I got a call a few minutes ago from the person who cat sits for me.

Sometimes the sound of a voice tells you there's trouble, so I asked, are you all right? No. He was canceling his appointments — all appointments, all clients — indefinitely. Because he's just home from a crazy bad hospital/diagnostic trip, he has an rare "disorder", and his life is inside out.

A couple weeks ago a San Francisco woman — a Twitter connection a couple degrees out — rode her motorcycle to fetch a sandwich, was hit by a distracted driver and lost part of her leg. So, she had an amputation, wrote about it,* tweeted updates,

Come see my talk at @OddSalon tomorrow and see whether I really have leg to stand on! http://t.co/EuYBpdjroz #medievalhistory #amputeejokes

. . .

@PennyRed @Theremina @nadya Everybody just had to show off their TWO LEGS

and made a public appearance, in the space of a couple weeks. Her attitude is something. No doubt she has dark moments, but click the link and see for yourself.

(She's going to get a badass prosthetic and, YEAH, she'll ride again too.)

I wonder if maybe we aren't built comprehend these things: you're thinking about a sandwich, you think you maybe have the flu. Bam. Hello world.

*via that link, if you want, she's taking donations to help cover medical and lots of upcoming lifestyle adjustment costs

[Some details are changed to respect my, um, cat sitter's privacy. –BR]