I suppose I should post this here...Sabrina is dead. Confirmation came this afternoon. Turns out they had to ID her by fingerprint. Not a good sign. I think she may have been shot execution-style.

Today at work was like a zombie movie among those of us who know her. Since she worked in Houston, apparently a lot of my coworkers didn't. They were acting just like the world was as normal as anything. Our CEO had already flown to Houston to be with that office. Grief counselors were brought in there and up here, but nobody sent out information - they just planted the counselors in a room with the assumption, I guess, that we'd just leap in and start pouring about our relationship with her.

I'm a passle of angry, sad, numb, sick. I think sleep isn't going to be so great tonight.

Not Sleeping

One of my coworkers went missing in Houston on Saturday afternoon. I learned she was missing before the Oscar party yesterday. A few hours into it, we learned a body matching her description was found. The clothing matched what she was last seen wearing, with the addition of a white hoodie that I have seen her wear multiple times. I teased her about it because she wore it like she was the Unabomber.

The only way I could sleep was Vicodin washed down with some champagne - not recommended but given the circumstances...

I guess it wore off around 3:30, and I immediately hopped up - so not me - and checked the Houston Chronicle site. Still no confirmation from the medical examiner in Houston.

I am agitated and devastated. Snatched from a Kohl's parking lot in the afternoon? Could have happened to ANY of us. But it happened to a lovely intelligent sweet 27 year old girl who could have passed for a high school student, who didn't like the strawberry drink she got a couple of weeks ago at the Porch.

Please pray for Sabrina, and her family and friends.

Goodbye October!

Thank God October's finally over. Don't known about most people, but it was a horrible month of death for me.

First, the Shmoopy, my cat soul mate.

Then my brother-in-law's best friend Cliff. Cliff had written me some very sweet notes about how sorry he was that the Shmoopy had died. Notes about how sad he'd be if he lost either of his two sweet kitties, Pete and Emmett. And I kid you not, less than two weeks later, Cliff is dead. Out of the blue. At 36.

His kitties were absolutely traumatized. Kyle wanted them to go to a good home in North Carolina, but the only place he could find was the kitties' original mama, who sounds like she comes from a family of cat hoarders, and that's just disgusting. Cliff loved those kitties so much.

So I took them in. I felt like it was fate or something that motivated Cliff to send me such kind notes when the Shmoopy died. Plus, it keeps the kitties in the family, so to speak. Kyle was kind enough to fly them in from North Carolina. At first they were very shy, hiding in every closet and small area in the house. But they've totally warmed up to me, and are even starting to do fine with the nephews and niece. Better than the Shmoopy did.

Supplement that horrible story with a couple other deaths, and you've got October. Good riddance!

R.I.P. The Shmoopy

1997 - 2008

A very good kitty.