WanderingAmylessly 2.0

Yesterday afternoon, online BTK-related bulletin boards went berzerk, as rumors swirled about the Wichita Police Department scheduling a press conference for 10 a.m. Tuesday. Did they have a suspect in custody? Were the last few letters a hoax? Has there been another murder? Have cold cases been linked to BTK—a serial killer who claimed the lives of eight people in Wichita, Kan., from 1974 to 1986. Indeed, they held the press conference. I feared that (as they have several times since the serial killer resurfaced last spring to send correspondence taking credit for the eighth murder—of Vicki Wegerle in 1986) police would read a brief statement, refuse to take questions, and decline interviews with the media afterwards. While they still may not be willing to discuss the case, they certainly surprised me (and many others) with the following info, as written in the official WPD release. Do YOU know this guy??? Since March 2004, BTK has sent numerous communications to the media...

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with my family. They enjoyed spending time with the H-man, and he learned all sorts of new things. He hugs and blows kisses, walks several steps without falling, and may be addicted to bananas. However, now we're back home with the sea of fans and dehumidifiers still blowing. I'm expecting reconstruction work to begin this week on the house. But as we've found out, everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you expect it to—so if we're hiring an attorney by the end of the week and still dealing with cracking ceilings and water stains by mid January, I won't be surprised. In fact, nearly nothing would surprise me now. I'm over my head in work at the office, too. Missing more than a week of work has caused even more stress, because I'm so behind, I now have NINE projects in the works...or, rather, they SHOULD be in the works right now in order to meet deadlines. I NEED A VACATION. Oh wait. I just had one....

We're relaxing with my family and trying to enjoy the smoked turkey on the table, instead of the turkeys who bungled the roofing job last week. Wishing everyone a happy feast and great holiday season ahead. And here are a few tips for the day... Top Ten Signs You've Eaten Too Much On Thanksgiving 10. You ate the turkey, the pop-up thermometer and the plastic net 9. Last thing you remember is positioning your open mouth behind a dump truck full of yams 8. All your silverware is worn down to tiny stumps 7. While picking your teeth, you dislodge an angry construction worker 6. Strangers keep addressing you as "Oh Mammoth One" 5. This morning, the display on your bathroom scale read "Good Lord!" 4. You now have a butt the size of Plymouth Rock 3. People keep looking at you and saying, "I thought the Macy's Parade was over" 2. Your relatives can't go home because they're stuck in your gravitational field...

It sure didn't take the roofers long to collect their cash. Believe it or not, ONE DAY after the MRGs finished up their shoddy, stress-causing roof work, guess what came in the mail? Yes, the bill. The $4,600 bill for a roof that is causing us beaucoup headaches. And without so much as a hint of apology for the damage and woe they've caused. NOTHING. In fact, there's a sticker on the bill that reads: "Payments received after 7 days of this invoice will be subject to 18 percent annual interest." No. I'm not kidding. Also, I thought I'd note, that the ABC Roofing Co. slogan is this: "Integrity — Experience" Unreal. Are you sure we're not getting Punk'd ?? At least if I were famous (and disgustingly wealthy to boot), I wouldn't mind these hassles so much.

The reconstruction team tells us we're not drying out like they'd hoped. So they're bringing in the troops this afternoon to cut holes in our walls and ceiling for better ventilation. The dryers and dehumidifiers keep doing their thing. And the guys also are removing half the insulation in our attic. Turns out, it was a little more damp than they thought. I'm a little crankier than I thought. However, to soothe my pain...Tim gave me his old iPod since he got a new one. So I'm downloading tunes for the trip. Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head isn't on the playlist.

Top Ten Reasons to be Thankful This Year (In no particular order) 10. That 8-hour car trip to Grandma's house will be welcome QUIET after the roar of fans and pounding of nails on the roof for a week. 9. When Dubya screws up, we can gleefully say "don't look at me, I didn't vote for him" and then add a little "I told you so" for good measure. 8. No postpartum recovery! 7. Grandma and Grandpa = FREE BABYSITTING 6. Wine. More Wine. Lots and lots of wine. (Oh...and turkey, too.) 5. Little Will is getting stronger and stronger in the UIHC NICU (see http://willkenyon.blogspot.com) 4. No Martha Stewart holiday specials 3. We may live in a red state, but it's not nearly as red as Kansas or Utah. 2. The miracle of modern technology—what DID we do before blogging?! 1. Only 11 more months until we hit the TERRIBLE TWOS! (eek)

We're back in our home. For the moment. We'll get the thumbs up or thumbs down on whether everything's dry enough to shut off the fans today. (Cross your fingers that the Holiday Inn won't play happy host for another night.) But this week's a wash (errgh...no water jokes, please) for us, workwise. We're taking the whole week off to clean the house, catch up on laundry, and grumble. To make matters worse, Henry was up half the night hacking and coughing and snotting away. At 3 a.m., I had a lovely conversation about phlegm and wheezing with the woman answering the hospital's 24-hour nurse advice line. Following her advice, we gave him warm apple juice and corn syrup that I stole from the hotel's continental breakfast pantry. And we turned the shower on hot and full blast and sat in the bathroom, in a makeshift steam room. When I arrived back at the house this a.m., the MRGs were back, finishing up the roof, trimming shingles, picking up their mess...

This living out of a bag and eating in restaurants gets old really quickly, especially with a 1-year-old in tow. We should be lounging in bed, reading the NY Times and watching H-man toddle around on a lazy Sunday. Instead, we drove to the house this a.m. to supervise (spy on) the MRGs during what we hope will be their final day on the job. However, they're not here yet. I don't know why I'm even surprised that they're an hour late. Every time we turn around, they're frustrating us anew. Henry invited his buddy Leah over to the hotel pool to swim this afternoon. If they end up actually getting in the pool, it will be H's first time swimming, so we'll document it and post photos soon, I'm sure. We had to cancel our previous plans to meet up with friends in Des Moines and visit the recently opened biggest mall in the state. I, in particular, am quite distraught. Our amigos are on the roof again, finally. I hope we can bid them adios soon.

After the damage repair crew visited yesterday, we had a half dozen industrial fans and several mammoth dehumidifiers strategically arranged around our home to dry everything out. We were told that if they don't start drying it in 72 hours, mold starts growing. And we all know how Tim and Amy feel about that. Long story short - we're in the Holiday Inn Express, courtesy of the MRGs (that'd be Moron Roofing Guys), and we will be "vacationing" in Coralville until Monday a.m. It's football weekend here, Iowa vs. Wisconsin, so we're probably the only people in the hotel NOT tailgating today. We opted not to stay in the house because we can't hear ourselves think, with the constant fan noise, which closely resembles the roar of a jet engine. Actually, we're spending most of the day keeping an eagle eye on said MRGs after another of their potentially endless screw ups. They started shingling over wet tar paper this a.m. Now I'm no roofing expe...

Morons decided that yesterday, in the drippy, drizzly weather, would be the perfect time to put on our new roof. They ripped off the shingles on the back side of the house, put some sort of felt paper stuff down, then left. It started raining. They did not put anything like a tarp down to cover it. So basically, it RAINED in our house last night. Water poured into the attic, out of the door frames in our bedroom closet and bathroom, out of the light fixture above our kitchen table. (and it seems that every time we look up at the ceiling, we discover yet another wet spot). It appears some parts of the ceiling have started to crack. The drywall tape has started to bubble in spots. AND those of you who know our basement woes at our previous rental house will understand why we freaked out at this part - we went to the basement to find about 15 dripping places - all down the wall, thru duct work, seeping into storage boxes and onto Henry's "outgrown" toys. Anyway you get t...

Talk about an unsolved mystery. Eight people (who knows, there could be more) were brutally murdered in Wichita, Kan., between 1974 and 1986 by a serial killer known as BTK . In some cases, witnesses survived. A postal worker came face to face with him as he delivered a letter that turned out to claim responsibility for horrific crimes. They have a recording of his voice when he called 911 dispatch to alert them of the location of a victim. And at least one eyewitness claims to have seen the suspect in the phone booth making the call. All this, and yet police still have no one in custody. Most people forgot all about BTK long ago. A whole generation or two had never even heard of him; those who did remember figured he was in prison on unrelated crimes or long dead. Then in the spring of 2004, he started sending taunting communiques again. Or, rather, someone who everyone including the FBI assumes is him. BTK stands for Bind, Torture, Kill—referring to the way he attacked his vi...

Yeah. So everyone and their grandmother has a blog. I'm just blindly following the crowd, assuming that someone out there will want to read yet one more page of yadayadayada from a frustrated writer who rants about post-election blues, holidays with dysfunctional families, and the evils of Wal-Mart. Not necessarily in that order. However, a tiny and fragile, beautiful and much-loved little guy named Will actually prompted me to start my blog. His daddy started one to document Will's progress in the NICU. Will weighed about a pound when he was born, 16 weeks early and by c-section when his mommy, Mary, suffered a severe case of HELLP Syndrome . Sometimes my 1-year-old son Henry's diapers weigh more than that. As Will struggles to breathe, eat, and grow, we struggle right along with him through John's words. And we—friends, family, and co-workers—offer up frequent thoughts and prayers, along with frozen casseroles and promises to help with house chores and e-mail...