Alabama Tracks

Of all the natural disasters mankind has faced, the one we understand the most and can best predict is hurricanes. Other phenomenon are still largely nebulous to our understanding. Hurricanes, however, are pretty much not only understood but the one disaster you’d have to be an idiot to die from because you get days, even weeks, to get out of the way. And with this great understanding we get the next great thing mankind has discovered:

Media circuses.

Now that we understand these great behemoths we do to them what circuses do to lions, tigers, bears, giraffes, elephants and the like: we put them on display. With 24 hour media coverage we can watch, moment by moment, as various reporters, who seem to think themselves brave, sit themselves in the path of the storm to give us such great moments in videography such as the destruction of hotel signs.

But I can’t say they are alone. There are, inevitably, the fools who sit in their houses and go “Aw, it ain’t gonna be THAT bad”. I’d love to say that this time around it was the fact that a hurricane hit The South (not to be confused with the direction or Florida) but people in Florida appear just as foolish. My favorite from Katrina has to be the guy whose house, which is now probably underwater, who called New Orleans 911 begging to be rescued from the seemingly inevitable flood that New Orleans (which is below sea level) would get. He wasn’t alone either. The Coast Guard is having to use helicopters and boats to rescue people from , you guessed, it, themselves.

Katrina spared us this go around. I guess she heard about Ivan too. So far there’s no damage here or power outages (even my mother, who loses power anytime some sneezes, has power) but that’s probably because Ivan cleaned everything out. So no need to trek down there and pull out the chainsaw (Erin’s favorite power tool :p ) or generator. We’ve just had wind and rain plus the occasional tornado warning. I’m waiting to see how well Tia’s brood fares when the air raid sirens up there go off the first time. Chris was actually entralled with ours at Easter when we had a major system move through (of course that was like 3pm in the afternoon). Erin doesn’t like them but they do serve a purpose.

That purpose being to drive you nuts. Montgomery, like so many other Southern cities, has sirens because we’re modern but we lack the ability to sound them separately. So you could have a tornado 20 miles away and have sirens wailing. And the one here is this electronic sounding wail. The first one I ever heard was in college and that wasn’t nearly so pleasant. Imagine finger nails down a chalkboard. Now imagine it deeper. Deeper. Good. Now imagine you’ve got one of those SUVs next to you with the spinning hubcaps and the 15 amp drivers for the twin 20 inch subwoofer playing that sound. At full volume. The kind of sound that reverberates through your being and would even make the hardest core hip hopper go “What IS that noise?” I mean it makes puppies cower, children cry and encourages you to go outside armed with a large calibur weapon to put stop to it. Which I was inclined to do, being that it was 5am. Except that I was out of ammo and most ammo shops wait until at least 6 to start up. My roommate was from rural Georgia and he had no idea what to do so we turned on the TV. People set up chairs outside (I kid you not) to watch for it.

In the end we got hit by no tornados (then or now). We had no real flooding. Katrina, to us, was like Dennis, Cindy, etc. It had a lot of bark but no bite. After Opal and Ivan it’s old hat now. My grandfather said they didn’t call them hurricanes, just really long storms. And they didn’t have sirens either. Ah the good ol days…

The peppers were found shortly after I wrote the last time. I finally realized that I had never used a flashlight to look under the couch. After shinning the light, I immediately found two very shriveled peppers, one fairly new one (the one I gave her when Mom and Dad were here) and then another new one I didn’t know about under the other chair. She has since pulled out several more peppers out of the bowl and actually lost one in the sink of dishes she repeatedly tried to rescue. I don’t understand it as Flala looks at her like she has ten heads but she enjoys it nonetheless.

Today is Grandma’s birthday and I’m having a hard time knowing that I’ll not be able to spend any of it with her. Mind you I’m used to not celebrating my birthday on the actual day but I am used to spending the main family celebration together with her at some point. It seems odd to say the least. This whole birthday for me has been real disjointed it seems. It was celebrated at work on the 15th, I celebrated with Mom and Dad when they were here the following weekend, Joel and I spent the birthday gift certificate to Outback (from work) last night, I will spend time with my in laws today, on Tuesday Joel and I will celebrate further with his gift, and then we’ll do something (or that was what Mom said) when I see Tia and David on Labor Day. I’ve not had a cake yet - Tia - hint hint.

