Category: and More

Thanks to everybody who’s been sending me notes of sympathy and encouragement by email and in the comments. I haven’t commented/posted as frequently as I normally do and I haven’t visited anybody’s blogs, either, and some of you are worried about me.

I’ve not posted for a couple of reasons:

1. because it’s hard to joke around when you’re down, and
2. because joking around seemed kind of disrespectful to the memories of my brother-in-law and Rachel (our friend who died of ovarian cancer Sunday).

It sounds foolish now that I actually say these words out loud, so maybe it’s a good thing I finally just sat down and wrote them out.

I know Mark and Rachel wouldn’t want us to stop being who we are just because they’re gone, but still… I felt this way after the World Trade Center attacks—I couldn’t write anything for months. When a young man from our cul-de-sac was killed in 2003, I couldn’t write anything for almost a year.

Back then I hadn’t met all of you though, and suddenly I see what a good thing an online community can be… because you people don’t let anyone just run away and hide.

You email them and tell them you’re thinking about them or you keep posting comments asking how everything is going. Next thing I know I’m remembering how some of you’ve lost loved ones recently, too, or suffered miscarriages, or went through painful divorces or illnesses or whatever… and dang! It’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself!

So thanks, everyone, for keeping me from sliding into a real funk. You’re good people.

In the meantime, I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate all of the loving and supportive messages for Mark’s family, both in the comments section and by e-mail.

How wonderful you all are, reaching out with thoughts of comfort and sympathy as you’ve done here! This world is full of grief, but kind hearts like yours soften the blow.

I’ll make sure Mark’s family gets copies of all your condolences. Thank you, guys. You’re the best.

Thank goodness human respiratory viruses don’t travel through the web, otherwise you’d be a mouth breather right now—just like me—with wads of tissue wedged up your nose so you wouldn’t drip on your keyboard.

But that’s what’s so great about the Internet. Not only is my web page not contagious, but the moment that I throw open the doors to my virtual Mexican restaurant, the mountain of used-up Kleenex by my side magically disappears.

My nose dries up, I lose 30 pounds and develop a lovely tan. The laugh lines and the dorky reading glasses vanish, too, although I can’t do much about my wardrobe as I have no head for fashion, even in my dreams. Let’s just say my virtual wardrobe doesn’t contain a single Honors label in it.

Before I start today’s Super Sabado, though, I’d like to highlight a post that should put all of our lives in perspective, cold-free or not:

This is my daughter. She is 18, and attends Dawson College in Montreal. This afternoon a gunman entered the school and started shooting students.

—Feith, of Dear Leonard.

We don’t have cable or network TV, so I don’t know what the U.S. television coverage was like, but in our local newspaper and radio stations the outing of LonelyGirl15 got more coverage than this school shooting in Montreal did. (I got 99% of my news on the subject from the Internet.)

Feith’s daughter is okay (thank you, God!) but my heart goes out her as well as to the other victims and their parents.

Today’s Super Sabado is about making things over, starting afresh, reassessing our lives and reaching our goals. Perhaps it was the anniversary of 9/11 or the shooting at Dawson College, or maybe it is because fall is coming—or possibly it’s just my cold medicine—but I definitely feel a sense of wanting to live our lives to the best of our abilities. Don’t you?

Let’s lift our margarita glasses and toast to Feith and her daughter, and to those of us whose lives are changing.

This one is for you, Mark. Continue reading “Super Sabado: on habing a bad code”

It seems to me that the worst thing about PMS is that you’re suddenly considered incapable of rational thought.

I mean, you make a logical and reasonable observation about how NOBODY ever bothers to rinse off their plates, much less put said plates into the dishwasher, and how you’d probably fall over dead from SHOCK if anybody ever decided to RUN said dishwasher without being TOLD to, since they’d rather just load it up with dirty dishes and expect the MAGIC DISH FAIRY TO APPEAR and wave her wand and not only wash the dishes but PUT THEM AWAY, TOO…

…and no matter how rational or practical you are, your so-called Soul Mate just says you’re starting to get all wacky on him and goes back to reading T-Nation.

Does that sound fair to you?

No, really. I want your HONEST opinion.

Today’s Super Sábado is Continue reading “Super Sabado: and yup, she’s a Potential Murder Suspect”

Today’s Super Sabado is an unusually happy one, because when I hit the message machine PLAY button this morning, I heard something that seemed to have been delivered by a choir of angels in a heavenly chorus:

“Your camera lens has been repaired and is ready for pickup, oooh wahhhh…”

I broke all speed records driving down there to pick it up. It didn’t cost me anything, either, thanks to Santa’s extended warranty, which includes all sorts of damage scenarios, like, “high impact due to owner forgetting she left it on top of the car” and “water damage even though his mom told him she’d skin him if he tried to document the water balloon fight.”

And since we will use any excuse for the prodigious consumption of margaritas, my repaired camera lens will set the theme for this evening’s party.

For those of you new to Super Sábado, Continue reading “Super Sabado: Good news”

Doo⋅cel |?d(y)o?⋅s?l| verb ( -celed , -celing ; Brit. -celled, -celling) [ trans. ] 1 causing one’s hits to temporarily go through the roof due to a link from Heather B. Armstrong’s site, www.dooce.com | Who needs Slashdotting when Heather can Doocel you?

— ORIGIN Bonnie Wren, and thank goodness she invented the term, too, as it is a tenuous tie to the Lady Dooce that may delay her blog from being lost forever, like a chunk of cement in the deep blue sea.

Maybe my blenderized finger has made me more sensitive about stuff like this, but I can’t stop cringing on behalf of the CNN anchor who left her mike on while she went to the bathroom.

As Bush spoke about improving communications between government agencies in the Katrina aftermath, Kyra Phillips’ voice interrupted with her opinion of certain men:

“… assholes.”

Phillips, responding to news about her cloakroom confidante’s latest relationship, continues on the subject of men, first lavishing praise on her husband, whom she calls a “really, passionate, compassionate, great, great human being”.

[snip]

Phillips’s view of her sister-in-law is not so enthusiastic as the one reserved for her husband. She says she has to protect her brother, because his wife is such a “control freak”.

At this point, another female voice from the CNN control room can be heard, telling Phillips to turn off her microphone.

“Who wants to listen to Bush when you can hear what Kyra thinks of her control freak sister-in-law?” by Tim Reid, Times Online

The red-faced Kyra Phillips had to go back on the air (“We apologise for a little bit of an interruption there during the President”) but I believe I would’ve handled the situation differently. I would’ve ripped the sink faucet out of the wall and committed seppuku with it.

MUCH less painful than leaving the ladies room while still breathing.