a needle in a haystack. kind of.

I need to get this down before my body shuts down.

Everything about last night was amazing. In about five high-powered hours, I managed to create (recreate) the Terzo Lounge (minus one very important sign that never went up because my brother ducked out until the tournament with one of his infamous bronchial bouts) All the furniture just seemed to fit into place. There will be a more official ressurrection, but the building and I shared ours last night.

The tournament was awesome. We were six teams and the competition was stellar. There is talk of a possible league in the making.

This morning was kind of funny. Coming back from the vet with Fiona in one hand and two chocolatines in the other, I found Amy's parents literally raking the heavy snow that had been piled around our driveway since last night. Amy had called me mid-game last night. After spending more than an hour shoveling our walkway and parking spaces in a bid to impress Davey and I, she had somehow managed to lose her car keys.

It was a nice gesture and the whether was gorgeous, so the four of us dug in. I didn't have any hope for finding the keys and neither did Amy. But her mom kept explaining how Mark managed to locate lost contact lenses in 10-foot pools on more than one occasion. If nothing else, Mark is methodical. That much I have learned. We worked like grim volunteers digging for remains. And just when all hope seemed lost, they keys reappeared about an hour in. Another notch on the old CV, I joked.

We decided to pick up some killer Italian at one of our favourite spots and ate way too much for a Saturday afternoon.

We eventually got on the topic of family and Amy's mom gave me a little more insight into her own family tree. Her neurotic and defiant mom, who would hang the laundry out in her bra and panties to give the neighbours even more to talk about. Her uncle the drunk and womanizer - who left Auntie Marge to raise her own four kids without as much as a cent of support. And her own father, who would never even stick around to hold his own "crippled" daughter.

I winced, but this is why family trees fascinate me. They hide nothing. Amy's mom always talks about how she's going to write a book one day. I hope she does.