Death & Birth

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I find myself strongly affected by the news of the death of Dana Reeve. It's reminiscent of how the death of Princess Diana affected me. I'm still in denial about Dana, I think. Some things seem so fiercely unfair, it takes a while to go through the steps to acceptance.

My first thought, as it was for many, was of their son, Will. He'll never be the same, I thought, losing two parents within 15 months. And while that's true, of course, my second thoughts were oddly calm and reassuring. I have a feeling that he'll turn out to be an outstanding young man, possibly carrying on the healthcare commitments his parents shared, or maybe finding his own way. At the very least, he's certainly been a front row witness as to how to deal with life's unfair circumstances with dignity and respect. Maybe that's a lot to live up to, I don't know. He's just a 13 year old kid, after all. But I'm keeping a very good thought for him.

Anyway. Gretchen and Bev have both written far more eloquent pieces about Dana that are very much worth reading.

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My friends at work helped me start my birthday weekend early today. Marlene brought in bagels for breakfast, with my favorite cream cheese, honey walnut. Jen gave me a gift bag filled with 50 Hershey's Special Dark Miniatures!

And she made this card that the whole department signed. Balloons! Jen knows I've been knee-deep in quilled balloons but she said she had the idea for this card long before I started with the quilled balloons obsession. I love how those star brads perfectly match the colored pencilled balloons! Jen said that was a happy accident. I love when that happens.

Our CEO takes every employee in our Rochester office out to lunch for their birthday - been doing it for 35 years. Pretty impressive. Because my birthday falls on a Saturday and I'm taking Friday off, I was invited to go to lunch today, in conjunction with the birthday of our Purchasing Director. My boss always goes and one of the sales reps went with us too. I was asked if I wanted to invite anyone but the only person I would have invited had previous plans so I declined the offer to invite someone else. So it was me a da boys.

We went to Peter Guyer, a sort of fancy steakhouse. I ordered a burger, which I've been craving for a few weeks, which is rare for me. Steve often orders burgers when we go out to dinner but he orders them rare or medium rare with lots of drippy condiments, that leaves his dinner running down his elbows. I told him I ordered mine the proper way, medium well. It just had cheese, lettuce and tomato - served on a hard roll. The steak fries were seasoned so perfectly I never even reached for the salt shaker - almost unheard of for me! It was all delish.

Good thing I didn't order dessert at the restaurant because Jen brought in two, count 'em, two chocolate cakes from a store near her house. One was Double Chocolate and the other was Rocky Road. Somehow they've figured out I like chocolate! (We all do around there, who am I kidding?) They were both very good - chocolatey, without being too heavy. (Not that I'm opposed to heavy chocolate, mind you!) I shared the rest of the Double Chocolate cake with the rest of the building employees but brought home the remainder of the Rocky Road cake. Steve was happy. (Simon's not a cake eater, wacky kid.)

It was a good day.