i needed to take a little break from the bloggin but i certainly didn't mean to be gone so long. there were a number of little things that i was ponderin and in no time there were some bigger things that needed more dedicated ponderin and before i knew it i hadn't blogged in so long people i didn't know were fretting that maybe i had been visitin my homeland when the big storms blew up and i was possibly washed out to sea.
i'm here to say that didn't occur although i did spend a good period of time, as i'm sure you did, paralyzed by the images i saw on the television by those who had the misfortune of livin exactly where those two lady storms ended of goin ashore. mini and her dad kept tryin to turn off the t.v. to get me movin again but realized they were wastin their time. if all those people were sufferin the least i could do was suffer along with 'em some. the whole thing was (and is) just so horrible i felt as if i was watchin the scariest yet way too far fetched to ever really happen movie.
all this sure has made me see some things differently. growin up on the gulf of mexico in a town where to escape you had to cross over a bridge no matter which direction you were escapin to, i remember learnin the word evacuation early on. in fact, up until this recent mess, i had quite fond memories of bein an evacuee. it meant to me we got to miss school and go to my auntie paula's in shreveport for a few days and visitin her a couple a' times every fall was worth any jammed up roads full of other evacuees. afterall, that's where my adored cousins rick and larry resided and they had air conditionin, coke in glass bottles and bordens chocolate milk in a carton - all kept at real nice freezey temperatures. we had NO air conditionin (even in the car that evacuated us), never had soda of any kind and our chocolate milk was the kind that came powdered in a tin and never really mixed quite right with the milk. i never understood what we were possibly runnin from. we always came back home to eveything lookin exactly the way it looked when we left and i never gave it another thought until the next time i needed to be an evacuee.
when i married mini's dad i quickly discovered 'those things' about him that men sort of hide from you until you are in a position where you HAVE to accept them. nothin as serious as the LBJ addiction but odd just the same. one of em i discovered completely by accident while trying to find a empty video tape. yep - picked one up, plopped it in the VCR (this was long before TIVO) and what i saw on the screen was a real shocker. so much so that i couldn't watch more than a few minutes of it. i ejected it and hid it so well it has never been seen again. i thought from time to time how traumatic it would be if mini ever saw it.
another thing i quickly discovered was that it appeared i had married some kinda safety nut. when we finally moved into his fancy just built bachelor dream house in the hollywood hills (which he never got to live in as a bachelor cause between the time he started and finished it he met the girl of his dreams - me, mo), there had to be workin flashlights in every room within reach and all the electrical outlets had those little emergency lights plugged into em - you know - the kind that come on and stay on for a long time if nothin else works? not too bad since i never had a night light as a kid and now had so many if they all came on at once i could be blinded for life.
the ugly red fire extinguishers in every room took more effort to get used to. as keen as this back-then-still-a-prince-charmin was into design and everything bein perfect, he felt that the big could-be-used-as-a-weapon flashlights and bright red fire extinguishers should be right out in the open. now this coulda worked if the color scheme for this brand spankin new, state of the art all-too-slickly-designed-for-me house was shiny black and red metal. then i might've been able to make the ugly things meld into their surroundings. but instead i was constantly kickin em under or behind somethin and then he'd come along and carefully place them back out where they could easily be grabbed for any emergency that might rush in. this probably happened about 10 or 20 times a day, with neither of us ever sayin a word about it.
the back of the house was made up of just about all glass so the biggest eyesores of all for me were the two big ol things i could see out of the corner of my eye from almost every place i went on the lower floor. there they sat - too big for me to haul away or hide with a carefully placed plant....a big ol water pump and a huge generator. i had to tell myself i was lucky he didn't keep em in the FRONT of the house. the water pump was there so when the house caught on fire, he would be ready to pump the water from the pool onto the fancy no longer bachelor pad and let the firemen help the other less prepared neighbors. then when the big earthquake hit, we would have the generator right there, out in the open, ready to go. he made sure the one he got was big enough to keep the whole street going if need be. it was beginnin to look as though he had a secret fantasy to become a super hero or somethin.
even with all this equipment sitting around makin him appear to be like that man the mom married on 'six feet under' - the one she sent to the looney bin - he never seemed to get too annoyed that i didn't share the same way of thinkin about his need to be prepared. not even when he went on one of his disaster check-list reviews and discovered that his big ol pile of one dollar bills, kept in the earthquake kit, had plum disappeared. that was my doin. i didn't mean to take it ALL. i never have any cash - ever since that man held a gun to my head at the ATM, i am usually cash poor. so whenever i found myself needin some and he wasn't around to take it from (i'm from the school of thought that what's his is mine and what was mine when i married him stays mine and in the bank), i'd just go take a few dollars out of the earthquake kit, havin every intention of putting it back but never quite doin so. i must admit i did get a little careless about how much i took after the first few times. after a while i would just grab a big wad cause they were just ONE dollar bills and they don't go very far. after i got caught he no longer kept the earthquake money with the other earthquake supplies. to this day i still look for it from time to time but have never found it. he lets mini know where it is but won't tell me.
