It’s only Wednesday and it’s already been “one of those weeks.” Just as I was recovering from the H1N1 virus, my work computer also got a virus in spite of all the protection software and carefully followed rules of not opening any attachments from untrusted sources (which, of course, cannot always be followed as one has to open attachments from bosses and clients.) I learned that iPod batteries do indeed have a life of about two years after twice fully charging the one I received two Christmases ago twice only to have music on the bus ride to work and none on the ride home. I went to set my iPod aside until I had figured out the battery replacement procedures only to discover that I had lost it. I spent a totally unproductive day at a work site yesterday because I was there to make a binder of work papers and was unable to connect to the printer they had provided for me. The IT guys there told me that my two-year old lap top was too old and that the solution was to replace it rather than swap out a printer or a cable. I addressed my Christmas cards on Sunday and found that I had lost all the holiday stamps that I had bought.

I’m not too worried that all of these things are a sign of more bad things to come. I know that they probably are. From time to time my Native American husband and I get a visit from Coyote, the Trickster, who plays lots of mischievous tricks on us. On Monday I found the holiday stamps exactly where I knew I had put them and where I had looked the night before. So I am sure that tomorrow or when the Trickster has had his fun, my iPod will show up, my computer will speed up, and life will return to normal until he decides to pay a visit to us again.

This week at Walt Disney World I had the pleasure of a visit from a friend, Jody Ann Malsbury, whom  Carey and I hadn’t seen since our  very first visit to WDW nineteen years ago.   After a delicious lunch at the Biergarten at Germany, Jody and I spent an afternoon of laughter and reminiscing of places we had gone and experiences we had together when we had lived and worked near each other over two decades ago.    Our lives had changed so much in those nineteen years: Carey and I had moved from Boston to Austin to New Jersey, Jody had a beautiful daughter, but we still laughed the way we did when we were in our twenties, whether at a nine pound lemon in the greenhouses at The Land (imagine how a wedge of that would look in your iced tea) to Ellen DeGeneres pointing at my new haircut in the pre-show film at the Universe of Energy (yes, she was pointing to me) to the hilarious film of our future at the end of Spaceship Earth.

It’s less than a week before Thanksgiving and I am thankful for my friends, many of whom I am reconnecting with on facebook.   Thank you for a wonderful visit, Jody, and for the gift of friendship that has stood the test of time.