traumas

I know exactly where I was when I heard about Challenger blowing up - I can tell you exactly which desk in which room, the color of the walls, what I was supposed to be doing but wasn't... (I learned how to french braid my hair in study hall that year.)

I remember watching the replays on television over and over and over before lunch and then we were supposed to go on with our academic day.

Listening to the NPR coverage of it being 25 years (how did I get to be so old?!) there was a reference to the shuttle explosion later on. That's vivid, but for different reasons- I was trapped in a traffic jam, desperate to get home, and turned on the radio for a distraction. Certainly a distraction...

My heart breaks for the families of these brave men and women, and I do not say that lightly. RIP.

hot cocoa

There's a very nice woman in my neighborhood, about my age, who also works from home. She does something with scrap-booking as a profession and as I do not have the arts & crafts gene, I'm not entirely sure that I understand it.

We've been casual friends for a few years now - always a wave and a smile when we pass by, she noticed that Sam wasn't in the yard and sent her condolences, I watched her kids once - but it took us until this summer to actually sit down and have lunch together.

There's plenty that we don't have in common, but quite a lot that we do. Yesterday we spent some time just having cocoa together and having girl talk. I need to remember to do that again.

woof woof woof

A neighbor (whom I do not know well at all) took her dog for a walk and forgot her keys. To cut a long story short, no one had a spare key to her house, her husband was away and wouldn't be back until after midnight and it's cold in Indiana at this time of year.

I apologized for the condition of lemming headquarters (it was laundry day) but said I'd be more than happy to put her and the dog up until husband got home. I'd already planned on pizza for supper - pizza crusts were one of Sam's favorite treats - and it was great to have a dog in the kitchen, sitting, patiently, who quickly figured out that in this house, as in his own, pizza crusts definitely belonged to dogs, not humans.

Dakota (the dog) quickly mellowed out and had a few "really, I'm vigilant, you just think I'm napping" moments. I had to work, but tried to pop out every half hour or so to socialize... the petting and scratching of a dog's ears were, of course, purely circumstantial. Dakota even spent time barking at the squirrels in the backyard (Sam's nemesis) so we're safe for a day or so.

I miss being owned by a dog.