anyway, all this equipment and hidden money and such seemed like just some weird hobby i had married into. if there was some sort of disaster, i might be forced to experience a day or so of discomfort - you know - until 'they' came to set everything back to working again. i lived in the united states of america after all and i would be taken care of. i realize i never really even gave this this much thought - it was just somethin i assumed. not that i don't worry about the big earthquake that's comin - when i had to pick mini's first pre-school, i never told anyone but i picked the one that i knew i could get to on my bike to resuce her by throwin her in the basket and bringin her home. and as much as the big foldin ladders bug me sitting on the wrought iron balconies, hinderin my pretty dangling-from-em plants, i have yet given in to my desire to pitch em off into the yard.
but as far as what would happen after i made sure my family was safe from immediate danger, well, 'they' would then show up and take care of whatever i needed. cause i was livin in america, land of the free, home of the brave and country of the prepared...and FEMA - whatever that was. so i would put up with mini's daddy's odd design un-friendly need for such a slightly expensive hobby. if the disaster came i thought he'd get to use all his toys just long enough for his vision of super heroism to be satisfied and then 'they' would show up and he could get the stuff all ready for the next time.
then came katrina and rita. after a few weeks of watchin the t.v. screen full of people goin days without eatin, bodies layin in the ditches, stadiums full of families sittin on cots and starin off into space, i have a new respect for mini's daddy's feelin that we need to be prepared for the comin disasters. and after realizin george's choice for the one to be in charge of the 'they' (who i had assumed would arrive lickety split to take care of me and my family and neighbors when the earthquake comes) was a baffoon, i have stopped kickin those fire extinguishers under the furniture and even listen a little more closely when he (george) says we need to trust him when he says so-n-so is the best person for some big ol job - like a supreme court judge or such. and i will never again tease mini's daddy when he goes and sits in on every city council meetin so he can make sure the city we live in is prepared for whatever might arise.
if the big disasters do come, i might not be able be to find the dollar bills right away but thanks to mini's daddy's efforts to always be prepared, at least i can put out the fire if it's blockin my way to the flashlights so i can grab one to use to go out and turn on the generator and light up what's left of the house so lookin for the cash will be easier.
most of those people down south seem like they weren't lookin for the big disaster to happen and i fear they will be sufferin for a long time to come....and even though ol george finally said he would take responsibility for what happened, he doesn't seem to have gotten much better in his way of thinkin about how to get things goin better and faster (and i don't have much faith that he will as long as his family is safe and has a roof over their heads and all their doo dads surroundin em). i really worry that with each passin day the horrible images that were on t.v. constantly will fade away...altho lately they seem only to be replaced by more images of the same sort of things, just in another part of the word. if you are even slightly religious you have to wonder if god is tryin to tell us somethin.
if you are like me and still feelin the need to help the victims of the hurricanes - or even those from the earthquake on the other side of the world, i hope you are also feelin the need for some delightful halloween doo dads delivered via download! if you are, please make a donation of $7.00 dollars or more to the american red cross between october 8th and november 1st and send a copy of your receipt to:
doodads_for_donating@mac.com
within 24 hours of receivin your proof of donation, you will receive a link for my halloween doo dad collection pictured at the top of this blog. i am only able to do this with the help of my very organized friend amy, from inspirecompany.com. as many of you know, i have the best intentions but fall short at trying to do too many things at once....so amy has taken on the job of getting all the links out. i promise you'll not only feel good about helpin out, you'll be delighted with the doo dads you download due to your donation. a huge thank you to everyone who donated last month!
i was thinkin before i sign off from this much too long entry back into blogdom, i should tell you what mini's daddy was doin on the tape i accidently found right after i had promised to love and honor him all the days of my life...but i think it would be more fun to make you guess...the first person to guess correctly can pick out a couple a sets of doo dads to download. just to keep you from goin in the wrong direction, it is somethin commonly done in public and just one more example of his efforts to be 'prepared' for the future payin off. be sure to leave me your email address if you think you know so you can reap your doo dad reward...or send me your guess via my email tab at mojackson.com.
thank you for stoppin by after my long absence. i do so hope you'll put me back on your list of daily visits and i will do my best not to disappoint you with somethin you have already read.
