A Challenge

[dancerjodi]

I remember watching the Challenger take off in Miss Garvey's 5th Grade Classroom at St. Pats. I want to say we were cheering them on until the explosion, where everyone went kind of confusedly silent. My memory is that there were a couple of kids saying "oh my God it blew up" and a couple others saying it didn't. Miss Garvey confirmed it for us. Being a Catholic school, I want to say that at some point we all went over to the lower church to pray for the astronauts, their families, etc. Though I've lost my religion I still take great comfort in these traditions that we had at St. Pats. Coming together in these times was comforting for us and I believe, the large group intention of prayer (to whoever you want to pray for) is a positive thing, directing energy at a basic level. This is similar to when in 4th Grade with Sister Bernadette, she would stop us mid-class if we heard sirens outside, to have a quick moment of silence and prayer for whoever was in that car, rushing to whatever emergency they were facing.

A good friend lost his brother this morning. He e-mailed Brian and I about his experience seeing his brother that way in the ICU, and it brought me back to 1997. Seeing your brother in the ICU I can tell you is not a pleasant experience - I wish I could erase that image from my brain. I guess the difference here is that my brother was extremely lucky and made it through. In some ways, I think it makes the experience so much more scary (in an amazing kind of way) - that someone could be in such a scary situation and come out of it on the other side. You just never know.

On a more light side, I discovered The Crystal Caves song with Robert Smith the other day on WFNX, when I went out to switch my car in the driveway with Brian as he was coming home from work. I love this song, it just makes me feel light (despite it being a sad love song by Robert Smith). In my head, I'm swaying around on a dance floor. Maybe we can brave the snow and the cold and the late night and subsequent tired next morning to visit Down With Tempo in a week.

In mundane news, I filed our taxes last night. We increased our 401k holdings last year, paid less in taxes and will get a larger refund than last year. The IRS is experiencing some delays in filings that aren't EZ, so we won't see the cash until mid-late February unfortunately (which means that we won't have it as a nice buffer for our NYC trip in a couple of weeks, alas). We're heading to San Francisco for Wondercon, so the timing at least will be convenient for that. We'll be going to the convention and will have nights free and a couple of extra days to spend time in the area. This time we'd like to actually spend more time in the Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park (we ran through taking pictures the last time, on a schedule). We're also planning on driving out to see the Endor forest outside of the city. I've been having fun making lists of funky thrift stores and junk shops to visit if and when we have time. Oh and there will be garlic! I want to have dinner at The Stinking Rose again.

Finally Friday. I'm looking forward to celebrating a lot of birthdays this weekend. Now to try and be motivated today at work. Perhaps it is the snow, but this week has been drag-ing.

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Band Geek Time!

[dali-muse.livejournal.com]

I found out from YouTube that "Not In Love" is a cover from an '80's band called Platinum Blond. The song is a bit reagge tinged and the band have big Howard Jones in the eighties hair! Chris has been playing it at Heroes and we've heard it at Ceremony, Vigil, and Excess. It took me a bit to warm up to it, even with Robert Smith's vocals, but it's grown on me.