sometimes the apples don't fall too far from the family tree

Bruce sent this picture of his grand-daughter, Darby, dressed up for her birthday party. She would be my grand-niece but that sounds like a blue-haired old lady thing so I don't like to use that phrase. This is a girl after my own heart. She put together quite a look here. Then I started thinking...

Here I am dressed to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade. I wore this to a party with Regis when he worked at a costume company and I wore it to school a couple times (with a longer skirt and no wine) and passed out gold-wrapped chocolates from a black cauldron.

I celebrated one of my recent birthdays with my mom. She has a long history of dressing up on Halloween. One year she put on a gorilla mask before getting into bed to scare my dad. He didn't even blink.

Ella loves costumery. She's in her glory if we dig out long dresses, sparkly jewelry, scarves, and hats. She has a good eye for the outrageous and I appreciate that. You can see her dramatic pose.

I think we're due for a costume afternoon, Ella. Too bad we can't all get together for a party!

I am feeling the effects of being cooped upest, partly because yesterday was not a day to venture out. It started with rain, then ice, then snow, then back to rain. The sidewalks were treacherous. Even with my YakTrax, it was rough going.

My rash is gone. It started disappearing on Friday and by Saturday, no signs of it. Probably better that my last treatment was cancelled, though...I might have been an itching mess by today. I'm taking this as a positive sign for going ahead with the taxol on Thursday. My doc says most people tolerate taxol better than A&C. I seem to be an outlier, numerically distant from the rest of the data...less than 2% suffer with a rash. Just my luck.

Many of my thoughts today are cranky, or at least gloomy. Best to not impart them on others.

My can of whoop ass for the day is the beautiful women in my life who wear striped tights and hats and crazy glasses. Here's to you all!