My mom and I have a long standing tradition to sing midnight mass for the choir we belong to and I tried to take pictures with our digital camera, which I am learning how to use.

Unexpectedly I was invited to see A Tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a wonderful evening of beautiful music and toe tapping songs with amazing dancers dancing in the same style during the war eras. Jody Hess was an wonderful sight to see. Kirby Ward had an amazing ability to copy Fred Astaire's mannerisms and dance style.

The tenor at the beginning of the show gave a round of applause to all the veterans in the audience and I was highly impressed. That era was an entire different society, but a time when boys danced with girls and romance was a dream everyone desired. Beautiful dresses, dance steps, songs that stayed in your mind, and the thought of someone special right in the front of your happy moments. It was also a time of war, loss and people just trying to keep it together. People who enjoyed good cultural distractions and it maybe me realize just how much I miss the stories my grandparents would talk about "when we were your age..."

I got the opportunity to talk to Jodi Bensen AKA Ariel in the Little Mermaid. She was very down-to-earth and signed my program. What a great voice!

When I was a little girl and dreamed of being a dancer. Fred Astaire was my role model. He was plain to look at, but extraordinary when the music qued. A Hollywood producer was quoted saying "He can't sing, can't act, balding, can dance so-so." Just goes to show you what technology did for an entire era. When movies hit it big, so did Astaire and Rogers! Musical movies. Wonder what would happen if they put reality television with a movie musical...

Enjoy the Silence.

Once upon a dream
I thought I knew you
Every smile, every glance...
I thought I could
Trust you with my heart
So I took a chance.

I bore my soul
I want you to know
I said what I have to say...
I gave you my raw emotions
Ten years of friendship
And you threw it away.

Now on this day, an anniversary
I honor what we once had
A friendship that most would die for...
I send you silent wishes
"Love never dies, it only fades away"
Moments lost, now only thoughts to cry for.

I'll send you no birthday card
No hallmark greeting
Since you walked away...
We once shared - something
Our hearts once sang,
Now there is silence here today.

Di M Rivera © 2005,12th of November @ 11:25am

There I was perusing postcards of my favorite pieces of artwork in the galleries permanent collection and my best friend calls me over to the kid's section with a "Hey Di, Check this out!" I made a final decision and head toward the back of the Gallery store.

It was crowded so she was already in the kid's section of the store. So I started to look at what was on the shelves in front of me until I could get to the cool thing with my best friend. I am looking at a fully loaded suede sketchbook with colored pencils that has an attached pencil sharpener and on the other side a place to display either your work or a photo - the artist in me is like way cool!

And then it happened: I felt a tug on my coat, which was wrapped around my waist in my typical convenient for me fashion. I looked down and there was a little boy digging into my pocket for comfort. He couldn't have been more than six years old, maybe even five. One hand pulling on my pocket and the other posed to his mouth while looking around at all the people. I was just looking at him with mixed emotions. As he was surveying the room, he looked up to say something - and the result was total shock, he hands recoiled into his armpits (he looked like a little chicken) and his eyes grew wide scared like WHERE IS MY MOMMY? and WHO ARE YOU? and YOU ARE NOT MY MOMMY! scrawled across his facial features. Then he ran to the front of the store toward someone. Then it was all over.

I looked at the price tag $36.00. (That seemed to be the price of everything I wanted that night, which was for sale.)

Once upon a time in the world of reality on a nearby street on the west side of Buffalo, we had a strange morning a few days ago. My father decided to exercise his manly testosterone via the demolition of two windows and the space between them which will eventually become the only window in that room giving more seating in the room and more living space. By the way - the day the demolition starts is that day before the wind storm.

My mom and I are upstairs comfy sitting on the couch under warm toasty blankets trying to have one of those easy mornings we so enjoy when we are aloud to have them. I see something out of the corner of my eye. YIKES! There is something crawling up the lace curtains in the computer room. I told mom as calmly as I could that there was a mouse crawling up the curtains in the other room. She went and got a large butter tub and a magazine and put the tub underneath the mouse as it was crawling up the curtains and she then hit the curtains above the mouse in order to get the mouse in the old butter tub. ALAKAZAM! Thud! Thwap! Mom exclaimed I got it!

