A couple of weeks ago, I came across an article that stated David Bowie had announced he would no longer be touring. And then his new album came out. Tara is a Bowie fan, so I was telling her these things, lamenting the fact that we’d never get to see him play live.
Three days later, David Bowie was dead.
Last week, I was chatting with a coworker about his weekend. “I went hiking,” he told me. “I saw an eagle!”
“Which one?” I asked. “Glenn Frey?”
That very afternoon, Glenn Frey was dead.
This past weekend, we were talking about the recent spate of celebrity deaths with Anne. “At least Abe Vigoda is still alive!” Tara remarked.
Three days later, Abe Vigoda was dead.
Now, my coworkers think I’m cursing celebrities. Causing their untimely deaths just by mentioning them. I have been absolutely forbidden from speaking the name “Tom Hanks” out loud, because Deb is a huge fan and warns me she will be devastated if he kicks the bucket next.
Mum’s the word. I hope blog posts don’t count, though.
All these deaths have been sad, but the worst for me was Abe Vigoda’s. As you know, I’m a huge fan of Barney Miller. Fish was the heart and soul of the show. The Godfather ain’t bad, either. So long, Sal Tessio. Back in 2012 I blogged about Abe Vigoda and the daily status update on his website. There had been so many rumors of Abe’s untimely demise over the years, his website kept you in the loop on whether or not he was still actually alive. Morbidly fascinating. I visited the site often – most recently, a month or two ago. Sadly, this…
Was replaced with this following his passing:
Sigh. All the good ones are taken from us far too soon. Yes, I realize that Abe Vigoda was a month shy of 95 years old. Doesn’t matter. That’s still too soon, dammit!
On a lighter note, in order to take advantage of our weekend in Ocean Shores, Tara and I took last Friday off. In my absence, I was apparently on my team’s mind, because when I returned to work Monday morning they had left me a little welcome back to the office! surprise.
Thoughtful, huh? How nice of them to spare not just one square, but roughly 800.
Tuesday, Kimberly ended up staying home to watch her sick daughter. There are two important things to mention at this point:
- Kimberly hates Justin Bieber.
- Turnabout is fair play.
You can probably guess where this is going.
Wednesday morning, when she returned to work, she began finding photos of her favorite pop idol in unexpected places. Like inside the photo frame where her daughter’s picture usually resides. The top drawer of her filing cabinet. And, probably my favorite spot of all, her telephone receiver. She only found this when her phone rang.
Best of all? She’s only discovered a few of the photos I surreptitiously placed around her workspace. Chances are, she’s still going to be finding these photos in June.
Talk about the gift that keeps on giving…
Must be nice to have such creative and thoughtful co-workers.
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That’s one word for ’em!
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I am not a NASCAR fan, but my best friend is. She once said, oh, you’ll like it so much better if you just pick a driver to root for. So I did. A week later, the kid was dead. Well, that is tragic, but it is a risk they take. Pick another. So I did and within two weeks another family was also in mourning. My friend told me I am no longer allowed to watch NASCAR. We are all happier this way.
Love the Bieber joke.
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Ha! Clearly we are kindred spirits in that regard. I don’t watch NASCAR either, so I probably couldn’t name a driver if my life depended on it.
Or his, luckily.
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My son knew I loved the Eagles and told me, ‘Dad, the founder of the Philadelphia Eagles died today. Glenn Frey.’ Glenn Frey was even more prolific than I thought.
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Apparently they are now holding practice at the Hotel California!
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Yeah, let us try to put even more meaning to anything that happens around us. The fact is the world is meaningless. People die (we die), everyone does. And we go on. But on a less depressing note, I’m happy to actually be alive and experience all of this with you people! Life is an opportunity to explore and enjoy everything we can.
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And the award for Most Depressing Comment of 2016 goes to…John Berk!
I agree with you, though. Hope you know I don’t really think I’m randomly killing people by invoking their name. Though that sounds like an interesting plot line for a horror novel. Hmm…
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My office doesn’t do enough fun pranks. We used to, but not much anymore. I photobombed my coworkers phone with pictures of me singing into a bunch of cones she wanted to throw away. And then later she wrote a pretty funny haiku about spermicide on my dry erase board. (We work in a family planning clinic, so that’s why.) LOL
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I’ve spent five minutes trying to come up with a witty spermicidal haiku comment in response, but none of mine are fit to print on a family-friendly blog.
I had no idea such shenanigans took place in family planning clinics. Good to know!
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Do you want to know what it was? It was pretty hilarious. You can delete this if inappropriate, but here’s what she wrote after she found a crate full of the stuff for educational use.
So much spermicide
We could build a slip-n-slide
Semen genocide
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That is brilliant! I’m not deleting it. There’s no such thing as “inappropriate” in my world. 🙂
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A week before Whitney Houston died I dreamed of her every night. I never gave her much thought prior to that. Many freaky premonitions like this. I called that Reggie Jackson would hit three homers in that 1977 world series game I think it was. Got that one too. My mother died at 9:13 PM and two weeks ago the 9-1-3 hit on the CA$H 3. A message from mom ? So I played it the next night and it hit and that’s $500 for one ticket. I bought five tickets. Thanks mom.
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Wow, Carl. That’s an amazing story…actually gave me goosebumps. Too bad your premonitions don’t occur before record breaking Powerball jackpots!
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“Wednesday morning, when she returned to work, she began finding photos of her favorite pop idol in unexpected places.”
HAHAHHAHA! Mark, I love what you did to her phone!!!!
I was so sad to hear about the passing of Abe Vigoda. I was a big fan of his. Someone once told me that I had eyebrows like Abe. Ha…and they were right!
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I hated the Beiber too, until I saw him on Lip Sync Battle. Now I kind of love him.
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