This is not the day for the Friday AFternoon Challenge. I deleted what I had started

[CTyankee]

to post.

This is a time for mourning.

We can return to the art next week. We'll need it...

[Mnemosyne]

1. Thank you, CT. nt

[countryjake]

2. Good thinking!

I feel that the empathy so many are feeling for all of the families of those 20 little schoolkids and the teachers who tried to protect them is simply overwhelming right now. A schoolhouse destroyed. Such horrors here right at the height of the holidays. Unimaginable. Grief.

Thank you for your sensitivity, CTyankee.

[CTyankee]

4. This is truly unimaginable...and yet...there are places all over the world where little

children are slaughtered. But here, it seems like it can never happen. And then it does.

[Panasonic]

3. Yeah..saw your thread and just checked it out..

Heart wasn't in it....

[CTyankee]

6. Don't get me wrong. Art is the only saving thing I know that I have.

Art does reach out to your soul when it is truly art.

But there is a time and place for everything.

[NightWatcher]

5. I actually could use an art quiz or a lolcat

[CTyankee]

8. Next week...but not now...

[11 Bravo]

7. I noticed that, and started to PM you. You made a thoughtful and sensitive decision, and ...

I appreciate you.

[CTyankee]

9. Yes, I had just had a VNA assessment as I am one day post-up from surgery...

I was all taped up and feeling sorry for myself. So I rushed to the computer and started posting. When I finished I looked around. The devastation here has never been worse, even when we lost the 04 election. This is so personal. I think this is a parent's worst nightmare.

[11 Bravo]

10. I've got a 19 year old and a 16 year old (The big guy is home from college). They both ...

have had to tell me tonight , "Dad, we get it, you love us. Now can you stop with the hugs?" (But they both keep hugging back.)

[CTyankee]

11. My son was in NYC on 9/11. His office was downtown. For a few hours I didn't know

where he was. He called, tho. He had the day off and called from the rooftop of his Brooklyn apt. building and he was crying, having watched the towers come down. He worked near the towers not in them but that was still too close for comfort.

That's when it hit me that we can come THIS CLOSE to utter tragedy and there but for the grace of god...