I’ve looked forward to this slow Saturday morning all week. I had my cup of coffee which has now become a Saturday deal for me. I rarely ever have a cup during the week anymore. I had my quiet time and I’ve washed my hair. One load of laundry is in now and I’ve set my sights on cleaning the rest of my house. Unlike most people, cleaning is my way of relaxing to a degree. I feel so much better after I’ve done it. Joel is considering of taking care of the lawn before Hurricane Katrina heads our way and then I expect Belle Zora and Joanna to come by to do a lasagna lunch. We have a Sunday School party tonight where we’ll play the Newlywed Game as well. It should prove to be fairly interesting to say the least.

Lily has just found Flal’s hiding box here in the office though it appears that she doesn’t quite enjoy it nearly as much as Flal does. She woke me up this morning with a loud thump (of what I’ve yet to determine) and loud cry as if she was in trouble. I quickly sat up in bed only to find her sitting in the doorway looking up at me as if to say, “it’s 8:00 Mom, get out of bed and feed me.” Sweet she may be but she has an attitude and isn’t afraid of showing it.

I finally hung my two pictures from the Redwood Forest on my wall this week. It seems odd to be putting up Honeymoon pictures now almost 2 years later. I don’t know what that says about me but I finally did it. They are such beautiful and interesting pictures I’m excited to have them on display finally.

So my weekend begins with a bunch of ramblings.

One pepper, two pepper, three pepper, four. As of today, four was the magic number until I came home today and realized that the fifth pepper was the latest victim. Victim of what, you ask? The victim of the Silly Lilly as shown earlier.

It started when the pepper season was beginning to bust. My jalepeno pepper crop abounded in a great wealth of peppers. Joel would pick them and wanting to be the happy gardener turned homegrown veggie lover, I put them all in the veggie/fruit bowl on the counter. We went to bed. The next morning, I found all but three on the floor. Not sure as to which kitty was the prepetrator, I picked them all up and put them back in the bowl. During that day, it happened again. Finally learning my leason, I put them in the fridge. Wierd, I know. But just wait. It gets wierder.

A couple of days later Joel happened to pick one of the small ones off the plants and threw it to Lilly knowing that she was most likely the wierd one in the bunch as Flal hasn’t done anything like this previously. Before we knew it, she was all over the place holding the pepper by the stem and tossing it up into the air. She had a blast. I’ve never seen a pepper with more than one or two tooth marks but that didn’t seem to stop her. Knowing she was happy, we left her to play with it while we went to bed. When I woke the next morning, it was no where to be found. Three more peppers have since become victims of Lilly’s play. I’ve looked under the couches, behind the doors, behind the t.v. I can’t find it anywhere. Today, a “red” green bell pepper was the victim. Smack in the middle of the living room. No teeth marks that I can see at this point. I don’t think she is eating them but then again, I can’t guarantee anything. After all, she has been known to be my little trash digger.

Speaking of peppers. The other day I tried a new recipe for Pepper Sandwiches. I was pretty leery of the idea as I’m not a bell pepper lover but I thought it would be something different and verify healthy. (The recipe is out of one of the Light and Tasty magazines.) It was a combination of red, orange, yellow, and green peppers with onions and mushrooms on a sesame seed bun. Talk about a pop of flavor! Oh was it good. It would probably be better if it was in a Pita Shoppe pita but seeing that I don’t have that, a bun will have to do. If you want the recipe, I’ll send it seperately. Joel liked it but said that he could eat it again as a side dish. HUH? I think he missed the point of eating light.

Tonight I tried another recipe including green peppers. This time it was Low carb spaghetti. Since growing bell peppers, I have included my peppers in the spaghetti sauce which has been something new for me. I also used an organic Prego sauce. To top that, I used spaghetti squash. I could’ve sworn my leg thumped a little on this one. Mind you, spaghetti squash can’t replace real spaghetti but boy it was good and easy.

