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 |  My Blog....Pearls of wisdom and/or foolish mutterings.....You be the judge.... |
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A little of this, a dash of that......epic mood swings.......A LOT of foolish mutterings and occasionally a few words of wisdom. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you'll find in here... |
| We never know what awaits us from day to day. I never cease to be amazed at the curves life can throw at us.This morning I was leisurely making my way around WDC, planning my day, checking email with one eye on the television when I received the phone call from my daughter about our friend from church who had been shot. SHOT?!! The word struck such a discordant note that I had to struggle to absorb it. SHOT?! How can that be? That word doesn't fit in the vocabulary of our lives. And the blows just kept coming. Shot. Four times. More? A man hiding in the bushes. No, two men. Shot by the first man. On the ground when the second man walked up and shot him twice in the back. His wife spared by a cell phone. She forgot it. Turned back to get it. Heard the shots from inside. Her husband on the ground. Not moving. Lifeflight. Shot twice in the neck. Surgeries. The bullets missed all major arteries. Thank you, God. All day long, and into the night still, those of us who know and love our friend, David, struggle to make sense of what happened. But there is no sense to be made of it. So many prayed and God heard and answered our prayers. He was hurt badly, but David will survive. Still we wrestle with the knowledge that the gnarled hand of senseless violence reached into our ordered existence and grabbed one of our own. How can we make that fit on the canvas of our lives? I don't know the answers to these questions. But what else are we to do but keep walking forward in the only way we know, as if we still recognize the path we walk upon. Because to do anything less would be to surrender to the madness in this world. Ultimately, I suppose the knowledge that the darkness in our world is ever-increasing is something we inherently know. We cling to the illusion that we live our lives above that darkness, but in truth, it surrounds us. What keeps us from being devoured by the growing darkness? One thing. One precious thing. When the darkness overshadows us, we cry out to God and He brings us into His Light. He lights our path and He stays the hand of evil that seeks us out. We step into His Light and we are saved. |
| God answers prayer! I just got a phone call that David went through two surgeries this morning and has now been moved to a private room. He is alert and talking and his family is there with him. The doctors say he is going to be okay, which is nothing short of a miracle given that he was shot four times at close range! Thank you to everyone who prayed for him - God heard and answered our prayers! I don't have any information about the man who shot David. I will let you all know as I find anything out.  |
| I just received the most distressing news. One of the men from my church, his name is David, was just shot four times by his daughter's ex-boyfriend. He has been life-flighted to the hospital and I don't know any more than that right now. Please take a moment and say a prayer for David. |
| Yay, Me!!! Yesterday I stuck my nose to the grindstone and managed to get all the papers needed to close out my dad's estate scanned into PDF files which I will be emailing to my attorney this morning so that he can prepare the final accounting to send to the judge for approval. THANK GOD. I have threatened everyone I know within an inch of their lives should they have any inclination toward naming me as the executor of their will - and really, when you think about that statement, it is totally ludicrous, since they wouldn't be around for me to exact my revenge anyway. But I think, I hope, I pray that everyone gets the message and will spare me having to go through this horrendous fate ever again. Of course, this experience was made much, much worse by all of the extraneous occurrences that were an off-shoot of the whole thing. I remember the beginning of the whole ordeal when we discovered that there was no will (no will that could be located is a more accurate description, since I know my dad had one, but that's a whole other story.) At the time, we were all still playing nice. By we, I mean me, my brother and my dad's widow - AKA The Black Widow of Andrews. Hubby came home from work telling me about someone he works with who had just been through four years of hell dealing with the probate of a family member. I told him, "Oh I just can't see that happening to us." Famous last words. So, here we are, four years down the road, at the end of a bitter, bitter all-out war. The fallout from said war was unimaginable. I've talked about it far too many times to go over it again here; suffice to say I never would have believed it if I hadn't lived it. Fortunately, I think I have regained most of my sanity, even to the point of writing a fiction book and using that experience, that town and those involved as fodder for the novel. It's much more believable as fiction, anyway!  