Well, geez. After almost two years of nada, I am drawn back by a black cat.

So, I've got these Google alerts set up on my name.  Do you have those?  Are you tracking your impact around the globe?  

I would highly recommend it.  Two years ago (or so) skirt! asked me to be a volunteer blogger to help all you bloggers promote your blogs.  I had just moved to Augusta, skirt! headquarters, and I thought, yeah!  That would be a fun thing to do.

And it was.  I shared my knowledge from having run the websites of the Miami Herald for many years, and I explored and shared many new ways that you could promote your skirt! blog, but then I got very involved in getting married, having my honeymoon in Italy, re-launching my company here in Augusta after 20 successful years as a business woman in Miami, and my little blog promotion blog went by the wayside.

But LAST week, I spoke at the skirt! CreativeConference. And several of you fabulous skirt! bloggers wrote about my session, and Google, my most excellent servant, delivered news of your posts to me.

And I am most happy to hear that you found value in my session, which I custom developed for this conference, and for this audience, and which was a wonderful creative experience for me, actually allowing me to apply my IP to this specific endeavor, being creative, and I learned a lot from going deep and narrow in my creative thought process.

And then the Coach on the Edge, Elizabeth Cassidy, reminded me that no, I don't have a large black cat leaning on my wrist while I write this blog post.  And then I knew I had to post.

I used to have a delicate and petite black cat that was my best friend when I was 15.  Her name was L'il Digger.  I had her from the moment she was born, because we owned her mama, Mad Cat, a crazy Siamese that went outside and got knocked up by some alley cat.  

I named her that because she was the first of her litter to play in the sand in the litter box.  She had 6 toes on each foot, mittens, and she was a sleek, chocolate point black cat that was my dearest friend.  We ate popcorn together.  She fetched tin foil balls and brought them back.  She rolled over on command. She lived hanging over my shoulders.  She slept with me.  And when she became pregnant, we had very serious discussions over where she would have her litter.  No, not in the bottom of my father's girlfriend's closet on her velvet dresses.  No, not in the top of my wardrobe, where her babies were sure to fall out and die.  

And finally, after I'd rejected all of her ideas, she had her kittens right on me, in the middle of the night, as if to say, "Well, YOU freakin' figure it out, then." 

Loved her.  Love you guys, too.  Thanks, Elizabeth, for the memory.  May you always have a black cat leaning against your wrist.