One thing after another

I spent two hours at the Social Security office yesterday before I went to work a night shift because Hillary Clinton came to Asheville. I was the live blogger, meaning I took feed from all the people over at the Civic Center and posted it.

Social Security wanted a birth certificate in addition to Mike's death certificate. There's no logic in that. If he died, he must have been born.

"Well, we need to prove you as his mother."

"That's on the death certificate."

"Oh. So it is."

They accepted that and we won't get any more disability checks. I do NOT want to get caught up in that kind of mess.

So, I got to work and found out the memory card in my point-and-shoot had been wiped. I had lent it to the Hillary effort so one of the interns could use it. It's a company camera, but I had my own card in it. I told them it was my card, and somewhere along the line, somebody decided all the memory cards should be erased and nobody said a word to me.

There were pictures of Mike on there. I had a tanty in the middle of the newsroom when I found out. Everybody involved felt terrible, and nobody made the mistake of saying I shouldn't have used the company point-and-shoot for personal photos. I use my own SLR for photos for the paper all the time, so I don't think it's a violation of ethics to buy my own memory card and use it in the point-and-shoot for snapshots.

John Boyle and Nanci Bompey got me out of the office for a few minutes and had me laughing before we got back. I don't know what I'd do without them there. Our executive editor calls us the Three Musketeers.

Blogging about the Hillary visit would have been a lot more fun if the live blogging tool had been better. There were just so many bugs I was ready to throw my computer by the end of the night. Still, I would do it again if we can work out some of the bugs.

Today was fine until late this afternoon when Jennifer called to tell me she found a lump in her breast. Her first cousin had breast cancer when she was 30, so the doctor is very concerned. She and Danny are still having a hard time and now this.

I feel like I'm going to fall apart. Jennifer is like my own daughter. I adore her.

We'll know more Wednesday when she has a mammogram. but I'm really scared.