Good lunch, good friends

Wonderful lunch with friends today (you know who you are). I love it when a conversation isn't only about the surface ripples of our lives -- what's going on at work, whose kid has the sniffles -- but also ventures into the inner landscape, our hopes and fears, our dreams, our growth.

*mwah*.

I have good friends.

Friends In My Thoughts

- Someone in the path of Tropical Storm Arlene whose roof is still a blue tarp a year after Hurricane Ivan.
- Several someones who are looking for jobs, including at least one whose current job is just awful.
- A dog who needs a home. (Technically speaking, this dog isn't my friend, but... well, dogs qualify as friends whether I've met 'em or not.)
- Someone who's getting married tomorrow.
- Someone whose mother died four years ago Sunday, and who has a very hard time around that anniversary.
- A kitty who has painful, uncurable, but manageable, joint trouble.
- Someone whose back is spasming and hurting the last couple of days.
- Someone who is looking for new office space.
- Multiple someones on very restricted diets to try to puzzle out nasty health issues.
- Someone who's sitting in a very tense location every day, for work, with antagonistic people on the other side of a fence carrying big rocks with her and her coworkers' names on them.
- Someone who is in that crazymaking stage where the side business can't QUITE replace the day job YET.
- Someone whose father-in-law is about to undergo lifesaving -- but risky -- surgery.

Others too...

I wish all of you the best. Strength, peace, success, health.