Day 343 - the calm before the storm

 Today is the 7th day of the 49th week, the 9th day of the 12th month, the 343rd day of 2023, and:

• Anna's Day - time to start preparing the lutefisk for Christmas Eve
• Christmas Card Day
• Cremation Day
• Gingerbread Decorating Day
• Independence Day - Tanganyika [AKA Tanzania] from Britain in 1961
• International Anti-Corruption Day
• International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and The Prevention of this Crime 
• International Day of Veterinary Medicine
• International Shareware Day
• National Day of the Horse
• National Llama Day
• National Opal Apples Day
• National Pastry Day
• Weary Willie Day
• World Techno Day
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 33m 11s of light travel time from Earth 

Quote of the day:

"Grief is like a stream running through our life, and it’s important to understand that it doesn’t go away. Our grief lasts a lifetime, but our relationship to it changes."

~  Martha Beck, “Elegy for Everything”

A few years [and a couple jobs] ago, I had a manager who took exception to the reason I have for taking off in December, asking me if it wasn't time that I "got over" letting Frank's death on the 16th impact my Christmas spirit.  Grief just doesn't work that way, you never quite get numb to the loss.  It is something I think about a lot as 2024 approaches and I realize that soon I will have been widowed for as long as I was married to him.

And I have to stop myself from worrying if this is the last Christmas I will see my son - it doesn't make sense to grieve for a person's passing while they are still with you - and instead focus on the adventure of getting to see his home in Nashville for the first time.  Just two more sleeps!  

So the tasks today  all have to do with packing, and that will probably spill over into tomorrow.  I have to make sure I have Triscuit's fountain cleaned so that I can be sure it will work while I am gone and set up her food stuffs for the woman who offered to come in every day to feed her.  Oh, and make sure the garbage is taken out before I leave!

Triscuit very sensibly decided that she was going to stay out of the way and simply keep an eye on me.  

Unfortunately, we have a major nor'easter rolling in tomorrow morning, although fortunately it will be just rain due to our unusually warm temperatures for this time of year.  I have already received one warning that there may be flight delays on Monday, so we'll see how that pans out