Spaces in Between.

Be patient… there’s some formatting issues on this blog due to some wonky code somewhere that I need to fix cut cannot address until tomorrow.  It’s truly hosed but you should always be able to read the most recent post w/o hassle.

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We are solid in the middle of sorting through Cruel Wife’s mom’s stuff.

You might be able to imagine three very intelligent and opinionated sisters in a high-stress situation of sorting through their mother’s belongings after a very unexpected demise.  It has been… trying.  Not bad, not good – no judgment – but a situation requiring lots of latitude and patience.

The only thing we can figure is that she exhibited all the symptoms of heart problems, yet because the most commonly known symptoms of heart problems are the symptoms that apply to men.

Things like blue fingers and nose, one cold leg and one hot, tired for no reason… everyone thought she had the best health and ate healthier and exercised more than any of us.  But, sometimes this sort of thing doesn’t make any sense at all and a common theme here has been one of self-blame, and that is unfair to one but it is also understandable.

So three crazy-tense sisters and two of us husbands who could make it, and we’ve tried keeping kids sane or at the least out of their mothers’ hair.  It’s interesting.

On the way out here from the airport (about three hours of driving), we came across an interesting spot.

A single-wide trailer, its outhouse, and next to a truck car-wash.  Save your soul, empty your bladder, and drive away in a sparkling-clean truck.  Just down the road is the best part – a gas station that sells corndogs.  Since being back in the NW I have had five corndogs, which you don’t find in so many places in Michigan.  It has been a slice of heaven.  So not all about this vacation has been sad.  Hey, work with me here – it’s been a visit with many bittersweet moments as memories have been relived – but there have been chances for people to show strength, too.  Corndogs help.

More later…

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A Little Rain Must Fall.

The news just as I got up this morning wasn’t good.  Cruel Wife entered the hallway and said “Mom is dead.”

I shook my head and said “What?”

“Mom died last night”, she said, and lost it.

Apparently her mother had taken her regular scalding-hot we-can-peel-peaches-and-tomatoes-in-this-water bath and didn’t get out.  About all we can figure is that her heart may have given out.

And so, using blog nicknames as usual, here’s a nod of respect to Bat-Crap Crazy Food Nazi (BCCFN).  She drove me nuts while here at our house and about killed me with her preaching about the evils of salt while she was mentally measuring the amount I used with every shake, but it cannot be denied that she was at her core a kind and caring person.  I’m pretty darned sure that she didn’t suffer and that where BCCFN is right now is a wonderful place.

CW is doing well enough – it comes and goes in waves and as long as she keeps moving and focused on the details of small things she’s holding up.  I will keep the meals coming, the kitchen clean, and whatever is needed to keep things “normal” and let her and the kids deal with things as they wash over them.

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Mixup Sunday

Installment #2 of the short story will be put up tonight.  So sorry folks, life keeps getting in the way of my thought processes.

For those of you who have an iPad and are sick and tired of Apple’s vision of how to be total @$$h*le$ with regards to interfacing with the rest of the world, you can try out an online service called OnLive.  I could spend a crapload of time trying to explain it or I could just post a link here.

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The news article kind of focused on the wrong thing here.  A man was gored in Madrid.  That’s nice.  He was gored by a bull whose horns were intentionally loaded with wax and set on fire.  I am NOT a PETA freak.  I eat animals every single day and will never stop.  Even though I haven’t been in years I consider myself a hunter.  But focusing on the runner instead of the idiots who purposely gave a poor animal pure terror?  Come on, that’s criminal.

Torres said the bull charged the man, gored him and then stamped on his head, causing him “irreversible injuries.” He said he had offered his condolences to the man’s family, but would not cancel similar events scheduled for early Sunday.

“Although ours is a small town, many people from outside come to visit our feast dedicated to Saint Anton,” Torres said, adding that black bows had been tied to town hall flags as a mark of respect and mourning.

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Apparently no understanding is given to a mother who authorized her son to get a tattoo memorializing his dead olver brother.  Arrest and bonding make more sense.

“Unfortunately, the mother has elected not to cooperate with the police any further in this investigation,” Wilkie said. “The tragedy of this is that the child’s tattoos are some sort of memorial to a sibling who was lost in a car accident a few years ago. I understand from the investigators that there are several memorial to the deceased child in the apartment where they live. It may be that professional or religious counseling for their/her grief would be more  helpful than anything.”

Why should the mother co-operate with officials who arrested her for something like this?  I don’t normally feel this way about police but bitez mon crank.  Since when do citizens need their police officers to suggest what we need for our grief process.

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When is an owl swooping down to nab a rat-analogue news?  When the rat-analogue is saved by a real dog.

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Stringing Them Along

Our cat – Jack – has been whizzing all over the house, and I don’t mean “moving fast”.  It all started about the time he snuck outside and stayed there the whole day – shortly thereafter my dad came to visit for four days with his wife.

He’s whizzed four feet off the floor.  I can’t do that, so I have to wonder what kind of internal pressures cats are capable of.

At the vet’s office they looked at his urine test results, stuck a thermometer up his butt (at which point he lost his cool about the whole “let’s go to the vet” thing), palpated everything (hiss, phffffft), looked at his eyes and teeth (phffft, phfffft, growl), and checked his paws (double helpings on everything all around).

The vet concluded what I could have told him – that it was behavioral – and I knew this to 99-and-four-nines percent certainty.   Odds are that the black cat who keeps going through our yard is freaking him out and dad’s visit didn’t help matters.

What was the doc’s advice?  10 mg Amitriptyline once daily.  Great, my cat is on antipsychotics.

Of course we all knew that cats are psychotic furry little animal-world gangsters, anyway.  Or small irritable french women in cheap fur coats.

And at the pharmacy the gal asked if I was from Texas.

No, but I drove through northern Texas once.  No family there, either.

I found out that there is another me, by the same exact name, in Texas.  He has a Jack, too.  A dog though.  I told the gal that the odds weren’t high for that combination and she thought it strange, too.  Good thing the other me’s dog wasn’t a cat or I’d have gotten wiggy.

I got home and threw a pill down his gullet.  He’s been waaaaay sleepy ever since.  Kind of nice because he’s not picking on his sister.

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Cool science thing for today… using DNA to order quantum dots.

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Mmmm… Mobius bacon.  The plan was to put this over two eggs sunny-side up with a few IED’s next to it all and call it the “Grand Salaam Breakfast – Two Mobius Strips and Moons over IED’s.  But gosh-darn it, I’m tired and it was frankly starting to look like too much work.  So anyway, there’s some mobius bacon.  Wonder how it’d look on a tote or a t-shirt…

In related news, I gave up trying to do a Klein Pig.  Maybe later.  It was making my brain smoke.

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That’s funny… the guy has never been known for his sense of humor unless you thought he could walk on water, in which case you had to laugh at his jokes, or else be left behind after the Rapture.

“That’s why all his confirmation — all the answers at his confirmation hearings will be in a form of a question,” Obama said to silence.

“That’s a joke,” he reminded the audience.

- Obama’s lead souffle falling as he babbled about nominating Richard Cordray to run the consumer bureau

Thing is, Big O, if you have to tell someone it is a joke you might as well not draw attention to yourself with an even more awkward thing like saying “That’s a joke”.  Because then it’s like wrassling a girl – if you win, you beat a girl – if you lose, you got beaten by a girl.  If you have to say it was a joke then either yet again no one will find it funny – OR – they’ll do this little pity-chuckle which is even worse.   You lost, man – let it go.

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Hey, good news kid!  You get your cast off today!  And then you get a new one after the re-attachment surgeries to put your fingers back on.  Way to go, dad.

more later

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