Hugs all 'round // wands

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

I found an opportunity to check my beloved OT list and found that I 
was days late to hug Mecki ... 

Oh, dear, Mecki, I don't know what to say, except some things that 
sound terribly irrelevant. For one, that you are a *very* good 
writer. You put words together (and in a foreign language, which must 
be harder) so  that I was *looking* at your words, and  *seeing* your 
raw, huge, ragged pain ... and there is nothing I can do about the 
pain, except be glad that your later post says you're carrying on, 
but I did want to hug you ... and it is very much of an art, or a 
talent, to make words carry meaning like that. And thank you for 
educating me: you taught me something about mother love that I have 
sometimes read before, but it was just words then.

And Jo Crabtree <hug>

============================

After a long pause in which I tried unsuccessfully to think of 
something helpful to say ("This is what philosophers call The Problem 
of Evil", and they've never solved it"?), I rudely continue to a 
more cheerful topic:

Alora and Richelle spoke of The Wandmaker. I've been dithering about 
a year what/whether to buy, the Redwood and Phoenix Feather that I 
was rather pleased that the wb site assigned me on my first try 
there, or custom made California Laurel (she doesn't list Thunderbird 
feathers as a core, but maybe I could be persuasive), and *what* 
would I do with it once I got it?