Today was the first day in awhile when an umbrella wasn't a part of my outfit...

Anyway, as I mentioned last week, a woman in our office lost her father, and yesterday the rest of the office got together to figure out what we should do. My boss sent an email out saying we should all pitch in and get a card and flowers, and one of my co-workers agreed. My retort was that we should just do a card. It seemed a little pointless just to get her flowers before we had funeral arrangement info, but given that a few days had elapsed since her dad's death, I didn't just to wait without doing something. I felt a tad bit guilty after I hit send on that email, and I felt like a couple of my co-workers gave me dirty looks. I was not being insensitive or cheap, but this ain't Mother's Day when giving flowers directly is totally appropriate. Flowers at a church or funeral home are perfect. Even when my lady lost the baby, my co-workers sent flowers to the hospital and that was nice. This just felt different. So because I felt guilty, I went and bought the card this morning..but I still feel like I did the right thing, although its not totally out of realm of possibility taht I did not.

My dad informed me recently that he has a new girlfriend, and yesterday when we talked about her at length, he was absolutely giddy. Now very few of you who have read this blog have ever met my dad, but "giddy" and my father have never gone hand in hand. He's a very stoic man, who rarely shows outward emotion, except when he a) talks about the Temptations and b)plays with his grandsons. But yesterday he was talking about what he and his lady did the previous weekend, he talked about how nervous his lady was to meet us, and we talked about other things that I cannot discuss without violating and disrespecting the man code. Still, it was nice to see that at age 58, my father still gets excited and enthused over a woman. Hopefully my mother will follow suit soon.

Sunshine In My Life - Phyllis Hyman