Odd Week

Yes, Froggy.  I know.  It's been over a week.

But it's been such an odd week.

The Boss (formerly known as Younger Boss) was out of town on vacation this week.  On Monday, his sister passed away unexpectedly.  He was able to get back in town on Tuesday.  The week has been spent dealing with all the fallout and most of the fallout concerns The Teenager's widow (she's the Boss's mother and that means that it was her daughter that died).  Miss Dorothy is 98 years old, nearly 99 and is very fragile.  Her health is good, considering her age, but she is diabetic and has some other issues.  And now, she is having to deal with the absolute worst nightmare of any parent - no matter what age.  Miss Dorothy was hospitalized on Wednesday, she is better but the doctor wants to keep her there for the next couple of days.  I have not spoken to her, but she is having to deal with the loss of her daughter and it's rough.  The funeral for the lady who died is next week.  At this point, we are all pretty much holding our breath and crossing our fingers that this horrible event is not what causes us to lose Miss Dorothy.  It's hard for me to even type those words.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Froggy's middle child and his fiance are now parents!  Their little boy was born Thursday.  There were some issues with the baby which resulted in expectant mom being hospitalized for a couple of weeks and then she had a c-section yesterday.  He's 3 weeks early, but he made it to the 5 # mark which was the milestone the doctors were hoping for.  His small, but he's perfect.  I am absolutely itching with anticipation and can NOT wait until I get to snuggle him!  She texted me several pictures, no sign of red hair unfortunately.  :)  Otter says he's an adorable little squishy, so I think that Squishy may well be his blog name.  The new dad's nickname was Skipper when he was little so I'm going to continue to call him Skipper but I haven't come up with a good blog name for his fiance, the new mommy.  I'll get there eventually.  For now, we're just all over the moon with happiness.

Memorial Day 2016

Let us not forget them.  Any of them.  And what they were willing to do for us.

Close. Way Too Close.

Last night, Tuesday, April 26, 2016, we unexpectedly had to play this.  We got over 15 spaces!

Including the one about circulation - and it sprouted right over our house.

It was an ugly night.

But let me start at the beginning.

We knew a few days ago that the conditions were going to be right for bad stuff on Tuesday afternoon, evening and night.  The forecast kept changing and by Tuesday morning, it looked like we would probably not have the bad stuff but still could get thunderstorms, hail and wind with a much slighter chance of bad stuff.  We had a thunderstorm with hail midday.  Then the sun came out and that is actually bad, because warm air was not a good thing to have.

About 7:30 or so, it was a little rainy and it was windy but not bad.  About 9:00, it was obvious that we were probably going to get some storms out of the system that was rapidly moving in from the west.  There had been a few rotating areas, but the one spot that could possibly cause us concern was going to far north to bother us at home or Otter at her apartment although we expected that she could get a harder storm because the southern edge of the storm track was going to be pretty close to her.  Shortly before 10:00, I texted her with that information since I had the tv on and was watching it.

Almost immediately, we heard the worst sound possible:  the sirens going off.  We went to the laundry room (our safe spot) and I called Otter.  I told her to head down to their basement immediately.  She said the sirens in her area were not sounding but she got her shoes on, grabbed her purse and her radio, locked her door and started heading down.  She texted me as soon as she got downstairs and said that their sirens had started almost as soon as she had locked her door.

From then until 10:30, we texted back and forth with updates and the reports kept getting worse and worse.  The storm in her area was tracking north enough that it looked like her area would be safe.  She stayed in the basement with most of the other residents in her building until it was safely past them.  But by then, another "pop up" had happened and it was heading our direction.  It had produced at least one small tornado but it didn't stay.  However, the track was still coming towards us and we were waiting to run back to the laundry room if we needed to.  We weren't sure if we were going to get hit or not.  The wind was pretty strong at that point.  But it suddenly increased and it sounded odd - somewhat like the train sound associated with tornados but not exactly.  At that point, I commented to Bill that I did not like the sound of the wind and at that time the reporters started calling out street names and they were right where we live.  We hotfooted it back to the laundry room - and Maggie went right along with us.  We had taken her back every time we went to the laundry room, but animals frequently seem to sense things like that - maybe they hear them.  When she started heading to the laundry room pretty much ahead of us and on her own, we knew that something bad was happening.  The sound of the wind increased and it was very loud.  That was probably when it was sprouting.  It blew past us in a matter of a few minutes; it did actually develop into a tornado and it touched down probably less than a mile from our house.  I had been texting with Otter because she had heard the same reports we did and she knew we were in the firing line at that point.  When it passed us, I let her know that we were safe.  It was around 11:00 p.m. then.

Otter stayed in their basement for a while, there were a few dogs that were also their with their owners and they did what they always do - she's a magnet for them.  She was playing with a chihuahua that lives in the 1-bedroom that was originally her apartment before she and former roommate moved to the 2-bedroom unit.  Let's just say that she is very much my father's granddaughter!  She went back upstairs after a little while and let me know.

We were both exhausted by that point, but also Thankful.  It was after 11:30 before I managed to get to bed.  Bill was up for a couple more hours, he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep.  I was awake until well after midnight.  It was so hard to get up at 6:15 this morning when my alarm went off.

Otter had her 3rd of 4 dental appointments today, otherwise I think I would have just turned the alarm off and gone back to sleep.

But we are safe and their were no injuries associated with any of the storms.  There were several small tornados, in Tulsa as well as assorted surrounding areas.

And The Stars Look Very Different Today

I have always loved music in (nearly) all it's forms.  I was an original Kiss Army member, the Bee Gees are way up there for me, I like a lot of country music and I really like all genres.  Prince has always been a favorite, mostly because he is very unique and somewhat ahead of the trends.  But through it all, there has always been one artist that I would call my absolute favorite.

From the first moment I heard is music in the early 1970's, there was no doubt.  He was so far beyond brilliant, there are simply not words to express the depth of his gift.

He wasn't simply a trendsetter.  He WAS the trend. 

Ziggy played guitar...

And he said goodbye to us with his last work.  That in itself is a special gift to all of us.

He succeeded wildly at it.

It certainly was never boring while he was here!

A look at the life of David Bowie

I've seen several different people that this quote it attributed to.  But it sums it up perfectly:

"If you're ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie."

74 Years

Never Forget.

Amen

Pray for Paris

Veterans Day 2015

Thank you.  All of you.

Tired. Blessed.

The Teenager's funeral was this afternoon.  The church was pretty full, he knew just about everybody and it's a tribute to him and an indication of the immense respect people had for him.  He was one of the happiest people I've ever known and he wanted everyone else to be happy.  He enjoyed his life and always tried to find the fun in things and the good in people.  There is going to be a huge hole in the lives of a lot of people, mine included.

Otter obviously went with us, and so did J.  J never met the Teenager, but he wanted to support Otter and also to show respect to someone who was so important to her - and we really appreciated his obvious concern and care for Otter.

The office will be closed tomorrow as well.  The Teenager would probably be unhappy with us for that - there wasn't much that could keep him out of the office.  :)

Since I have an unplanned day off tomorrow, I'm taking the Magginator in to get her rear parts squished and her pedicure.  But mostly, I'm just going to take it easy and do stuff around the house.  I may get some crochet time in and I am partially through with cleaning pins on a pachinko machine for Willy.  But I desperately need some down time and I'm going to get it tomorrow.

Tonight is going to be spent sitting on the couch with a beagle at my feet and the tv remote in my hand.  Possibly a drink as well.  But that's about the extent of my activities for the evening.

But I do think we gave the Teenager a good send-off.  He was special and he deserves every bit of respect possible.  I truly feel Blessed to have had him in my life for the last 21+ years.

Stress Tuesday

Yesterday was awful.  I went in to work early and Younger Boss was ahead of me.  It was so hard, we both just kind of hugged & cried for a while - and we don't normally hug, but this time we did.  He was pretty well overwhelmed, there is so much to do normally when you lose a parent but when the parent was the owner of the business it seems like the stuff to be done was quadrupled.  I ran a couple of errands for Younger Boss in the afternoon.  On Sunday, after he called me and let me know, I went into the office and worked on the obituary.  Younger Boss and his sister had put a lot of things down on paper, but I "professionalized" it and added a few things that they'd forgotten - it's hard to remember everything in that situation but I think that between the three of us it's pretty good.  We hit the highlights anyway.

He left after a couple of hours, to go meet with the Pastor about the service for the Teenager, a couple of meetings with banks, the cpa, etc., and he also spent a couple of hours with his mom.  She's doing pretty well, considering the circumstances.  I talked to her for a while and she was trying to be strong.  She's so precious to all of us.  But she's 97 herself and has had some rough health issues.

Today was better.  Most of the day has been spent in dealing with various banks, the Teenager set everything up a few years back so that the business would continue to run but the banks need specific paperwork, which is understandable.  That's been the bulk of today.

The obituary was supposed to run today, but it got to the paper too late so it will run in tomorrow's edition.  The phone has still been ringing non-stop with condolence calls.  The Teenager pretty much knew everyone, and he would be so flattered to realize the high regard he was held in.  Everyone needs someone like him in their life.  He was special.  He was one in a million, that's for sure.

The funeral is Thursday afternoon.  Otter is getting off work a little early, I'm off obviously and Bill is taking the day off.  It's going to be a very emotional service and I anticipate a large crowd.  The Teenager deserves every accolade he can get and he's getting a lot of them.

98 Years and 9 Months

The Teenager left us this morning at 8:05.  He was 98 years and 9 months young.  He was a spectacular person and I will miss him forever.

Warm. Saturday. Drowsy.

It's Summer, and it feels like it.  It's not particularly hot, it's just that it is hot enough to notice but the humidity makes it worse.  Humidity is a big asthma trigger for me, so I'm spending a lot of time indoors.  Which I don't like!  I need my outside time.

I got a little bit of outside time this morning.  I walked Maggie Moo, she was very happy about that - she sniffed every single thing she could and I don't think either of us got much exercise because it was a "stop and sniff" walk with a great deal of stopping.  But she was happy about it.

I followed yard sale signs today.  I was going to the post office to drop some stuff off to mail and I saw a sign not too far from my neighborhood.  So, I followed it.  Nothing I was interested in, but I decided to just follow signs for a while.  I only drove around for about an hour but I saw several sales.  I stopped at a few and drove by a few more.  Didn't buy a thing, except for when I stopped to get a coke (which was a real coke and not a Texas Coke a/k/a any flavor/variety/brand I wanted at the time) but I still enjoyed getting out.

As of about 4:00 this afternoon, the Teenager is still with us.  Younger Boss says that it's very hard to see him linger like that.  I know how he feels, it was that way with Dad.  It is very tough.  But he is as comfortable as possible and his family is with him.  I guess that all we can do is pray.