Prayers

7-Year-Old Girl Dies In Housefire

Authorities say a 7-year-old girl died in a house fire in Greenwood. The girl's mother was badly burned but got the girl's twin brother out of the house unharmed.

The fire was early Sunday. The mother and daughter were taken to a hospital in Fort Smith. The girl was pronounced dead and the mother was flown to a hospital in Little Rock, where she was in serious condition.

Authorities have not released the names of the victims. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Greenwood Mayor Garry Campbell says there were no indications of foul play.


~~~


The mother in the news story is a member of a message board that I've posted on for several years. Not only has she lost everything she had, but she's also lost her daughter and is fighting for her own life as I write this.

I don't "know" this person, but having crossed paths with her online for years, I'm aching for her. If you can spare some prayers, she could really use them.

Incidents like this make me wonder if there really IS a grand design (as I've always believed), or if shit just happens for no good reason. If there really IS a God, why would he let this happen to such good, church-going people? And then I start wondering if my occasional doubts in a higher power are going to send me straight to hell.

Dammit.

This morning, as is customary, my first duties were to the children. Fresh clothes, bathroom trips, bowls of cereal, television tuned to children's programming. It was a solid 2 hours before I realized I had done nothing to tend to myself. When the children were sufficiently settled, I put on a pot of coffee and started making myself some toast. I poured a cup of juice and set it on the counter.

Youngest Child, whose favorite food in the world is TOAST, must have smelled it, so he came toddling in.


YC: "Mummy! TOAST!" [points to toaster oven]
K: "No, pumpkin, you already ate. This is Mummy's toast."
YC: "NO! MY TOAST!"
K: "No. It's actually not."
YC: "But...but...but..."
K: "Mummy can make YOU some toast in a little while."
YC: "But...Mummy...TOAST...PWEEEEEASE!!!!!!"


The bottom lip started to quiver. Fine. FINE! I gave him one of my pieces of toast and sent him on his way. It was at this point that the dog decided he had to go out, so I opened the door for him and turned back to what was left of my breakfast.

Um...hello? Toast, juice...where the hell did I leave it?

In the next room, I found Youngest Child happily munching away on TWO pieces of toast, and Middle Child drinking my juice.

At least they don't drink coffee. Yet.

Grr...

My apologies for the lack of postings lately. I've been increasingly annoyed at work and my kids seem to become more hellish as the weather grows warmer.

Friday can be our example of a typical hell day in the K household. My little ones, driven mad by 2 weeks of rain, were begging to go outside to play...who was I to say no? They'd practically been having a fist fight in the back seat the entire way home, and I was all too glad to boot them outside. It only lasted about an hour, however, as Youngest Child took it upon himself to start beating Middle Child with a wiffle ball bat. Both children were promptly dragged in and forced into the bathtub to be de-mudded.

I dumped a capful of bubble bath into the tub and went around the corner to grab a towel. As I started washing them, I noticed that there were many, many more bubbles than had been there previously. I turned around to look at the bottle of Mr. Bubble that I had left sitting on the sink (brand new bottle, 32 ounces or so) only to find it empty, with a trail of sudsy footprints leading to and fro. It probably took me 20 minutes to rinse all the bubbles out of their hair. Needless to say I was kinda pissed. It's no wonder I seem to always be out of the damned stuff.

That motherfucker is always so happy.
Clearly, Mr. Bubble has no children.

I dried them and sent them on their way so I could take care of the rest of the mess on the floor when Youngest Child started demanding chocolate milk.

YC: "Mummy. I want a choco milk."
K: "You need to wait."
YC: "I WANT CHOCO MILK!"
K: "You need to wait."
YC: "PWEASE!!!"
K: "That's nice that you said please, but you need to wait."
YC: [stamping feet] "PWEASE, MUMMY! PWEASE! PWEEEEEEEEASE!!!!!!!"
K: "NOT NOW."
YC: [screaming] "I...SAID...PWEASE!!!"

