random, but not the quarter kind

this is one of those posts that i'm doing because i feel like i should post something, but i really don't have anything to say...

the random quarter posts began for this very reason. but i already did one this month. i can't do another one.

so i guess i'll just tell you about what's been going on with me.

my great aunt passed away two weeks ago.

i missed her granddaughter's--my godsister's--wedding that following weekend because the booking company my mother used screwed up our tickets. i could've spent saturday in san diego (bummer).

she got a voucher for their error for less than half the value of the two tickets. she let me use it. it's not easy, using one of their vouchers. it's not like you can go to their website and book the flight yourself and enter some code. you have to call. you have to spend three hours of your time confirming the flight details with a dude who can barely speak english, only to find out that he screwed your flight up, too. so for a second there, i was going to go to north carolina for a week in november (YAY!). but the idiot booked the flight for november first rather than november fourth (fucker). and i can't take ten days off work. at least i'm pretty sure i can't. i've asked my boss. she didn't seem too eager, but she'd said she'd ask.

me, my munkle and the red truck

my family went to utah this past weekend to see my munkle (for those of you new here, my great uncle--one of several older brothers to the great aunt who recently passed and the only brother left alive--is a monk). i did not get to go. part of me is bummed about that. in forty-two summers of going to utah, i've only missed two. part of me is just like my great aunt--not too keen on watching a loved one leaving. and he will be leaving, and soon. i know it. i know it. he walks with two canes now, relying very heavily on them both. from what my parents and brother have said, he's not all there--he's not quick-witted; he'll have conversations with my mother where he'll talk to her about her, like she's someone else. his hands don't work. he's a carpenter, my munkle. he makes the most beautiful things. the fact that he can't make his hands do the making is a source of great contention for him. understandably so. but mostly... what i remember most is the way his face beamed with pleasure and how fiercely he would hold on to me, his arms so much like the carpenter's vise. i don't want to see his face if i can't see it the way it's always been. i don't want to hug him if he can't hug me the way he's always done.

i've been working on five stories. one of them is about a woman and the efforts she's made to raise awareness for the fatal, degenerative, genetic disease that's plagued her son for seven years.

and i have friends who are very sorely troubled by life at the moment.

i need a light. has anybody got one?

. . .

and of course, moments after i post this... browsing my facebook feed, one of my friends had posted this hours before, and i only just now saw it:

you will be nowhere tomorrow where god hasn't been (max lucado).

that's a pretty good light.