seen from Singapore
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from South Korea
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from India
seen from United States
seen from Argentina
seen from India
seen from India
Before long, all our little birds were growing up and leaving home until it was just Sunglow, Raj, Agate and myself in our house. After years of the hustle and bustle and tripping over each other - it was so strange to have the silence in the house.
We reserved the little park in Japan for our wedding - seeing as it was where we’d first connected and it was Scarlett’s home. In spite of the travel and the frigid weather - we managed to get everyone who was really important to come out for the ceremony. Scarlett insisted on foregoing a jacket - afraid it would ruin her wedding look - I was terrified she’d turn blue if she didn’t change but she managed, through slightly chattery teeth.
“Excuse me... I just moved in down the hall and I my movers are lost and I have no idea what to tell them - I barely got here myself....” I stared at the vision of sunshine in front of me for a full minute before my brain caught up to the fact that she was speaking to me. And more so, expected a response. I took a long moment to try to remember what she’d been saying before nodding dumbly. “Yeah, I’m... actually not sure what you just said,” I said with a chuckle. “I was distracted....” She giggled and my brain shut off again. Her lips were moving, she was saying words again... and I wasn’t listening. Again. I blinked quickly and the focused on her words. I was a few seconds behind but got the gist of it and then helped her sort out the movers. She turned away, heading back to her apartment to wait for her furniture and then twisted around to wave, “I’m Sunglow by the way! Apartment 5D..” she said, waving her hand in the general direction of the door. “Carnelian. I mean, that’s my name...” I pointed at the door just a few feet behind me. “And I live there,” I added a little lamely. She giggled again and waved once more. Oh man.... I was a vampire in love with the very essence of the sun.
The first year of Morganite’s life flew by in a flash. I had taken a job in the city parks department to help with future development and wasn’t home as much as I’d like so Peri took on a lot of the child rearing and the household chores. He was working nights to my days so we didn’t see as much of each other as we’d like. And suddenly Morganite was trying to walk and showed all the indications of wanting to be diaper free (i.e. taking off said diaper and peeing on the floor). It was obvious our little container home with only a ladder to get up and down wasn’t gonna jive well with having tiny humans running around but we just couldn’t afford to move so we made do as best we could. That’s all you can do right?
In spite of his “no-labels” mentality, I was already head over heels for Peri and I couldn’t just stay away. Maybe I should have? I don’t know... When I found out about the baby I tried to keep it from him for as long as possible. I didn’t want him to run away from me.... or us. He was perfectly okay to not even acknowledge the growing elephant in the room too... until the elephant kicked him. Peri swooned for that baby almost as hard as I’d swooned for Peri after that! Suddenly marriage WAS on the table. And that talk of this baby shifted to talk of “our future babies.” Guess he wasn’t totally non-committal?
Our first Winterfest after little Lari was born we just us, but it was exactly what we needed.
Amber was a great big sister - most of the time. I mean she was a little mean to Carnelian sometimes and was pretty stingy with her toys but Carnelian took it all in stride. She joined her school drama club because we thought it’d be good for her... it turned out to be good for her lying skills mostly. The number of times I got a call from an irate parent and had to smooth over whatever shenanigans she’d gotten into... of course Olivia, being a master criminal (have a mentioned that fact?) didn’t see the problem. To her it just meant our little girl was gonna get ahead in the world... We didn’t really see eye to eye on that particular moral issue...
I first met Scarlett while visiting my brother in Japan - she was one his roommates. It started as mostly a vacation fling but even after I returned home, we kept in touch and it quickly became apparent that she was in touch with my ... adventurous ... side. She certainly understands me, Rhodonite Amulet, better than any other girl I’ve met.
