I'm not sure of the old saying but I think it's something along the lines of: Life is what happens while you're making other plans.

That was certainly the case this past weekend, which was supposed to have consisted of going to my sister's house in Connecticut for her annual open house. Sadly, Donna wasn't feeling up to paar so we had to cancel out. We decided to make the best of things by doing a bit of last minute X-mas shopping and then sitting around on Saturday. That's when life happened....

Around midnight we got a call from one of my wife's sisters to inform us that one of her cousins had died unexpectedly. Donna and she had practically grown up together and their birthdays were only a few months apart. They both would have celebrated their fiftieth b-day next year.

We had an almost sleepless night and the next day was spent trying to contact other relatives, to make plans for the coming week. We are still scheduled to fly out to California to visit my step-daughter on Thursday night, so it's going to be a heck of a week.

Add to that the fact that the Queens Library has sent me to cover for a vacationing librarian in another branch (in which I've never worked and have only a vague idea where it is) and things are really crazed.