"What is Going on With Our Friends?"

Whew, what a week! There's nothing like a beverage and a good baseball game to calm the week terrors. If Sports Talk were doing the Rapid Rewind highlights, here's the playback:

Monday, 9:00 a.m.
"Just got this email, and I thought you'd want to know..."

ME: Want to know? OMG, our Kirsten (not my Kristin) hasn't heard from Jed and his plane is missing.

Sidebar: Now, let me tell you something about odds. I was sitting on an airplane headed to NY one day, sitting in 1st Class and enjoying a White because I was sweating grapes, afraid I'd crash. I calmed after take off and the guy next to me strikes up a conversation. He says, "I'm a little nervous when I fly..."

I kind of interrupt and say, "Oh, the odds are with you. It's virtually impossible to crash twice in one lifetime. So you're safe because I've already crashed."

Bead-sweating man says, "So have I. Twice."

Shiiiiit! I drank another White and meditated until we arrived in Newark and wished I had another Xanax so I could visit the Queen on landing. (That Queen visit was one of the very best adventures.)

So, with those odds -- Mr.-1st-Class-lived-through-TWO-crashes and I had a total of three under our belts, so there was hope that three family guys could live through at least one.

I'll fast forward through hugging Kir and calling every Local, State and Federal Agency who would know how to find them and then the next 50 innings of errors and bad calls, we put on our rally hats and waited. And called. And waited and called, and waited, then at the bottom of the inning, news reports began to flood in.

The deed had already happened. We missed the window of opportunity for our prayers to make a difference in the final score.

Monday, 4:01 p.m.:

Kirsten texts, "Wreckage has been spotted. I am in shambles."

5:30 P.M.

Kirsten in a call to me: "....they didn't make it!" ......... she begins to shrivel, lose that 1/4 lb excess she had, and functions on hybernate mode. And so do we.

Tuesday, 10:14 a.m.
Kellene: "Has anyone talked to her?"

Yes. Still the same.

Tuesday, 5:00 a.m.
Was it this day that I spent 42 hours awake reliving my great loss and grieving for her great loss? I think it was. And I would not have made it without that other great love talking me through the night.

3:54 p.m.
"Nate Furr's wife had their baby." Hallelujah. Life is good in that single moment. Which brings up the question: Does She take one and give one? Perhaps another post contemplating that one.

Wednesday, 5:00 a.m.
Still awake and still crying! Tadaki licks my forehead as I try to sleep for an hour or so.

9:12 a.m.
Sandy: "Aleigh is at Intermountain Medical Center with a spinal cord injury."

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? So what are those odds? An airplane crash AND a spinal cord injury to a child in the same week? I made a deal! I think I've said that before. But now I know God doesn't make deals, but I thought She would for r me. And as I was grieving that first time, I bargained that I'd take the rap for all my friends ever after if She would just let them live a trauma-free life. Not so much. She doesn't make deals.

She doesn't make deals -- no one can take the rap, not even the Big J. She doesn't make deals.

11:30 a.m.
Call from Kirsten. I caught about a quarter of what she was saying through her snot-filled howl. "He waited for me. He didn't get married... or have kids... he waited until I told him I was divorced.. He waited for me.... I hope he will again."

How do your reply to that?

1:00 p.m.
I take Deacon to the vet with a "suspicious" cyst. The Doc said the "C" word and I ignored it. $116 later. He looks beautiful in his queen collar and lets Mia and I tease him about his satellite dish, Victrola, sunbonnet Sue, megaphone and we laughed and bitched and cried for hours. Thank God! We needed some comic relief.

Thursday, Top of the 7th
Conner, CCI pup doesn't get placed with the perfect candidate. Cross your fingers that someone special who can handle a dog like the Tatonka-Dog comes along pretty quickly and CCI doesn't release him yet. (Brock is praying for the released dog.)

3:00 p.m.
DC and SL Temples still not finished. Hmmm, maybe next week. Provo delivered. Whew, one down and 2 more to go. T-Ball replica is looking good though.

4:00 p.m.
Dullness until quilting and a labor of love.

Aleigh can't feel her legs, but she can walk with a walker and will heal. Well, maybe the Big She broke her own rule and made an exception for Sandy's family.

Midnight
Forgot to call Mother-in-Law for her birthday. I did think about her all day.

Friday, 8:00 a.m.
Sleep, sweet sleep. Work at noon.

1:15 p.m.
"The Vet said Deacon's leg is looking really good." Drained, shaved, and happy that he looks so much healthier. Hoping the next follow-up visit is good prognosis.

Sidebar: The best thing that happened this week was hearing Deacon squeeze his yapping collared head through the doggie door. No matter how many times he does it, it makes me giggle. Imagine THAAAAWUMP! THAAAAWUMP! THAAAAWUMP! And there appears a dog in an inverted taco shell happy as hell to be where you are. Thanks D-Dog.

5:54 p.m.
What do you know! The tears were light enough today that when I looked in the car while sitting in the parking lot after work, I still had on mascara. Oh, God. I'm old -- and tired. Made a call to my great love and smiled all the way home.

And I didn't pee on my new leather r seats. That's a good thing!

9:00 p.m.
The Redsox WON 8/4 but the Yankees finished 4/2 at the bottom of the 9th.

So this weekend can only get better.

Tadaki and I will be cramming for our certification. Hello mall, here we come. Kellene, can you be the crazy lady in the mall? He's responding to distraction this week.