the near miss

I had one of those moments today, where you wind up face to face with the potential for your life to be changed forever. You look that possibility in the eye, and wait for it to decide your fate.

Jenna and I were headed off to school. We have steps that lead from the basement to the garage. As usual, my assertive daughter opted not to listen to me and to push ahead of me and start down the steps on her own, leaving me with a handfull of items--purse and coffee among them--to fiddle with closing the door.

I saw her mis-step half way down. The proverbial slow motion began as she tumbled head first down the steps, smacking her head on the concrete garage floor, the sound of which you only know if you've heard it. And I'd heard it before, many years before. But that's for another post.

For a split second after the impact, as I dropped everything in my hands, I heard only silence. That's the moment I'm talking about. Where you come face to face with an instant that is extraordinary in every way. Sometimes they're good moments. Usually not. Seems like anyway.

The shrieking began "MAMA MAMA!" I told George I don't remember how I got from the basement two flights up to the kitchen. It feels like I flew. I don't remember my feet touching the ground at all. A hurt child is weightless. This is when parents develop super human powers. Lift cars. Fly. Things like that. Because I know I flew all the way up with 50 pounds in my arms. I touched down at the refridgerator, grabbed the ice pack from the freezer, flew again into the living room and put Jenna on the couch while I screamed GEORGE! at the top of my lungs. I think waking up to the cries of your daughter and beckoning of a traumatized wife ranks right up there with one of those traumatizing moments.

I thought that find her face crushed when I first looked at her, which I hadn't done until we landed by the couch. I expected blood. I feared the worst. It was the sound, you know? That thwack. You feel it all the way through your stomach and into your spine. But amazingly, her face was clear except for tears, and there wasn't a cut on her head! She landed more on the top of her head than anywhere else. We got ice on that spot right away.

Then George took over while I stepped outside and looked for my cool. Definitely lost it. When I got my cool back I went back inside. He was talking with Jenna, having her follow his finger and asking her about this and that. He was very soft and collected. I was so grateful. That's why it's good to have two adults to evey child. So one can always be in varying degrees of freaking out while the other keeps cool, and then you swap, and so on.

Anyway, we rushed her to the doctor, who pronounced her well, took some time to discuss the amazing resiliancy of children, and told us to take her to school and go home and enjoy the morning.

Collective sigh. Collective thanks. Aside from a headache, she seems unphased. But we'll be keeping our eyes on her.

So my instant of horror passed me by, this time. I feel blessed beyond all else for my daugther's health, her life, her laughter, her joy.

I love my sweet baby so.

ladies and gentlemen, meet Hunter John Willis

Finally, somebody asks about the kitten! I've been wanting to say more about him, but not give myself over to cat blogging completely. So let me indulge myself for a minute and say so far allergies are going okay and so far kitty has a home--with us. Jenna named him: Hunter John Willis. Don't ask me why. Never ask why. We're calling him Hunter. Which, as far as ankles, calves, and finger go, he is. He hunts us down and latches on until we scream.



Other times he's very tame.



Mostly he's nuts.



And awefully cute.



Wish us well with him. One day at a time.

my husband should stop surfing the web.

noise

this week i've been feeling the noise. coming at me from all directions. not really able to discern it, separate out into sounds, voices. just noise, a rush, a dark wind, blowing my hair back, makes it hard to keep my eyes open, makes me dry and scaley and wind worn. the weather, maybe. i don't know. there's a lot of effort in living, isn't there. a lot of effort in dying. no way to escape hard work, and for what. too tired to make initial caps. lower case looks just right. why bother with upper case. why did we ever bother. weren't periods enough. anything involving the shift key, even a question mark, is too much. an extra effort, and for what. you get my meaning. uninterrupted clickety-clack, like the noise coming at me from all directions. not able to discern it, separate out into sounds, voices. just noise.

National RageBoy Day, November 12th. Hang Yourself at Half Mast

It was seven months ago when RageBoy had his heart surgically removed by an accomplished surgeon. The operation was long. The cuts were deep. Rageboy mentioned the specific pains of this operation many times on his blog. It's not pretty to see a man's heart ripped from his chest.



Many thought RB was down for the count after his heart surgery. Not me. Not never. You see, Rochester winters breed a hardiness in you that makes you come back for seconds. I don't know what it is. The shoveling, the shivering, I don't know. I do know that it takes more than heartache to defeat the King of Pain.



And soon, he was reborn...



How, you ask? Well sure, there was this:



And don't forget this:



But, no, not really those. Only partly those. Old meets new, same head, same hand, new heart.

And finally there is this:



He gives all year long. Now it's my turn to say Happy Birthday, Chris.

I didn't know what to get you, so I started a new team blog in your honor.

For the man who has everything, one more blog never hurt.

WHO WANTS IN???

okay, no, I got it, I got it.

So Blog Yearbooks seem like a good idea to some who have commented on the posts below. I got another one. How about The Best of Blog Memes 2002. Right? How fun would that be--from Fucknozzle to Gary's Inquirer pages to... well.... heck, I don't remember them all. That's the point. Of having a "Best Of" book. Ooooh man, I'm thinking of all kinds of things... stop me now, before I end up reinventing hyperlinks. gotta sleep. ignore me. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

looping back...

Did you ever feel like you're at some wierd point in your life, like you've just crossed over the top arc of a circle and things are starting to loop around again? Kind of feeling like that, mostly about technology today. Back circuits or something. For instance:

I don't think to email my blog friends as much anymore as I think of calling them on the phone. Blogging gets personal fast. The natural urge for some of us is to speak with the people whose voices we hear but don't know the tenor of. Suddenly deeper friendships develop as we hyperlink out of blogs and onto the phone lines.

We don't have cable in our house anymore (hence no TV), but are seriously thinking of getting satellite radio. I just got a satellite-ready radio and CD player for the van, and all of the stations I care about from cable TV, PLUS all of the music I care about, can be in my car with me instantly for $9 a month. Just as easy to get it turned on for your house, I hear. Kids programs, comedy programs, world music, everything--and the bonus: it's mostly commercial free. I can just see the family sitting around the radio at night, all cozy, gazing into our warm monitors like the fireplace of days past, blogging, and wondering what the hell's a TV?

I'm starting to care about print again. Hard copy. You know, paper with words printed on it. 'member? Hence my post on blogger yearbooks below. I'm starting to want to sit in bed and turn pages, which you can't do so well with a monitor. I'm not wanting to do that all the time, but I'm wanting the OPTION of back circuiting my online world to paper.

I guess it's about that--options and channels.

When many of us first fell in love with the net, we started shopping there. Buying stuff. Real fast, companies began to move to the Internet as a viable channel to interact with us, ultimately to sell to us, and then to interact with us again. Many of the companies that aren't around anymore (that would be dot-coms) adopted and sold to us exclusively through the online channel.

The dot-bams (bricks and mortars) took the approach (we later learned the smart one) of offering us multiple channels for interacting with them, the Internet being one of them. Over the last year, we've gotten used to that--having options. I want to order my food online and have it brought to my house. I want to look up when a movie's showing but go to the theater to see it. I want to find out how much KMR kitty milk supplement is but pick it up at the pet store along with a flyer of cat rescue shelters.

It is nice to have options. It is just what we wanted. But does it end here?

I am left, somehow, wanting to do the backloop, to take my rotary dial phone off the hook, turn on a good radio comedy show, and curl up on a comfy chair with Tom Matrullo's blogger yearbook.

Nostalgia on fastforward. The past on Internet time.

see ya yesterday tomorrow,
The manglement.

george raps on rap

Detroit's own Eminem has a smash hit in his new film, which grossed $20 million its opening weekend. George has this to say about that. Meanwhile, a guy from nearby Flint, Michigan, has a new film out awarded the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. That movie grossed grossed $190K as reported last Tuesday.

If you go see Eminem's movie, that's great. If you don't go see Michael Moore's movie, please don't talk to me about Eminem's movie. I might blow a fuse. That's never pretty.

blogger year books

So allied is a year old now. And today I thought of my latest quandry and wondered about how to solve it. I have the images I'm linking to stored hither and yond. Some on george's web server at earthlink, some on mine. Thinking of closing down my old site and just making my home on my blog. Save the $20 a month. Put a my files and a link to my write resources stuff up on George's site for safe keeping. Wondering, basically, how to best consolidate our online homes and save some money. And how NOT to lose all the work I've done.

