My cousin is in the hospital.

[EFerrari]

11. Managed to cook today, couldn't yesterday.

Sat up half the night, feeling ill, out of time.

J's third birthday party in Novato. Her pastel green chiffon dress with tiers of ruffles, probably the very last time she wore a petticoat, lol. Hunting frogs in that backyard and catching flies to feed them. Thank goodness, they all managed to hop out of the plastic tub, back out into the wild.

J noticing that a guest at one of my parties had a little girl that was torturing a kitten. J liberating the kitten into her purse and telling the little girl that the kitten ran away.

Me and J getting up early, on one of my sleepovers at her house, to make gingerbread. Getting impatient. Making a devil's food cake while we waited for the cookie dough to chill. I'm pretty sure we were the first people in our immigrant family to make two American dessert recipes from scratch on the same day, at respectively 8 and 11. Without any adult supervision. lol

J dancing at her wedding, in one of those big white wedding dresses, instructing the band to blast the Stones, wearing the biggest pair of red sunglasses ever. Ever.

J laughing out loud next to me at the movie theater on Shattuck. Watching "Like Water for Chocolate". Laughing because somehow we managed to sneak our own lives out of family scripts and because we didn't quite believe our own hubris. Pirates.