Cleaning up the tabs

"Funny the way it is, if you think about it

Somebody's going hungry and someone else is eating out

Funny the way it is, not right or wrong

Somebody's heart is broken and it becomes your favorite song

The way your mouth feels in your lovers kiss

Like a pretty bird on a breeze or water to a fish

A bomb blast brings a building crashing to the floor

You hear the laughter while the children play war"

- Dave Matthews Band, "Funny the Way it Is"

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It is funny, actually. Or interesting. I began this post a week ago and I filled it with cute, funny, upbeat little remarks, but a few things have happened since then that give me pause. My heart isn't as light as it was last Friday. I've many things on my mind. In that light, I'll go ahead and post last week's lightness . . . and follow it with more serious matters.

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I found this in my Facebook news feed last week and it just made me smile. I don't know what it is or from whom it came, but it makes my heart warm.

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My drive to school is about 11 minutes long. I always listen to NPR. It's amazing what I've learned driving up the hill on just ONE morning:

- Scott Simon reported on the new men's must-have from Fashion Week: some sort of pashmina cashmere hood thing, retailing at $645. He chuckled. I chuckled.

- the economic crisis in Egypt resulting from protesters' not working

- the fact that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid comprise a whopping 40% of our national budget

- a dinosaur fossil was discovered in an empty Utah quarry last week; its hips were huge, leading scientists to reason that its quadriceps were much larger than most dinosaurs, so - naturally - it must have used those legs to kick its mating competition. (I'm not making this up.) The best part is that they gave it a Latin name that literally translates "Thunder Thighs."

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AJS and DW and I were watching trash TV on Hulu last weekend (so I guess it's not TV anymore - ?), and this commercial popped up:

It's so funny, and then all of a sudden, BAM! Impact. That matters. I followed the link to another commercial from the same campaign:

And I went to one.org and signed the petition, not because George Clooney asked me to but because I believe that budget cuts could cost ACTUAL HUMAN LIVES. The fact that people are doing something about it - making their voices heard, gathering together to change things - gives me just the tiniest shred of hope.

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My beloved mountains claimed a good person this week. My friend AT's roommate was caught in a sidecountry avalanche and died. He perished on a slope I've skied many times.

Another friend, TB, a ski patroller in Snowmass, was gravely injured in an accident at work 12 days ago; he was airlifted to Denver and was in surgery to repair his spinal cord mere hours after his coworkers found him in a tree well. Although his condition has vastly improved in this teeny time frame, he has such a long road ahead of him, and my heart aches that he's trapped in a hospital bed when he should be working and playing and skiing.

It's such a scary thing - that mountain town I love so much is also so, so dangerous. Five people have died in-bounds this year. My boss' son was killed two years ago, and a first-year lifty died in an accident before the season even started this year. It's REAL. I think if I sat at home and prayed for the safety of the people I love in Aspen, it would be a full-time job.

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Kelsey Grammer divorced his third wife two weeks ago and married his fourth tonight. I'm embarrassed to share a name with him. He doesn't deserve it. The worst part, I think, is that his behavior is totally legal, whereas it remains illegal for a committed gay couple to marry in the United States. This kind of bullshit just makes me want to put my head in my hands and cry.

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One last plug for a fantastic humanitarian cause: DW and I signed up for the National Bone Marrow Donor Program a few months ago. You can find the link here. You should do it, too, but read about the program on the website before you decide. Informed consumers - even informed volunteers - will change this world for the better, and although I'm sure you already know this, you shouldn't do something just because I ask you to.

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I guess if I had to come up with an Unexpected Spark this week, it would be this: I'm so incredibly grateful for the gamut of experiences this life serves up. We are so damn blessed.

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One more thing. The title of this post comes from the fact that over the course of the week, when I find things that I want to blog about later, I leave the tabs up in my internet browser (Google Chrome, if you care about such things). By mid- to late-week, I have so many open tabs on the page that I can scarcely navigate between my email and Facebook. I hope it goes to show that I really care that you take the time to read this - I'm so flattered, watching my little page counter go up and up - and I hope that you like the things I choose to write about.

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Okay, one more thing. I made this for my friend RE's birthday tomorrow. She reads my blog, so she may see it before she gets it. That's okay with me. I'm really glad she's my friend.