Happy Spring . . .

and Easter, too . . . .

Just a quick check in . . . .

I had hoped to report that my coworkers and I were bouncing back after the loss of our friend and fellow employee, but that is not to be for the present. We have an employee whose teenaged daughter has been battling cancer for several years. About a year ago she received a terminal diagnosis--there was nothing more that could be done. She fought with all her might, but last Wednesday night, she finally lost the battle. She was 18 years old.

This, along with the loss of our friend Tim and another coworker's sudden loss of his 38-year-old brother three weeks ago to a stroke, has pretty much squashed all of us. We are tired, worn down, and beaten up. Three funerals in three weeks--for people 44 years, 38 years, and 18 years old--does not make for happy times.

We received news this week from the initial NTSB report on the plane crash that there was no distress call and that the black box voice recorder was not operating at the time of the crash. So it will probably be a year before we know what happened. We were hoping that the voice recorder could have given the investigators a better idea of what happened; however, I guess we should be glad to be spared hearing those last few minutes broadcast over and over again on the news.

My heart also aches for another friend at work. Her wedding was in Guthrie Saturday evening after Tim's memorial service. (Many people went straight from the funeral to the wedding--can you imagine?) This accident has been devastating for her not just because she knew Tim, but because her father was killed in a well-publicized plane crash several years ago. She was dealing with not having her father there, but having this happen four days before her wedding pretty much knocked the feet out from underneath her. She was inconsolable--it was like she was reliving her father's death all over again. She's coming back to work tomorrow after being gone for the wedding and a honeymoon in St. Croix--I hope she's doing better. It broke my heart to see her so upset.

Speaking of work, we've been working for the last seven months toward getting some cash infusion into the company from outside investors. We are to receive the offers from those potential investors this week, and I don't know that it will be good news. Whatever the result, there will be many changes afoot. We have already dissolved one department and have lost several employees to better job opportunities. People are worried, and, as happens so many times, management is less than forthcoming about what's happening and what our options might be.

And to top it all off, I've done something to my right arm just above the wrist. It hurts like crazy, right at the bone, almost like I have a hairline fracture or something. I can't remember hitting it with anything, but it's been difficult to grasp or lift things the last week or so. I've kept IcyHot and an Ace bandage on it all weekend, and it seems to be a little bit better, but I'm totally stumped as to what I've done to myself. The way I'm going, people at work are going to believe I'm hurting myself on purpose.

All of this has resulted in all of us having a big ole case of the Spring Blahs. I just don't seem to have much enthusiasm about anything lately. I can't even get worked up over the garden this year, as it seems that our new apartment complex overlords have decided that I have too much stuff on the walkway and it has to go. (They're probably right, but I was hoping to continue to get away with it. I wouldn't mind it so much if they'd actually take care of the property, but they seem to be stuck on the little things and not on the bigger things like removing the now-dead trees from the December ice storm that probably would have survived if they had been taken care of properly, or the unsafe stairs, or the parking lot full of potholes. Instead let's pick on the one thing that people seemed to enjoy . . . .)

Anyway, I have started a few seeds, but nowhere near what I had planned. My hope is that I can pare down the garden and keep everything up by the railing where it will be out of the way and still get the most sun. My tomato seeds and a few flower seeds have sprouted and are now under lights. I plan to direct seeds some herbs and flowers in a couple more weeks when the weather gets a little more consistently warm.

Basically, I'm just in a funk. All these things at work, and then add in the rising costs of food and fuel, the tanking economy, a government that is sending us into another Great Depression, and a presidential race that both scares me and pisses me off, and I just don't want to play any more. The old standard, "life isn't fair," isn't even coming close to explaining how I feel these days.

I just want to stay at home with the covers over my head, please. That's not asking for too much, is it?

Today's my third blogiversary.

I don't quite have the same enthusiasm about blogging that I did when I started out, but I'm still checking in once in a while, so that counts, right? So happy blogiversary to me.

Unfortunately, it's truly not a very happy one. Tuesday afternoon there was a small jet crash outside of Wiley Post Airport. My company's head pilot was flying the plane--it was not our plane, but he frequently picked up extra flights when he wasn't flying for us. Eyewitness reports say they flew into a flock of birds and then spiraled to the ground. They landed nose first. As you can imagine, there were no survivors.

My coworkers and I are, quite frankly, devastated. Tim was the nicest, sweetest, friendliest guy you could image. He did not have your typical pilot ego, but he had incredible talent--he was meticulous in his responsibility as a pilot. I've never seen so many people at such a loss for words. Even our hard-edged, Boston-born CEO has just fallen apart. He flew with Tim a lot, and they were very close.

I can't say that we got much done at the office for the rest of the week (I know I didn't), but at least we were together. Yesterday afternoon we gathered to look at some photos and share our memories of Tim. It was very, very hard. Many of us had seen him in the office Tuesday morning, and a few short hours later, he was gone.

There is a memorial service this afternoon in Yukon, and my company is providing a reception for the family members after the service. I know we need to get through this to be able to move one, but it won't be easy.

We will miss you, Tim.