Joel harvested more peppers tonight and I’m sure we’ll allow Lil to have another tonight. That is whether we want to or not. Somewhere in this house a pepper heaven exists. I just wish I knew where it was. Until I find it, I’ll just hope that the peppers are drying out and becoming shriveled and unattractive. Maybe the kids will be able to find them when they come for Thanksgiving. Or maybe, they will be resurrected at some point to fall victim to her again for some other weird playtime.

Who knew a cat would like peppers?

Just a little something amusing to share

I’ve had a few days to reflect on the events of the last 7 weeks without the 800 lb gorilla visitor that has for so long hung over out heads.

I was expecting last week’s court appearance to be something on the magnitude of World War III. I expected the man who nearly killed us to not only have no remorse but to take some perverse pleasure from his acts. I was expecting his attorney to basically accuse me of causing the events of the night and to have to defend myself from a vicious onslaught by someone whose job it is to get their client off by whatever means necessary. I was expecting a liberal judge who would bend over backwards to make sure the man got every every break he could give and then some.

Being a realist is hard work…

When I finally saw who he was and what we were up against I really wasn’t sure what to think. What emerged from that torn up vehicle that night was an 800 lb gorilla. The man was at least 10′ 7″ and covered from head to toe with vile serpentine tattoos. He stuck his tongue out at us for good measure as if to add insult to injury. He’s what lurks under your bed. He lives in dark alleyways. He tosses unsuspecting women fruit and says “Of COURSE it won’t kill you”.

What was entering the courtroom was a mere mouse of a man. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. I mean that in a “turned on the light” way. I have pity for mice (at least those that are smart enough not to take refuge inside our house or gas grill). An ancestor of mine once wrote a somewhat interesting poem about them and their plans. Mice are nobody’s epitomy. They have little pride, can scarcely help themselves and are often devoured by prowling animals. That was what was standing in front of me.

I felt pity but, more than that, I had an answer to the biggest question from that night. At the end, when he got out of what was left of his car, he was walking up to us and the 911 operator had told us to get away. He was behind the car. A small turn of the wheel could have ended it right then and there. Everyone I talked to, even the policeman who took our statement, had said if it had been them he would have had at least 1 bullet in him. But as I went to back up there was only one thought that ran through my mind. If you’ve not experienced God speaking to you before then imagine turning around and seeing a giant burning bush and it speaks to you. Mine was saying “don’t hit him”. No explaination. No elaboration. Just a single clarion point. I didn’t have to hit him to get out of that driveway but it made no sense in my rear view mirror.

And now I had my answer. In this strange mouse of a man I saw what a Jewish Carpenter saw. He wasn’t worthy of hatred. He wasn’t even worth the effort to remove from the room. Upon turning the lights on the gorilla vanished and here was someone who needed help himself. Someone who made a rather bad mistake and, much to his credit, admitted it. In a day and age where personal responsibility is a rarity it was a breath of fresh air. It was the first step toward help and suddenly jail time really didn’t matter. The man needs prayer, not jail. The money we’re out is irrelevant. We’ve had to walk this far by faith and it seems a bit silly to suddenly wonder where we’re going to get the money to fix the bumper (although I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself). There was some purpose God had for this man and we weren’t random victims in the wrong place at the wrong time anymore, we were blessed people put in his path because God isn’t through with this man. He could have easily done much worse had it not been us he had run into. We were never in any real danger. Harming us was outside God’s will.

When I walked out of the courtroom I saw the Hound of Heaven watching him. He winked at me as if to say “Ya done good”.

That has to be the best 5 minutes of sheer terror I’ve ever lived through. Kinda makes me want to grab Erin, jump in the car and go “Let’s go again”.

On second thought I enjoy being married a lot more

Independence Day 2005 brought everything but the feeling of independence. It started a new journey of dealing with emotions, government, and a way of life so foreign to me. Today is the day that relief finally came. An independence of some sort. An independence that couldn’t come with anything but experience.

Bright and early, Joel and I got our first taste of Municipal Court. Cold and uninviting, the courtroom reaked of the guilt and the lies that would be demostrated there that morning. As we walked in, a lady with her son and daughter walked in ahead of us. The lady sat on the bench beside the metal detector and said, “hold on while I put my shoes on as they won’t let me in without them.” I couldn’t imagine showing up to court with no shoes. Joel and I both found it odd that they need to put the dress code on the back of the subpeona. We even laughed originally. I guess they have to post it for such people.

