Welcome Back. Your Dreams Were Your Ticket Out. Welcome Back To That Same Old Place That You Laughed About….

[….and the Corascope Chronicles continue….]

Sundays are always sad whenever Scope and I are together. Someone always ends up hopping on a plane and flying 2000 miles away.

Every. Stinkin’. Sunday.

This time it was my turn, of course, so Sunday morning found me rushing around, collecting Gwen’s and my scattered possessions and repacking our suitcases. But I didn’t pack everything. Noooooo, sir. Some of our stuff I left right there in Scope’s condo (henceforth to be known as OUR HOME.) (Squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!) Our winter coats are hanging in OUR hall closet. Gwen’s extensive stuffed animal collection is set up on display in HER new bedroom. And our beloved Harry Potter DVDs are in OUR living room.

Yeah, you read that right. I moved in my Harry Potter DVDs. (And 50 bucks says Callista just fainted!) People, for a devout HP fan such as I, it doesn’t get any more serious than THAT, okay?! ;-)

But as I was rushing around, gathering up my clothes, which had sneakily migrated all across the floor of OUR bedroom, an awful sight met my eyes: Scope was curled up like a sad puppy on the foot of OUR bed with huge tears swelling in his eyes.

“I’m going to miss my girls,” he sniffled.

And *CRACK* my heart broke right in two.

I curled up on the bed with him, hugged him and kissed his cheek. There was nothing I could say to erase the uber-ugly crappiness of the fact that I was about to let Southwest Airlines catapult me and Gwen across the country, far, far away…. except to point out that this was our last visit to Chicago. Mm-hmm. The next time Gwen and I set foot in Illinois, we will be coming HOME, not visiting.

Let’s just pause and let that gleeful, amazing thought sink in for a minute, shall we?………….

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

But wait—

After consoling Scope, I walked out to the living room to round up more wayward possessions, and yet another awful sight met my eyes: Gwen was curled up like a sad puppy on the end of OUR couch with tears swelling in her eyes!

“I don’t wanna go back,” she sniffled, “I’m gonna miss the three of us.”

(I have mentioned how much Scope and Gwen remind me of each other, right?)

So, I pulled her into a hug, kissed her cheek, and consoled her as well. And then, far too soon, it was time to go. After a quick three-way flying monkey stuffed animal fight (seriously, you guys, you’ve GOT TO get one of those things! They’re sooooooooooooooo much fun!), we loaded the bags in the car and headed out to meet Scope’s parents for lunch.

Scope’s mom was extremely excited to get to meet her future granddaughter. She came bearing gifts for her “bonus grandbaby” and everything! Soooooooooo cute!….


But, faster than blinking, it seemed, lunch was over and we’d said goodbye to Scope’s parents, and then Scope, Gwen and I were saying goodbye at the airport. Again.

And I hate that. Saying goodbye STINKS!!!!

*pout*

Once we got through security, Gwen and I drowned our sorrows at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stand….


….and then soon we were onboard our plane, heading back to Seattle.

*sad sigh*

© Love Letters By Cora

One(derful)

[….and the Corascope Chronicles continue….]

One year. One whole wonderful, magical, action-packed, freakishly-fast, marvelous year. Saturday marked the one year anniversary of the day Scope and I first met face-to-face.

Uh-huh. And it truly has been the BEST year of my entire life!! By far!! Hands down!!

:-)

So, how does one ring in their first anniversary? Well, if you’re Scope, Cora and Gwen, you kick it off with crepes and Harry Potter! Mm-hmm. A super yummy banana and blueberry crepe brunch cooked up by Gwen and shoveled down while watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire. (Yes, it was a very Harry Pottery weekend! Well spotted. Gwen and I brought the first four DVDs over to share with Scope who’d only ever seen HP6 all the way through before.)

After brunch, Scope and Gwen had a bloggidy powwow. Ohhhhh, yes. Scope taught Gwen how to compose a blog post, something she’s been quite curious about. Mm-hmm. Gwen got to be a guest blogger over on Scope-Tech and she did a faboo job of it too! *glowing with pride* Wanna see my baby’s bloggy debut?! Clicky HERE.

