Briana: She's Gone! :(

Folks, that's my first-ever emoticon right there in that title. Something about the occassion calls for a... symbol that expresses the profound sadness we're feeling today, so I had to bust it out. To reiterate, :(

I took Briana to the airport this morning at five-ish. Got a call later in the day saying she made it back to Akron where I'm sure they gave her a welcome-home parade and her parents will lavish her with attention before she heads off for her sophomore year at Toledo U. Some life.

Despite the fact that our apartment is so small, and Briana's nocturnal schedule was sometimes... tricky, I already miss her and the apartment seems a little sad without her. Sure, there's a decided lack of bad music coming from laptop speakers, but... we miss her.

At dinner I mentioned her name in conversation with Rachel, and Zora began to look very concerned. She went to what was Briana's room, checked it out. Looked out the kitchen window. Asked to look out of the bathroom window. Pointed off into the distance. It made me kind of sad to think that her memories of Briana's visit will probably be occluded by words when she gets them, and the pile of memories she's bound to put on top of this summer, but I suppose that's the way it goes. I remember blurred images from what must have been my first couple of years, so maybe she'll remember Briana picking her up, or blinking into the late-morning light, or quietly eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or falling asleep next to her car-seat on rides from the beach. Who knows? I'll remember them, at least.

Briana was always very sweet with Zora; very patient and sharing. Here she is helping Zora with her hair. You'll notice you can see the floor in this photo, so I think that might date this image back to the first couple of days of Briana's visit, before she unleashed her shoe collection.



And here she is with Zora at SoundSession, wherein Providence introduced its funky self to Briana. We hope she makes it back for next year's parade!

Sorry for such a long delay, folks. A broken camera (many good years, several bad drops) and a busy life have kept us from posting for a loooooong time.

Luckily, our neighbor Ben has a fancy camera on his phone and shot some pictures of Z down at the corner store. She was hanging out with Megan (our awesome upstairs neighbor-- the best and perhaps only good thing to come out of Pennsylvania, really) while R and I were at a class.

ANYWAY, the photos. Thanks, Ben, and thanks, Megan.

This one is a little creepy because she looks like a teenager. Sort of. She's holding a Wiggles doll (property of the store, really) that has been modified for S&M. He had a gingerbread gal as a top, but I don't think Zora's found her yet.


She is... perplexed by this guy, but asks to see him every time we go to the store (hourly, some days).


And here's the cutest picture I've seen in a minute (slang minute)-- Megan and Zora in the park. They took a walk with Ben and reportedly Zora was a huge hit with the wandering Christian missionaries who set up next to the playground occasionally and sing evangelical hymns in Spanish. For some reason they always steer clear of me when I'm out there with Z, but apparently Megan looks like she could be saved.

Finally, here's a link to a little video of Zora dancing with some other kids in the park. She's got the same dress on, but it's a different day. What can I say? We get a lot of use out of this dress-- it's awesome. Her auntie Stef got it for her!

TTFN, friends, family and neighbors.

PS. I just looked at that video, and damn if she hasn't grown a foot since then! She looks like a baby, whereas now she looks like a little kid.