Then I'm thinking, I wish there were a way, say once a year, when we bloggers could press a button or two and have a year's worth of posts (pictures and all) generated into a pdf or some other printable format, an e-book maybe, with posts listed chronoligically (instead of reverse chronologically), a kind of blogger yearbook. And we could share them with one another. Maybe even personalize them.

Maybe they'd be free. Maybe I'd pay up to $10 a piece for my favorite bloggers' year books. I know, the linking thing would be hard--what to do with the links we reference within our blogs once it's in print. Perhaps the yearbooks could have margins on the outside 2" of the page and the http addresses of the links referenced in each post could be printed in the margin. This way we could go look them up if we couldn't remember what the blogger was referencing. I bet I'd remember half of the links from my favorite posts by the folks I read all the time. Kind of scary considering I can't remember my phone number sometimes.

Think of what it would be like, ten years from now, looking back at our 2001 yearbooks. Think about what it would be like to have these once some of us pass over to the other side. Think of what it would be like NOT to have them.

Yes, I would like this functionality.

And soon.

won't take no excuses

Everyone I know needs to go see this movie right now.

And while you're at it, don't delay. Watch this Brief History of America clip from the movie. The film is pure genius.

Staying with the recent theme, props to Michael Moore.

gold nigga

George gives RageBoy a lesson in ebonics. These and other tips for the melanin challenged coming soon to a post near you.

kittens shit an awfully lot.

beyond the litterbox

Okay, Mr. Partington has warned me not to become a catblogger. I am taking his warning very seriously, since I don't know the consequences of actually becoming a cat blogger. Cat owners have always frightened me.

So, on to new and interesting topics.

Let's look at a traffic comparison among four popular bloggers--not to compare the number of visitors, per-se, but to compare the odd peaks and valleys of blogging in general, and, to point out some interesting traits among these four bloggers.

I found it interesting that the two men I investigated had fewer extreme days than the women did. Among our sample group, I also noted that two bloggers spiked high for seemingly no reason. Mind you, my sample size is very small. Especially since I'm one of the bloggers I am analyzing. Which really makes the whole study bogus, if not visually uninteresting:


Jeneane

Note the 5 distinct episodes of mania and the four lows during the period tracked. What does this mean? One interpretation is that the posts attracting so much interest were written directly following a trip to the mall during which I spent $300 I didn't have. Another interpretation is that the sharp drop in hits closely mirrors my menstrual cycle and planetary alignment for Geminis. Still another idea is that I wrote more good posts than bad ones--which in the end is all you can ask from a blogger, right?


Halley Suitt

Like me, Halley had four lows and five incredible highs over the last month, one of which really rocked the hit meter. With halley, this is not surprising. She is nothing if not up-up-up. More study is required to contrast Halley's pattern with my own. There may indeed be a cyclical hit pattern emerging among blog women as we begin to cycle together. Hasn't happened to me since college.


Tom Matrullo

Tom is a woman. See? He is cycling right along with Halley and I. What further proof does anyone need? Just like Halley, Tom had one doosey of a spike during the month. In fact, I have it from Halley that she never actually changed places with this guy, but that she got confused eating angel hair pasta with marinara sauce one night and spiraled herself into Tom's DNA. The new Halley/Tom will be commenting on a post near you soon. Jokes on us. Them. I mean, us.


Gary Turner

I am not sure what Gary's chart means. We who analyze this stuff for a living have never seen a pattern quite like this. We are pretty sure he is a bot. That would explain his fascination with chalk-chalking and making little tiny stickers that don't really stick to anything.

We hope you have found this analysis of traffic useful. Incidentally, if you turn each chart upside down, you will find your personal trip-tick to Disney World. Don't hurt yourselves. We would like to thank our proud sponsor, oh wait, we don't have one.

Never mind, I have a litterbox to scoop.

This Kitten...

Is truly amazing. More pictures to come. In just a day or so he/she has learned to eat canned food, drink on her own (not great yet--but starting), use the litter box, play, not be as afraid. All of you who said how amazing the process of taming a feral cat is were right. It is amazing.