After blogging and noshing and Harry Pottering, the three of us hit the road for Scope’s friends’ house, where Gwen’s pen pal was eagerly awaiting her. (Yeah, Gwen already has a friend in Illinois, how cool is that, huh???? If you wanna catch up on how they first met, clicky HERE.)

We hung out for the evening, eating, talking, laughing, getting shot at with Nerf darts (where thar be kids, thar be Nerf!), and snuggling under blankets watching movies. Or parts of movies, I should say. All the BEST parts. Like *snicker* that diarrhea scene *chuckle* in Dumb and Dumber, which *hee hee hee* still slays me beyond all reason *ho ho ho* no matter how many times I see *ha ha ha ha ha* it--HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—*gasp*—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH—*wiping tears*—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Yeah. I’m a ten year old. And….?

{….to be continued….]

© Love Letters By Cora

What if….?

[….and the Corascope Chronicles continue….]

So, Friday, Scope, my daughter Gwen, and I went for a tour of the art school Gwen will be attending once we move to Chicago. Splendiferously, the school just so happens to be about a mere block and a half from Scope’s home, on a gorgeous, quaint, tree-lined road. The walk to school was simply lovely! Lovely, lovely, LOVELY!

Did I mention it was lovely?

And the school was even lovelier!

I can not stress enough how utterly impressed I am with the school and—even more importantly—Gwen adores it too. I mean, I figured she would; she was most thrilled with the school’s website, but…. well…. y’know…. what if?….

What if the school hadn’t lived up to our expectations?

What if Gwen found it intimidating or frightening?

What if she *gasp of horror* hated it?

What would we do then????

Stupid ‘what if’s. They’ll get the better of you if you let them. I’d been cracking the whip and telling those pesky ‘what if’s to shut up, trying to keep them at bay, for days, but in all honesty they succeeded in ambushing me Friday morning as we walked up to the school….

What if….?

What if….?

What if….?

*deep shuddering breath*

I kept my ‘what if’s to myself, of course, ‘cuz what’s more contagious than a case of the ‘what if’s? Nothin’, that’s what! And Gwen didn’t need to be infected with that. But about five minutes after entering the school, those horrid ‘what if’s vanished like socks in the dryer!

*POOF*

Gone.

The school was amazing, charming, and definitely had a family feel to it, and there Gwen will have the opportunity to take art and writing classes which she is sooooooooooo excited about and suited to. Gwen’s face was lit up like a Disneyland parade the entire time! She absolutely LOVED it!!!!

After enjoying the tour of Gwen’s future school, the three of us walked our way to Lincoln Square to visit Gwen’s favorite store, Quake, where she bought a set of Corpse Bride figures and a Jack Skellington toy which rises out of its coffin (VERY cool!!); then we walked to a drug store to buy some postcards for Gwen to send back to her dad and all his other kids; and then we stopped into Chicago Brauhaus for a deeeeeeeeeelicious lunch (mm-mmm-mmmm.)

After walking back home, we all snuggled back up on the couch and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and (my ultimate favorite) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, while intermittently bursting out in irresistible talk about where Gwen’s and my furniture and various things will fit in Scope’s home once we move…. ‘cuz this thing is SO happening!! And sooOOooOOoon!!

No ‘what if’s about it.

:-)

[….to be continued….]

© Love Letters By Cora

I Take a Redonkulous Load of Pictures, Therefore I Am

Last Thursday, my daughter, Gwen, and I rolled our bleary-eyed, sorry selves out of our nice warm beds about three hours before the crack of dawn and trudged our way to the airport like zombies. I-pod-toting, Skechers-donning, gum-popping, tired, cranky, don’t-talk-to-me zombies. Why? ‘Cuz we had a date with Scope in Chicago, of course!

