Friday, January 04, 2008

In other news . . .

I know y'all have been just in fits to know what else I've been doing this week - besides gaining more weight.

On Monday, I worked a mere half day. I didn't even drive my car - there was a thick layer of frost on it, and I figured that by the time I got it scraped I could just walk to work, so I did. It was cold, yes, but I had longjohns and a warm coat.

My mom came by my office and picked me up, we came home and got Jason and AM, and headed to see Amanda. Moe's for lunch, then a trip to Super Target(75% off Christmas ornaments!0 and the mall. What could be better?

Monday night for dinner, we opted for a "take and bake" pizza from Walmart, trying to save time, money, and aggrivation by not ordering our usual Pizza Hut on New Years Eve. We doctored it up with slices of Canadian bacon and olives, but it just wasn't very good. The cheese, was, I don't know, kinda weird. None of us ate much of it.

Little AM stayed up until 10 p.m., but Jason and I made it all the way to midnight -mostly watching the Big Medicine marathon on Discovery Health. I thought "Oh, Anna Marie will sleep late because she stayed up late."

Boy, was I wrong. At 7:30 a.m., there she was at the side of my bed, imploring me to get up and help her figure out why the TV was all snowy.

Since she'd gotten a McDonald's card from the church for Christmas, we decided to take her for lunch. Shortly after we got ordered, a large group of kids came in. Obviously traveling from some convention or something, because they were wearing matching shirts. And I promise before God, one of the ladies with them looked just like a girl Jason and I went to college with, but both of us were too chicken to go ask if it was her.

Wednesday morning, I got a very disturbing call from my mom. She said that my parents best friends oldest son had been found dead that morning. I'm still in shock - he was 35, just older than I am. Their other son is the same age as I am. I've known these boys all their lives - they were like cousins to me when we were growing up.

They don't really know what happened - he was found in bed. An autopsy was performed, but of course it will be a while before we know anything. The visitation is tomorrow night, and the funeral is Sunday. I know I need to go, but I just don't know if I can face his family right now. It's just all so sad.

On another, (maybe lighter) note, I've just finished another side-project with one of Jason's web clients. Here's a word of advice: please, don't call up someone on Wednesday, and tell them that you need your 10-year-old brochure updated, by the next day, but you don't have any of your original artwork, so they've got to build it from scratch. And make it look as much like the old one as possible.

I told Jason that he'd better get enough out of this job to buy me a nice Japanese dinner for Valentine's Day.

Or at least a copy of for-real Photoshop, which, unlike Elements, can handly CMYK color.

7 comments:

doodlebugmom said...

Sorry to hear about the loss of your family friend. As hard as it is to go to the visitation, it may be harder not to go. :(

When my mom died, people that came, meant so much to me. If course it was sad. But thats why we have stuff like that. We need to grieve - together. Leaning on each other is really important, and it will mean so much to his family.

Linda

Melissa said...

This mom is having such a hard time letting herself grieve. She's already worried about getting another renter for the house (they owned it, and their son rented it). My mom told her that this was not the time to worry about that - we can deal with that later.

Right now, that family, and the rest of us, need to concentrate on getting through these next few days.

And I'll go, because I'd never be able to look at those people again if I didn't.

My parents have been friends with them for so long - when my parents got eloped, they went to this couple's apartment to "hide" from my grandparents and wait for the blood test to come back. The mom was pregant with this son then!

Sheila said...

So sorry about your friend. What a shock that must've been for you all.
I got some good deals at Target too. Actually, a lot of stores!

Valerie said...

death is never as sad as when it comes unexpectedly or to someone young.

and yes, we're still young.

hang in ther girlie...i'll be praying for you and this family.

Steff said...

Sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. It is truly terrible when someone passes away in the prime of life. My prayers will be with the whole family.

As for the other thing...my grandfather had a sign in his office that said, "Poor planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part." That brochure situation made me think of that!

Melissa said...

Steff, I used to have a pastor's wife who would say the same thing!

She also had a problem with situations where there were "too many chiefs and not enough Indians."

(And before folks start going all PC on me, I'm 1/4 Cherokee!)

Susie Q said...

Oh Melissa..I am so sorry. I will keep you, your family and this young man's family in my prayers.
You being there will be hard but it will mean so much to them and you will feel better for it.
I send you huge hugs...

Love,
Sue