Why is the coffee free at work?
Dec. 20th, 2004 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffloThere don't seem to be any VIPs around, but I'm not worried.
Sometimes I worry when the coffee's free & I can't figure out why. Sometimes it means a coworker, or the dog, is sick, or sicker, or has died. It can reflect an inconvenience, like that the water's out, or the heat (which'd be pretty bad today---it's 3 degrees F out there), or (perhaps most commonly) the fact that "important" visitors are in the building. Then there are throw-ins, like "it's Election Day," or some other borderline aspect of note to the day.
Today I'm betting it's cuz it's so cold. Notably unpleasant weather often gets us free coffee. It could be that it's the pre-holiday week, but I'd think it more likely that the coffee will be free for holiday reasons NEXT week. It could also be that our intern is in the house. He's home from U. Indiana on break, and he's come in, I gather, just cuz people were hoping he would. I don't think the office manager would necessarily provide free coffee to honor his presence, but I would.
In any case, there are plenty of possibilities besides something really bad. And our coworker with the repeatedly collapsing lung, who is having surgery today, seems to be doing well---is reportedly in good spirits, at least.
Turns out Paula didn't die from a viral infection---that was a false impression from the irregularities in her heart muscle. It was actually a "plasmacytoma, a relatively rare [and in this case very aggressive] expression of a relatively rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma," which caused extremely high levels of calcium in her blood, and "the hypercalcemia, in turn, caused the kidney and heart problems that killed her."
Her dear partner finds a positive angle for us on her memorial blog, pointing out that, from what he's read about the usual, more prolonged cases of this cancer, "I don't think she missed anything she would have wanted to experience."
Sometimes I worry when the coffee's free & I can't figure out why. Sometimes it means a coworker, or the dog, is sick, or sicker, or has died. It can reflect an inconvenience, like that the water's out, or the heat (which'd be pretty bad today---it's 3 degrees F out there), or (perhaps most commonly) the fact that "important" visitors are in the building. Then there are throw-ins, like "it's Election Day," or some other borderline aspect of note to the day.
Today I'm betting it's cuz it's so cold. Notably unpleasant weather often gets us free coffee. It could be that it's the pre-holiday week, but I'd think it more likely that the coffee will be free for holiday reasons NEXT week. It could also be that our intern is in the house. He's home from U. Indiana on break, and he's come in, I gather, just cuz people were hoping he would. I don't think the office manager would necessarily provide free coffee to honor his presence, but I would.
In any case, there are plenty of possibilities besides something really bad. And our coworker with the repeatedly collapsing lung, who is having surgery today, seems to be doing well---is reportedly in good spirits, at least.
Turns out Paula didn't die from a viral infection---that was a false impression from the irregularities in her heart muscle. It was actually a "plasmacytoma, a relatively rare [and in this case very aggressive] expression of a relatively rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma," which caused extremely high levels of calcium in her blood, and "the hypercalcemia, in turn, caused the kidney and heart problems that killed her."
Her dear partner finds a positive angle for us on her memorial blog, pointing out that, from what he's read about the usual, more prolonged cases of this cancer, "I don't think she missed anything she would have wanted to experience."
