It's always somebody's birthday...
Somewhat random this morning... I was thinking this morning about how they're going to try to keep 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter on the air even though the "my" in that statement refers to a character played by the late John Ritter. I don't think they should. They had a hastily (though well-done) ABC News special biography of John Ritter last night with lots of his friends looking back. It was kind of cool. They even had some footage from a MTR interview he had done that same day. They also borrowed from an A&E Special I had watched much of in our hotel room the day before he died. And so then I went to the "Oh! This was this year's big news story." Lately, every birthday or anniversary seems to be a big news story... Anniversary: Terrorist attacks on WTC.... Birthday: Space shuttle blows up... and so I thought about other tragedies and how I had to go to a funeral for my great-grandfather one year on my birthday and after the memorial we went to TGI Friday's where we had a party and someone also noted that it was my birthday. I boycotted TGI Fridays for years after that. And then I thought about that day... the day he died... that was actually the day the other space shuttle blew up... and that that was Carol's birthday. While Carol never knew my great-grandfather, the other event no doubt had some impact on her and her special day. And it made me all nostalgic again. I hope wherever you are, Carol Maakestad (Makestaad?) that you're doing well. Maybe you'll Google your own name and find this, maybe you won't. Carol was the director of the youth programs at Silverdale Lutheran Church back when I was in Jr. High and High School. You'll find postcards from her serving as bookmarks in my Bible and copy of The Message. You may have met my cat Carol, also named after her. She was a very giving, generous, devoted person. Also really attractive. I feel I should mention that because she was just all around a really good deal. She had been engaged to a good guy from another church when she broke that off and resigned from our church. Lots of people were resigning from our church at that time. And the last time I saw her was during Christmas break of my senior year of college, I had gone to my parent's home to collect the rest of my belongings, said goodbye to Carol, went out and found Patty Hoem (Patty Armstrong) and said goodbye to her and went back to school. But to think of Carol this morning made me miss the entire gang... Doug Hahn, Chris Wilkinson, Robin, Shy Davis, Jeff, Angie, Mark, Patty. I have just fond memories, so I hope they're all doing well. Somewhere in that, I began to think about John Ritter's death again and how it was on his 5-year-old daughter's birthday, which was also the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. And how if he had actually died a few days later, it would have been his own birthday. I don't know John Ritter and never got into the show Three's Company. We had gotten into 8 Simple Rules... in the past two or three months and I just thought that it was in its second or third year by how well the cast clicked on screen. But the media makes us care and why not? We need things to care about and you do make connections with the people you welcome in to your homes through the glowing screen. And sad or tragic things do happen. And whenever they happen, it's also a day marked with good. It's someone's wedding anniversary or someone's birthday. Maybe even their first.

In other news, Sunday night I completed tearing out over 300 square feet of concrete from our front driveway. I don't know what I'm going to do with it now, but that space is marked to become a path and more grass. Now I need to rent a tiller.