Dec 10 - blown away

No, I wasn't riding.

I needed to do some errands -- the post office to send a certified letter; the UPS Store to ship something; the jewelers beside it to finally take my Tag in to get the band adjusted; Wal-mart to pick up the fat tire bike; Daytona to Harbor Freight to pick up another hitch rack ... and I actually did it all, didn't abandon in the middle.  Necessity was driving this time.

But, in the jeweler, the phone rang.  It was Sandy.  "You need to be sitting down".  My heart jumped for a second but then I realized that if it was something in the family, she wouldn't be talking, she'd be crying.  Norm Himes passed away on Dec 8.  She'd seen it in the SYC notice.  That's the trouble with having an iPhone.  Blown away.  I've only known them a short while in this lifetime but they've become good friends. 

We have no idea what happened.  Norm carried a lot of extra weight so I'm guessing a heart attack, but it could have just as easily been a stroke or, Sandy theorized, a car accident.  We'll know at some point.  There's going to be a service at the SYC sometime in February.  Oh Patti ... how are you going to cope ?  She had a minor stroke last winter and still isn't back to normal.  She's walking but numbness remains.  I don't think that she's driving yet.  She had rescheduled knee surgery at that point and was going to have that done this coming January.  She obviously cannot do that alone. 

Treasure life.  Every minute.  Any minute could be your last.

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One of the Wal-mart purchases was the fat tire bike.  I put it together, rode it in our cul-de-sac.  Sandy rode it in the cul-de-sac.  I realized that having one will be a problem but we have one.  Dismantled again, it's going north.  I then put together the new hitch rack.  It's smaller than the one that I left up north and lighter, because it's aluminum.  I needed less weight leveraged out the back.

Onward.