Arrrgh!!!

It is with great sorrow that I tell you that Dear Husband's oldest son suffered a massive heart attack during the night. By law, Florida hospitals are not allowed to give information out over the phone, but we believe from a third hand report that the paramedics were not able to resuscitate him.

Dear Husband is flying to Orlando to be with his son.

You NEVER think that you will outlive your children.

I really should be in bed.

We decided today that trying to keep to our normal schedule while we are waiting for the family to return from Florida was a good idea. I paid bills today, and Elegante Mother and I worked together to fix dinner. She cooked a rump roast in the crock pot. I would have passed on it, and put the roast in the freezer, but I realized that we both needed something to keep us busy, and we both needed an organized dinner.

I went for about 35 hours with only two or three hours of sleep. Last night I finally crashed at 10:30 and I slept like a rock for more than 12 hours I'm sure that accounts for why I'm still awake, but I think I'll be heading off to bed soon. I have to be up at 6:00, so I suspect that I'll be in bed early tomorrow night.

There's been little Dear Husband could do in Florida because of the holiday. Tomorrow he should be able to find his son's safety deposit box and hopefully, the will. No matter what, tomorrow will be the day the wake has to be planned. I think there will be a wake in Florida on Friday or Saturday, and then one here early next week.

We've all found that it helps to be doing something productive. But, it's sometimes difficult to find the concentration we need to carry out our work. The family has drawn together, rather like a specialized mini support group. I hope our grandson sees this, and realizes that we are there for him, in the same way.

Thank you all for your kind notes and calls. We appreciate the cloak of support and love that you've wrapped around us.

I have to apologize to readers who may have been confused. When I posted on January 1st, we had not been able to confirm the death of Dear Husband's oldest son through the hospital. Since then, DH has traveled to Florida and confirmed that his son died.

Thank you, all, for your kind words, thoughts and prayers.

We're still trying to get our days onto an even keel here. We resume exercise tomorrow, and I hope that will help. Wednesday is our weekly day for dinner with my niece and her sons. She's trying to talk us out of cooking, so we may go out to dinner tomorrow night.

My sleep patterns have been swinging widely from almost nothing to too much and back to almost nothing again. I ended up stealing an hour in the big chair in the kitchen this morning before I ran errands.

Dear Husband checked in this evening and had some amazing things to tell me.

We came home today from Florida, following the wake for our son. I'll have more to write about that later in the week, but I can tell you that I was astounded at the number of people who came to pay their respects. Not just family mourned, but friends, co-workers, and business acquaintances. There were employers, employees, and previous employees, his Realtor, fellow Bears fans, people from six or eight charities, and golfers.

My stepson liked people, and he wanted to see them excel. Over and over I heard "passion" and "excellence." "Leadership" was another word we heard frequently.

Tomorrow there will be a wake for him in the town where he grew up, and Wednesday morning we will make the trip to the cemetery.

My step-son was an amazing man, and I'll miss him.

I want you to know how much I've appreciated all your kind comments on the previous entries of this blog. One of the things I've discovered in the past few days is that the empathy your friends feel for you, helps you through tough times. Even when there is nothing concrete a friend can do, just knowing that friends are there seems to make it easier to accomplish what needs to be done.

So......Thank you. Thanks for being there for me.

Have you ever noticed that laughter has a way of bubbling up when you are supposed to be at your most solemn?

I don't belive that you must go to a wake or a funeral with a grief-stricken face. I personally feel that we go to celebrate our friend who has passed on, and for many people, that celebration has to include funny memories.

The man who did the eulogy for my step-son was his childhood friend. We laughed a lot at the stories he had to tell. We could easily imagine the youthful hi-jinks that went on from the tales he shared.

I'd rather have a speaker dwell on the good, and the funny memories, than feel it's inappropriate to lighten the somber air of the day. I think that it's natural to feel the laughter, and that it shouldn't be suppressed but rather, encouraged.

Yes, we feel grief at our loss. Yes, at times we express it in a solemn way, but I'd rather be remembered in a positive or a funny way, if you give me a choice. And that's how I choose to remember my step-son.

So, the next time you're at a funeral, and a bubble of laughter is threatening to well up within you, please grin, and say a prayer for my kid.

I'm SO confused! What's with the weather? In the past three weeks we have gone from dangerously cold, icy, snowy weather that is unusual for December in this area, to weeks of monotonous, leaden gray, to bright sunshine and fifty degrees. January usually has a warm spot toward the end of the month, but this is early, and is projected to be around for a while.

Mother Nature must be taking a vacation, because it seems that no one is minding the store.

A member of my herb group who lives in this area wrote to say that her thoughts had turned to planting because the weather was so warm. Of course, anything planted outside prior to the end of April is likely to be killed off in the final freeze. Generally, May 15th is our "safe" planting day for half hardy plants and annuals.

Dear Husband is down with a cold. I'm not surprised. He's shaken hands and been hugged and kissed by hundreds of people in the past couple of weeks, so he was bound to catch something. Our little granddaughter has a cold, so he might have even caught it from her.

They've recently announced that cough syrups are not efficacious, but antihistamines are. It's a measure of how he feels that he was willing to take aspirin and an antihistamine last night as he went to bed. This man does not do drugs!

He was in bed for easily twelve hours last night, and is resting now, so you can tell he needs to recharge. When he's ill, he just wants you to leave him alone. He doesn't want his pillow fluffed, or to be drowned in cups of tea. Just Leave Me ALONE!!! is his motto.

Other than tempting him to eat occasionally, I think we'll give him the quiet he needs. Soups and chili are on the menu for the next few days....just simple stuff. Even I could use some quiet time.

So, no visitors at our house for a bit. We'll resurface when DH feels better.

We returned from Florida to discover that the seat controls on the driver's side were not working. That meant that I had to drive home from the airport. It also meant that I had to drive to the wake and home in the rain that night. And, it meant that I had to drive in the funeral cortège yesterday. I've been a passenger in two funerals so far, and have never driven in one. I was driving the first car immediately behind the hearse. I'm glad to be able to tell you that I rose to all those occasions, but I'd really like to get the controls fixed so that my husband can drive again.

I stopped at a nearby dealership to pick up the fuse that I thought we needed. The parts manager told me that I probably had to have the seat heater looked at. Since my mother was in the car, I couldn't stay while they determined the problem. I wanted to buy a fuse, and then give them a call if our solution didn't work.

His response was that the part was non-refundable, and he would have to order it for me. I never intended to use the fuse and return it, so that was not a problem, but it's irritating that they don't keep parts in stock. This afternoon, I will be taking the SUV back to the dealership where we bought it. THEY will determine the problem, and order the part.

I'll be driving for a while.

January is the month of organization. Out with the old, in with the new.

We're a bit late removing our Christmas decorations. I started taking them down today. I'm going to need a step ladder to remove the wreaths around the carriage lights. It was easy to get them on, but it may be difficult to remove them. I plan to spend a few days in the basement repackaging the decorations and shelving them. I think this is the year that a number of things will finally be pitched out.

Yesterday, I prepared the binders for 2006 for our company. Tomorrow I'll have to type the file folder labels, and Monday I'll box up 2005 and start the filing for 2006.

I've also started sorting our personal papers. I won't have everything I need to do taxes until February, but there's no reason not to get a jump on gathering what is here in the house.

I suppose, in a way, that the loss of my stepson is affecting my need to be organized. When it's my time, I hope to make things easy on whoever has to speed my journey.

Last night I started hand sewing the binding on the batik quilt. Closure. I think this is as much about closure as it is about organization.

A hawk has decided that our bird feeder is the perfect place to find his afternoon snacks.

It's ticking me off. I haven't made a count, but I know that we have fewer birds at the feeder this year than usual. We have an overabundance of cheery little sparrows, but fewer chickadees, juncos, cardinals, blue jays, and mourning doves.

It's very possible that there are more feeding stations now that we have more neighbors. And it's also possible that because of the drought, the birds have shifted to areas where more food is naturally available. But the darned hawk isn't helping matters.

There wasn't a bird in sight the other day, so I watched the trees for a moment, and found Mr. Hawk quietly blending in with the branches. I opened the window and shouted at him. I tried to shoo him off, and he ignored me.

Nothing irritates me more than ignorance. (Sorry.....that's one of Elegante Mother's puns that seemed to fit here. *G*)

And, one other thing to consider, it's possible that we are feeding more of the ground based wildlife. It's been warm enough for the raccoons to be out and about, and those little buggers know how to strip the feeders of seed. The birds kick a lot of seed to the ground while they feed, and the squirrels and deer are sure to be helping.

We need to eavesdrop on the gathering at night to see just who is enjoying the feed.

I know, it's been days since I posted.

