Survivor

Happy after-Thanksgiving to my itty bitty buncha readers. I think there’s 2 of you, maybe 5 or 6 on a good day. Which is fine with me.

Foodish

The lamb was amazing. Thank you, Danger!! Going to make some tzatziki this afternoon and probably buy pita bread. I don’t think my body will put up with trying to make bread, but leftover lamb would be utterly wasted if I didn’t make some gyros out of it!

We have a ton of leftovers. Beef and pork shrink when cooked. Lamb apparently expands. Not complaining – just surprised that after two meals we still have so much leftover meat. Dangerspouse, you’re welcome to share, but you gotta come here. I don’t think it would fare well via USPS.

But bring a boat. You’re gonna need it.

Let It Sno… er, Rain… erm, tornado?

It rained here Thanksgiving Day, for the entire day, starting before daybreak yesterday. That in itself is unusual. We almost never get “all day” rain. We get cloudbursts lasting 15 minutes, then the sun comes out again. The rare storm dumps water on us – in varying intensity levels – for an hour or two. But all-day rain followed by all-night rain? That’s a newsworthy event.

Then, starting at 4am yesterday, a series of shrieking alerts hit my cell phone, including a tornado warning, one of several tornadoes scattered across the central part of the state overnight.

If I were still living in Iowa I’d have freaked. Here in Arizona, tornadoes can still do some damage, but they’re wussy in comparison. They might damage a roof, maybe rip off an awning. Still not my idea of fun, mind you – but not enough to have me quaking in my boots (which I wasn’t wearing at 4am anyway.) I do confess to a moment’s unease, precisely because I grew up in tornado country. Plus while tornadoes in this part of the world aren’t likely to be life-threatening, microbursts can trash several miles at once. I was a heck of a lot more worried about being without power for a few days.

NOAA, aka the National Weather Service, finally decreed of the three tornadoes to hit the general vicinity, one was an EF-1 and two – including the one in my general neighborhood – were EF-0. For a girl who grew up in the midwest, those are a stiff breeze.

In our part of the valley, we ended up with hail, thunder, and more rain in a matter of a few hours than the ground can handle. Which meant flash floods, road closures, trees uprooted – the usual suspects. No damage to our tin box, and since 1) I don’t have a commute and 2) it was my day off – the road closures and flash floods didn’t impact us. As expected, there were a few downed awnings across the greater area, but nobody hurt and no critical damage. A few hours later the lowest spots in the landscape are still temporary lakes and ponds; otherwise, life goes on.

North of here was grimmer. Three kids are missing and presumed dead. They were trapped in a van caught in a flash flood. Mom and two of the kids got out, but three little ones didn’t.

Some parts of the state got snow. At least one area got 15 inches of snow, in fact. Both I-40 and I-17 were closed due to blizzard conditions, though I’m sure they’re open now, albeit probably icy and not something I’d want to drive.

Buy, Buy, Birdie

Retailers undoubtedly lost business for the earliest part of their day yesterday, but I tried to run to Target yesterday afternoon and could barely get into (and out of) the parking lot. I didn’t even bother going into the store – I could see enough to know better.

For what it’s worth, Black Friday mornings are typically insane, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised when later in the day it tends to be fairly tame at the stores. With Mother Nature’s intervention yesterday, however, the order was reversed and retail madness hit during the afternoon. The weather only started clearing off around noonish, which meant my 2pm excursion put me smack in the middle of the Black Friday train wreck. I’m backtracking to Plan A – which is buying online and taking advantage of free delivery. I’ve talked to all the kids and know what the grands want, which fortunately is within our means.

Kidlets and Bits

The Sweet

The munchkin at the top of the page is one of our 3-year-old grands. She’s a character and a half. For this photo, she got herself dressed and ready to go. I don’t know if you can tell in the picture, but her hair under all that is red, and she has the stereotypical redhead’s disposition to go with it. She’s opinionated, determined, and comes unglued if you dare to argue with her.

When she turns teenager – watch out, world.

The Sad

Her older brother, age 8, isn’t faring so well. He’s now been diagnosed with a second debilitating and genetic autoimmune disease, one which will eventually land him in a wheelchair – if his CF doesn’t kill him first. (It’s gotten worse this year.) Add to that an older half-sister with serious emotional issues (some manifested around him), and he has melted down pretty badly.

The half-sister is on his dad’s side, and we’re reasonably sure she was sexually abused, but no one knows by whom. When we reported it, the authorities literally threatened her with arrest instead of even pretending to help. She was 11 years old at the time. She’s now 13 and understandably doesn’t trust anyone. I’m generally anti-violence and anti-gun, but if I could I think I might literally shoot the official who would threaten to arrest a child victim of sexual abuse.

Sadder still, her reactions to all this ended up exposing her little brother to some unfortunate and downright alarming situations.

This little guy is not our autistic child. He’s the one who’s smart as a whip. In this case, his intellect is both blessing and curse, because he understands every detail of what’s involved, and in response is spiraling out of control. It’s one thing as an 8-year-old to know intellectually what’s happening. It’s quite another to be able to process and manage it on emotional terms.

He’s been kicked out of school – permanently, not just suspended. He tried jumping out of the car when his mom was driving 75mph on the freeway. He knows the consequences and knows what he’s doing, which says everything about his state of mind. There’s a whole lot more to it and yes, he’s already in counseling (and has been for a while.) His mom and dad and stepmom are doing their best to escalate care for his mental and emotional health. Nobody likes my daughter’s ex (including his current wife), but on this, they’ve united 100%.

Con-Something

I need to wrap this sucker up. We’re taking a washing machine out to my daughter today to replace the one that floods the laundry area every time she uses it. Next weekend we’re taking the local handyman to replace her gas stove. The new stove is already there, but we had to wait to get it installed. (We own the house and she can’t afford to cover any more expenses right now.)

I’ve still got a ton of work to do on books (for pay, not my own) and tomorrow it’s back to the day-job grindstone, which is probably going to be insane with the weather system moving through the country. We’re now scheduling nationwide, so our business will follow – well, Mother Nature’s business.

I hope your holiday was substantially more “Peace and Joy” than our special corner of Chaos.