Mortality

Starting in July, my friends' parents started dying; my mother in law started falling down and breaking things; my father is in hospice; my mother went in the hospital. I have been to so many wakes and bedside visits this year.

And today, my dog is having surgery for a cancerous tumor on her side.

We all go through it. The dying of our parents, and illnesses of our friends and family and pets. But this year seems particularly bad and thus, I wonder: Is there a Vortex of Doom that I am living in? Because 2013 (although it does end in 13) has otherwise been uneventful, it seems as if things are happening in our circle with a regularity that means I am running out of funeral clothing.

So we hold onto our loved ones and hope. But I might try a small ceremony on New Year's Eve with candles and feathers and crystals and scotch, in hopes that 2014 brings an end to all this suffering.

Personality switch

Last night I dreamed a friend of mine shaved his full-face beard off and that he was actually kind of a small, weaselly looking guy. It somehow alters how you view someone's personality, even in the unconscious.

And now they've changed the astrological signs. Only two of my four family members really fit the old descriptions anyway, and now--only two of my four family members fit into the new ones. The Chinese symbols work better. It's easier for me to envision living with two Snakes and a Bull.

Speaking of bull, thinking about other people's personalities is making me think of my own. Is fifty too old to reform?

Good PR--not.

So I finish a big design job in record time, and want to meet this new client who replaced my old contact at the company. I ask her out to lunch, she likes sushi, it's a date. For noon today in Cambridge, about 20 miles away. So I get my stuff together, tootle over there, park, meet the client. She's charming and we enjoy ourselves. When the check comes, she tells me company regs say I'm not allowed to pay for hers as it might be a conflict of interest, so we'll go dutch.

Right?
Wrong.
Forgot my wallet.
Client buys lunch.

Okay, here goes.

If you have too much time on your hands, you can discover here what I'm doing in semi-rural Massachusetts. I am a middle-aged (depending on how long I live) female with two kids, a husband and a dog.