Hooray for Friends

Suna and Diana
Originally uploaded by sunasak

First, thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for your wonderful responses to my last post. If you haven't read them all, you might want to--there are some points I found very healing and helpful--I will take it all to heart, friends! You all mean SO much to me.

Second, I have had a really great few days. For one thing, work has been better. One person still acts strangely, but I plan to return strangeness with kindness and focus on doing my part to create a positive environment. I have a lot more stuff to do now, so I can concentrate on that, and I did a second training that got good reviews, so maybe I'll get to stay!

I am also doing better because I've had some time to relax and laugh the past few days. The picture shows my friend Diana (who lives in New Jersey) and me, as she triumphantly proves she can now purl. Go, Suna, you knitting teacher whiz! I no longer get to see the people I used to work with periodically, and I really miss that, so what special treat it was that life's ups and downs led her to come spend a couple of days with me.

She'd been in the Dallas area helping her brother and SIL after the birth of their first child. It was a stressful time, for a number of reasons, so I was worried about her. Then, sadly, the husband of someone we had both worked with (in my old job and her current job as author and board member in the lactation consultant field) passed away. We realized the funeral would be during her visit, so decided we would go and support our friend, who is such a lovely woman and has helped so many others.

So, she picked me up after work on Friday (yay,GPS thingies sure make finding new places easier) and we drove to far south Austin and had a nice dinner, then went to the service. It was beautiful and a very welcoming event in a Catholic church with lots of woods and ferns in the sanctuary. There was a wonderful mix of appropriate humor and lovely remembrances. I know it was healing for the family, and it was really inspirational to me, too. I felt I got to know our friend's husband a bit, which is always nice. But also, the officiant and a couple of speakers said some things that affected me--about how to treat other people...it gave me some insight into how I can turn my difficult times into something positive.

So, I am glad we did that. I had a little trouble afterwards, as I knew I would, chit chatting with people from the old volunteer organization, but it was good to catch up and see people I'd missed. It was especially nice to see one of our old online work colleagues. But mostly, it felt good to just be there to support a fellow human who was grieving.

Afterwards, we went back to my house, apparently driving toward a tornado warning, but we didn't know! The storm opened up just before we got home, so we were wet, but had a nice visit anyway. Diana was blown away at how my boys had grown, and said such nice things about them. It is amazing to see people you see every day from someone else's point of view. That helped. We laughed and talked about all sorts of things, things I don't have local woman friend to talk about, so it was very good to have this chance.

Yesterday Diana and I did tarot, had breakfast at Starbucks, then spent the rest of the day at my favorite hangout, the yarn shop. I detail this in the knitting blog, so suffice to say we both had a lovely, relaxing day full of laughter and kindness. We had a really good knitting class, and some great conversation with Katie and Pat and others who came by. I wish Diana had such a nice yarn shop where she lives. Knowing she didn't have one made me appreciate my luck in having one so close by even more!

Last night, Beccano, Lee and I watched the beginning of the movie Tin Man. It's good! I sure am glad my knitting friend loaned it to us!

Today it's all rainy again, so I hope we can just relax today, though we may end up helping Jeff move some stuff to his new residence. I am hoping that this one works out well. It sounds like it will. I am glad we can still be friends with him, too. I've said it here before, but I will repeat. The thing I am most grateful for is my friends, both near and far. The mutual support we give each other is what gets me through the day.

Oh yeah, Lee's been pretty sick lately. I sure am glad he is getting better. I'd feel so much better if he had some insurance. Darn my employer for not offering it to domestic partners (though I think they are working toward it--I hope what gay coworkers are doing to move forward on this will also apply to us).