Mom doesn't think she sounds very strong. Twenty years ago when the damn snake reared up she bounced back from the treatments faster. Least that's what Mom thought.

Glad we didn't argue tonight. She didn't pick on me for anything at all. I think she was glad that I was able to smooth things over between her and Carmen earlier this month. OK, last month. Can't believe December's here already. I know it pains Mom most when she and Carmen have words. With me it's just expected we'll be fighting.

Of course, Casey always got the most slack.

Dug out the telescope after work tonight, Journey, tripod and all. It's an old Meade 686, still in great shape. Dad had it packed away neatly in its original box. Dad was always a stickler never to pitch anything like that. He had a cargo net strung up overhead in the garage, chock-full of computer boxes and printer boxes and boxes for things like the telescope.

I pulled open one of the Tupperware family archive bins. Sifted. Dad was great at saving, but lousy at categorizing. He tells me he plans on doing that in Florida . Someday. Probably when he decides he's ready to refinish the roll top desk he'll haul the whole lot of their stored stuff down there.

Right on top was my Yearbook from my sophomore year in High School. I picked it up, flipped pages. There was a photo of our JV volleyball squad. I looked geeky, of course, but so did most of us back in 1994. It listed our record: 3 and 6. I remember Mom commenting that she had never, once in her life, been on any team with less than a .500 record. It wasn't meant as a slam, more of a matter-of-fact callous comment she made without even thinking.

And standing there next to the big Tupperware bin this afternoon the acid somehow didn't sting so much; and when I reached into the recesses of my memory, I realized Mom made that comment before I ever entered high school. I don't think she made it to tick me off, specifically, but rather just said it as a sort of off-the-cuff comment to incent me to do my best.

I flipped back through the book, to the prom. I was a prom server that year. The theme was “Smells like Teen Spirit”. We all had on matching Nirvana tee shirts. There were a few candid shots of us servers; I remember Lori Pedlow got really drunk that night and spilled punch all over herself. Most of us maintained pretty well, though. I was always too afraid of what Dad and Mom would say to get trashed in those early high school days.

But there was a posed picture, too. I stood right next to Eddie Slatterton. He had long, foppish hair and the scraggly beginnings of a goatee. And though I hadn't noticed it back when I first received this yearbook, his eyes were clearly gazing right down at my chest.

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