What a Difference a Day Makes

It’s taken almost five months for that bone spur in my left foot to heal.

Ready to get back into a walking routine, it was just this past Sunday that I’d tried the foot out at the University.

Everything was so peaceful and so beautiful that I’d posted photos to Facebook with the caption “Nice day for collecting Pokéballs. Hit up 27 stops, hatched a Shellder, added 3281 steps to fitbit and leveled up to 24.”

Shortly after, The Archeologist commented, “We were there earlier, used our lucky egg, got double points. Level 25 for us.”

The very next day all hell breaks out with helicopters overhead and, at 11:40, she posted a panicked, “Shooting at my kids’ school. Waiting”.

At 1:25 came the welcome news her children had been safely evacuated to the University.

Inasmuch as her husband works at the University, she and her children are known, so the news was accompanied with a photo, taken by a friend at the University, of the kids sitting in the bleachers, looking calm, eating a snack.

She and her husband were reunited with the kids at 3:50.

This is the third major world news event to have occurred in the area in the last two years, and the fact that those three happenings have been so close to my building, with the last one being only a mile away, and all three events involving people I know is mind blowing.

Is the Inland Empire really that small?

I don’t personally know many people, don’t even get out and about that often, yet the Blue Cut fire got right up to the cabin of a former coworker I’d become reacquainted with since our paths crossed at Trader Joe’s; that terrorist guy was the county employee who’d signed off on the pool license/certificate for this complex; and the elementary school shooting involved the children of the woman I’d met at the 2014 Spooktacular 5K.

As the elementary school was closed day after the shooting, The Archeologist posted on Facebook that she’d had the kids with her when she went shopping. A friendly store cashier asked if they were on spring break. The Archeologist said she leaned over and whispered that the kids were off school because they attend North Park. Her daughter heard and said "Me and my brother didn't get shot."

Heartbreaking.

She later posted photos of her family at yesterday’s memorial.

I’d thought about walking over but, after seeing the crowds and all the news cameras, was glad I didn’t. Now that things seem relatively calm, I may however walk over this afternoon.

I imagine the fallout will be husbands no longer allowed to come in contact with their teacher wives in the classroom, where children are present.