| February 2, 2006 - An untimely death |
| Dear Friends, I apologize for not having written in some time, but quite frankly I haven't felt like it. Not only was I a bit down in the dumps, as my last two entries revealed, but my website doesn't get a huge number of readers which would justify updating it more often. That said, I returned from my mother's house on Dec. 27 after having spent 7 hours with her on Dec. 26 in the emergency room. I won't go into what happened with her, but when I got back to my office on Dec. 28, I found out that one of my colleagues had suddenly died at an early age on Dec. 26 of an aneurysm. My co-workers were all in shock. The deceased's boss went around for several days with her eyes totally red and swollen. The deceased, I'll call him Ron, was extremely well-liked and even now all of us look up periodically expecting him to walk-by. I went to Ron's boss and told her that I would help with her team's work if they felt they would get behind due to Ron's death. She later told me that when she told her team of my offer, their eyes lit up with appreciation. I guess I'm not the selfish bitch everyone seems to think I am after all. Anyhoo, I went to Ron's funeral at a funeral home, then to his graveside service, and then to a reception held in his honor at a local hotel. As I stood at his gravesite, I thought about how 2005 was not really a very bootilicious year. Yes, I went to Iceland in March and I went to Scotland and Hungary in November (which I still have to write about for all of you), but a lot of bad things happened that year as you may well guess from the mood of my last two entries. It was, as Elizabeth II said upon learning of the burning of Windsor Castle, an "annus horribilis upon which we shall not look back with fondness". Not only did Ron pass away in 2005, but my friend and former co-worker, Louise, died in April after a long struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease; not to mention the various scares my sisters and I have had over our mother's health. So, as I was saying, I was standing at Ron's grave and I reached a decision that 2006 will be the year of JOHNNYLEEN. Mind you, I'm not out to trample people's feelings or go out of my way to harm them, but this year I'm taking opportunities as they come. My first opportunity proved to be free tickets to a hockey game on New Year's Day (Ron was buried on New Year's Eve). I had been at a New Year's Eve party and the wife of the couple was bringing me back into town along with some of her girlfriends. They had tickets to a hockey game, but one of their other friends wasn't going to be able to join them. So I was asked if I wanted to come along. My dears, the old JOHNNYLEEN would have said "no", because it wasn't planned ahead of time, but the new JOHNNYLEEN said "yes". My friend was quite surprised and when pressed for an explanation, I said, "I intend to have more fun in 2006, because 2005 sucked the hairy root. And having fun means learning to be more spontaneous." So I went and had a great time!. Other opportunities have arisen that I'll have to tell you about later. One of them is a need I identified at work that I have the ability to fill. My managers have agreed and that represents a bright future for JOHNNYLEEN. Anyway, I have to go get ready now for hateful ol' work, so I'll have to tell you about it later. But expect it to be much later, since I intend to be out having tons o' fun! Next entry Previous entry Go to diary entries Go back home |