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I got a flat tire fixed on my back wheel just last weekend, and guess what? I went down to get on my bike this morning, and the fucking
front wheel was flat! I rode the bike all of four times before it needed another flat tire repair. I guess I'll have to take it in again tomorrow.
At least this time I caught it before I left. I'd have been to work right on time at 7:30 had the tire been okay. Instead, I didn't get on the #11 until like 7:13. At least it was just a few minutes before I could transfer to a #1 going north on 3rd at Pine, so I didn't have to walk the rest of the way. I still got to work maybe 10 minutes later than preferred. As always, nobody here gives a shit.
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I've got too many things going on at work and never would have had the time to focus on the detail I needed to write in
yesterday's post about Aunt Raenae's "Celebration of Life" memorial picnic. Admittedly I did add like four small extra paragraphs this morning with some added detail.
One detail, I'll just add here: when I first had a moment to chat with Toni, while I was dishing myself up some food, I said, "How are you feeling? Stressed? Overwhelmed? Numb?" She was actually keeping herself really busy with largely organizing this event, which is a lot to ask of her but I got the sense she was using it as a way to keep her mind off things. "All of those things, I think," she replied.
Toni is an interesting speciment of all my paterinal cousins. Aunt Raenae had Troy and Michael in 1967 and 1970, respectively—the years she herself turned 19 and 21. She had them both very young, and, being the oldest of five herself and thus the first to have children, Troy and Michael are both the two oldest of us grandkids. And then? Aunt Raenae got pregnant by a different man and gave birth to Toni in 1982, twelve years after Michael and 15 years after Troy. So, Aunt Raenae produced both the oldest of us grandkids, and the youngest.
Aunt Raenae would have been 34 when she had Toni.
Toni and James are largely mirroring what Aunt Raenae did, but with a wider gap. Toni is 41 and pregnant with their fourth child. Hayden is already grown, like 21 years old I think. The other two are younger, maybe preteens by now. I forget how old they are.
Anyway, I texted Valerie this morning to tell her we missed her yesterday, but that it was totally understandable for Uncle Imre to be the priority. I sent a link to my blog post. She clearly read it, because she followed up with this:
And dammit, you made me cry reading the blog. She did always say "I love you"—and I will miss that too. A lot. For me it feels like another passing of an era. She was my link to my childhood and family. We spent a lot of time with her, Troy, and Michael.
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Gabby and I have a visit with Sue, the POS person at the Central District store, at 12:30, so I shifted the scheduled Zoom lunch with Karen back to 11:00. We just finished with that.
There's not a huge amount of things to report on it. I told her a bit about the memorial picnic yesterday, and the baggage with my cousin Troy, which I had never told her about before.
I also asked after her mom and how she's doing back in Massachusetts, because
Karen's dad just died a couple of months ago himself, and she'll be going back to his memorial service soon.
"An age of loss," indeed.
There was this tidbit: Karen owns her own practice doing consulting work for accessibility in construction design, and apparently PCC has approached them to consult on eight of our stores. Her business has a proposal in to PCC about it, and that's as far as it's gotten. Karen looked up who her PCC contact was and said her name was Lori. She also providd the last name. I was like, "Oh yeah, I know her! She's been here even longer than I have." I'll have to tell Lori now that I know Karen. Karen was at my wedding! And as for Lori, she and Stephanie S, my first boss, used to be really good friends. They may still be. I haven't heard much from Stephanie in a while, although we're still Facebook friends and exchange comments on occasion.
I had to cut the call short with Karen at 11:50 so I could get a few things done (like post this blog) before Gabby comes to pick me up and drive me out to the Central District store.
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[posted 12:03 pm]
