Connect and Disconnect

A sprocket at the end of a week of ups and downs and general weirdness, some of it good and some of it horribly bad. Okay.

Looking for snow-hiking boots that don’t *kill* my feet, I ran into K of Porterland over at REI today. I recognized her first. We had a wonderful time discussing how hard it is for women to find comfortable shoes. And it is. Especially for those of us who like to WALK. I did find some boots that I THINK will work. We’ll go into all of that some other day.

Why was I over at REI instead of working? Because I couldn’t really focus at work today. And that’s because yesterday was Black Thursday. The blackest of the occasional black days I have encountered working for a large, usually wonderful company. I was somehow a survivor. I am not sure how or why I managed to attain that status. I know that excruciatingly difficult decisions were made but can’t fathom the parameters involved in them. All I know is that deep feelings of grief cloud my relief.

And so I got back to work and was struggling with where to find a piece of solid ground to put a foot onto and I was I/Ming with my manager about an upcoming meeting and FZ and I were yelling over the wall about related issues and… PING! You’ve got mail! “Hello, KW. I think we are third cousins.” It was a direct message via FB from a name that I immediately knew was a relative, even though I have never met any of my Canadian cousins. She had my dad’s name and birth year and knew about my great-grandfather’s life (and death) in northern Saskatchewan. I accepted her request immediately and we quickly switched to email and, just WOW! I am not going to blahg about this in detail in order to preserve family privacy but suffice it to say that this was a wonderfully welcome development on the last day of a difficult week.

You just never know what is coming down the pike, do you?

4 Responses to “Connect and Disconnect”

  1. Sam Says:

    Photo sprocket: pasta or plastic?

    Glad you had a nice up follow the whomping down….

  2. Margaret Says:

    You really don’t know what’s down the pike, and that’s probably a good thing. I’ve had a bad, although not awful, week myself.

  3. Tonya Watkins Says:

    I think it’s been a pretty rotten week for many people, for all sorts of reasons. Black Thursday…I’ve survived some of those, and not others…

    We all need an uplift!

  4. isa Says:

    <3