Spontaneous Gathering

March 2nd is a very special day . . .

This afternoon Mr. Fun phoned our son-in-law to ask if he had a dolly we could borrow (we wanted to move my campus file cabinet from my existing office to the new temporary office). Son-in-law's answer was "Yes! We're coming to your side of town for dinner, so we'll drop it off at your place."

Then shortly before 6:00 p.m. our daughter sent us a text to ask if we wanted to join the dinner gathering. The four of them -- Deed, John, Ashly, and Emerson -- were going to dinner together to meet Ashly's new boyfriend, Brian. We had dinner cooking and the table set. We answered "Yes!" And then turned off the stove, grabbed our coats and went. Spontaneous moments are often some of the best.

Ashly's new boyfriend was very nice and we all had lots of fun getting to know him and enjoying tacos at Wahoo's Fish Tacos. I always have a carne asada taco, which is delicious; I am not a fan of fish tacos.

Ashly is finishing all her general education classes and soon will be in a nursing program. She is our first grandchild. She will be 23 in September.

I was pleased when Deed, John, and Ash all posed for my camera. I knew it would be asking too much for everyone to pose. Emerson was on our side of the table and I thought it might be a bit over the top to ask the new boyfriend to join in.

I didn't mention at dinner that today is my mom's 85th birthday. I've thought about her all day. She would have loved our gathering this evening. My mom enjoyed socializing. She died in 1983 due to cancer when she was 57. She was a unique and wonderful woman. I've written about her before, so I won't now.

I had originally planned to write today about my friend Jeanne Cooper. Her birthday is today too. She died in 1988 due to cancer when she was 47. Jeanne was everyone's friend. She and I had a special bond. Her death was devastating to her four kids, all young adults at the time; it was also devastating to those of us who were close with Jeanne. I think I silently caught my breath and for a long time shied away from making close friendships because I was wounded by the loss.

Mom's death and Jeanne's death were overwhelming to me. Maybe in a few days I'll tell Jeanne's story. "Best friend" is my definition of Jeanne.


After dinner, Mr. Fun & I went to my campus office and moved my file cabinet to my new temporary office. Instructors were originally told that we would not have to vacate our offices until mid-April and that we'd be back in by the fall semester; then the move-out date was moved to the end of February and now we are being told that it might be this coming January before the reconstruction of the first floor of the library building is complete and January before we see our offices again. Ugh!

The dean has told us to just take the bare necessities and that we don't need to take our file cabinets and that maintenance people would not be moving them. I am taking the bare necessaries and that includes my file cabinet. So Mr. Fun became my hero again and moved the 4-drawer file for me (if it had not been dark, I would have taken a picture of him rolling the file cabinet across the parking lot to the West End Quad). I am purging my office of lots and lots of materials I've accumulated during the past 20 years of teaching; what has not or will not get purged is in my file cabinet. I won't even have a desk in this "new" make-shift office; I'll have a table. I'm going to have to find the "funny" or "fun" aspect of this experience, but so far, I'm earning an F!

Well, Happy Birthday Mom, and good night all.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol