It's been a bad couple of weeks for cancer stories.
First, Catherine Seipp lost her battle with lung cancer. Then, John Edwards' wife announced her breast cancer had returned, in an incurable, but treatable manifestation. Now, Tony Snow's cancer has returned and metastasized to his liver.
All of us know people who's lives have been turned upside down by cancer. My father-in-law passed away three years ago this month after a battle with lung cancer.
Let's offer a prayer up today for these three people and for everyone touched by cancer in their lives.
No changes this week. Still only dialated to one and only partially effaced. Guess we get to keep walking to see if we can't hurry things up. The OB warned us that a lot of first pregnancies go past their due date. I think that deflated Heather. She is done. Her ankles have swollen and she has a rash now. This is probably the worst she has felt this pregnancy. Part of me thinks she might go this weekend. There is a monster low pressure system that should be cutting across the region. I've been told that weather pattern changes cause the Labor and Delivery department here to fill up.
Fine, Newbie! Let me--let me tell you a little story. It starts every day at 5 in the morning -- which is just about the time that you're setting your hair for work -- when I am awakened by a sound: Is that a cat being gutted by a fishing knife? Nooo! That's my son. He's hungry and he's got a load in his pants so big that I'm actually considering hiring a stable boy. But, I go ahead and dig in; because I do love the lad and, well gosh, you know me, I'm a giver. And [whistles] I'm off to the hospital, where my cup runneth over with both quality colleagues, such as yourself, and a proverbial clown-car full of sick people. But, what the hey, my pay is about the same as guys who break rocks with other rocks and I only have to work three or four hundred hours a week, so, so far I'm a pretty happy camper! And then I head back home where I'm greeted by the faint musk of baby vomit in a house that used to smell like, well...nothing! Nothing! Nothing! I-i-in fact it used to smell like nothing at all. And all I want to do before I restart this whole glorious cycle is, you know, maybe lay on the couch and have a beer and watch some SportsCenter and, I'm if I'm not too sweaty from the days labors, stick my hand right down my pants, buuut apparently that's not in Jordan's definition of "pulling your weight".So, uh, there you are, superstar. Fix that.
Hmmm...I fixing to have a little baby. I bet she poops so much I'm gonna want to hire a stable boy. I also bet she makes my nothing smelling house smell like baby vomit. I work at a hospital. I have high quality coworkers. (She the S.H.I.T. series) I get paid about the same as guys who break rocks with other rocks. I work three or four hundred hours per week. (On call 24/7) All I want to do is lay on the couch, would rather watch Dirty Jobs than SportsCenter, but thats a quibble, drink a beer and stick my hand down my pants. Methinks Heather would also not define that as pulling my weight.
A good friend of mine passed away Thursday. Bettie was an amazing woman. She suffered from Crohn's disease and had migraines more days than not, but she never complained. She loved her family immensely. Spare a prayer for her and her family.
Bettie Ann (Boyer) Ritter Ritter, Bettie Ann (nee Boyer), 56, Festus, MO, March 22, 2007. Beloved wife of Paul J. Ritter, Sr.; dear daughter of Gertrude (nee Dorlac) and the late Irey Boyer; dear mother of Angela Marie (Travis) Hill, Randy Ray (Mindy) McDonald and David Allen (Ramona Ferguson) McDonald; step-mother of Paul J. Ritter, Jr.; sister of Rick Boyer and the late James Boyer; grandmother of 8.Services:Memorial Mass 10 a.m. Saturday, March 31, 2007 at Church of Our Lady, 1550 St. Marys Ln., Festus. Memorials preferred to Festus Public Library.
So when my sister was a baby, my dad used to sing her a lullabye, but not any lullabye...it was "Give me a ticket" by Joe Cocker. My sister LOVED that song, and thought it was so cool when she heard HER lullabye on the radio. So in that vein, I've been searching for an acceptible lullabye for little Abigail. I believe I've found one:
CHASING CARS by Snow Patrol
We'll do it all, everything, on our own
We don't need anything or anyone
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world
I don't quite know how to say how I feel
Those three words are said too much
They're not enough
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life
Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
to remind me
to find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life
All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see
I don't know where
Confused about how as well
I just know that these things
Will never change for us at all
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world
I'm a HUGE Dashboard Confessional fan....They capture brokenness in a very unique way. Here's a sampling of some:
The Best Deceptions
I heard about your trip. I heard about your souveneirs. I heard about the cool breeze in the cool nights, And the cool guys, That you spent them with. I guess I should have heard of them from you. I guess I should have heard of them from you.
Don't you see, don't you see, That the charade is over? And all the best deceptions, And the clever cover story awards, Go to you. So kiss me hard cause this'll be the last time that I let you.
You will be back someday, And this awkward kiss that tells of other people's lips, Will be of service to keeping you away.
I heard about your regrets. I heard that you were feeling sorry. I heard from someone that you wished you could, Set things right between us. I guess I should have heard of that from you. I guess I should have heard of that from you.
Don't you see, don't you see, That the charade is over? And all the best deceptions, And the clever cover story awards, Go to you. So kiss me hard cause this'll be the last time that I let you.
You will be back someday, And this awkward kiss that screams of other people's lips, Will be of service to keeping you away. To keeping you away.
I'm waiting for blood, To flow to my fingers. I'll be all right when my hands get warm. Ignoring the phone. I'd rather say nothing. I'd rather you never heard my voice. You're calling too late, Too late to be gracious. And you do not warrant long good-byes. You're calling too late. You're calling too late. You're calling too late.
The Brilliant Dance
So this is odd The painful realization that all has gone wrong And nobody cares at all And nobody cares at all
So you buried all your lovers clothes And burned the letters Lover wrote But it doesn't make it any better Does it make it any better? And the plaster dented from your fist In the hall where you had your first kiss Reminds you that the memories will fade
So this is strange Our side stepping has come to be a brilliant dance Where nobody leads at all Where nobody leads at all
And the picture frames are facing down And the ringing from this empty sound Is defeaning and keeping you from this sleep And breathing is a foreign task And thinking's just to much to ask And you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking eights
This is incredible Starving, insatiable Yes, this is love for the first time Well, you'd like to think that you were invincible Yeah, well weren't we all once before we felt lost for the first time? Well, this is the last time This is the last time This is the last time
Standard Lines
Which of the bold faced lies will we use? I hope that you're happy, you really deserve it, this will be the best for us both in the end.
But your taste still lingers on my lips like I just placed them upon yours and I starve I starve for you. But this new diet's liquid and dulling to the senses. And it's crude but it will do.
Which of the standard lines will we use? I've been meaning to call you. I've just been so busy. We'll catch up soon. Let's make it a point to.
But your taste still lingers on my lips like I just placed them upon yours and I starve I starve for you. But this new diet's liquid and dulling to the senses. And it's crude but it will do.
We had our 38-week doctor's appointment yesterday. The wife's cervix is starting to efface, and she dilated to 1! PROGRESS!!! J Dr. Hulbert said that she would expect her to go into labor sometime close to her due date (April 4th), so I am not expecting anything soon…
We haven’t finished setting up the nursery, but we bought the crib mattress yesterday, so hopefully by Friday, we’ll have her stuff set up. We did get the family car cleaned, but we haven’t installed the car seat yet, either. We still have to pack our hospital bag, and a few other things, so we definitely have enough to keep me busy.
Our Church does this niffty little retreat once a year called Koinonia. My wife and I attended a Koinonia retreat 2 years ago when she was Baptized and Confirmed into the Church. Last year we helped serve a candlelight dinner for all the retreat-ees. The pregnancy is cramping our helping this year, but we were asked to write a "wheat letter" (Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the earth and die...) I'm banging out my letter here for all to see.
Death is a ugly concept in our time. We tend to ignore death, search for the latest diet, exercise, pill or lotion that will grant us immortality. When death comes, it puts us into a shock, we never seem to know what to say our how to act at a funeral. After a particularly untimely death the phrase, he wasn't supposed to die comes to mind, that phrase that is meant as a comfort to the grieving, but also a secret hope that we won't die, WE aren't supposed to die. We tend to treat spiritual death the same way, the death Jesus was talking about when he said in John 12:24, "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat" That same funeral phrase comes to mind, we aren't supposed to die. We aren't supposed to forgive our neighbors. We don't really have to put others before ourselves. We don't have to submit to the authority of Jesus and His Church. Like physical death, we ignore the calls from Christ calling us to die to ourselves for Him. Like with physical death, so many of us look for the latest religion, look for material things, look for sex, look for a god to serve that doesn't call for us to die, doesn't call for self sacrifice. My prayer for you all this weekend is for you to read the rest of John 12:24, "but if it dies, it produces much fruit." I pray that you reflect on Jesus, on his Passion, and on the fruit that his passion produces. I pray that gives you comfort and hope to face death, physically, but more importantly spiritually. On Good Friday, the Apostales couldn't have forseen Easter, but the joy of Easter totally surpassed the pain of Good Friday. My prayer is that you see your own Easter joy that comes from the Good Friday of dying to yourself.
I feel so honored. Joni Mueller, who I believe was the first person kind (or possibly crazy) enough to add me as a friend on myopera.com just tagged me for a meme.
The rules:
Pick up the book you are reading. Turn to page 123 and post on your blog the fifth paragraph. [My book doesn't have five paragraphs on page 123 so I posted the last paragraph on the page, which happens to be a footnote; I hope that's not cheating!] Then post that text and the book title and author on your blog! Finally (this is the most important part!), tag five others and send a personal message to those people.
Here is mine, from "Why do Catholics Do That?", by Kevin Orlin Johnson, PhD.
The cardinals cal stall, too, for reasons of their own. Back in the fourteenth century, when the papacy was at Avignon, they dwadled so much that Philipe le Bel, Louis X's twenty-two-year-old brother, was sent down to hurry them up. When Louis died a few weeks later, Philippe invited the College to a memorial service during which the doors and windows of the chapel were silently walled up by his masons. As he left through the one remaining exit, Philippe told the cardinals that if the election weren't made soon, he'd take off the roof. John XXII was elected almost immediately
OK, so possibly I am dumb. (Possibly? Questions the wife) But I just noticed the recent visitors section of my blog. I bring it up because one of my recent visitors is Daniel Goldman, owner of the blog Opera Watch which I read DAILY for the latest and greatest on the Opera web browser. It is a wonderful site choc full of everything Opera. I'm very humbled that he stumbled across my little piece of the web.
Another shameless plug. Although I've slipped from second to third, if you Google "Bacon man lives in a bacon house" with the quotes, you'll find me. That just amazes me.
BERLIN (Reuters) - An 18-year-old man has been detained for repeatedly defecating in front of a cash machine in a bank vestibule in the southern German town of Eggmuehl, police said on Tuesday.
A police spokesman said man, who left his deposit at the bank eight times, was caught only after the bank installed video monitors to film him in action. A staff worker later spotted the man as he was boarding a local bus.
She alerted police and they then detained him as he was about to get off the bus. He faces charges of vandalism, the spokesman said.
This weekend a friend of mine decided he wanted to buy a PC from Best Buy (he had giftcards burning a hole in his pocket). Against my better judgement, I decide to go with him to make sure he doesn't get screwed. We find a nice Acer desktop that only had a GB of RAM in it. Told my buddy that he should really look into getting 2 GB of RAM put into it. Found a sales clerk and asked him how the RAM was allocated in the Acer we were STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO!!! He looks at us and asks, do you know if it has two 512 sticks or one 1 GB stick. I don't know, idiot, why don't I open your stupid computer right on the sales floor to find out.
In addition to just stupidity, it looks like Best Buy may be maintaining a separate intranet site that looks identical to it's internet site, only with higher prices. What's the motivation behind this? You decide.
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.
According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.
A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.
"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.
Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.
Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.
Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.
From the UK's Telegraph:
Mother is denied pill by Muslim pharmacist A woman was refused the 'morning-after pill' by a supermarket's duty pharmacist because it was against his religious beliefs. Ruth Johnson, 33, who has two children, including a month-old baby, had not been using her usual method o ...
Just talked to a Republican leadership aide. Here's what he had to say about the big margin today. He cited three factors: 1) Up to the point of the Monday vote, members were only hearing from people adamantly opposed to the bill. After the vote, that changed. They began to hear from employers, ban ...
Others around here have pointed to a large number of exaggerations and lies that Joe Biden told last night, but perhaps the most concerted and premeditated set of deceptions was in his criticisms of the McCain health care plan. These were very much in line with the attacks the Obama campaign has tri ...
Uh...wow.
I know some of this stuff is sort of standard in black fraternities. And, yes, I think the substance of much of their incantations is on the whole positive. But when they start getting into Obama's healthcare plan it just gets too, too, weird for me.
There could be a sort-of francofied audio-visual groaner in there. If you can figure it out, well, then you too need R & R. Which is not a lead-in to hawking cabins on the National Review Post-Election Cruise (by the way, we stop doing at 5PM today), but a courtesy to let you know that you can now p ...
You can learn to barbecue the perfect bird Philadelphia Inquirer, PA "Unfortunately, we have become this boneless, skinless chicken breast country," said Fred Thompson , a North Carolina-based food writer and author of Barbecue Nation and the newly released Grillin' With Gas (both Taunton Press). . ...
Sun-Sentinel.com Make your own iced tea Sun-Sentinel.com, FL Here are tips for making 2 quarts tea from Iced Tea (Harvard Common Press, 2002) by Fred Thompson : Step 1: In a glass measuring cup or ceramic teapot large enough to accommodate 2 cups boiling water, place 6 regular-size tea bags and 1 / ...
State Journal Belmont County Sheriff Says Jail Could Close WTOV9.com, OH Sheriff Fred Thompson said sending inmates to other counties and paying their room and board would save the county money. "I don't think it is in the far distant future at this point. It will be sooner rather than later," Thomp ...
"It's Bad Now, But It's Going To Get Worse" WTRF, WV CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio -- As the first round of layoffs takes place, with ten part-time employees now gone, Sheriff Fred Thompson says he had to take deputies off road patrols and assign them to transporting prisoners to court. And on July 1, a second ...
Candidates set for issues forum Columbia Daily Herald, TN Seven people — Fred Thompson , Maury Lee Colvett Sr., Steve Kirk, Larry Thompson, Chris Frierson, Edward Brennan and Russell Knell — are vying for two seats with four-year terms. Randall Sprouse and Bob Shackelford are running for a seat vaca ...
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