I’ve been sorta, well, SLOW today. Last evening at about 11:30pm, I received an e-mail from my friend Susan in Norfolk about her seeing news of one of our high school classmates getting killed in Afghanistan. So I did a little research and found out that our friend, William Jefferson, was an Air Force Combat Controller stationed at Pope AFB just south of here. The work he did for the Air Force was pretty high speed and among the most dangerous for Airmen. He was in Afghanistan when his vehicle was struck by an IED.

I was pretty upset at the news and didn’t sleep too well last night. Since I worked all day on Sunday cleaning the house, plus mowing the lawn and doing some landscaping, plus making a nice Easter dinner…I was pooped. But my mind was too busy to rest well.

So I’ve been very sluggish today. I helped Susan pass the word about Willie’s death to some of our other high school classmates, and I was able to get on the phone with the public affairs office at Pope AFB and found out about a memorial service scheduled on Wednesday morning. I think I’d like to go…I just need to arrange child care and reschedule a parent/teacher conference and I think I’ll be set.

Dave suggested dinner out for the family tonight, and while at dinner he mentioned that he didn’t think I’d take Willie’s death so hard, considering I’d NEVER mentioned him before. He’s right, I hadn’t. Willie wasn’t exactly a close friend, but we had many classes together during our 4 years of high school.

Upon reflection, last night I had realized that in the 6 1/2 years since we’d first invaded Afghanistan, and in the 5 years since we’d entered Iraq, TSgt Jefferson is the first combat death that’s struck a personal chord.

Also, my kitchen laptop died yet AGAIN. Another hard drive format, another reinstallation of Windows XP — which has to be followed by Service Pack 2, Wireless card adapter, IE 7.0, and an Anti-Virus. That’s just so I can hop back on here and write this to you. But it’s back up, by some miracle.

Early bedtime tonight! Stay tuned for updates on the ant farm (it’s still going strong!), getting the house “Staged” for going on the market in early May, and my struggles with Pez.