91.6% of a year

Another tenth. Eleven months. Still can't get my head around it. The other night the phone rang, and just for a second, I was sure it was Katie, calling to say she was staying at a friend's for the night. CallerID brought me back to reality in a hurry.

Tony gets married

Went to a wedding yesterday, the son of a dear friend, whom Anita has known since college. I met Tony on his second birthday, just after Anita and I got engaged, and we've watched him grow from a wee bairn into a fine young man. He has found his passion in teaching, and as a bonus, met his wife while doing so—she's also a teacher!

It was a lovely wedding, and we wish them a lifetime filled with every happiness.

For me, the ceremony was somewhat of an ordeal. I had entertained illusions of one day paying for such a fête, and was all too aware of this, to the point of sitting by the door so I could escape if needed. But I made it through, and am glad to have done so.


Meanwhile, of course, the rest of the world marches on. The "We are the 99%" protests are amazing, and it will be interesting to see what comes of them. I feel some inclination to join in, tempered by both reality (time availability) and the fact that I'm comfortably employed, and would feel somewhat like a fraud. But in principle I'm with them, all 100%.

As I know Katie would be. To use the current vernacular, she was all about injustice in many ways (well, maybe not all about injustice—it was just one of the many things she was passionate about).

Coupled with her love of music, I wish I could play Katie David Mallett's Ten Men (there are several versions on YouTube; that one is live, album version is here). While he wrote it a couple of years ago, it sure sounds like what the 99%ers are on about.

Off the same album is Easier Than This, which I can't find online anywhere. "Should be easier than this by now..." indeed.
 

Many thanks to a long-ago colleague for pointing me at David Mallett (who is playing at the Birchmere on October 14)!

Another tough day

Yesterday was the local American Foundation for Suicide Prevention "Out of Darkness" walk at George Mason. Our friend Rita organized a group, and I went over for it.

Gotta say that I could have happily spent the rest of my time on earth never setting foot on the Mason campus again—dredged up way too many memories. But ultimately I was glad I went.

They do some neat things, like giving attendees bead necklaces in various colors, with various meanings:

Lost a Child – White
Lost a Spouse or Partner – Red
Lost a Parent – Gold
Lost a Sibling – Orange
Lost a Relative or Friend – Purple
Struggled Personally – Green
Support the Cause – Blue

Kind of interesting to look around the group and see other white beads, be reminded that we aren't the only ones. I mean, I know that, but it's easy to forget.

It was also, of course, a 10th—the 10th 10th, in fact. And now it's 9/11, with attendant media frenzy. Makes me want to crawl into a hole for a while.

www.afsp.org—there are local chapters everywhere.

Bye, bye, little Kia

The Kia we bought to replace the Camry Katie loved so much is gone. A friend has been saying he wants to buy it for a while, and we finally got together and made it happen.

It was just over a year ago that some dude pulled out of Bronzedale onto Waples Mill, right in front of Katie. She swerved to avoid him, took out a mailbox, and the airbags deployed. For the ten-year-old Camry, the cost of replacing the airbags made the car a writeoff.

So we did the research, and bought a Kia Forte EX in "Titanium" (dark gray). It was cute and peppy and had lots of safety features and Bluetooth and a USB port with iPod interface, and got much better mileage than the Camry. Katie loved it, even after I told her it was equipped with a new safety feature, MAS ("Mailbox Avoidance System").

Of course, she'd loved the Camry, too. She always allowed as how it wasn't an exciting car, but she'd learned to drive in it, had put a lot of miles on it, and I'm sure it represented freedom to her.

We got rid of the Kia as kind of an experiment: with me working from home, we've had at least one car sitting in the driveway 99.9% of the time. For those rare occasions when we really, really both need to go somewhere, we can coordinate or use Enterprise. So one car will work fine. At least, that's the theory. We'll see.

Anyway, it was surprisingly painful to watch the Kia drive away. At least we know it found a good home.

The entire last month has been pretty gut-wrenching, actually. August 2010 was difficult, with Katie desperate to leave for college but having a lot that had to get done, and we keep hearing echoes of that month, with kids heading back to school this year.

And of course, while it was the only plausible thing to do, we can't help but feel that heading to college was the step over the edge and onto the slope that led to November.

Poor Anita still being laid up hasn't helped. She's soldiering on, but is really, really tired of being stuck in a hospital bed! She's been faithful about not putting any weight on her right leg. Hopefully in the next few weeks, she'll get the green light to start hobbling on it.

Things I Try Not to Do Any More

Remember what I dreamed about last night.
Play the what-if game.
Feel guilty about running the dishwasher if it isn't full.
Drive a certain stretch of the Fairfax County Parkway.
Think about a bright, happy, little girl I used to know.

I'm pretty good at some of these.

Because life wasn't interesting enough...

...Anita took a nasty fall last week, breaking four metatarsals in her left foot and fracturing the right tibial plateau (the top edge of the tibia, where it meets the bottom of the kneecap). She spent four nights in hospital, and is now in a rehab hospital, since she can't walk at all (cannot put any weight on the right leg, and can only hobble on the heel of the left, with a "boot").

She will be OK, but has another six to eight weeks of being very limited in what she can do. If she'd done both injuries on the same leg, she'd be much better off!

Needless to say, I've been more than busy. This house often felt empty over the last eight months; with Anita away, it's even more so.

Jabberwocky

Katie and I used to read the comics semi-religiously. Get Fuzzy was always one of our favorites. The Liō strip can be very strange, but has its moments.

And as her friends can attest, Katie knew Jabberwocky by heart, so I think she would have appreciated this one:

That would be a fun store...

Original is here — click on the strip there to view it larger.