Was everybody's week this weird?

- A boss's uncle dies while in surgery to have a stent placement.
- An almost-boss's uncle drops dead of a heart attack.
- A coworker's young daughter is denied coverage for an immediate stem-cell transplant to treat her cancer. She has to mortgage their home for the downpayment for the transplant surgeons and is finally able to talk the hospital down from a $90,000 bill to $81,000 and a $20,000 downpayment is dropped to $2,000.
- Missy has her baby in less time than it takes me to walk down the hall.
- My ex-boss's 90-something mother is hospitalized for a blood clot in her lung that they aren't sure they can treat.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but all in all, it's been an exhausting week--and I was just a spectator for most of it.

The Rebuilding Together event was a success. My company spent approximately 700 manhours last weekend at a woman's house basically redoing it from head to toe. New paint inside and out, window screens, blinds, and curtains, carpet and flooring, shower surround and fixtures, new electrical plugs and switches, ceiling fans and lights, a new refrigerator and gas stove, a new back door and custom-built stairs, new hardware and locks for the doors, mowed lawn and brush cleared from the back yard. It was exhausting (and I only worked one afternoon), but the results were amazing--it looks like a new house. The owner is thrilled, and we're all very happy with the results.

We had some pretty good rain here yesterday, and today is cloudy, dark, and drizzly--my favorite type of day. Considering the week I've had, it's nice to sit here with the windows open and listen to the rain. It's very quite this morning--it looks like lots of folks left early or they're still in bed. It's nice.

Sunday, however, it's up and out at 6 am to staff a water station for the Memorial Marathon. I've worked the Marathon three times in the past, but it was as a ham radio operator. I don't know much about the water stops other than it's a lot of waiting for a really big rush of people, but it should be fun. Hopefully it will still be cool tomorrow.