Dear Husband has shared his wretched cold with Elegante Mother and me, and I think Son#2 may be coming down with it, too. A phrase from my childhood comes to mind......"I'm feeling meaner than a beaver"....about this cold. I'm sick of being sick, and desperately ready to feel better. I guess if I'm well enough to complain, I must be on my way to getting better. We can hope.

Arrangements for our son are still at the foremost of our minds. We're gathering up lists of people to thank, and sharing pictures and mementos. Eventually, an executor will be assigned, and someone will have to close the condo and put it up for sale. I spent this morning surfing for guidance on how to write an appropriate thank you note following a funeral. I found bits and pieces of advice, but I'm open to suggestion. If you have a source that satisfies you on this subject, I hope you'll share it with me.

My sis, over at Just My Opinion, has decided to learn from her daughters how to live a healthy life. I think she's right. Be physically active, eat reasonably, and love life. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?

The weather is STILL crazy. It was fifty degrees yesterday, and tonight we are supposed to have rain. What a roller coaster we've been on. My perennials can't make up their mind what's going on, and I think I may loose all the potted plants that I've been trying to winter over in the garage. Time will tell.

Soup for dinner, I think..... Maybe a pot of minestrone. We're still in the comfort food stage of this cold. In some ways we've been good, and in others, bad. Last night we had broiled salmon and asparagus, with buttered egg noodles and garlic bread. *G* It could be worse. I was surprised to find that I was hungry for dinner, and happy that I wasn't so hungry that I overdid.

When I haven't been sleeping, I've been working at changing the office files over from 2005 to 2006. I should have been doing it the first week of January, but my mind was with Dear Husband in Florida. I was lucky that I managed to keep the office running those days. So, each day, I do a bit more, and by the time the CPA's assistant comes next week, I should be ready for her.

I have an idea for a new business: Delivery of comfort food for those who are too ill to cook, but not so ill that they can't eat. Pizza just doesn't make it when you have a cold, but soups, or comfort foods should be a hit. Comfort Catering. What do you think??

Gotta go. More filing to do. I hope you're all well!

Cop Car, I made the time to browse through the "Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America" just now, and I'm really confused.

We have large flocks of what we've always called black birds or starlings that visit us Spring and Fall, as they migrate. Occasionally they will like the food at the feeder so much that they stay for protracted periods of time.

I THINK that we have had European Starlings. I'm basing that on the fact that they have the oil-greenish tint to their feathers. The starlings have a yellow bill and are larger. The first summer red-wing blackbird is similar, but more drab. I'll have to watch carefully when they return this year.

We have red-winged blackbirds, and from the pictures in the book, we must also have the Rusty blackbirds. They look similar to crows, but are half the size, very similar to the red-winged blackbird in size and behavior.

So, we probably don't have any grackles. Have I set the record straight? I can't remember which bird you objected to. *G*

We've had 29 straight days of weather warmer than the norm. Thursday it was FIFTY degrees, and Friday it was in the forties.

Tonight it's snowing. We expect to get three to six inches before it stops early Saturday morning.

There's so much light from our city reflected off the snow that I can turn off the lights and find my way around the house without a problem. Each branch is covered with fluffy snow, and looks absolutely gorgeous, and they are predicting it won't last more than a day.

We might as well enjoy it while we can. Anybody for a snowball fight??

Yesterday, as we were driving home from a visit to Dear Husband's daughter and her family, we saw the most amazing flock of birds. I can't tell you what kind of birds they were, except to say that they were dark (black looking against a gray, rainy sky), and seemed to be larger than sparrows.

There were two flocks, and the flocks were immense! I've never seen so many birds together in one place. They flew in groups that were about as wide as four or five lanes of highway, and perhaps a block, or more than a block, long. The birds were tightly packed together and moved like a school of fish. There was no way to determine who was in charge of the groups, but one of them had to be calling out directions, because they definitely were playing follow the leader.

One of the flocks headed for the phone lines, and barely a quarter of the birds were down when the lines were covered around the intersection with birds sitting shoulder to shoulder. The other group headed for a very old tree, and several trees nearby, and the trees came alive with the rustling birds.

It looked like the birds were practicing migration maneuvers, but it seems a bit early to be migrating. And, I don't recall ever seeing such a large group of birds migrating together. It makes you wonder what they eat, because there couldn't be enough feed available for two groups this size this time of year.

It was quite a sight! I couldn't help commenting about Hitchcock's "The Birds." The flocks above us put those in the movie to shame.

