Sunny Saturday

I made the most of my day today, getting to the gym right as it opened, then coming home to work, followed by a trip to the outskirts of Chinatown and a 20-minute walk from there to Beacon Hill, for groceries. Right before I left, my phone rang. It was OSB's husband; she'd had the baby last night, about two weeks before her due date. Her water broke on Thursday at noon, two hours before she was due to attend the funeral of someone we both worked with. He died last week at 59 after a series of small strokes. Three days before he passed, his wife, who worked for more than a decade in an office right next to his, underwent surgery for cancer. Her prognosis, thankfully, is good; she'll just need radiation.

OSB's baby, Lucy, is healthy and OK.

When I was on the phone with OSB last week she said that when she was reading to Ella, her two-year-old, she started crying, because the person who died would never get to read to his grandchildren again.

I remember him giving me one of his family's old air conditioners; he came to my house and installed it for me. Since I lived alone on the first floor, he cut and a piece of wood for me to stick between the top of the sill and the bottom of the window frame, so the window couldn't be opened from the outside. He also brought along his seven-year-old son, I think so that I wouldn't be uncomfortable.