"Call on God, but row away from the rocks."

Yeah. I was listening to some random thing on tv and working hard to get through the federal application system before a Saturday deadline when the news popped in with a plane in the Hudson.

Part of what I was thinking was about how the people of New York City must have felt as they witnessed that sight or heard that sound. The other part was how absolutely, without question, I am not a sheep. I am a sheepdog.

I have traveled a great deal over the course of my career and my life, almost always by plane. There is never a time that I settle in my seat (which I have always chosen to be in the front of the plane or by the wings)without knowing which direction and how many seat backs are between me and the exits, without sizing up where are the children, the elderly, who will need assistance, without having put my little tiny travel purse through the loops of my jeans so that it stays attached to my body and not in my backpack which WILL be left behind. I wear jeans when I fly and I have actually shown up at board meetings in some "other" city, wearing jeans and boots because my plane was late and I refuse to travel in heels and a skirt and insist on wearing cotton and sensible shoes. Yep, I actually do all these things when I fly. Nobody knows it but me, and now you. I suppose I have always thought of how much fun would be made of me if people knew I did this ritual getting on a plane.

The flight attendants, they aren't there to give you coffee or a coke or pretzels, they really aren't. They are there for just this reason, to bark orders at you to do the right thing at the right time so the odds of your survival in an emergency go up. The crew in the cockpit, all those hours of training, all that experience. Sometimes I will laugh to myself when we have a particularly hard or short landing and think "this guy flew for the Navy" and all the while I am grateful for their experience.

Those people all lived. Part of that was luck, but luck IS made and that crew, and particularly that captain, are sheepdogs.

The other thing I thought and Lisa said, was how wonderful it must have been for the first responders to be able to successfully rescue people, scared, cold and grateful people. That had to be good for them.

I'm not afraid of flying, I just like to have all the tools I can at my disposal for "just in case".

random thoughts...

My, I'm chatty today

I saw this as I was getting ready to try yet another call to my Mom (who is still not in her room tonight so I've heard the "magical day" thing twice tonight already.)

It made me sad. The Christmas Zach was in Iraq he got to see Robin Williams. Every conversation was about Robin Williams is coming and I get to see him! It was wonderful. I eventually wrote Robin Williams after much searching about just HOW to do that, and thanked him for going to Baghdad to make my son and everyone else there laugh rather than be home with his own family at Christmas. What a wonderful thing he did. I actually wrote him to thank him because it was on my "to do" list before that knock on the door came, and I wanted to let him know he made my son's last Christmas special. So I write, and I check that off my list and carry on.

A month or so later I get this envelope in the mail with the return address "Robin and Marsha Williams" Of course I've forgotten and I'm confused, I don't know who this is. I open the envelope and there is a letter from Robin Williams and his wife thanking me for my letter and Zach's service, and telling me that he has a son named Zach and that they have made a donation for a redwood tree to be planted in my Zach's memory. Wow. Sweet. Talk about caring, real, and going beyond anything expected.

So, that they are getting a divorce after so many years together is just kinda sad and I wish him the very best.

'Nuff Said

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez