we found out friday that a coworker passed away last week at 56 years old.  she worked in a different department and the only reason we really knew her is because i worked with that department for about a year.  hubby and i used to complain about her because she would call one or both of us directly on every issue she came across,  flouting escalation procedures.  i met her a couple times when i had to go to that office for meetings with my then-boss and she was a nice lady (even though her direct calls drove me nuts, i had nothing against her personally).  i was very sad to hear of her passing.  i immediately contacted another person in that department to pass on my condolences.  he said that she had been out on disability after a surgery in march but was supposed to be returning to work today.  though she had health concerns, no one expected this.  my heart is heavy for all of them because i know how difficult it is to have to go into the office and have to continue working like nothing happened when there is an empty desk that just breaks your heart.  my thoughts have once again turned to ron and how much i miss him… even though he was just a coworker.  it’s amazing how our fellow employees really do become family to us.  and a little sad that we don’t even realize it until they are gone.  i need to get a sympathy card to send to that office group tonight since i forgot over the weekend.  my prayers are with her family at this difficult time… her blood family and her work family.

here are some snippets of things that made me LOL this weekend…

• saturday i called my cousin-in-law to ask him about a photography website that he had sent me.  a few minutes later, hubby’s phone rang.  he was outside so i got up to answer it.  it was my cousin calling her cousin-in-law.  i laughed while she asked for hubby, i said he was unavailable, and she said she would call him back later. 
• on the way to the naval base to pick up shaw saturday night, he called and said to pick him up at the burger king across the street as he was starving.  we got to burger king to find shaw standing in front of the drive-thru menu, seemingly arguing with the sign.  we pulled up behind him and he jumped in grumbling about them not serving him.  we pulled the car up a couple feet so that his window was in front of the sign and… they asked to take his order.  i thought it was hilarious that he stood there begging them to take his order for at least ten minutes before we arrived and yet he had food in hand less than a minute after we picked him up.
• background: we drink boxed wine.  people make fun of us and i don’t care because i like the taste of it.  i don’t subscribe to the philosophy that wine has to cost $$$ to be good.  cargo shows up yesterday afternoon with a bottle of wine, like a perfect gentleman dinner guest.  he hands it to hubby and says, “it’s the cheapest wine i could find in a bottle.  hopefully you’ll like it as much as the box stuff.”
• background:  scooter talks all the time about the feasts that sunny prepares for dinner every night.  i am known to downplay my cooking.  it’s not that i don’t/can’t cook, it’s just that i am married to a man who doesn’t really like food so my everyday cooking is pretty simple.  heck, i usually end up making two dinners, one for hubby and one for myself.  sunny and i are laying out on the beach yesterday and she’s telling me about scooter informing her of the plan to come over for dinner.  she said to him, “but arcanai doesn’t cook!  what are we going to eat?!”  she laughed as she let me know that she had visions of showing up to find boxes of cereal sitting on the table.
• we apparently have the most exciting trash disposal ever.  when kids are here, they all fight over who gets to take out the trash because it is just that fun to listen to it go down the twenty-two floors of metal chute.  i don’t get it, but whatev – as long as i don’t have to take it out.  apparently, the trash chute is just as much fun for adults.  scooter and cargo were equally entertained by it.  i think they took the trash out no less than five times last night, throwing away bags with next to nothing in them, just to be able to enjoy the chute.  on their way out, they bargained with each other over who was going to throw away what.  cargo, a hugely emotive person, let out a jovial “are you kidding me?!” as scooter dropped a large glass bottle down the chute.  they listened for the few seconds that it took to reach the bottom and scooter let out a “ooh, that’s breakage!  you could hear it break!”  i’m so glad our chores are entertaining for our guests!  now how to make shower/tub scrubbing fun so that people will want to do that for us too???

last night, we had cargo, scooter, and sunny over for some mariokart fun.  sunny and i had some good conversation while watching the boys play.  they left around 23:00 and we headed out to pick up shaw at the naval base to go listen to music.  when we picked him up, he insisted that we stop by and get cargo so we popped in and picked him up and went to a bar down the street from him.  the band that was playing there was technically good and the singer had great vocals but the music was for an older crowd.  i was  vastly aware of being the youngun in the group since i was the only one that wasn’t just blown away.  around 01:30 we moved on to our favorite venue where our favorite local band was playing.  much younger music.  i was pleased that we arrived just in time for their last set.  and i was even more pleased when the guitarist, who i heart, recognized us and stopped to talk before getting back on stage for that last set.  that put a smile on my face.  when we took cargo back home a little after 03:00, i helped him to the door and made sure he got in okay and then we dropped shaw back at the base again before making our way back home.  after a quick shower, we were in bed just after 04:00. 

this afternoon, scooter called and asked to come over for kayaking.  we invited them for dinner and then called the rest of the group to invite all of them as well.  by the time i got back from the grocery store, cargo was pulling in and scooter and sunny weren’t far behind.  by the time we were ready to go down to the beach, shaw had arrived as well.  hubby, scooter, and cargo all enjoyed kayaking and playing in the waves.  sunny and i held down beach chairs and talked and shaw caught a few z’s on another beach chair.  shaw didn’t stick around very long and the rest of us came back upstairs to start dinner shortly after he left.  i made pizzas, bbq chicken and plain cheese, and i’ve got to brag that they may have been my best efforts yet.  we followed the pizza up with ice cream and warm, out-of-the-oven brownies.  yumminess was plentiful.  the evening finished with an hour or so of rockband. 

it was such a great, social weekend.  i’m thrilled that, after all these years, we’ve finally made some friends.  i love having people to hang out with!

that’s just unnatural.  07:00 should just never be seen on a saturday.  but… it was.  and i got up, laced up my running shoes, and walked out the door.  we actually walked down to the plaza where we arrived just in time to see mello driving off.  he stopped long enough to say hi and say that no one else showed up so he was going to go ahead and open the store.  it was just me and hubby and we just did loops around the trail instead of the actual mall run.  since we walked there and back, i would say that we did right at six miles total.  my guess is that we “ran” 3.5 of it.  don’t tell hubby but i even smiled a little when he said that i was going faster than usual.  go me!

i finally got a bit of sleep last night.  i laid down around 23:30 and only woke up a little while before the alarm went off at 06:30.  it was wonderful.  unfortunately, it didn’t do much to alleviate the massive headache i went to bed with so i’m still enjoying that this morning.  oh well, whatchya gonna do?  on the bright side, my hubby should be home in the next eight or nine hours!!!