WanderingAmylessly 2.0

Most overused phrases during hurricane coverage: Hunkered down Rain coming down in sheets I can barely stand up Eye wall has made landfall Stay safe and get some sleep while you can Batten down the hatches Aftermath of disaster Cone of uncertainty Declared a state of emergency Prepare for the worst, hope for the best Rescue operations are ongoing Shelter of last resort New Orleans is in a bowl

Baby Noah Scott's funeral was this weekend. He was 4 lbs., and he was 17 inches long when he was born two months early. I spoke with his aunt tonight, and she explained a little more about what happened. I guess that Noah had a fully functional brain stem, which allowed his heart to beat and his limbs to move - even if only voluntarily - so they did not suspect problems. However, his brain never developed. Results of the partial autopsy, and chromosomal and other genetic testing haven't come in yet. Doctors think it was just one of those "fluke" things...but right now it isn't feeling like a "fluke" - that word somehow trivializes it, sounds too flip and fleeting. The family's pain will continue for a long time, maybe forever. An interesting note to this all: Because K was to deliver at a Catholic hospital, they initally refused to do a c-section to take the baby because, hospital officials explained, there wasn't immediate danger to the baby. To...

Why by Annie Lennox How many times do I have to try to tell you That I'm sorry for the things I've done But when I start to try to tell you That's when you have to tell me Hey...this kind of trouble's only just begun I tell myself too many times Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words That keep on falling from your mouth Falling from your mouth Falling from your mouth Tell me... Why Why I may be mad I may be blind I may be viciously unkind But I can still read what you're thinking And I've heard it said too many times That you'd be better off Besides... Why can't you see this boat is sinking (This boat is sinking this boat is sinking) Let's go down to the water's edge And we can cast away those doubts Some things are better left unsaid But they still turn me inside out Turning inside out turning inside out Tell me... Why Tell me... Why This is the book I never read These are the wo...

Thoughts go out to a dear family friend who lost her baby this morning. She was seven months pregnant. Something went terribly wrong very quickly, apparently, and doctors did a c-section. Services are likely to be this weekend. I don't know much more than that. That's enough, though. It seems like I've heard way too many of these stories lately, of lost babies. Of lost hopes and dreams. She and her husband have a son who's about 3 years old, and I'm guessing he was just figuring out that he was to have a baby brother or sister soon. How will they explain to him why the baby won't grow up. How will they explain to him why Mommy and Daddy are so sick and sad. How will he begin to understand this senselessness when we adults don't. I just hope people have sense enough not to tell them things like "well at least you have your son." Or all those other dumb things people say when they're trying to be helpful and comforting yet don't have any idea...

I sat here. On the couch. For an entire hour. It's an hour I can never get back. Wasted. 60 minutes. I sat here, cringing and snickering, rolling my eyes and making nasty faces. It was like watching a train wreck...I didn't want to watch the carnage, but I couldn't avert my eyes. I sat here, an otherwise intelligent, witty, talented and motivated human being, and watched... Tommy Lee Goes to College. Throughout this reality television program about the former drummer of '80s heavy metal hair band Motley Crue and ex-husband of Pamela "Bouncing Baywatch Babe" Anderson, the following people were mocked: - Blonde co-ed tutors - Band geeks - Nerdy professors in bow ties - Intelligent overweight co-eds - Marching band instructors - The chancelor of a Big 12 university (Univ. of Nebraska) - An overly tattooed, pierced, nicotine addicted, drug addled, washed up, mediocre 40-something who still guffaws at a horticulture instructor who talks about one plant species'...

Did anyone watch that Dateline special on Friday night, the one that has every lawyer and cop in Wichita foaming from the mouth? Seems that the psychologist sent to the jail by Dennis Rader's defense attorneys to evaluate the nutcase's mental state instead gave (and/or SOLD) a video of his interview with the serial killer known as BTK to NBC. In this video, Denny the Dogcatcher matter-of-factly tells of killing people. The only time he ever showed any emotion was when he was talking about what being in jail feels like and how sad he was to be away from his family and to have his freedom gone. He's beyond creepy. He's pure evil. I wish the victims' families could be alone in a room with him for a few hours, wish that they could "sentence" him instead of the judge. Who needs the death penalty...they could have the torture penalty. If anyone deserved to have his fingernails ripped out one by one, it's him. I predict he won't last long in prison. D.I.E...

I thought I was going to detest H's new penchant for joketelling. But I found out tonight that it wasn't a punch line he was trying to deliver. As we drove home, H said "knock knock" and I rolled my eyes, sighed and uttered softly in a singsong, "who's there?" And from his tiny lips, set just so, with a deep concentration on pronunciation, his soft, high pitched voice singsonged back to me... "Hehnreee." He said his name. He said his name he said his name he said his name!!!! I'd listen to that chatter 24 hours a day. He has my permission to do the knock knock thing any darn time he wants to.

I fear we are in trouble. That we have slipped past, far past, the point of no return. My son has discovered...the knock-knock joke. Who taught him this? Who can I blame? Who can I silently curse as I answer for the 17th time, "Who's there?", only to have him utter the first line again and again. Knock knock. Knock knock. Knock knock. See, he hasn't grasped the concept of the knock knock joke. The art. The delivery. The point. And now that I think about it, I'm not sure there is a point to knock knock jokes. They're always groaners. They're never really funny. Except to toddlers. Once he gets what happens after someone answers knock knock, he'll know he's supposed to say something else, except he will say something that doesn't make a lick of sense and then laugh maniacally. For example: Henry-in-a-few-months: Knock Knock Me: Who's There? Henry-in-a-few-months: Toes Me: Toes who? Henry-in-a-few-months: Toes and shoes (pause)....hehehehehehe...

My husband and his brother went north to commune with nature. You know, those things boys do... Play with fire. Pee on trees. Splash in big puddles. Eat portable food like beef jerky and trail mix. Wear the same clothes four days in a row. Not shave. Drink hooch from a flask. ...and so on. They're 36 and 40, respectively, but they're just little boys in very tall, big-shoed bodies. Row row rowing their canoe through the Boundary Waters. Getting bug bitten and sunburned and smelly and dirty. Bonding the way boys do when they ditch modern conveniences and have no one cooking for them or telling them to wash behind their ears for a week. They think I'm worried that they'll get eaten by bears or drown or go hungry or lose table manners and social graces. I just hope they don't suffer a sibling spat and kill each other. There's no one around to break up the fight.

First encounter with the prescription drug benefit from my new job's health care package: I picked up my prescriptions. Two antidepressants ('cause I'm just THAT messed up, folks) and birth control pills (my contraceptive of choice...too much info?)... $231 for one month I think I might have shrieked when the pharmacy clerk gave me the total. She looked apologetic and figured up what it might've cost me if I didn't have the drug coverage plan. $450 I'm going to have to double my dose of crazy pills to cope with this latest bit of financial anxiety and woe. Damn Bush. How many days until the 2008 election?