I'm a much different person than I was four years ago and that's not all bad. It would appear "that which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" is a statement with more truth in it than I really like to think about. But I definitely am stronger and smarter. I learned some things I would rather not have learned. I had experiences that I could have done without. I kicked, I screamed, I railed at injustices, but ultimately, I did come out on the other side of that long, dark, scary tunnel intact. I even gained some important things in the process. I quit my job because I couldn't handle it and the nightmare of the probate at the same time. I began writing as a way to keep my sanity and out of the ashes of despair, I emerged a writer. Would I have discovered this passion of mine had this not happened? I don't know. I'm just grateful that I did. I found friendships I treasure that I would never have known if I hadn't been searching for a place to hone my new-found talent. My life has been enriched immeasurably by the friends I have made here. And I have to ask myself, would I have found this place, these friends, had it not been for the series of events set in motion by my father's death and the subsequent nightmare of probating his estate? I am happy that I'm not the person I was four years ago. I'm happy that this "trial by fire" has brought me to this place in my life. It's a comfortable place. I found my faith again, I found friends who renewed my faith in my fellow man, I found good in the world again, when I had convinced myself that it did not exist anymore. Yes, it's time to close out the estate, thereby closing that chapter in my life - that life-changing chapter. And it's time to take the first step into the newest chapter of my life. I'm ready. |
| This morning my thoughts are all over the place, so I've decided that, in place of my usual blog entry, I am doing a glob. You know, a glob of thoughts, a glob of stuff, a glob of randomness. A glob. Let's start with a report from Broke Toe Mountain. Once I removed the tourniquet (in the form of toe rings) from my toe yesterday, the excruciating pain (yeah, I'm exaggerating - deal with it) began to ease up a bit. And I'm sad to report that this morning, the toe is not quite so colorful as it was yesterday. I was really hoping to milk this for a lot longer. Damn! Don't get me wrong - it's still purple and somewhat swollen, but not the kind of horrible dark purple and blue and swollen that makes people gasp and say, "Oh my God! What happened to your toe?!" Now it's more likely to elicit a reaction along the lines of, "Ewwww. What happened?" Oh well, I'm confident in my ability to find some other avenue for calling attention to myself. Switching gears.... I was reading and reviewing this weekend and came across one of the most wonderfully written essays I have ever read. I just have to plug it here and you absolutely must read it, if you haven't already. It's wonderful! Here's the link:
Switching gears again.... I want to brag on my hubby. He got a well-deserved (and long-overdue) promotion with his company. He is now Domestic Sales Manager for US Manufacturing. Woot woot!! Our friend, David McClain  has an excellent blog this morning. I urge everyone to pop over and read it. While you're popping, pop on over to Scarlett  and check out the picture of the new love of her life. I guess I've put it off as long as possible. I need to pull together all the CRAP to finally close out my dad's estate. I don't know why I am dragging my feet so much on getting it closed out. Except that it's been the bane of my existence for nearly FOUR YEARS now! You'd think I would be happy to do it. Maybe it's the finality of it - I don't know. Too introspective for me this morning. So, with that said, I'll close this GLOB and go drag out those papers and get them to the lawyer. happy, happy, joy, joy. |
| Aaaarrrrggghhhh!!! I broke my... **glances up to check rating-- okay, we're good**...as I was saying, I broke my damn toe yesterday. OWWWWW! Over the years, the only bones I have ever broken have been toe bones. And I guess if you have to break a bone, the toe bone is probably the one to shoot for. Yeah, it can be painful - what am I saying? It IS painful, but probably one of the least painful breaks you can have. Of course, I don't know that from personal experience since I seem to have an affinity for breaking only toe bones. The strange thing about it is which toe I broke yesterday. It's the toe next to my big toe on my left foot. Not one that is normally a candidate for breaking, given the fact that it's situated in a spot that usually offers protection from being stubbed or from hanging on pieces of furniture as you walk by. The other strange this is that I broke it by tripping over a steel-toe boot. How's that for irony? This morning my toe is so purple and swollen that I had to take off the toe rings I always wear on that toe. It looked like I had slept with a rubber band wrapped tightly around that toe. When I told my son how I broke my toe, he suggested that considering the sheer number of times I have broken one or more toes, maybe I should be wearing steel boots instead of kicking them. Well, yeah, maybe, but I would have to actually wear them instead of going barefoot all the time. So that's probably not a plausible solution for me. Does anyone know of any good toe-strengthening exercises? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| This must be the day for weird things. I just read Nada 's blog about the avocado bomb hitting her house. And that was just as I was getting all geared up to write about what happened to me in church this morning. Well, mine wasn't so much weird as it was funny - not so much for me, but for everyone who was watching. At the end of the sermon, the pastor gave an altar call and I went up front to the altar and knelt down on the floor (it was crowded up there - must have been a rough week for everybody!) I was kneeling there with my head bowed and my eyes closed and you know how when someone is standing really close to you, you can feel it even if you don't see it? Well, I sensed that someone was very close to me, so I opened my eyes a bit and sure enough, there was some standing fight in front of me. Very close to me. So I was keeping an eye on them, you know, peeking every so often to make sure they didn't fall over me or step on me. I don't know why I didn't just move, but I didn't. Anyway, sure enough, there I was with my eyes closed, kneeling quietly and the person who was standing in front of me stepped back. I felt her foot brush my knee, so my eyes popped open and I reflexively looked up. Problem was that I reflexively looked up just as she shot her arm out to balance herself and she poked me in the eye. OUCH! I bowed my head down to protect my eyes from further mauling, but she was apparently still off balance. Next thing I knew, she had planted her hand on top of my head and was still trying to balance herself. All I could think about was how she was messing up my hair and it had been such a good hair day. So much for that. Finally, she caught her balance and walked away, leaving me nearly blind in one eye and the hair on the top of my head good and tousled. Then, all I could think about was how many people in the congregation witnessed what just happened and were, at that very moment, sitting there about to split a gut from holding their laughter in. And the sermon was about unforgiveness so I couldn't even hold a decent grudge against the woman who had just come close to cage-wrestling me at the altar. Well, that's my story for today. I'm sure I have more to say, but that's I've got for the moment. Now, it's your turn. Come on, people, I've given you great fodder for comments here. Show me some love - comment me! See, ShellySunshine , I'm not too proud to beg.  |
| Oh my, my, my. Truth really is stranger than fiction. Big news today - a US Airways plane crash-landed in the Hudson River merely moments after takeoff when it experienced (and I quote) "loss of thrust in both engines." Thankfully, and almost unbelievably, no one was killed or even seriously injured. The pilot is being lauded as a hero for his quick thinking and mad falling into the water skills. News reports blame a flock of killer geese from Canada (it's always the quiet ones, isn't it?) Apparently the geese staged a suicide mission, flying in mass quantities into both engines, rendering the plane unfit for flight. Ah, but the geese obviously did not count on the cunning mind of a seasoned pilot; nor did they accurately gauge the "sinkability factor" of your basic standard commercial airplane. Those babies can float. Who knew? Certainly not the flock of killer geese who staged the suicide mission. I have to wonder, though, if it might just be possible that US Airways pushed the limits just a bit too far in their efforts to save money by recycling engine parts from plane to plane. Now you all know that I'm not one to stir up trouble just for the sake of stirring the pot. (Eric Wharton, I know what you're going to say already - save it. I'm performing a community service here.) I do find it just the teensiest bit coincidental that just last week, I was witness to US Airways playing musical engine starters (not to mention the announcement by the pilot that - 'wait, come back, the lead mechanic has forced the starter in place on the bent clamps and secured it with wire') and today one of their planes experiences engine failure and crashes. Personally, I tend to believe it may have had less to do with mass quantities of Canadian Geese and more to do with engines held together with baling wire and spit. Call me crazy, but I'm just sayin'... In an odd twist of fate, I received the following email late this afternoon in response to my complaint email sent to US Airways on January 13th. Seriously - you can't make this stuff up! Today's email from US Airways: Dear Ms. Jordan: On behalf of US Airways and the entire Customer Relations team, please accept our sincere apology for the travel difficulties you experienced. Your concerns have been thoroughly documented and your comments have been shared with the appropriate management teams to help us improve our service. The normal procedure for damaged baggage is to file a claim immediately prior to leaving the airport so everything can be verified and documented. It sounds like you tried to do that and were not provided the service we would expect from our employees. I have increased the normal amount of compensation that we would have given due to that issue and your added stress of a flight delay the next day. We are unable to offer reimbursement for expenses