Clearly, we need to teach him that "please" is not meant to be used to bark orders.

Seeing as I was a bit indisposed, I asked Oldest Child to fetch it for him. Big mistake. Youngest Child got impatient and shoved Oldest Child just as he was getting the gallon of milk out of the fridge, causing him to drop it...leaving 128 ounces of milk to seep under the fridge. It took exactly 2 full rolls of Bounty to sop up. The string of obscenities that flew from my lips while I cleaned it up would have made a sailor blush.

Youngest Child, at that moment, came stomping over with his sippy cup. I calmly informed him that he would get choco milk when hell froze over. He must have seen the wild look in my eyes, as he went to his room and didn't come back out. In fact, all of the children must have finally gotten the hint that Mommy had reached her breaking point, as they all retreated to their rooms to play quietly. THAT, my friends, NEVER happens.

Just as I was finishing up with the dairy explosion, the husband called.

H: "Hi. I'm on my way home, do we need anything."
K: [panting] "No."
H: [pause] "Why are you out of breath?"
K: "You don't wanna know."
H: "Oooo...K. I'll be home shortly."
K: "Good." [click]

He walked in a few minutes later to find the house was dead silent, and and me sitting on the couch in a semi-catatonic state. Needless to say, Mommy was officially off duty for the night.

Sadly, days like this are par for the course. Birdies and eagles are few and far between lately...

Relief

We got word mid afternoon Monday that we were going to lose our power and/or water, so we packed up the kids, got everything we could out of the basement, and headed 30 minutes north to stay with my father in law. If power went out, then the pump would go, and the basement would just fill up. Not something we wanted to hang around for. Also, more roads were closing by the hour, and we didn't want to get stuck here. Perhaps we were overly cautious, but the flood zone got within a block of my house and we weren't taking any chances.

I had to, of course, document this flooding, which is the worst this region has seen in 70 years. When we got home (and found that we had minimal damage), I hopped in the car and drove around to see what was going on.

Clearly, we will not be bowling any time soon. The local Brunswick is probably a total loss, as waters were actually higher than this yesterday. Notice the line of debris, where waters were presumably at their highest. In the 2nd picture, you can see the looky-loos walking around in their rain boots. Why they felt the need to go wading, I'll never know...dicks.

















And yes, our Brunswick arguably has the worst paint job in the country. It reminds me of those crappy vanilla oreos.

Below, we have a National Guard tank guarding a flooded roadway. As you can see, the CRO&BD is closed.






I guess it's safe to say that stranded motorists are on their own for the week...












Wha...what's this? DUNKIN'S? NOOOOOOO!!!! NOT DUNKIN'S!!! WHY GOD...WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN A HONEYDEW DONUTS, WHYYYYYYYYY???







These bloodsucking motherfuckers were trying to get over $300,000 for garden style "luxury" condos. $300k! Needless to say, I had a good belly laugh when I walked by.





Hey, check it! CBS news. You should have seen the morons trying to get into the shot, priceless.







And finally, the pièce de résistance...the local dam. Usually what you see here is a controlled release of water, and we call it "the falls." Ain't much fallin' goin' on, that's for sure. I'm told that yesterday, you couldn't even tell there was a dam at all.



And finally...a video to give you an idea of how fast the water is moving. This is a nifty new hosting feature over at Photobucket, which I will definitely start using more often:

River

So the waters are receding, and people are starting to go home. No deaths...yet. Though I'm sure we'll be hearing about the "tragic deaths" of some bunch of retards that decide to go swimming sometime in the very near future.

The only thing that's really bothering me are these assholes on the news who have the nerve to compare this to Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, ok, why don't you go home to find that your house has washed away, your family is drowned, and that there's nobody around to help you or anybody else in your neighborhood to safety. Then come talk to me about disaster. Your plasma TV getting wet isn't the end of the world you fucking morons.