We found our seats on an empty bench in front of an older couple which I immediately pegged as the “other family” in our case. 6:50, roll call was taken. It was then that my suspicions were solidified that this woman and her two kids were “it.” He stood about 6′, medium build, dressed decently for court (kakhis and t-shirt) with glasses. Tattoos up one arm with a few on the back of his neck.

Within the next 30 minutes, our docket was called. The couple I had pegged stood up as well as Richard, and Joel and I. We approached the bench and the prosecutor immediately started talking to the judge asking for an extension. We were all rather surprised to hear of an extension. The other couple immediately spoke up mentioning their $40K worth of damages. That through the judge into a tizzy. $40K is a little too much for municipal court so they were told that they have to go to civil court as he didn’t have up to date insurance. The judge continued stating that he wanted to try the DUI case and the criminal mischief charge. Richard immediately said that he wanted to plead guilty to which the judge advised him to speak with a public defender and asked that we sit back down. A few minutes later, Richard and public defender approached the bench. Back up to see the judge, we strained to hear all that was said. With three officers, a prosecutor, a public defender, and Richard and us, it was hard to hear. Richard again said that he would plead guilty and that this was something that he needed to take responsibility for and that he had begun to do so by enrolling in a year long drug/alcohol rehab program. The prosecutor gave the judge our estimates for damage and quickly reminded the judge of the “fear factor.” Though I never received an “I’m sorry” from Richard, I actually felt that he had tried to deal with the issues. A victim of his own volision, he was still somewhat a victim. The judge ultimately assigned him 45 days in jail after he graduates from rehab, $400 fine, $191 court fees, $959 restitution, and a new court date in December to go check into how his rehab is working. We walked about nearly an hour later knowing that for the most part that this chapter of our lives was coming to somewhat of a close. Mind you we’ll probably never see the $959 and we’ll still have to pay our deductible, I really don’t mind as much as I did. Knowing that admission of guilt was there seemed to soothe over the emotions of anger and frustration.

Later today the commander that Joel had been speaking to regarding our police report called to tell us that they had found the report and that it was ready for him to pick up. What great news. Mom always said to give it three days and three days it was.

So as my typical routine, I dealt with my emotions by cleaning in hopes of working through them. I’m really pleased with the outcome. Joel has just learned to let me clean and work it out. But I feel so much better now and maybe now with a clearer head I can give a better description of my feelings.

Relief. Sadness for a man who is so lost. Thanksgiving for God’s grace. Great joy. Tired and relaxed for the first time in a few days. My relief didn’t come in the form of ROLAIDS today. Relief came today in the finalization of court, the admission of guilt, and closure that came with it. Real independence.

My ducks are not quacking the same note, they are not in the same line, nor are they waddling in the same fashion. All of which are extremely important to this control freak.

Today we found out that there isn’t a police report nor an incident report on file with the Police department for our issue with our “drunken friend.” I really felt like I had been sucker punched in the gut seeing that we’re supposed to go to court on Thursday. Joel was able to get the report for the parked car that was hit but not ours. After speaking with the insurance adjuster hoping to get some help, I found out that in order to have the insurance subrogation part of our claims go through (basically, we get our $500 deductible returned to us) we have to have some kind of a police report. I then put in a phone call to an accident investigator friend of someone at work. I’ve not heard back on that one but I’m still hoping he can offer some guidance. We’ve also called the officer that came to our house that night twice. Once he wasn’t on duty and we had to leave a message and the second time, he was on his beat. I guess I’m basically just worried that we’ll get to court on Thursday and judge will ask us why we signed a warrant for the man and how we came into the picture if we didn’t know this man from Adam if there isn’t a report. Hopefully we can speak with someone else higher than our officer tomorrow or maybe this friend will call me back and offer some help. Until then, I just have to deal with some wrong notes and a few misbehaving ducks and pray that it turns out okay.

On another note though, we finalized our plans for our 2nd anniversary trip last night. I’m rather excited and am looking forward to a few days off and seeing the kiddos. We’ll spend Saturday night in Asheville and then head to Tennessee for Sunday and Monday. We’re really looking forward to experiencing some of this “simple life” that my sister talks about so much.

