Catching up: Death, cognition and challenging your assumptions

My regular readers may wonder - at least I hope they did - where I’ve been. I’m usually fairly dependable for the Monday Musings and Friday Fishwrap, even when everything else falls apart. During the last couple of weeks we’ve been on a deathwatch of sorts. A longtime friend, and family member in all ways except blood, has been in the final stages of life and finally passed yesterday afternoon.

We didn’t find out immediately since we were without even basic phone service for several hours due to having AT&T U-verse set up here at Rancho Ryan. When the call finally came through, the last thing anybody wanted to do was write blog posts. The tears were running too heavy to even see.

Jack was 85 years. The glioblastoma had come on rather suddenly - undetected -

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Friday Fish Wrap: November 27, 2009

Did everybody have a great Thanksgiving? Sometimes I think that if you simply survive a holiday with your sanity intact and a full belly, it’s a great one. I keep wondering if I’ll ever meet that perfect family that has no ‘issues’, they all tolerate each others viewpoints and treat each other with dignity and respect. There are no toxic members of the tribe. Everybody laughs off the fluffs and ‘disasters’ as something to put in the collective scrapbook of family memories. And, most unbelievable of all … these wonderful people are the ones we’re actually related to by birth.

More often it seems like the truly special people are not connected to us by genetics, but rather by choice. It may not be ideal, but I’ll take it gladly. With thanksgiving, I’ll celebrate those special persons who are passing through my life quite by accident.

Here are two: 

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Airline issues: pilot health

Updated on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 08:15 by mavenandmeddler

Let’s start the week by getting some of this airline related stuff addressed.

A Continental Airlines pilot, Craig Lenell, 60, died on his jetliner as it was crossing the Atlantic ocean last Thursday. It is believed he had a heart attack.

Let me relate an older story to you now.

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