In tiny petty ways, I just had a horrible afternoon. All traffic jams and near-wrecks and cranky baby because the errands took way longer than they were supposed to and she was hungry and tired. Plus panic from thinking I'd lost an important attachment for the grant application I was copying and mailing (turned out I'd left it on my desk). When I went back home to get the attachment, I found that there was nothing in my mailbox but one measly letter, which feeds my suspicion that something is going badly awry with all my "big" mail--magazines, packages, writing contest entries, etc. I took the grant to my local post office to mail, talked about the problem with the post office staff, and ended up nearly crying in front of my mail carrier and everyone.

By the time I finally finished everything and got home, Annabel was in a state and I was getting the shakes myself from low blood sugar. I got her fed and down for her nap, but then DH called before I could get enough food and drink into my system to get my brain back in focus and lose the anxious/panicked feeling, so it ended up being kind of a weird, bad conversation, and I won't see him until later this evening, because he had a dinner to go to after work.

All small stuff in a world of life and death, but I'm still trying to calm down.

{{{JZ}}} I am sorry for your loss.

So sorry, JZ. You've mentioned him here before, and I'm sorry you've lost him.

JZ- I am so sorry. My thoughts are with you and your family.

Susan, I'm sorry you had such a frazzling and crappy day. I hate it when it feels that it's just One. Damn. Thing after another.

I'm so sorry, JZ. Peace to you and your family.

In tiny petty ways, I just had a horrible afternoon.

Oh, Susan, that sucks. Days like that just seem to spiral, don't they? Have a glass of wine or a beer after Annabel's in bed and treat yourself to some eye candy, like Sean Bean.

In other news, if you live in an apartment or any kind of attached housing, DO NOT ignore strange thumping noises. We were in a single-family house for more than ten years, and I'm still getting used to separating what are normal noises from other people sharing a wall, and what's not. So today, when I heard the first thump-thump-thump, I should NOT have assumed it was someone hammering.

A friend took Sara this afternoon so I could get some intense writing done, and I had the TV on as background noise. Every once in a while I'd hear this thump, and then it would stop, and I'd wait...and nothing. Then maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes later I'd hear it, vaguely, again. I thought it was coming from the apartment next to us, upstairs like we are, and that someone was working on something. And then I'd get busy writing, zone into a scene, and not hear anything.

So at about 4:45, when I heard it two more times, fairly close together, I thought, What the hell is that?! I went out our front door onto the landing and realized it was coming from downstairs, from my 92-year-old neighbor's apartment. And as I neared her front door, I could hear, "Help! Help!"

Heart attack city. Me, not her. Turns out she fell, and her head had managed to roll just beneath the lip of a little sideboard. And she was down there like that for probably four hours. And had an accident to boot, which she was embarrassed about when the EMTs came.

I don't think anything's broken (every finger crossed), there are no lumps on her head, and she didn't lose consciousness, but still...I wanted to hit my own head against the wall, very, very hard. I followed the ambulance up to the hospital and sat with her while the nurse put the IV in and got her relaxed and comfortable. Her daughter's six hours away, her grandson about an hour and a half, but I called everyone when I got home. I'm going to go up tomorrow and see her, too. She's a funny old thing, sharp as a tack. Said she'd love a Coke, if I remembered.

And the kicker? She wants to *pay* me. Wants to give me actual folding money as a "thank you". There isn't enough "absolutely not" in the world. I think my heart just stopped racing twenty minutes ago.

Eek, AmyLiz.

>Aw, just missed Chikat earlier- I'm staying in Lincoln Park, off Diversey.

Ooh, you sound like you're in my 'hood. Let me know if you have time to grab a cup of coffee or something over the weekend.

Oh. My. GOD, AmyLiz. I'm glad you found her. Stop kicking yourself about how long it took. How were you to know? You did find her, and you did help her, and (knocks wood) she's going to be OK.

Yikes!

Wow, AmyLiz. And I probably would've done the same thing you did--assumed it was hammering or moving furniture or whatever at first.

I'm feeling better, though I probably shouldn't have eaten so many sour cream & onion potato chips. I'm trying to take concrete steps to figure out if I'm really missing any mail beyond the two magazines I know about--I've asked around to find out if the non-finalist entries from that contest have been returned yet, and I'm going to try volunteering free critiques to the first three volunteers on one of my writing lists who'll mail me their chapter and tell me when and via what delivery method they shipped it. Maybe if I end up with a list of 3-4 specific priority or first class mailings that never got here, the post office will actually BELIEVE me when I say part of my mail is missing.

I'm glad you found her.

Oh, I know. That's what Stephen said. That's what she said, for heaven's sake. I'm just going to be checking in with her pretty much daily now, I think. Just sticking my head in, that kind of thing.

She had all kinds of lists and notes on her table about home health care aides, and some brochures from local assisted living places, too, so I think she may be preparing herself for not living on her own anymore.

{{{AmyLiz}}} I am glad she is going to be fine. Don't be too hard on yourself. People ignore house type noises all the time.