Screaming

"Dear Jesus...Thank you we have enough food so we never have to be TOO hungry and please be with all the people who are sick so they don't have to scream for medicine..."

Do I even need to say who prayed these words from her tender heart last night?

I thank God for seeing the need for her in our family. I cannot imagine life without her. She has brought so much balance to the family dynamic...and joy...and HUMOR!

As I often tell her, and as my Dad used to frequently tell me, "I sure am glad you came to our house to live and not someone else's."

Steve Austin Who?

Last night when I went to bed, Jeff had already been sleeping for about an hour, dreaming about who knows what, when this interesting dialogue took place:

Jeff: Hello, Steve Austin. Are you ready to play dead so I can bury you?
Me: Umm...yeah.
Jeff: C'mon, I'm gonna bury you.
Me: Why do you want to bury me?
Jeff: I don't know. So I can get some new stuff.
Jeff: [Siiiiiiiiigh] I'm SOOOOO tired.

What I was wondering, among other things, was Steve Austin who? As in Stone Cold Steve Austin? Or Steve Austin, as played by Lee Majors in The Six Million Dollar Man? I also wondered why he thought burying Steve Austin or ME would result in new stuff. I wondered if it had anything to do with our discussion of life insurance options for me that we had had last night. Maybe he really was plotting to bury me so he could buy a new truck with Buckshot Mudders.

Luckily there were no more disturbances from that side of the bed for the remainder of the twilight hours. And I awoke alive. To an earthquake.

By now, surely most people have heard that a 5.4 magnitude earthquake shook the Midwest just before 6:00 this morning. I was actually in a semi-awake state, but fading in and out of consciousness as I anticipated the sound of my alarm. I first heard the shower door begin to rattle a little. Then a little more. And then the bed shook a little too. My first thought was that it was Jeff trying to wake me without startling me too badly as I have a tendency to rise up in terror if he tries to rouse me from sleep with traditionally normal methods. Or was he trying to KILL me so he could get new stuff? It lasted 10 seconds at the most. Once I was awake, I was certain it had been an earthquake.

I came downstairs straightaway to find that Jeff hadn't left for work yet. He had felt the couch shaking too. I inquired about which Steve Austin. Though he did not recall having any such conversation, he was pretty sure he would have been talking about The Six Million Dollar Man, not Stone Cold.

And sure enough, the lead story on the Today Show was the earthquake that had rocked the Midwest.

"The walls was shakin'...the earth was quakin'...my mind was achin'...and who the heck is Steve Austin?"

Ortolan

One of the things I like about being pals with Dave is that he never ceases to amaze me with the pieces of oddly obscure information he manages to weave into everyday conversations and emails, as if he were simply discussing the weather or trying to decide what to have for dinner tomorrow night.

At times I am baffled as I desperately scramble to distinguish satire from reality, but I must admit I often find myself genuinely enlightened and enriched by said tidbits.

Today's reference to the endangered ortolan of France was one such time.

Thank you, Dave, thank you.

Happy Birthday, Kathryn!

Oh yeah, and one more....

"Why do we wear sunscreen anyway? To keep our germs out of other people's pools?"

Kathrynisms Part 33 1/3

Kathryn: I just squeezed David's ear with my teeth.
Mom: WHAT?! KathhhhhhhhhhRYN!
Kathryn: But I unloosed it. I UNLOOSED IT! I did.

. . . .

"Don't you just wish you could choke hell? UHHH, I just hate hell SO much!"

. . . .

"Don't you love meatloaf, Mom? I love meatloaf almost as much as I love myself!"