Sophie's Story

      Yesterday was 27 September. I was at work and busy, but in my few moments of downtime I had the feeling that something big had happened on this date. It was one of those events that changed all the days after it.    What was it? It wasn't an anniversary. It wasn't a birthday. It had nothing to do with a job change. The thought teased the back of my mind. What could it be?    Later that afternoon it hit me. September 27 was the day that Anne was killed in a car wreck.     Anne was the wife of Scott, who was my boss. He and I had started working together in Wisconsin. Since he and his family and I were all transplants to the town we lived in, he suggested I might want to get to know his wife. She was also a pharmacist who had taken time away from her career while their two children were small. Now that they were school age, she was working part time.    I was planning on becoming acquainted with Anne anyway. I felt it was a...

     I'm grateful that I was at work yesterday. I wasn't scheduled to be there but Jill wanted to take a day off and asked me to cover. Part of the reason I was grateful is because we got a shipment of Covid vaccine in. Since I'm the assistant vaccine coordinator, one of my jobs is to receive the order (it's a bit of a process). If I hadn't been there the vaccine would have been received by one of the techs but neither of them has done it before.    I also found out that the go live date for our software conversion is in two weeks. Two Weeks! I thought it was farther out. Then I realized that our conversion was to happen the first week in October and we are nearing the end of September. Yikes!     I have been working on the assigned training modules, but was told to try to do them at work. That way I would get paid for my training time. It's been pretty busy the last few weeks that I've worked. There  hasn't been much time to log in and work ...

        I've developed an interesting and possibly bad habit. I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube and Facebook. This is a habit I believe needs to be broken quickly because I find that too much of my time is being wasted in watching this stuff. I could be doing other things like cleaning the house, knitting something, doing laundry or at least reading a book.    I've been watching women's artistic gymnastics videos on You Tube. I started watching these videos during the Olympics.  Sunisa Lee, the gold medalist in the women's individual all around and bronze medalist on the uneven bars, grew up in a suburb near where I live. It's kind of strange to think that an Olympic medalist just graduated from the same high school my grandson attends now. People who do things like that live in California or Texas, not Minnesota.    After watching the Olympics I started watching other gymnastics videos. I watched Nadia Comaneci score a 10 on the ...

      Yesterday marked twenty years since planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. A third plane was forced down in Pennsylvania by the passengers. Most people believe that this plane was supposed to hit the United States Capitol Building.    I saw several posts from various people asking the question, where were you on 9-11? I know where I was. I was at work. I'd just started a 12 hours shift at a pharmacy that opened the previous January. I got a call from by boss telling me what happened. The internet existed, but not like is is now. I did not have access to a TV. The brother of our technician had been killed in a car wreck the day before. My tech and her mother had been able to catch one of the last flights out of Minneapolis-St. Paul before all planes were grounded. Unable to fly back, they rented a car and drove the cremated remains of their son and brother back to Minnesota.    Every generation has one...

     Today is Labor Day. It is the unofficial end to summer. Most children start school this week although some schools started last week. I always disliked Labor Day when I was a kid. School started the next day and I didn't like going to school. I didn't mind the studying and classes, but when you are a kid that gets bullied in school it's not something you look forward to. When I got into junior high and high school there was the added worry of getting lost inside the school building during class changes and potentially walking into class late. (Even after a year or two in the same school buildings I never quite lost this fear.) Also the only thing on TV was the Jerry Lewis Telethon. (This was in the years before cable TV.)    The origin of Labor Day started during the industrial revolution. Various places designated the first Monday in September as a day to recognize laborers and their contribution to the achievements in the United States.  It was commo...

     One of the things that I've discovered as I 've become older is how little it takes to make me happy.      For example, once I finish writing this column, my to-do list is done. It's all done. All the chores that I needed to do will be complete the minute I hit publish. Even though there wasn't much on the list, it did include things like sweeping the floors, mopping the kitchen, cleaning Scamp's drinking fountain and bringing my checkbook up to date. Yes, I still have a checkbook with  checks that we reconcile every month.    Yesterday I went to a bakery called Nothing Bundt Cakes. All they make is Bundt cakes of various sizes. A few years ago I signed up to get a free Bundtlet (small cake) on my birthday. I went there to pick up my  birthday Bundtlet. To me it seemed the Bundtlet was larger than it had been last year.. Even though it might actually be the same size, I'm still happy. My confetti Bundtlet was very tasty.  ...