incurred as a result of flight interruptions. We are able to compensate only for the flight interruption itself and to convey our apologies we have authorized one Electronic Travel with Us Voucher (E-TUV) in the amount of $200.00 as a gesture of goodwill. We hope you will allow US Airways another opportunity to regain your confidence. Your E-TUV is valid toward the purchase of travel on US Airways. Uh, yeah, thanks but I think I'll pass. I'm trying to imagine what kind of letter they might send to the 150+ passengers on the plane that went down today. I think it would go something like this: Dear Survivor: On behalf of US Airways and the entire Customer Service and Passenger Survival team, please accept our sincere apology for the travel difficulties you experienced. We are deeply grateful that you survived the crash landing of our jet today. Your concerns have been thoroughly documented and your comments have been shared with the appropriate management teams to help us improve our service. We understand that having your luggage sink to the bottom of the Hudson River is an inconvenience to you and we appreciate your frustration. We would like to remind you, however, that US Airways does not now, nor has it ever had any control over the migratory habits of Canadian Geese.This being the case, we are unable to offer you anything in compensation for your sunken luggage. However, we are deeply appreciative that you crawled out of the sinking plane and stood on the wings waiting for rescue,(high-five for following the instructions of our pre-flight safety demonstration.) We are able to compensate only for the flight interruption itself and to convey our apologies we have authorized one Electronic Travel with Us Voucher (E-TUV) in the amount of $200.00 as a gesture of goodwill. You will also be receiving via US Mail, your very own inflatable safety vest emblazoned with the US Airways logo, as well as a pair of wooley socks for those pesky frigid water landings. Unfortunately, even though your luggage now rests at the bottom of the Hudson River, we are unable to refund the ridiculously outrageous baggage fees that you were charged when you checked your bags prior to your flight. In the interest of fairness, we are sending you one drink voucher that you can use on your next US Airways flight. This drink voucher will save you $2.00 which we normally charge for soft drinks or juice. It cannot be applied toward the purchase of our $7 mixed drinks or wine, as we would encourage our passengers to keep their wits about them in the event of any unforeseen crash landings. We look forward to serving you again in the near future. We know you have a choice when you fly, and frankly, we cannot fathom why you fly with us, but we are delusional enough to believe that you will. In closing, I would like to thank US Airways for kick-starting my smart-ass muse. I could not have had better blog fodder if I had PAID for it. |
| That darn Blog Muse of mine seems to have taken a hike. I don't know where the heck she's hiding, but wherever it is, she's doing a good job of it. I haven't seen even a "flicker" of her lately. Consequently, not only do I have ZERO Pearls of Wisdom to share, I don't even have any decent Foolish Mutterings. To make matters worse, my Smart-Ass Comment generator appears to be on the blink, too. Being a member of a family that deeply appreciates a good smart-ass remark, it is a serious matter when a smart-ass remark doesn't roll glibly off one's tongue. If I don't get my smart-ass back on pretty soon, I may have to go into hiding until I get better. It's just not safe around here without it. Help me Obi-wan-kenobi. |
| And now, my Airline Efficiency Report. Pay close attention to these words, because this is a certified warning concerning a certain airline that you will not be happy to find yourself flying. When I booked my flight from Texas to Florida, I knew I would have to pay through the nose because I was buying tickets only one day in advance. I was most pleasantly surprised to find a roundtrip flight from Houston to West Palm Beach for only $295 on US Airways. Not an airline I usually fly, but I knew the name, so wasn't too concerned. The cheapest price I found among the competition was between $650-$900 roundtrip. My flight had one stop in Charlotte, NC, where I had to change planes. I prefer to fly direct, but that wasn't an option at this price. I figured I could handle one stop and the layover was only supposed to be about 40 minutes. Two hours later, there we sat, waiting for the crew for our plane, who were late arriving on another flight. My short forty minute layover turned out to be a bit longer at two and one-half hours. Oh well, I comforted myself, it's not the worst that could happen.