Floridians Bathing in BBQ Sauce; Gators Said to Be Pleased.

Craaaaaaaaazy shit going on down in Florida...three alligator attacks in a week, in a region where they've only seen about 17 in half a century. This one old lady was watering her garden when she felt something at her ankle...well hellooooooo Mr. Alligator! She apparently beat it with her garden hose and ran screaming into her house. Perhaps I'm going to hell for this, but the mental picture there is just hysterical.


My grandmother, who used to live in Kissimmee (aka Raisin Ranch USA), used to write to me about these nightmares she used to have about sunbathing in her backyard and being dragged away by a gator. We'd roll our eyes and make the cuckoo sign behind her back...alligators don't work that way, Grandma! They don't just creep into your backyard for a snack! Apparently, the old lady wasn't so crazy after all.


My only theory is that reptiles are pissed at us for encroaching upon their wetlands, and have organized a full scale attack.

"Hmmm...yes...those human motherfuckers definitely need to go.
Hey, do you guys smell BBQ sauce?"

Again, my theories of "The End of the World" are creeping into the back of my mind...doesn't it seem like shit is hitting the fan on all fronts?

Floating away...

Crazy shit going on around here...my New England readers know exactly what I'm talking about, I'm sure. Right now, my sump pump is going nuts and I'm pretty sure I saw an old dude building a big boat a few streets over...


Seriously, this is bad. School is already cancelled for tomorrow. The river that I live near is already 2 feet above flood level, with a rise of 5 additional feet expected by early tomorrow afternoon. I do not live in a normal flood zone, but that area is already flooded and my house is RIGHT on the edge of the next zone that would be affected. Streets just a few blocks away are already under water. If things keep going the way they have, we could have the river lapping at our doorstep by lunchtime tomorrow.

So we're busy getting anything of value out of the basement, doing as much laundry as we can before the washer and dryer are submerged, and praying that the forecast is wrong. If it's not wrong, then I could be scooping up the kids and heading up to a relative's house by early tomorrow afternoon.

Good luck to whomever else is in a flood zone. With another week of rain predicted, we're gonna need it.

Boobs

Marc seems to think that a post title such as this would bring traffic. I say he's crazy. Thoughts?

I think I'm a bad person...tee hee...

David Blaine in His Bubble

Watch Video



This fucking idiot irks me.

Why would you do something like this? His skin is peeling, his ear drums are probably damaged from the pressure, all of this so some redneck can someday make a comment at the bar about "that crazy sumbitch in that thar fish bowl." What a dumb fuck. It would have served him right if Godzilla had come through town, picked him up and shaken his stupid ass like a snowglobe.


The only reason that people pay attention to shit like this is because we want to see it go wrong. We want to see disaster. We want to see him drown. We want to see his stupid ass hauled off in an ambulance and be able to say, "Gee, what a fucking moron" because it makes us feel superior. Seeing others fail makes us feel better about ourselves.


Yeah, we're sick like that. And the fact that I kinda wanted to see the dude go belly up is probably yet another example of why I'm going straight to hell.

Cinco de Mayo

We got a last minute invite to a small gathering of friends for Cinco de Mayo, so we dumped the kids off at the sitter and took advantage of precious alone time with other adults. We called and asked what we should bring, as we were stopping at the liquor store anyway...the hosts requested hamburgers and nothing else. We were skeptical, but we followed directions and didn't buy additional beer [this is called "foreshadowing," as you know this decision will bite us on the ass later in the story, so remember it].

We hung out for a few hours, drank fairly slowly, hung out around a fire...very low key, until my brother in law had the bright idea to play a drinking game. Bear in mind, everyone in attendance is either pushing 30 or already there...a drinking game of any kind was bound to end badly, but the Scene It? DVD wasn't working and we were out of options for entertainment. "The Name Game" was chosen, and we all sat down, each of us with 2 drinks immediately available so we wouldn't have to get up.

