l Please forgive me l

| November 14, 2005 || 10:31 a.m. |

Today is my Mom's 45th Birthday, or it would have been. This weekend has been extremely difficult. I worked all weekend but that was by choice. Typically I don't work on Sundays but they needed the help and I'm a team player. It's also my fault for going out on Saturday night and not getting home until 5am when I knew I had to be at work by 10 that next morning.

What I didn't think of is that we were having our Sunday family dinner at my Mom's. What I didn't think of is that her husband would ask us to take whatever we wanted from her office...where he has placed all the things of hers that we had not taken before. What I didn't think of is that while sitting there on the floor handling the last purse she bought on our last shopping trip that not only would I find a couple of her make-up items but that I'd break down and cry. not be able to stop crying. Miss her, look into her eyes that seem to sparkle even in the Black and White/Sepia portrait centered in the formal living room of her home and just wish I could hear her voice once more, hold her hand, sit silently on the couch while watching our TV shows...

I have the evening off from my other jobs so I think I will go visit her. I know my family is taking many arrangements of flowers out and my Uncle is even having a bouquet delivered. What else can we do? I want to make her a pineapple upside down cake, her favorite, the cake I made her every year on her birthday. Would it be disturbing to just take it out there & leave it?

This is the time when I really hate being alone. sleeping alone. living alone. This is the time when I wish I had someone to just hold me as I cry.

Today's extended horoscope

Prepare yourself, because this probably won't be the very best news you've heard all week. Or all month. Just when you thought it was safe to come out, you'll find that Mercury, the purveyor of communication and transportation, is about to turn retrograde, which classically means it's going to be tough to get where you're going or do what you want to do. For a sign as harmony loving as yours, this is agony. Make your excuses nicely.