Okay, one more baby picture. What a sweetheart.

C.J. and I met up with Erica and Dan at Perkins. (I miss their muffins. Perkins', that is; don't know much about Erica and Dan's muffins.) This is me and Erica, who is --

very easy to tell apart from her husband, Dan.

Evidently Rica is not to be given my digital camera, because the picture she took of me and C.J. sliced our heads neatly off. That, or she was trying to tell me something....

Erica was from The Old Crowd, the people Mark's age who left me (sniffle) and made me find all new friends my junior year. I saw some of those friends that very night, including Jon and Tessa. I had not met Tessa, actually; she and Jon are getting married, though, and I liked her enough that I don't have to kill her to prevent the wedding.

Sometimes these things get drastic, you know.

Same night, same group: me and Andrew. He had driven over from Wisconsin for a wedding and stayed long enough to have dinner, for which I was grateful. When bad things happen to my friends, I want to touch them and reassure myself that they're still here and solid and all that. And look, there he is.

Well, it could be a clever photoshopping. But I promise it isn't.

After many other lovely activities with many other lovely people "up home," I took the plane down to the other home: my folks' in Nebraska.