For those who are not familiar, "The Name Game" goes like this: the first person picks the name of a famous person (let's just say Brad Pitt), and goes to the next person in the circle, who then has to come up with a name that begins with P (Pauly Shore), and the next person comes up with an S name...now, if that S name is a double S (Sharon Stone), it goes back to the person who said Pauly Shore, who has to come up with another S name. If THAT person comes up with another double S name (Sally Struthers), it goes back AGAIN. 2 people can battle with double letters for quite a while, and this is generally how you get the drunkest because you have to drink while you think. As you get drunker, it's harder to think of anything, and people just start trying to make shit up. The rule is that at least 2 other people have to know the person you're talking about or it doesn't count. Characters in movies and such can also be used. Also, you can't use a name more than once, but this rule gets pretty loose as the game wears on...who the fuck is going to remember that you used Sally Field 2 hours ago?

Anyway, we were all double fisting and it was game on. Things went smoothly for a while...me, being a geek, started picking historical figures and such, much to the chagrine of my drunken counterparts.


K: "Friedrich Nietzsche."

"WHO???"

K: "Nietzsche. He was a philosopher."

"Fucking hell, K...you coulda picked Fred Flintstone or something."


I kept getting F's, and was going to be damned before I would pick Fran Drescher or some other stupid shit.


K: "Francis Cabot Lowell."

"WHAT?"

K: "He was a great industrial spy, his work was pretty much the catalyst for the Industrial Revolution in America."

[silence]


Clearly, I am not much fun to have in a drinking game while I'm still sober.


Things got interesting when I started getting Q's and Z's...the more I was thinking, the more I was drinking, and things really started to get hairy. After that, even the simplest of letters was a huge, insurmountable challenge.


"Ok, it's a C to you, K."

K: "Ummmm..." [gulp...gulp...gulp]

"Keep drinking!"

K: "Yeah, yeah..." [gulp...gulp...] "AH HA! Kristy MacNichol!"

"Nope! That's a K, not a C."

K: "MOTHERFUCKER!" [gulp...gulp...] "Ok, Kris Kristofferson."

[laughter] "No important figures in history coming to mind?"

K: "Get fucked." [gulp...gulp...gulp...]


The game got much easier when I remembered an untapped resource...PORN STARS! Much to the amazement of the men, I started spitting out names like Chasey Lain, Jenna Jameson (DOUBLE J, BITCHES!!!), Janine (No last name! EVERYONE HAS TO DRINK!)...no Vivid stone went unturned, and I drank at least 6 people right onto the floor of the spare bedroom.

Sadly, the "you don't need to pick up booze" short-sightedness led to a beer drought that was quite acute by 1am. Our host started searching his garage for the cheap stuff he keeps on reserve when one of the guys came out holding a tray full of strawberry shortcake desserts. Just about everyone grabbed one, took a bite...

"WHAT THE FUCK?"
[spit...cough...cough]
"What the hell did you put on this, Mark?"
[cough...cough...gag]


Mark: "We were out of strawberry sauce, so I soaked them in tequila."

[collective stare of shock] "WHY would you do that?"

Mark: "It's Cinco de Mayo. Just fuckin' eat 'em."


Everyone was so desperate for booze at that point that everyone actually finished their Cuervo Shortcakes with whipped cream on top. Nasty, nasty shit. That was our cue, it's clearly time to go home when you're at a point of sucking tequila out of bakery products.

We got home at about 3am, and collapsed into bed. About 30 seconds later, the alarm was going off, as it was 8am and I had scheduled a pedicure earlier in the week...before I knew I'd be Tina Turner/Tiny Tim/Tim the Toolman Taylor'ing my way into a booze-induced coma. My girlfriend and I met up and plopped our asses into massaging chairs while small Asian women filed away at our toes. Not a bad way to spend a morning of being hung over. At the very least, my flowery toes and freshly waxed brows are taking attention away from the bags under my eyes and generally foul demeanor...




