Health Pill

Tuesday night my friend Michele "Mookie" Pusateri picked me up for a dinner of mole enchiladas at one of my favorite mexican restaruants called La Cabanita, before meeting with my old art quilt group. It was so wonderful to see them and see the work they have been doing. Michele suprised me with the gift of a felted health pill to help me through all of my recent medical issues. What a sweetie. Everyday i am feeling so much better, more like my old self. What a differnce a little synthetic hormone can make. I am starting to feel so much more energized to start working again.

Yesterday we went to Little Tokyo to the book store and the japanese grocery. I needed to restock my Genmai cha (roasted brown rice green tea) and instant ginger tea supply. It is so sunny and pretty here with all the flowers and trees blooming. Chicago was just starting to show signs of spring when we left.

Happy Easter

We are not eating this cake today. We are on a plane to Los Angeles instead. This was last years cake. We will spend the day in Venice with my husbands family. The kids have a big list of things to do while in Los Angeles. At the top of the list is a trip to Little Tokyo, to the book store Kinokuniya for Manga, origami paper and quilt magazines (for me), then the Garment district for fabric, and The Folk Tree one of our favorite places for cool mexican stuff.

Internet down

Well my internet went down on the weekend and it took the cable guy two hours yesterday to figure out the workers remodeling the unit next door cut the cable line in the wall between our units.

I am off to Los Angeles on Sunday for two weeks to visit friends and family and go to Onnolees funeral on April 24th at All Saints church in Pasadena. I managed to get a good deal on a flight Easter morning. So the kids and I will be just in time to have lunch with family in Venice.

Thank you everyone who left kind words of condolence.

I was shocked this week to also learn of the cancer related death of Melissa Sullivan (no relation to Onnolee, just weird coincidence with last name) a very sweet woman in Austin, Texas. Melissa was a member of the Austin area quilt guild and a familiar face in the Quilt Store .

I am going to miss you Onnolee!

My dearest friend Onnolee Sullivan succumbed to ovarian cancer this morning. She was like another mother to me, as well as spiritual guide, knitter, needlearts lover and wonderful friend. I will miss our hour+ long phone calls, when we could say good by and talk another half hour several times over. She was always ready to listen, giving of herself to a fault. She is the most loved person i know, You could see it in peoples faces as they looked down adoringly into her twinkling blue eyes. I know her funeral will be standing room only.

Onnolee was diagnosed with cancer the week after I moved back to LA from Austin two and a half years ago. I know the universe brought me back to LA for those two years before moving to Chicago so I could spend time with Onnolee. I treasured every moment we were together, knowing time was limited. This picture was taken the day before I left LA for Chicago. I really hoped i would have a chance to see her one more time. The last two years have been difficult to say the least for Onnolee, it was so hard to see her losing her hold on life. I know she is no longer hurting and is at peace and I am glad of that, I am just sorry for the rest of us who love her and will miss her dearly.

Who's on the show today?

Four limos today. This is the line at 11:00 am. On days they tape they usually have several shows a day, so the limos come and go through the day.

New Flag

I guess someones else over at Harpo noticed the flag yesterday too. The other one probably had been ruined from the storm sunday night, some major thunder and lightening, hail and rain. It was so fun to see the lightening shoot across the sky at the Sears Tower and some of the other skyscrapers near by. Very dramatic.

Today i am off to see the Endocrinologist for my recently diagnosed Hashimotos (hypothyroid). Have i reached the age where everything stops working properly? It is starting to feel like it.

Oprah's studio

We live next door to Oprah's studio, contrary to what most people think, it is no easier for me to get tickets than anyone else. On days that they are shooting shows i see lots of limos outside but never know who is in them. I live on the fifth (top floor) of our building so mostly all i can do is look down at her roof, and see how windy it is by looking at the flag. I wonder how many flags she goes through a year, I think this is the third one since last fall.



The building on the left side of the street up one block is Oprah's offices. The brick building straight ahead is another building being converted to lofts. These pictures were taken from the little balcony in my kitchen facing west.

the dermis layers

This piece represents the dermis layers of our skin. The funny little wiggly things are our sensory organs, the rest are all the cellular layers above the fatty tissue (not shown). This is approx. 20"x 8"