A post in which it is Thanksgiving Eve

I slept horribly last night. I was up at 2am with insomnia, and then again shortly after 5. I knew I had a lot going on today, but couldn't get back to sleep. At 5:30 I just went ahead and made coffee. I did my last minute packing and got ready for work.

Work was fairly quiet today, which was good. I didn't really feel like doing anything, and everyone was fairly subdued because today was Judi's funeral. We all carpooled up and went together. It was a nice service, although there wasn't enough room. They had just planned a small memorial, but of course a lot of people from the office went. I had never been to a Jewish funeral. The rabbi that did the service had just met Judi during her last hospitalization, but did a nice job on the service. We were discussing the funeral afterwards because the rabbi had said that she would be saying the Mourner's Kaddish. I thought that was odd, so I pulled it up online and read a bit about it afterwards. Judi's kids don't practice any longer, but if my mother wanted someone to pray for her after her death I don't think I could send someone else to do that whether I believed the same thing she did or not. But everyone handles stuff like that differently and Judi wasn't orthodox. Plus it is a great mitzvah to render kindnesses to the dead according to Judaism.

After work, I jetted for home, getting there just as Highway 85 started to back up and turn into a parking lot. I was really glad that I wasn't going to Charlotte tonight. When I got to the front door, there was a note in it from Terry, who is back in town, apparently. I'll have to find out more about that later. I tried to call him, but his phone has either been turned off or he's changed numbers again.

I threw the bags in the car, tended to the cats, and hit the road. Traffic to Columbia was blessedly light, and I arrived right on time to go out to dinner with Mom and Rod. We went to a little Greek Italian place near her house called Zorba's. I love that place. After some lovely pasta with shrimp, spinach and a gorgeous pesto cream sauce, we went back to Mom's for the picture thing. Mom loves to take pictures, and every time I go to her house she wants me to look at them all.

By the time I was done with that, I was wiped. It's been a long emotionally draining day.