Yeah yeah...I have ugly feet, and even 10 little Asian women cannot change that fact. Tell me something I don't know. And yeah, I already chipped one, fuck you very much for noticing.

Urban Dictionary

Apparently, one of my loyal readers submitted the name of my blog to Urban Dictionary.


On one hand, it's kinda nifty...on the other, I take this as absolute proof that just about anything you submit will get approved for addition to the site, as I do not think that my 100 reader base is quite enough for anyone outside of those 100 people to think that I should be listed in any kind of reference guide.


I received the link to the entry via email, with this message:


"Call it an early bday present even though you are a closet conservative!!!"


I guess believing that people from other countries should have to use legal channels to gain entry to the U.S. makes me a dark-sided Republican. Who knew?

Immigration

I just have to comment briefly on this immigration business that's been in the news lately. Today is apparently some kind of day of protest, with immigrants walking out and calling in to work to show their "power" and contribution to the U.S. economy.


All I can say is WHAT A BUNCH OF SHIT.


Yes, this country was built on immigration...but times have changed. We can barely take care of the people who already live here, never mind a bunch of people sneaking over the border. We can barely educate our own children. There are veterans, who have risked their lives for our freedom, living on the streets and who have inadequate healthcare. There are single parents to bust their asses working two and three jobs because affordable childcare just doesn't exist...I could go on and on. The bottom line is that the welfare system is bogged down by legal immigrants as it is, and we are expected to take on more?


"You snuck in illegaly? Oh, ok...welcome! Here's a check, here's an education for all the children you may have, and here's a job."


Is this what we are expected to do?


There is no other country in the world that has taken in and financially supported as many immigrants as the U.S. has in the last 30 years. I'd like to know when the U.S. will be off the hook. When is another country going to step up to the plate and start helping the citizens of 3rd world countries like the U.S. has?


Here's an idea! Let's all storm a country...let's say France...millions of us, we'll all run into France and wave French Flags and tell them (in English) how they should just open their doors and let us move in. We'll demand that they take jobs away from French citizens so that we can work, and hey, if there's no jobs, then they should support us until we get on our feet. How they should pour more funding into their schools for all of the kids we're bringing along (and the kids we're gonna have). How they should have translators available at all time since we don't feel like learning French because that would DILUTE our native traditions.


Yeah, let's see how that goes over. Why is this shit okay in THIS country when it would never fly anyplace else in the world?

My son the puss

Oldest Child ran out of books to read, so I dug through my extensive collection and produced six RL Stine books from the Goosebumps series. He is 8, but reads at a high third grade level, so I know he can handle them.

K: "Here."
OC: "WHAT are THESE?"
K: "Goosebumps. They're solid. You'll like them."
OC: "I don't want THESE!"
K: "Why not?"
OC: "They're SCARY."
K: "Oh God, they're not THAT scary. They have these in your library."
OC: "NO THEY DON'T!!!"
K: "Uh, yeah they do. I'm a teacher, I know about these things."
OC: "Nuh UH!"
K: "Look! This one is about a mummy...and OH WOW LOOK this one has green monster blood oozing out of the basement...check it out!"
OC: "Get them away from me."
K: "Wuss."
OC: "I AM NOT!"
K: "Yeah, ok, go back to Captain Underpants. I can't believe you'd rather read about some fat kid who fights crime in his tighty whities than read these."
OC: "FINE! I WILL!"
K: "GOOD! What's he gonna do in the next book, fight crime in his BOXER SHORTS? OOOOHHHHHH HOW EXCITING!!! MAYBE HE'LL HAVE A SKID MARK MYSTERY TO SOLVE!"

[door slams]


Not the most mature exchange I've ever had with a child, but what the fuck, somebody has to guide his taste in books away from toilet humor. How am I supposed to pass my Stephen King collection on to a kid who won't even touch RL Stine? He's going to read horror and like it, goddammit...