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xiphiasI'll start with the wonderful thing, which is the thing I WANT to talk about, and so you can skip the horrible thing, which I DON'T want to talk about, but can't avoid talking about.
The wonderful thing: this morning was the Boston Light Swim, an eight mile swim from off of Little Brewster Island, where the Boston Light lighthouse is, into the L Street Bathhouse in South Boston. Eight miles, open-water, wetsuits not allowed. Father tried it last year, and made an impressive five miles, and then we pulled him out with hypothermia.
This year, though? Four and a half hours, and on the beach.
Everything just came together. Dad was keeping track of the boat we were in, so he was able to let us guide him (in the past, he's had problems just sort of randomly swimming off in weird directions, but this time, he didn't veer off). I keep track of how many strokes per minute he does, counting each arm as one stroke (so left-right-left-right would be four strokes, not two strokes). He normally does about fifty strokes per minute, and if he drops much below that, there's a problem.
This time? His stroke count was normally between fifty-four and fifty-eight. Once, it was sixty-one strokes per minute, and we had to tell him to slow down! He never even got as LOW as his usual speed.
Lis did a bunch of research on sports nutrition for open-water swimmers, and a lot of the credit for how well we did goes to her. But a lot MORE goes to Dad for really doing some serious training this year, and really kicking ass.
Okay, the really horrible thing
Lis's company beach party was on Friday. And everybody was having a really good time when a van got stuck in reverse and ran over four of Lis's co-workers. One died. Lis was about ten feet away when this happened.
Dan Callahan was a sixty-one year old guy who I'd met a few times. He worked in Facilities, and so everybody knew him. He had a basset hound who he used to bring to work with him, probably because, if taking pets to work was against the rules, it'd probably have been his job to get people to stop, so, well, he could. He also kind of looked like her. She's a really sweet dog, and Dan was a really sweet guy.
Dan's daughter Emily and son Mike both work for the company, and his other daughter Mary used to work there, too. Emily's in Lis's old team, so she's worked with her, and they're friends. I thought I remembered that Emily's husband also worked for the company, but I may be making that up.
Mike had skipped the company party, but Emily was there, and saw her father after the emergency workers pulled him out from being pinned under the truck.
The party was over. The company president has already set up grief counseling, and sent out a condolence email which really gets the point across that he's personally upset by this, too, not just saying all the sort of company-president things. Lis is impressed with her co-workers -- within seconds, everybody who had first aid training was there helping (including the doctor who's in charge of vetting their medical databases), everybody who had enough muscle to make a difference ran over and lifted the truck up enough to get the people pinned under the truck out, and everybody who couldn't do anything actually stayed out of the way.
Lis went to a used bookstore, which is what she does for spiritual consolation (libraries and bookstores work for her like cathedrals do for other people), got ice cream, and then came home and snuggled our cats. A lot.
Back to good news: my mother had a hip replacement, and is recovering from the surgery amazingly well. They're now doing the minimally-invasive surgery using surgical robots, so Mom only has three small incisions -- and, just a couple days after the surgery, two of the incisions don't even need dressings.
The wonderful thing: this morning was the Boston Light Swim, an eight mile swim from off of Little Brewster Island, where the Boston Light lighthouse is, into the L Street Bathhouse in South Boston. Eight miles, open-water, wetsuits not allowed. Father tried it last year, and made an impressive five miles, and then we pulled him out with hypothermia.
This year, though? Four and a half hours, and on the beach.
Everything just came together. Dad was keeping track of the boat we were in, so he was able to let us guide him (in the past, he's had problems just sort of randomly swimming off in weird directions, but this time, he didn't veer off). I keep track of how many strokes per minute he does, counting each arm as one stroke (so left-right-left-right would be four strokes, not two strokes). He normally does about fifty strokes per minute, and if he drops much below that, there's a problem.
This time? His stroke count was normally between fifty-four and fifty-eight. Once, it was sixty-one strokes per minute, and we had to tell him to slow down! He never even got as LOW as his usual speed.
Lis did a bunch of research on sports nutrition for open-water swimmers, and a lot of the credit for how well we did goes to her. But a lot MORE goes to Dad for really doing some serious training this year, and really kicking ass.
Okay, the really horrible thing
Lis's company beach party was on Friday. And everybody was having a really good time when a van got stuck in reverse and ran over four of Lis's co-workers. One died. Lis was about ten feet away when this happened.
Dan Callahan was a sixty-one year old guy who I'd met a few times. He worked in Facilities, and so everybody knew him. He had a basset hound who he used to bring to work with him, probably because, if taking pets to work was against the rules, it'd probably have been his job to get people to stop, so, well, he could. He also kind of looked like her. She's a really sweet dog, and Dan was a really sweet guy.
Dan's daughter Emily and son Mike both work for the company, and his other daughter Mary used to work there, too. Emily's in Lis's old team, so she's worked with her, and they're friends. I thought I remembered that Emily's husband also worked for the company, but I may be making that up.
Mike had skipped the company party, but Emily was there, and saw her father after the emergency workers pulled him out from being pinned under the truck.
The party was over. The company president has already set up grief counseling, and sent out a condolence email which really gets the point across that he's personally upset by this, too, not just saying all the sort of company-president things. Lis is impressed with her co-workers -- within seconds, everybody who had first aid training was there helping (including the doctor who's in charge of vetting their medical databases), everybody who had enough muscle to make a difference ran over and lifted the truck up enough to get the people pinned under the truck out, and everybody who couldn't do anything actually stayed out of the way.
Lis went to a used bookstore, which is what she does for spiritual consolation (libraries and bookstores work for her like cathedrals do for other people), got ice cream, and then came home and snuggled our cats. A lot.
Back to good news: my mother had a hip replacement, and is recovering from the surgery amazingly well. They're now doing the minimally-invasive surgery using surgical robots, so Mom only has three small incisions -- and, just a couple days after the surgery, two of the incisions don't even need dressings.