Shooting
So I got proofs for a book that we want to have at GenCon today. The proofs arrived at 2:00pm and needed to be returned the same day to keep to the schedule. Yikes! So I dropped everything and made proofing pass. I actually turned up two minor typos (OR for OF, that kind of thing) and decided that, in the interest of keeping the product on schedule, I wouldn't even request those changes be made. I reserved the Flexcar, ran the proofs off to the UPS depot at the last minute, and counted myself lucky.
Then, because I had the car for a little while, I decided to drive up to Queen Anne (a 10 minute drive from where I was) to surprise Pramas and bring him home in air-conditioned comfort instead of having to face his usual hour-plus commute by bus. Why not? I did a little grocery shopping (as his office is conveniently across the street from a lovely market) and waited. We drove home, three birds (proofs, groceries, Pramas) killed with one stone.
When I got home, I saw the news that there had been a shooting in downtown Seattle. The victim was shot four times, right in front of the Macy's. Right where Pramas transfers on his commute every damn day.
This is not the first shooting downtown in Seattle in recent months. Gun violence has been cropping up far too often, in fact. We're almost exactly one year out from the shooting at the Jewish Federation. The Capitol Hill post-rave shooting is still all too vivid. Seattle is proposing cracking down on night clubs because of increasing violence (although, to be honest, it's the brazen drug dealing going on in the Pike/Pine Second/Third Avenue area that worries me the most and which seems like it may have been responsible for today's violence... Macy's and the bus stop are not nightclubs).
All I know is I felt like today was a particularly fortuitous day for me to decide to pick Pramas up and drive him home instead of letting him take his normal bus commute. Chris is my husband now, but he started as my friend, growing into my best friend and finally into someone I could not imagine living without. We've known each other longer than I've been a mother (which in itself seems like it must have been most of my life) and we've been committed partners for a decade. I freely admit that I fear losing him like I fear little else; I don't want him to succomb to the Pramas curse (and bad genes) that take Pramas men through heart attacks by their 50s. I certainly don't want to lose him in some random outbreak of violence at his fucking bus stop as he's on his daily commute. Just the thought of it freaks me out and brings me to stupid, girly tears.
I'm not the sort of person who hears about random violence and changes my life willy nilly. I understand there are always things in our lives that we can't control. I learned this lesson early when my friend, one of the most careful, diligent, wonderful mothers you could ever know, lost her baby to complications from chicken pox. Wendy was so much more vigilent than I ever would have been... she noticed right away at the first sign that something was off and took her baby to the doctor. She acted far, far earlier than I ever would have and even so had her precious baby go limp in her arms in the doctor's office! If there was ever an experience that taught me you can't control the world, it was that. Even so...
I've asked Pramas to please find somewhere else to make his bus transfers for a while.
Then, because I had the car for a little while, I decided to drive up to Queen Anne (a 10 minute drive from where I was) to surprise Pramas and bring him home in air-conditioned comfort instead of having to face his usual hour-plus commute by bus. Why not? I did a little grocery shopping (as his office is conveniently across the street from a lovely market) and waited. We drove home, three birds (proofs, groceries, Pramas) killed with one stone.
When I got home, I saw the news that there had been a shooting in downtown Seattle. The victim was shot four times, right in front of the Macy's. Right where Pramas transfers on his commute every damn day.
This is not the first shooting downtown in Seattle in recent months. Gun violence has been cropping up far too often, in fact. We're almost exactly one year out from the shooting at the Jewish Federation. The Capitol Hill post-rave shooting is still all too vivid. Seattle is proposing cracking down on night clubs because of increasing violence (although, to be honest, it's the brazen drug dealing going on in the Pike/Pine Second/Third Avenue area that worries me the most and which seems like it may have been responsible for today's violence... Macy's and the bus stop are not nightclubs).
All I know is I felt like today was a particularly fortuitous day for me to decide to pick Pramas up and drive him home instead of letting him take his normal bus commute. Chris is my husband now, but he started as my friend, growing into my best friend and finally into someone I could not imagine living without. We've known each other longer than I've been a mother (which in itself seems like it must have been most of my life) and we've been committed partners for a decade. I freely admit that I fear losing him like I fear little else; I don't want him to succomb to the Pramas curse (and bad genes) that take Pramas men through heart attacks by their 50s. I certainly don't want to lose him in some random outbreak of violence at his fucking bus stop as he's on his daily commute. Just the thought of it freaks me out and brings me to stupid, girly tears.
I'm not the sort of person who hears about random violence and changes my life willy nilly. I understand there are always things in our lives that we can't control. I learned this lesson early when my friend, one of the most careful, diligent, wonderful mothers you could ever know, lost her baby to complications from chicken pox. Wendy was so much more vigilent than I ever would have been... she noticed right away at the first sign that something was off and took her baby to the doctor. She acted far, far earlier than I ever would have and even so had her precious baby go limp in her arms in the doctor's office! If there was ever an experience that taught me you can't control the world, it was that. Even so...
I've asked Pramas to please find somewhere else to make his bus transfers for a while.
I think we can all agree that the "China House Incident" should be C.P.'s first, last and only brush with death.
Word, my brother.