In the January, 2006 edition of the National Geographic magazine, on page 30, there is a chart that you need to see. It's titled "Century of Death," and it shows how mass murder has been a recurring tool used against political, ethnic, and religious groups. Thirty-five countries are listed as having used mass murder as a means to control their populace during the past century.

I'm not suggesting that mass murder is new to the world as of the 20th century. I'm simply responding to statistics that National Geographic magazine has provided for the years 1900 to 2005. The figures I am going to share with you are the high estimates of total death. We'll never have the exact figures because those who perpetrate this heinous behavior don't tend to keep records or brag about it.

By far, the largest perpetrators of genocide have been Germany (11,400,000), Japan (10,000,000), the U.S.S.R. (20,000,000) and China (30,000,000). The figures for the USSR span the period from 1920 to 1953, which is the longest period of murder. China's killing took place in three episodes, with the largest number of people being murdered during the "Great Leap Forward." Together, these four countries account for SEVENTY ONE MILLION-FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND deaths.

With the exception of Namibia (75,000) and Turkey (1,500,000), all the rest of the murders have taken place between 1965 and 2005. Twenty-nine countries have chosen to wipe out parts of their populations. I was curious about the breakdown by area, and took the time to extrapolate information from the chart.

The largest number of people killed has been in Africa: 7,809,000. Following that, the area from Pakistan to the Philippines comes in second with 6,505,000. The number killed in the Middle East comes to 3,090,000. In South and Central America, 290,000 have been killed, and Bosnia and Yugoslavia account for another 235,000. The rough total for these killing sprees in the second half of the 20th century is EIGHTEEN MILLION PEOPLE! And we consider ourselves enlightened.

The chart and these numbers are too sterile to grasp the horror of the killing. Men have said, "We're going to kill you because we CAN." Mothers with babies, teenagers, old men and women, no one escaped these killing sprees. Either you are with us, or you are against us. If you're not with us, we'll do our best to wipe you out.

For the most part, the world does not step in to stop this killing. Not one major power in the world acted to save the Tutsis when the Hutus went on a killing spree in 1994. It seems to me that the United Nations is ineffectual at stopping violence of this nature, and having a super power step in to monitor the country doesn't work any better. And none of this addresses the problem of finding out about the murders after the fact.

If a county is going to participate in genocide, I'd like for that country not to be subsidized by my tax dollars. I'd like for us to not trade with them, or have any contact with them.

It would be nice if we lived in a black and white world, where you could make laws and know that justice was meted out properly. I know that China is responsible for the largest amount of genocide in the past 50 years, and China wants preferable status with us as a trading partner. I also know that China has more people than the U.S. has, and is going to be the super power to watch in the coming decades, as it flexes it's military and economic muscles. I know that our diplomats are already treading carefully around China. I don't believe that we have the power to stop them, should they decide they need to remove more political dissidents. It's wrong to let them think we don't care, when they kill.

I understand that there aren't any easy solutions to the subject of genocide, but it needs to end. We need a statesman who can unite us toward that goal. Perhaps as we become a global economy we will see the opportunity to put an end to genocide.

And, perhaps I am a dreamer.

Dear Husband is home early today. I just gave him a lesson in how to find his AOL account through the Internet. It's scary to teach him computer things. He never forgets what you've taught him, and he builds on it. Soon, I expect him to take over the world.

I discovered last night that my youngest sis has been communicating with Cop Car. They've been finding out how much they have in common, which didn't surprise me at all. Now I know why both of them have been so quiet! *G*

I thought I had to take the cat to the vet today. I'm so glad I called to confirm the time of the appointment, because I would have been there a week early! It's time for his annual physical.

It's raining snow! We have this fine white stuff raining down. Nothing is accumulating. We're right on the edge of the temperature for snow, and by the time it touches the ground, it melts. It looks a bit foggy outside. A gray squirrel was just checking his stash outside my window. He looked, made sure something was there, and then nicely patted everything back in place.

We resumed exercise today. This is the last week of this session, so we managed to miss almost all of it. It was interesting to note how well the class was doing with the steps. When we saw them last, the choreography was new to them, and there were a lot of pauses and missteps. Today, they were all in step and made it look easy. There were a lot of hugs and welcomes. These people are like family to me.

I'm going to go play with quilt blocks. I meant to get more done yesterday, but somehow balancing the checkbook interfered. Darned paperwork!