As for whether or not we'll keep her/him, that's still up in the air. It's a big financial responsibility--one we would not ask any of you to share in. Really. We appreciate the offers to help, but keep your money or send some to Marek, because he seems to be in need and we haven't heard from him.

We are seriously batting around the idea of keeping this kitten. It's the absolute wrong time to have him/her. We have two dogs and a five-year old child with a mind of her own, financial constraints, allergy and asthma sufferers, and every other reason for it not to work. But so far so good. That's all I can say. We'll get the kitten to the vet in the next few days and will know more, but as the pictures show, he/she is thriving in his/her nice warm room.

We deeply appreciate the warmth and advice coming from all of you about this creature that shouldn't even be alive. And we appreciate your friendship as well, which reinforces all that is amazing about this place.

That having been said, I took your advice and put a paypal box on this site. The Amazon donation box wasn't working--I could never tell what was going on, if anything at all. If you enjoy my writing, or stories, or have learned something and feel like giving, that is always much appreciated.

As for the kitten, we'll do our best for him/her whether that means keeping it or finding an alternative. It's one day at a time here. We'll keep you posted.

Venture ventures out

...and under the bed.



Itty bitty kitty says, who will give me a home?

cat nap

George is on night duty. I'm going to sleep. The little kitty Venture finally chose what he would eat: the soft center part of Texas Toast (untoasted) soaked with KLM (or KML--i forget--it's late) milk replacement fed from my gloved hand through the slats in the hamper. That's after multiple bottle failure, wet canned food failure, syringe failure, every other kind of failure, and a whole lot of hissing and striking.

This little wilding now officially likes milk-soaked-white-toast mush off the tip of the fingers of a old worn work glove, where he can pretend he's nursing, but since he's got some tiny teeth already, he seems to be learning how to lick and grab once in a blue moon too. He misses his mama big time. But he's bonding with the glove, which is lying against the hamper now. He's asleep.

I've emailed two no-kill shelters (thanks everyone for alerting me to them). Cross fingers. Toes. This is not the time, place or decade for us to have the responsibility of this kitten. I'm sure there are cat people everywhere without inquisitive five year olds who would love this little guy/gal.

Screw the folks at Pet Smart, who after I took the time to explain this story and asked could they cut me a deal on the kitty milk and bottle, said no. Screw the same Pet Smart veterinary (Banfield) who when I called and said I had an abandoned wild kitten as big as my hand who needed help said no discounts on the office visit, no discount on the feline lukemia/aids test. And no appointments today. Screw my old vet, Bells Ferry Veterinary for telling me sorry, we can't help, we get this all the time, no spreading out payments, no discount on an office visit, and no time today. Then I see this on their website. Thanks for nothing.

And bless the webloggers.

Does this make me a cat blogger? Oh jeez. Say it isn't so.

Gotta get some sleep. Take it away Daddy.

Oh dear... we have him, now what?

Alright. We got him. He's okay--well, so to speak, doesn't look like the healthiest thing. He's in a hamper with a box top on as a lid. Sitting up here. Quiet, unless he's lashing out at us. He's good at that. We are NOT putting fingers or hands near him--I wore a good work glove when I finally picked him up by the scruff of his neck, wedged between one of George's amplifiers in the garage.

And here he is.



I think he's hungry, maybe dehydrated. What do we do? I tried one of Jenna's medicine syringes with warm water, with cool water, and tried a choped tiny piece of tuna. No go. He just blinks at it. Or if it gets too close, hisses and strikes. He's got crud in the corner of one eye.

Anyone know what/how to feed him tonight or what else to do? The net says to get a kitten bottle and milk replacement--anything I can try right this minute??

Tomorrow will tell if it's off to the Humane Society or the vet or what--if we make it that far with him. I'd sure like to get some nourishment in immediately.

Thanks for the wonderful advice so far--keep it coming.

sometimes you get picked.

Whenever nothing makes sense, something happens that makes less sense but connects things that would otherwise remain shattered. You remember the ferrel kitten I saw the other day at Jenna's school. How I scoured the place looking for that tinsy winsy thing, ran upon his mother in the woods, who promptly ran off with tinsy winsy's black sibling in tow?

The noise last night kept George up til 6 this morning. He couldn't figure it out. Some noise from the garage--maybe the neighbor's cat. It was a hellish rainy night, so he cracked the garage door open thinking whatever neighborhood cat wandered in, it would find its way out when the rain stopped.