Well behaved or misbehavin, I’m just going to have to cope with the ducks that God has given. He reminded me of that tonight at Bible Study. I don’t have to know the how the full blueprint of my life is going to look like. I just need to trust Him as he so gently asks. I guess I’m living the verse in Matthew where he says, why worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will take care of itself. Maybe my ducks are in formation, just not MY formation.

Challenges seemed to bombard me today. There was nothing that was just too hard to do, it was just stuff out of the norm and out of my comfort zone. My bosses weren’t in the office today so all in all, it was a great day. I’ll not complain. What made my day challenging was the lack of stuff to do. Never before have I just read a personal book on company time but today was the first day that I did it. I actually had time to read two chapters. I could’ve read more, but the guilt remained. That darn work ethic I asked several departments for work to do and then I wasn’t able to drag out the task to take a long time. Both people were flabbergasted how quickly I got the jobs done. I can’t work slowly. It’s either not in my DNA or it is my OCD behavior to the job done and get it done in warp speed.

My day closed with me joining a few of the other administrative assistants at Parisian’s to kill some time. From there we were on to the IAAP meeting at the Capital City Club. For those of you not familiar with the Club, it’s the ritzy, high flalutten place in Mont. IAAP is a administrative professional’s organization focused on personal development. It was interesting but yet another set of challenges. Not only did I have meet about 10 women that were so much more the administrative professional than I, but I had to get over my shyness with some public speaking. Yep, you heard me right. Public speaking. Not my forte nor my favorite thing to do. A friend at work spoke on impromptu speaking and then had each lady there get up and speak on a topic. Thankfully, I was given the topic of “my favorite animal.” I bit the bullet and got up to speak. Oh sure the nerves kicked in but no where near what they have been in the past. I spoke for about 45 seconds about why I like cats and how much like a cat I was. I sat down and several people actually said that I did a good job and that they could tell that I had done some public speaking in the past. I guess speaking to 9,000 + a few times and then teaching a training class has really paid off. They’ve asked me to join the group of which I have thought of doing it, but that is only if the company will pay the dues. It’s $100 to join for a year membership and then $20 per month for dinner. The dinner will need to come out of my pocket but it’s a good meal so that may not be too bad to swallow. I may have even found someone else to take cake decorating classes with me. But, a very large challenge may still lay ahead of me. Fran from the AL Forestry Association (I interviewed there before I got on with Alfa) may be a visitor to the group in a few weeks. It should prove to be interesting to say the least.

So thus my day ended on an up note. I felt good about the challenges that I had overcome. A new mountain crossed for my book today. Why did I ever say my life wasn’t interesting? I’ll close with the following quote:

“Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results.” —- Anonymous

It seems that as soon as I walked up the stairs to say “I do,” I began a lifetime of cliff jumping. Oh, this is nothing that I would have chosen for myself as I’m not one for change, but God has since had other plans for me. Cliff jumping has now become a way of life for me.

This is the latest cliff jumping experience. I myself am not the writer unlike that of my sister and my mother. In fact, as I read their blogs, Joel suggested that I start to blog in an effort to release some of the feelings that have begun to well up inside of me. My life hasn’t been normal since I married and thus Mom reaffirmed that I ought to blog. So here it is.

I finally agreed to make dinner for some friends while they are dealing with a recent surgery in their family. I called today to make sure the time for delivery was okay as well as the menu, of which everything that I had planned was fine. I had begun making the dinner a few nights ago so it wouldn’t all hit at once. I thought I was home free. That was until about a half hour before I was to deliver the meal. My friend called and said that they were back in the hospital and wouldn’t be home to get the meal. I was completely deflated. Now I had a full course meal left over and it wasn’t nearly on our diet. Frustrated, I fixed our plates and began our dinner on what was the left overs from their dinner. Dinner confirmed that I had done well which was comforting but still a little aggravating.

So I will end my day playing SSX3 - the snowboarding Ps2 game Joel has gotten me hooked upon. Maybe my next post will be more informative and more intriguing. Cliff jumping is still an art that I’m perfecting. It’s good to know that I’m still a work in progress.