A good end to a lackluster day (and bad start to an I don't know what yet day)

Yesterday started off lackluster. It was nice not rushing out the door,
immediately, getting to the Metro with K, riding with K, etc. It's not
something I do... like ever, actually.

On the way to my Excel training, I.. it's difficult to say. I side-stepped,
maybe or slipped, but I felt something in my shoe give and I suddenly felt
like my heel was walking on a lumpy mass. I get to my stop, sit down and
check it out and... there's sort of a pad under my heel on my shoe that
gave... and so I may need to look for replacement shoes real soon now
(though, these shoes lasted a while, so props for that.) At least I didn't
get lost, though...

Then I sat around for an hour, which WAS nice. usually, by 8:30 in the
morning, I'm neck-deep in work and stressing. So a nice quiet morning was
very nice.

Then training started. Training was SUPPOSED to be Advanced Excel Training
in Excel 2007. So I expected some advanced stuff.. stuff I'd not seen and
not used and would be helpful (since everyone uses Excel here and there.)
The fact was.. training was... not what I expected. I learned new things,
only because I'd never used Excel 2007 before, however as far as ADVANCED
tricks, things that I'd, personally, probably use? Nope. Not much.
Which.. I'll be honest I got a little unhappy about.. Unhappy enough that
when asked to do a survey afterwards, I let the surveyors know...

Way home was pretty quiet. Pramila followed me to the metro station, I got
on, listened to my iPod, grumbling about the training, and then.. mid-ride
home.. my headphones, my $50 Sony noise-cancelling headphone quit on one
side. I fiddle with it, I try to make it work. Nope. They're quite dead.
Blast again!

Got home about 6:00, ate, got ready for dance.. and dance.. was the good end
to a lackluster day!
Yesterday was the "Valentine's Day Dance.". I went alone. K was at Choir. I
changed into my Red Polo shirt and went in. At the door, there was a big box
of corsages and pins. So I pinned one to my pocket (not that it stayed) and
went to class. Class was Waltz and I learned something that, even as I'm
learning it, I'm thinking "Oh god, we're going to need this for freestyles."
(On the plus side, now I have exposure to it and some practice!).
Unfortunately, I couldn't get the flowers to stay and they shook around a
lot during class, so they only made it half-way through. :(
Practice.. was a gas! The instructors like livening things up and having a
good time, and they did. About half-way through the night, we got a
mini-show. Two people who met, as students, at Arthur Murray and got
married, did a Rumba for us. A few dances later, they played a little game.
They named five moves that they claim were once a part of our syllabus (I
doubt it! Not with some of these names), and then the instructors helped us
figure out, based just on the description, what the move might be. Five
mintues and you're done. It was a bit of a train wreck, but funny. :)

Then I woke up, sore, stiff (ah well. C'est La Vie), hopped in the shower,
checked online and say something about another crash in NY. Then I read the
news. Crash in Buffalo.
*PANIC*
Really.. I probably have nothing to worry about. I'm sure if something had
happened, K or I would have been called, but it freaked me out and it took a
while to relax again...

Thus endeth the post.

Meh.

K isn't home. By the looks of her last post, and how late she left, she may not be home for a while.

The good news is... I, personally, lost no one in the crash. All my family is safe. All my friends. The plane crashed a mile from K's grandma's house, which... is all sorts of freaky, but everyone is fine.

The bad news is.. it looks, now, like two brothers, an old acquaintance and one good friend have lost someone they knew and cared about in it. It's hard to not be kinda depressed and blah about that fact. 50 people, total.. and yet.. Buffalo's small enough someone is at least one or two connections from someone who died.

It really brings home how small a community Buffalo is. We may be a city, but in a lot of ways, we're more of a small town. Not to say we all know each other, but the connections run deep and... I mean... like I said above.. 50 people died on that plane and I've already have four connections.

M is a wreck. I called him up. I didn't know what to say. You can only say "I'm sorry" so many times. Mostly, I just tried to listen. By the looks of Facebook, J is no longer faring much better.

I think... I'm somewhere in between shocked and upset. J's friend, the one J is upset about.. was the cantor who did his bar mitzva. M is unluckier... his connection was a good 'friend'.

I may be here, safe and sound in Northern Virginia, but tonight I mourn with the city I grew up with...