:-)

We grunted and plodded our way through airport security at 5 am and then had two hours to kill before our flight. Setting up camp on the airport floor was mighty tempting, but—eh—we figured we’d have breakfast first.

So, there we were a little restaurant in the ‘port, having found ourselves a nice, cozy window seat, watching the sky morphing from black to navy blue while we noshed and slowly de-zombified, when suddenly we saw something so shocking it sent me into a giggling fit of epic spazzy proportions which startled all the other sleepy zombies nursing cups of coffee at nearby tables and made me dive for my camera.

What did we see? This….


Uh-huh. The pilot of the plane right outside our window opened the plane’s windshield, hoisted himself out of it, and Windexed the thing before takeoff! Ummmmm….. call me naive, but I had no idea plane windshields could roll down like that, did you? I dunno, that’s just wrong somehow.

Wrong, but funny!

Anyway….

Soon we were boarding our plane (and suspiciously sniffing around for a whiff of Windex) and then *POOF* we were landing in Chicago!

(Well, okay, fine. Maybe, technically, it was a little more than a *POOF*, alright? But as I slept 3/4 of the flight, it definitely had a *POOF* quality; a *POOF* essence; and a *POOF*-iosity to me.)

Scope was waiting for us and towering impressively over the riffraff rest of the crowd just beyond security, and soon the three of us were locked in the first of the many, many, many group hugs of which our weekend was made.

(Awwwwwwww.)

We collected our bags and hit the road in Scope’s PT Cruiser and almost immediately found ourselves face-to-rear with this….


Yeah. That’s right. Cora’s Predator! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! But wait—let’s take a closer look, shall we?….


Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. ;-)

Of course, good bloggers that we are, we tailed Cora’s Predator for quite some time; me brandishing my camera so we could get a good picture of it just for YOU.

You’re welcome!

We went to Bennigan’s for lunch and then waltzed across the street to the museum at the Art Institute of Chicago….


….which Gwen (oh, alright, fine—maybe it was me, happy now?!) was super-excited about because Ferris, Cameron and Sloane had once set foot in there!

*maniacal giggle*

We got all artsy fartsy….




We snapped many a picture….


And we saw a vast array of amazing work, including the famous A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat….


(Yep, and that spectacular Scope of mine is holding my purse. Ain’t he a sweetie? *le sigh*)


And, looky here! Just in time for Mother’s Day, YOU can adopt a dot on the Seurat and show your mama that she’s “one in a million”! *snicker*


We posed like American Gothic….


….which, ever the giggletastic ball of dorkiness that I am, I just simply could NOT pull off with a straight face!

(Dammit.)

And, much to Gwen’s horror and disgust, we saw a plethora of naked butts everywhere we turned (!!!!)….






(Tee hee hee! That last one is my favorite!)

Seeing all those butts burned Gwen’s eyes. Clearly….


….or maybe she was just tired. ;-)

So Scope took us back home and the three of us cuddled up on the couch all family-like and we watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone until it was time for bed.

And it was bliss.

:-)

[….to be continued….]

© Love Letters By Cora

Only three more goodbyes to go

[….and the Corascope Chronicles continue….]

Sunday was the dreaded day I had to take Scope to the airport and release him back into the wild.

*sniffle*

But we made good use of the few short hours we had left together by ordering our wedding cake (!!!!); and booking a trip for me and my daughter to visit Chicago one last time before the wedding (….woo—take a minute and let that sink in—yeah, this wedding is just around the corner, folks!); and mailing our wedding invitations….






(Awwwwwwww, sweet chocolate, I love those pictures!!!! We look so stinkin’ proud of ourselves, don’t we?!)

(Hee hee hee!)

But soon after dropping the invitations in the mail, I found myself standing alone at the airport, watching Scope inch his way through the security line while mouthing “I love you” at me every time he glanced back.

Sad, I know (except the “I love you” part.) These sort of goodbyes are numbered now though. Seriously, only THREE more to go!

And that makes it a little less painful.

A little.

© Love Letters By Cora