(Oh, no, that was in reserve for my return flight) I would still get there, just a little later than I planned. Now, flash forward four days to Friday when I had a return ticket on the same airline. Just in case you missed it the first time around, let me give you the name of the airline --- US AIRWAYS. My flight was scheduled to leave at 7:10 pm. I had to turn in a rent car, so my brother, Keith, and I headed off to the airport at about 5:30. I dropped off the rental and Keith whisked me over to the airport and stayed with me until I got my bag checked (for a $15 fee, mind you - for the bag, not Keith) and then walked me to the screening area, where we said goodbye. Keith headed back home and I made it through security in time to grab a book to read on the plane and then made my way to the gate. Perfect timing! They were just beginning to board the plane. It was a full flight and I was seated in a middle seat (don't you hate those middle seats?) I was seated between two men. The one to the right of me was very nice, but had a very thick agent and I had to ask him to repeat everything he said at least twice. The one to my right was a big blowhard of a man wearing a huge hat that was a cross between a safari hat and a cowboy hat. Yeah, go ahead and just try to imagine it. It really was that bad! Before we even pushed back from the gate, he had already punched that button summoning the flight attendant four times. Not to mention that he was like a bull in a china closet, or more accurately, a bull who has had one too many drinks in a china closet. And he wanted to talk. No matter how many times I stuck my book in front of my face, he just kept on asking me questions and/or regaling me with stories about how he met his wife or how his son and son's girlfriend were on another flight because the son was coming to stay for a while to get his head straight. I swear I don't know how I do it, but I seem to attract people who want to tell me their life story. Forty-five excruciatingly long minutes later, the pilot announced that we would be pulling back up to the gate, because one of the engines wouldn't start. Another thirty minutes or so later, the pilot comes back on the loudspeaker to tell us that the engine's starter is out and the part will have to be ordered.(I was secretly happy at this point, knowing that I would not be stuck sitting next to Neanderthal Man in a Mutant Cowboy Hat.) We all grumbled and shuffled off the plane, with instructions to see the ticket agent at the podium. Yes, I did indeed say agent singular, not agents plural. One agent to re-book about 300 passengers. We received the news that the engine had a blown starter and we would not be leaving that night. We all waited in line--some more patiently than others (you people know who you are and you should be ashamed of yourselves)--and finally I made it to the ticket agent and was re-booked for the following day. Back I go to my dad's house. Keith came back to the airport to pick me up. But we had one stop to make first. We had to stop at Wal-mart so I could buy a new bag, since mine had a gaping hole in it, thanks to US Airways baggage handlers. WalMart was a bust, but I finally found a bag at Target (along with a couple of pints of ice cream) and Keith and I headed back to Dad's house for ice cream and a movie. I was lucky that I had somewhere to go. Many of my fellow travelers had to pay for a motel room for the night and the airline (US AIRWAYS) refused to issue hotel vouchers, food vouchers or compensation of any kind. The next morning--yesterday--Keith hauled me and my new bag to the airport again. Same drill as the day before, except that when we are checking my bag, we discover that my 10:10am flight is delayed two hours. Not a good sign, given the events of the night before. When I reach the gate, the plane is there, but we are told by the crew that we are waiting for two things: 1. a part for the engine (what is it with these guys and their engines, anyway?) 2. a mechanic to install the part. The projected two hour delayed departure time comes and goes and we are still waiting. Another hour goes by and apparently the part arrives, followed a while later by a mechanic. We all become hopeful! Suddenly, we are all herded on to the plane, with assurances that we will be in the air within twenty minutes. Thirty minutes later, the pilot comes on the loudspeaker and tells us that the part has arrived (a starter - go figure!) but can't be installed because a clamp was bent when they stole the starter off our plane to put on another plane earlier in the morning. What is it with these people? They only have so many airplane parts to go around, so they scavenge parts from their other planes? We all exit the plane, again with instructions to see the ticket agent to be re-booked. No sooner have we re-booked, than an announcement is made, The plane is fixed, everyone can re-board! Back we go to the broken (but now repaired) airplane. Once we are all seated on the plane, the pilot's voice comes over the loudspeaker explaining to us that the head mechanic was able to make the piece fit and he has wired the starter to the clamp. "Not to worry folks, perfectly safe." Finally, we are cleared for takeoff and four hours after our scheduled departure time, we are on our way to Charlotte. Thankfully, the starter stayed wired to the engine, we made it to Charlotte and spread out in every direction to make our connections. Evidently, they're not so rough on their engine parts in Charlotte, because we actually boarded the plane and took off almost on time. Thirty minutes late, but what's thirty minutes when the other delays have all been so outrageous? Any time you fly, remember this simple saying: WHEN IT COMES TO US AIRWAYS, JUST SAY NO You'll all thank me for this someday. |
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