Dangerous To Know Me

Excuse me while I am a little stunned... in the last 6 hours, I have learned:

• My sister and brother-in-law have been ordered to evacuate their home in S. Oregon due to wildfires (article here),
• Epcot, the first place I worked at Disney, is closed because of an electrical fire this morning (article here), and
• A good friend was apparently found dead in his home over the weekend, and the news is just now circulating at work.

The last item is truly the most disturbing. I visited with this friend most recently on July 4, and had a great time catching up. We used to go for months and not see each other, and then have short bursts of frequent social time. I had, in fact, almost paged him just yesterday to see what he was up to the rest of the week, maybe lunch? Not now, not ever. And he was such fun to be around, he always made me smile.

The person who told me about his death reminded me of a moment that definitely captured his sense of humor. Our work team at the time was having a Christmas Holiday party, and he commented, "Here I am, a Jew, having HAM, for a CHRISTMAS party. This is wrong on so many levels." And then there's the two catch-phrases I picked up from him, "You think?" (used in place of "obviously"), and "Good, and you?" (used when a statement had some form of double entendre).

I miss him already.

Update: From today's Yahoo! horoscope... I don't think so.

Look in the mirror today and smile at yourself, dear Pisces. Connect with your true spirit and blow away the cloud of depression that is looming over you. This sadness is not yours, so send it far away. There is a happy-go-lucky feeling in the air that you should work to connect to. Keep things light, energetic, and fanciful. You are the expert of all that is disconnected from reality.