This morning on our way out to the van for school, Jenna and I stopped. We heard a meow. Oh, it's probably Rudy from next door I told her. Still, I thought, that doesn't sound like Rudy. And off we went to school.

George mentioned the cat noise to me this afternoon. I heard it too, I tell him. So we go down to the garage. Meeew, meew.

It can't be.

No way.

How?

Like this:



Do you see her/him? George took the picture from underneath the minivan. A place kitty was obviously very familiar with. This kitten climbed up into the underbelly of our van, rode that way for 10+ miles, including my tour of the area looking for him, probably rode BACK to school in the afternoon to get Jenna, only to wind up in our garage.

Now he's run out from under the van--George almost had him but he slipped away. Folks, he doesn't look so healthy. The meows are getting fewer and farther between. We put out tuna but I'm not sure he's weaned yet. And a bowl of water. But he's just too timid.

PLEASE suggestions on how to find him in our garage which has approximately 1,000 hiding places for things as small as this. How do you woo a kitten out from hiding? All we want to do is for him to come out so we can take him to the vet. He usually answers my Meews when I talk to him. Now he's quiet.

Calling animal control in our neck of the woods is like calling Barney Fife to solve a murder. But we may have to. I don't know. Advice appreciated!!!

Happy Anniversary to ME.

It almost slipped by me. This blog is a year old today. Holy cow, it flew. But then, I look back, and my archives are testimony to the very reality that November 4, 2001 was a lifetime or more ago. To my fellow blog brothers and blog sisters who've touched me deeply over the past year--thanks for inersecting with me. I've found friends and cohorts here in Blogaria that I couldn't have imagined or conjured no matter how much play dough I used.

That's you guys:

George, Chris, David and Doc. George P., Ray, AKMA + family, Andrea, Craig, Anita, Shelley, Euen, Kent, Golby, Denise, Esta, Elaine, Dean, Marek, Tom, Jonathon, Frank, Stavros, Halley, Tom S., Gary, Mary Lu, and Sharon, to name just a few.

You are all amazing. Now onto year two. Hold my hand... ready, set, jump!

ferrel kittens and what to do

I dropped Jenna off at school this morning and I see this itsy-bitsy-teensy-weensy kitten curled up against the curb. The parkinglot was empty except for my van and this pathetic looking grey and white splotch of a kitten. It was breathing so hard. All wet from the rain and petrified. Looking up at us like "help!"

So I got a towel out of the car, figured I'd pick it up and take it to a vet. It couldn't have been more than three weeks old. It couldn't walk so well--but it sure could scamper, which is exactly what it did when I tried to pick it up with a towel... like a low-flying bat out of hell, it used whatever energy it had left to haul ass to a grassy area on the other side of the parkinglot. I looked all over the place but couldn't find the mystery kitty.

Then I hear another soft meew meew coming from back by the dumpster. First thought--oh shit--someone's dropped a bag of kittens in the dumpster. Thank goodness, no. It wasn't that. Just beyond the dumpster there are woods--the really gross kind of woods that remain in those "in between" areas between highways and plazas. This particular area is very high traffic, but there are still some dumpy woods between the strip malls--you get the picture.

SO, I look down into this weedy wooded garbagy area, and I see what is a carbon copy of the itsy bitsy kitten all grown up (i.e. mama cat) with another little tinsy winsy black kitten sitting by her. She's obviously wild--takes one look at me with those no-owner cat eyes of terror and takes off. Little black kitty makes his way after her, tripping as he goes.

But I never did find the pathetic little parking lot kitty again. I waited around for a half hour, walked the length of the grass. Don't know where that sad thing went.

So here's the question... do I:

-blog it and forget it? leave ferrel cats be?

-take a bag of cat food when I go back this afternoon to get jenna, open it, and toss it down into the woods where they must be living to help mama cat out a little bit--meals on wheels?

-scour the woods until I find the sad little kitten and take it to the vet (and then what?)?

I know next to nothing about cats. George and I had one for several years, but she was an easy keeper and only came in to say hello, eat, or sleep. I certainly don't know anything about wild ones, except not to get bit.

Come on cat bloggers--leave me some pointers.