We quickly run down the stairs to the front door me opening all the doors along the way until we got to the front door where she threw him into the flower bed in the front of their house. Quite proud that we accomplished this feat we decided to watch a movie and have a relaxing day!

Several hours later, into the early evening after our normal daily activities of meals, paperwork, paying bills, being online doing research, et cetera... We settle into a evening of television watching. Both of us hear a noise like someone is squeaking. High pitch sort of noise and then we see a little tiny visit dart out of the computer room and in the end was running all over the house looking for we think it's mother, whom we had evicted earlier that day. We tried for several futile hours running around after the mouse to no avail.

Brainstorming as to how to get rid of the mouse, we decided to see where we could try and catch him. We gave up for that evening. Next morning after we have eaten breakfast, we had a day off from our weekly activities and decided to bake early in the morning. We were making almond danishes from the food network via Paula Deen's web page. Excellent and tasty. While we were waiting for the dough to chill we noticed the mouse in the bathroom. We quickly ran into the bathroom and closed the door thinking we've gottem now! He he he he. He was so tiny and cute, we ended up laughing ourselves into hysterics as we rearranged all the furniture in the bathroom into a lump of things piled into the middle of the room. Just when we were ready to give up we found him again and we about to corner him and he began to do flips to get away from us and we began to howl with laughter. It couldn't be helped it was absolutely silly that two grown adults in a locked room could capture a one inch mouse. We gave up and went to make lunch and watch television.

We didn't see our friend right away but when we had just forgotten him we discovered there were two of them one an inch long with a little round butt and the other about an inch and a half and less cute. Which explains why we thought we had one trapped in the bathroom and then saw him again, so when we went into the bathroom to answer the call of mother nature decided to leave the door open. They had gotten us, though they probably never knew it.

Now we are wondering how do we get rid of them. Evening comes after errands and shopping, dinner. We settle in for more television watching in the evening and we have a guest. The little mouse was impossible to catch but he like my tiger slippers. He seemed to be playing with them. I tried and experiment. I put socks on and he disappeared. Until the next night when I had my slippers on and guess who. He would come out and look at the TV, I swear! We gave up trying to catch him in the open and just watched him laughing. True we were a bit frustrated. The other one seemed to disappear and then reappear when you least expect it.

This morning I woke up early due to some difficulty with my sinuses and were crocheting on the couch with my Tigger slippers and guess who comes out from underneath the couch between my feet our cute little mouse friend. He went over to his spot and looked at me like why aren't you watching the TV. My mom was still sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. So I just watching him thinking how can I catch him. No ideas I kept crocheting. I swear this mouse was cleaning his paws and looked over his shoulder at me then the TV, like turn it on already! I decided to do something different. I got onto the computer and played a computer game. There was my little friend playing with my slippers running behind furniture where I couldn't catch him. Two hours pass like this. Then I hear a rustling plastic bag in the other room and see him climbing into a cardboard box. I thought - I got him now! I took out the bag which is how he climbed in the box. Started taking out each of the plates. As I was doing this I noticed he could climb up the Styrofoam with his claws. So I gently pushed him off and continued pulling out all the other plates. Until I had an empty box, closed the lid and open the doors and heading for the front door. I called to mom and told her about how I caught him and we were kind of sad to let him go, but he was SO cute. I tried to gently throw him out side into the flower bed, but he kept running to the back of the box. So finally I had to flip it over and let him crawl out. He looked scared. I told him to stay still because the neighbor was walking their dog and when he passed the mouse seemed to disappear into the flower bed.

I kinda miss the cute little mouse with the round butt and his personality. Yet I was pretty proud I caught him. Two field mice evicted and one to go!