Issues, people, we're having issues

Something is definitely up here in Rescue central. MAJOR internet problems that have me pulling my hair out. I hope to have some mutual aid arrive tomorrow to help me sort through the problems but can't make any promises as to when I'll be able to come back and post.

The issues are big.

Really, big.

My apologies for any hang-ups or headaches my absence may cause. I'll be back as soon as I possibly can.

The aftermath

A couple of weeks ago, a certain somebody named Katrina took a stroll through historic New Orleans and took a lot of stuff with her. Lives. Memories. History. Stuff.

Amid the destruction and loss was stuff belonging to my cousin and her family. They lived along the banks of Lake Pontchartrain in a little suburb called Lakeview. Sara, my cousin, and her family packed a few items into their minivan and evacuated to Baton Rouge for what they expected to be 4 maybe 5 days tops. Once the predicted devastation became reality, they loaded up the quilts, a handful of pictures, their two beautiful daughters, the ashes of their infant son and their love and drove to Jacksonville Florida to start anew.

Many people have reminded them to be thankful that they got out with their lives, as so many people did not, and that what they lost was just "stuff". Sara can acknowledge that but will tell you that although it was "just stuff", it was her stuff and she kind of liked it.

They have rented a place near her parents along the Florida coast but the reality of it all is that they have basically nothing left. A recent attempt to do the simplest of school projects proved near impossible without the supplies they had on hand at "home". Scissors, paper, glue that used to sit idly in a junk drawer have now become a commodity. A week's worth of clothes, unthinkable. All that "stuff" was the elements of living the day-to-day that they no longer take for granted.

In an attempt to get them back on their feet, our family here in New England is throwing them a "shower" on Saturday. We never need an excuse to get together and throw a raucousing party but gathering together has so much more meaning to us this time.

Although there have been specific suggestions made for items they need, most of us are gathering gift cards from national chains that they can use down in their area to start to replace what has been lost. Yesterday at Walmart I returned two stadium seats I had bought for us to bring to the Nascar race that proved useless and had the refund turned into a gift card instead. Tomorrow when Tall Boy's check hits the bank, I'm heading out to places like Old Navy, Toys R Us, maybe Barnes and Noble to add to my "donation". Not exactly a contribution to the Red Cross like everyone else in the country did but knowing that the devastation hit close to home, I held off on my efforts so that I could fine tune them in a way that will hopefully start to renew some semblance of normal for 4 people I love dearly.

This week has been filled with several e-mail exchanges that began with Sara's attempt to find humor amid her devastation. Although we've all been sitting at our separate desks around the country playing along, we also know that there is pain behind the laughter for them. The snapshot I'm left with is the resilience of not just the nation or the city of New Orleans in general but of members of MY family. Whether its celebrating success or banding together to heal pain, I know that they are the safe place to fall. They will take care of me should I ever be the one in need. We do love, deeply.

The CD Release Party

(click on the image for a Judd slideshow)


Last night at the Brickhouse, Pondering Judd lit up the night with a rock show that was so typically Judd. PJ is our local roots rock collaborative that unites lost friends with lost feelings with lost experience. The joint was jumpin', literally, with the floor shaking and drawing new PJ lovers up from the "disco" downstairs. The boys never fail.

To share the love, I'll be adding P-Judd tracks to the "sing it" section in the sidebar. PLEASE, click and listen (castpost doesn't do the autoplay feature on their players or you'd already be falling in love). I'm starting off with Maybellene off the CD released this weekend, Lonesome Heart Strangers which will be available for sale via their website soon. For the rest of the Judd collection, their previous releases can be found here (this will link you up to October At Our Heels and from there you can link up to their other releases).

Don't go flaming me because the dude got hurt but

Foster's is killing me again! To quote the first two paragraphs of a headlined article this morning:


DOVER — A man suffered severe burns to his upper body when his car ignited in the Shaw's parking lot Tuesday night.Authorities have not yet released the identity of the victim, who was reported to have suffered burns on his face, torso, and legs.


I didn't need the high 'A' I got in A&P I OR II to know that the legs ARE NOT considered "upper body".

I wonder if they're report that the fire started when the guy's crack pipe blew up.

