Missing Meme

It's been three years since my grandmother died, and I miss her so much. I wear her diamond ring, and everytime I look at it, I remember her words to me: "It always comes down to you and me." When I see the diamond ring, I think, yes, that is true. In many ways, she was my rock. I had saved some of her voicemail messages on my phone, and I was still able to hear her wish me a happy birthday, a Merry Christmas, Happy Easter, etc. It was very comforting. Every five days, Bellsouth would send a prompt asking me if I wanted to save or delete my archived messages, and of course I saved them. Then AT&T took over BellSouth, and in one swoop, without any warning, wiped out my voicemail messages. I won't be able to hear my grandmother's voice again. I complained to AT&T, telling them they don't know how much I lost by that and how devastating it is to me. But they just acted like, "Oh well." I don't understand why a company would not have the foresight to send out a message warning their customers of this change. It breaks my heart.

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Today in Virginia, my sister and I went to a local book fair, where we got some great books at a huge discount. I bought a book on Tony Blair for my mother, some pleasure books for myself as well as a constitutional law legal briefs outline for me (hope it is keyed to my textbook for next year--we haven't heard what our textbooks are yet), and a great slang dictonary for my Taiwanese language partner. I can't wait to give it to her. It is really thick, and I wish I had time to read through it myself. I will give it to her Tuesday when we have our last meeting before she moves to New York.

I almost resisted, but I also bought a book on marketing for my new job. I will need to get in the swing of marketing soon. I almost didn't buy it, because there were tons of business books there, and I wasn't sure this was the right one for me to buy. I kept thinking I could buy a similar book later. But I went back and got the marketing book off the shelf. I opened it and was struck by the fact that the page where I opened talked about the very product that we produce! I couldn't believe it! I told my sister, and she said this was an example of "shopping destiny." I like that term.