Stephen King's Jericho

I have a love/hate relationship with my television set. It's especially problematic at this time of year. Over the summer I don't watch TV and I spend lots of time outside playing and being summery. Then school starts again and things start to get really busy, but it's okay because in early September there are no TV distractions. But, by late September all the season openers and new show pilots are aired and my evenings are shot to heck. Okay, not every evening, because I haven't allowed myself to watch certain shows, like Lost. I keep saying I'll just get the DVD from Netflix, and I will. Other shows can't be put off 'til later, they just can't. I can watch Desperate Housewives all summer if I really want to and be all caught up. But, is anybody else watching Jericho? The scenario in that show is among the most frightening a post-boomer like me can imagine. I was in school just after the "duck and cover" drills were taught. As if hiding under your desk would save you from a nuclear bomb, ah...no. The house where I grew up has a bomb shelter, I think I've mentioned numerous times. Heck, we could save the whole neighborhood if the "big one" ever fell in our remote corner of America. Now they tell you not to let your kids watch the endless replays of terrorist attacks for fear of what it might do to their psyches. Well, as a child I spent way too much time wondering how long the canned food would last in the shelter. Then I began reading Stephen King. Anybody ever read The Stand? That's what Jericho reminds me of. Fascinating book. In The Stand the world is done-in by a virus, but a few immune people are left to start over. In Jericho, most big US cities are hit with nuclear bombs and the little town of Jericho, Kansas is all that is left. In last night's episode the town has to deal with the rainstorm that is coming and bringing all the radiation from the bombing in Denver. Everyone runs around with their duct tape and plastic, sealing everything off. Yes, I have a duct tape supply at my house. Do you remember Y2K? I do! It was going to be terrible! Stock food! Stock water! Stock duct tape! And then........nothing happened. But we had a LOT of cereal to eat and bottled water to drink. In Jericho, as in The Stand, there are magically people who know how to turn the town's power on and run all the important equipment. I couldn't do that, could you? If those people didn't survive we really would be bombed back to the stone age. This is a sincere invitation to Stephen King. If we get attacked, please come and live in my Dad's bomb shelter because when the dust clears I know you will know what to do.

more family stuff, but happier

My Mom is a feisty one. I told you she was once a deputy sheriff? My last post told of her being hospitalized with a stroke, remember? Well, after two days of tests and scans she was told it wasn't a stroke or any kind of heart event. In fact, they don't know what the heck happened to her, but she doesn't remember a thing. She told me one minute she was reading "the Bee Book" and the next she was in the hospital. The part she is missing includes falling down twice and behaving in a "combative" way with everyone around her. She was completely ticked off that she was brought to the hospital in the first place and the minute they ruled out stroke, she wanted out of there. I guess they had an alarm that rang if she moved and between that and the hospital helicopter, she wasn't sleeping and, she's never been a good patient. So, at 3am last night she decided she had had enough and she was out of there. She had to argue and fight with nurses, not to mention calling and waking up Dad at 0-dark-thirty, but finally they let her sign herself out and she went home. I am looking into the future and I hope years of good health are in store for me.

family stuff

There are four kids in my family. I mean I have one older brother and two older sisters. Anyone with this many siblings knows that things can be tricky and over time everyone falls into their roles. I need to seriously work on my relationship with one of my sisters. I don't know where we went wrong, but when she called me last night it was so unusual that I knew she must have bad news. That's sad. My other sister and I call each other sometimes 12 times a day, but with this sister it just isn't warm anymore. So when she said, "Hey, this is Betty" my mind went instantly into trouble mode and I answered, very shortly, "What's up"? To seal the deal, what was up was some bad news about my Mother, who lives in the same town with Betty who is now in her role as family-spokesperson-when-something-happens-to-Mom-or-Dad. Mom had a stroke with very little, if any, bleeding, they think. She's sometimes confused about where she is, but alternates with periods of complete clarity. We won't know for a few days how much of the fog is residual and how much is lack-of-sleep and/or drug induced. I asked Mom how she felt and she said physically she didn't know how she felt but that she was "really scared". Me too. One of my friends uses the expression, "you have a lot on your plate" in times like this. I'm choosing to call it Thanksgiving dinner and see everything on my plate as something to be thankful for. I'm especially thankful for moments of clarity when all of the crap fades and what's really important comes into focus.

I'm a butterfly!

I've been volunteering in my son's kindergarten class. Li'l Freddy (not his real name, ya think?) thinks it's nice for me to be there and as long as those good feelings are in the air, I'll take them. His classmates never got my name straight, but I love the derivations: Mrs. Freddy, Mrs. Freddy's Mom, Mrs. Mom. One little girl, Macy, was wearing a pretty, bedazzled shirt with a butterfly on the front.

Me: Macy, I really like your shirt.

Macy: I'm a butterfly!

Me: I can see that!

Macy: But you can't see my wings.

Me: No, I can't.

Macy: Do you know why you can't see them?

Me: (getting with the program, lowering voice to a conspiratorial whisper) Because they're invisible?

Macy: (looking at me like I'm the crazy, three headed Mrs. Mom lady)
No! They're just really small!

Montana State beats Colorado

Did that really just happen? Montana State played at the University of Colorado today in what was predicted to be a regular trouncing by the Buffs. In fact, a Denver newspaper predicted CU would win 73-3. We went in our Bobcat sweatshirts, not expecting much more than a fun day of Big 12 football (we can dream) and keeping pretty quiet and humble knowing the Buff fans can get aggressive. I wasn't really worried though because I knew we really weren't a threat and it was, after all, just an exhibition game. We sat in great seats on the 50 yard line that were available to us because the long-time owners of the seats didn't think this was a game worth watching. So, they play and I'm no football expert by any stretch but it seems to be at least an even game. I'm thinking early on how great it is for my Bobcats to be holding their own. Then it's the half and we're ahead. Then it's the fourth quarter and we're even more ahead. We were sitting in the third row and could easily hear the coaches talking to the Bobcat players. They were asking them, "Can you smell it? Can you smell it?" I guess they could smell it because they won the game and a great big hush fell over the crowd. ESPN reported that the Buffs were "devastated" by the loss. Please note, this posting is in no way anti-Buff. We brought two prospective students with us so they could experience the whole collegiate thing and maybe start thinking in the direction of college, CU being an excellent choice. To add to the joy, it was announced that the University of Montana lost their game today by more than 30 points and I have no problem at all saying Grizzlies Suck.