FDOS

We had a great first day of school today. Bam-Bam wouldn't talk to any of the returning kids in his class but he had a BLAST playing with daddy (click here for a link to a slideshow of the morning). I'm sure everything will pick up on Wednesday for his first full day without us there with him but it was funny to watch. So many of the mom's commented on how much taller he got over the summer. I personally think all the returning kids got taller and cuter too. He's so happy to be with Miss Debbie and Miss Chicken again. They're both so loving with him. Although some of his closest friends from last year did not return, he's got some new friendly faces joining him this year.

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Side note: Giving a big ol' shout out to MsThang for tweaking some of the code for my new template (from Italy no less). She rocks da house!

Lost Art

My sister Songbird's oldest, D-Money started third grade last week. For some reason it seems as though he's aged years in the last seven days. He seems different, more mature. I don't really know why or where that thought came from but I can't escape it.

Tonight one of his homework assignments was to get all of his books covered. Third grade is the first year they do this at his school. What I learned last week as Songbird was scrambling to buy everything on the required supplies list is that they now have stretchable fabric book covers for sale at Walmart. It's a designer sleeve of man-made materials that you slip around your book.

One of his books is workbook style and wouldn't work well with the taught material being slung over it. The covers were bending and folding amid the tension. As he started to panic I told him not to worry, a grocery bag will take care of it. He got lost in his confusion but told me he'd trust me.

The coolness of the Nascar or Spiderman fabric covers lasted about 10 seconds with me when I realized what he's lost by going the purchased fabric-style route. He's lost the potential destiny of being the next local graffiti artist since the ink would surely seep through those fabric jobbies and onto the cover itself thus negating the purpose of the cover altogether.

Then of course I realized that the fabric would have never stood up to my dropping my books into the bottom of my locker. The metal latch would sure have caught, snagged and ripped them to shreds.

So, for the flexible covered book, we outfitted him with the standard paper grocery bag cover and within 3 minutes he had already begun to doodle on it.

Forty years from now...

When my daughter-in-law (or possibly son-in-law) comes to me and complains to me about being annoyed when Bam-Bam even breathes, much like my own mother complains about my own father breathing, I will be able to say that I saw it coming and did nothing about it.

We have a rather tongue-in-cheek exchange involving my parents and their current living arrangement. After careful observation, it boils down its simplest form that they share air. That's it. They each have their own bedroom, computer, vehicle, couch and the most recent addition of separate checking accounts probably at separate banks. She never drives his car, he rarely drives hers. She never uses his computer, he's only on hers to fix something. And they never sit on each other's couches. Now that dad works second shift, they almost never even share the air anymore. The humor is not lost on the daughers and although it's not a life we'd chose for them or ourselves, they seem to be making the best of it.

The joke started, though, with my mom complaining a few years back that she can't stand my dad's breathing. It's a combination of breath holding and long drawn out exhales. As I sat here reading my daily dose of blogs this morning I noticed Bam-Bam doing something eerily similar and I just need to declare that when the time comes for his life's love to complain about it, I will have already seen it coming.

This woman brings me to my knees

with almost every entry she writes.

Questions for those in the know....

If I decide to leave blogspot for my own domain......

• Is there a way to transfer my archives over somehow? I don't want to lose what I've already put into this if possible.
• If I decide to purchase a customized blog layout package, do I need to be an html expert to get my posts on it? Would I need to move to another blog service (say, typepad - thanks Preacherman) or is there some other technique used to post them? I'm pretty savvy and could handle doing everything a different way with proper instruction. I do pride myself on being a quick learner. I just don't want to lose what I've already put into this if possible....oh yeah, I said that already....I'm scared, can you tell?
• If I go to a customizable skin, what should my theme be? An ambulance overflowing with chocolate milk? LOL. I kid, I kid. But seriously, I want ideas people, help me here.
• Is there a way to find out where my pop-under/over/whatever is coming from and erradicate that instead of going to all this other trouble? I downloaded and ran Spybot as someone so graciously suggested in the past but that only zapped any spyware from my personal computer and had no impact on whatever has somehow wormed its way onto my site here.
• The Preacherman's wife told me last night that my background color isn't right. I don't see that and was wondering if anyone else is having an issue with it? May be another cog in the "convert already" theory if it has become a problem.