how long.

The doctor will resubmit the request today in hopes that it doesn't come across the desk of another complete idiot. Of course, that is assuming that someone besides complete idiots work at Blue Cross. That is a huge assumption.

There is a commercial that NBC is running for a new show. In it, a man asks, "In your wildest dreams, am I there?".

That, I think, is not only a valid question, but one of the most important ones I've heard in a long time.

In the midst of the craziness of my parent’s illness, I have gotten a divorce.

A divorce in my family is a crisis. I introduced another crisis into our lives when we were already in crisis. Not entirely fair, but I couldn't wait any longer. I could not take another avoidable disappointment in my life. In early 2005, I told my husband to leave (he couldn't pay the bills in our house, so in my mind, I got to stay), and I got the quickest divorce I possibly could.

And now, my family knows that I will be with someone who loves me like they think I should be loved. I am with someone who would be with me in my wildest dreams.

I love them for realizing this, and I love them even more for being happy for me in this aspect of life when there are so many reasons to just be sad.

I have an amazing family.

Today, my momma's doctor resubmitted the request for her pet scan. Still unable to convince Blue Cross Blue Shield that they weren't trying to diagnose ovarian cancer, only to map where it is in her body, they have a new plan.

Lucky for Momma, she is also a breast cancer victim. They will be resubmitting the request for a pet scan for a breast cancer patient. She is so lucky to be both a victim of ovarian cancer and breast cancer. Hooray.