To T and G, whose life just went from black and white to technicolor

You think you're happy. And you are. You go on trips, you decide for no particular reason to eat out in Chinatown on a Wednesday night at 8:00, you sleep in and take naps on the weekend, you get a drink with co-workers at the corner pub and end up staying there until 9:00. You do all those things that d.i.n.k.s do, and you do them well, and with enthusiasm. And you can't imagine it any other way. You are happy. You think you're happy, and you are, you really are.

I was Annabelle's age when I first saw the Wizard of Oz. I remember how beautifully Dorothy sang over the rainbow. I thought she was so pretty, I loved the song, I wanted to sing like her and braid my hair like hers. But it was in black and white, and I had this sneaking suspicion that something was off--there had to be more, right? I remember looking at my mom and saying, "is the whole movie like this?"

I remember her response, "Just wait. It gets better."

The first time we were really a family, really a family, as opposed to two single people, playing house, was in the hospital room. Hyphen was congratulating me. "You did it, you did it, I can't believe you did it!" We were still two single people when he said that. In essence we were living the same life as two college kids going for dates in an un-air conditioned ford tempo, and then I said the words that turned us into a real, live, family.

"Can you check on the baby?"

And that was it. It was magic. It was Oz. We were not in Kansas any more.

And now fast forward six plus years, it is almost ten o clock at night on the eve before New Year's Eve, and the four of us are feeding our puzzle addiction with a thousand piece Charles Wysocki, listening contentedly to country classics and the quiet buzz of our good-for-nothing-dog snoring on the new bed that Santa brought her.

It's technicolor, man.

And now, my dear friends of 22 years, friends who rode in that ford tempo with us, are getting to walk down that yellow brick road for the very first time.

It just got better. It just got so much better.