I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Good one, blue!

grade 12 health class.

Blue, the Freewood Post is a satire website. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference, though.

Even if it did not literally come out of her mouth, you know it was in her head.

In contrast to Julianna's experience ( btw, sorry you had to grow up where ever it was) - glad you're with us now ;-)

I was a freshman in college, and remember riding home in someone's car, from Boston, MA, to my home in CT. The roads were packed, early "Thanksgiving" - and you could look to each car, filled, everyone crying. At the tolls on the road, cars backed up a long way, everyone looking at the other people in disbelief, which is how we must have looked to them. All with very wet faces. The Yale Harvard football game at the Yale Bowl was cancelled that year. A huge event then, maybe you had to be a New Englander to understand the significance....so long ago, but feels recent today.

For those NPR listeners, they are repeating the Boston Symphony Orchestra performance, Conductor Eric L. interrupts to tell audience "President assassinated" - you can hear the GASPS, the cries of oh, no - and then the orchestra played Bach's Requiem.

For me, it was the "before and after" experience - deeper than anything before or since, including 9/11. I was living in New York city in 1968, when RFK was killed. Remember the lines of people along Park Ave, 8 across the wide sidewalks, as far as you could see up and down this HUGE street, waiting to get into St. Patrick's Cathedral to walk by the coffin.

thanks, Blue, it was Beethoven, not Bach...listening to it now....so, so sad...but healing..

Music IS so healing.

For the life of me, I cannot remember getting out of school, or being told at school, that Kennedy had died (I was in fifth grade), but I do remember watching the funeral with my mother on our B&W tv. My mother and I were watching "live" and saw Oswald shoot Jack Ruby. I will never forget that. It is still vivid in my generally poor memory. It was hard to believe we had just witnessed someone shooting someone, live, on television.

I will now always remember this is the time that I had to let Ms Boo go from this world. I had made an appt with the Vet for Thursday, last Monday, ostensibly for an evaluation. Thursday, she was noticeably not my Ms Boo and the time had come. All the things I feared about taking her on that last trip did not come true - thinking of Sunny's FEAR acronym. It felt like a peaceful and loving thing to do for my Ms Boo. Her absence from my home is far harder to deal with, though. It feels so lonely without her, but I still have my Emma. Even Emma has been smelling for Ms Boo...on her blanket, near the litter box. There is no cat like another cat, therefore there will never be another Ms Boo, without sounding like I'm minimizing her abundant and wonderful qualities. I'm grieving for her.

Hiking on the volcano this morning (I live on a volcano), there must have been a big debris flow right above us. A loud roaring sound. For a moment, the fear gripped me and I told my friend we needed to run for higher ground. Volcanos have these mudslide events called Jokulhlaups. They spill across roads, thru roads, and take trees down. It was so loud and above us toward the mountain peak. It lasted about 30 seconds. Our last big one was in 1999 and it came into town. We might have been in the path of this Jokulhlaups today, but we shortened our usual walk (bad feet!). Nothing I've experienced before; only saw the aftermath of one that came into town in 1999 (we cross it during our usual walk).

((((((((((((Kam and Miss Boo)))))))))) - dear sweet kitty

Anyone...this is the first animal I've lost in 38 years. How long does it take to get from the pain of her missing to the good memories? The house feels so empty. She was only 7 years old...too young. Thank you for all of your thoughts. xxo

I'm so sorry, Kam. It takes a while - weeks - to stop crying, and you never stop missing them. But I comforted myself with the fact that I couldn't wish my babies still here, because the choices were only two - here and suffering or gone to the Rainbow Bridge. I loved them enough to let them go without pain. Comfort yourself that you gave her all the love she knew in her life. But it is impossibly hard.