As the head spins

I am the last one standing.

Wife collapsed this morning, she was put on medicine as of last night by her OBGYN. She is in bed from the flu as well as throwing up from the nausea of the medication.

Both girls are on medication and Advil. They feel well enough, during the day, as to not want to stay down but are more sick at night with deep coughs and low oxygen. I have had the opportunity to sleep on the floor under each of the girl's beds, the last two nights, with one eye on the oxygen saturation monitor. My 38 year old creaky body doesn't feel as good after sleeping on the floor as it did as a kid, my neck is fairly sore.

The oldest boy is still in bed most of the time with the flu symptoms.

The second oldest has been on the living room floor for the past five days, valiantly avoiding the whole mess. He is slowly succumbing. Yesterday and today he has developed the cough, the headache and the stuffy nose. He still stays on the floor though, no extra rooms left to store him.

I win! Wasn't it a competition? The last one standing wins? Don't I get some sort of golden virus statuette. Hey, where is the love and where is the girl in the skimpy black dress to present the award to me? Out sick! I will give my prepared speech anyway.

I want to thank a fairly strong immune system, I want to thank an exaggerated sense of laziness that has helped my avoid significant contact with the sick kids, I want to thank the members of the foreign press, without which we never would have learned of the H1N1 (swine) flu. And finally, my family, if not for their pitiful callapse and subservitude to illness, I might not be getting this award today!

I think I remembered everyone. Where is the press room?

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Update

The youngest has now been diagnosed with H1N1 flu as well. She was seen on Friday morning. She is hovering between the low 90's and the mid 80's in oxygen saturations.

The older daughter is now showing all the symptomes including a 102 degree fever.

Wife is coughing but does not show a fever yet.

There are two of us left.

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Interesting Week

The perfect storm of life.

May I unload and have a pity party for a moment. Someone cue the balloons.

Tuesday morning - My two bosses: the chief lending officer and the mortgage manager are both fired. The collection manager and the Hr manager are both fired that afternoon. It is believed that I might be soon following them. I am waiting for the president to show up in my office.

This news has sent my wife into preterm labor. She is experiencing sharp pain across the stomach, can't get comfortable and is doubled over.

My oldest son has just been diagnosed with full blown N1H1 flu. He is been told to be isolated for 7 days and my youngest is also to be kept from school for two weeks. My wife is also to be kept away from him so she doesn't get it. Being pregnant, she is at high risk.

Who knows, I could be an unemployed widow with two children left alive by November!!

Thanks for the pity party..... who is assigned to clean up?

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Flooding

The basement flooded this afternoon. It came through the window and down the wall. The floor soon filled with water as it swept toward the stairs, the stack of new sheet rock and the boys bedroom. The water soaked the sheetrock, went under the walls to fill the bottom of the stairs, the first four feet of the boys bedroom and into the utility room surrounding the water heater and the furnace.

It was wet.

And messy.

I pulled out the carpet and pad from the bottom of the stairs, filled the wet dry vac a number of times and killed a black widow spider in the window well. A frustrating afternoon!

Splash

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The weekend

The children had the day off for District Development day on Friday. I took the day off of work too. I mowed the front and back lawn in the morning.

The family then piled in the car and went up to Payson Lakes for an afternoon of fishing. The boys caught 7 rainbow trout between them and my oldest daughter contributed three more to the stringer. We cleaned the fish lakeside and threw the entrails to the ducks who devoured them.

Came home to watch a dance program put on in back of the neighbor's house by my daughter and her friends (the girls of the three families) It included tickets to attend and a tribute to the new Hanna Montana movie.

We put the kids to bed and went back over to the neighbors house where we played Hearts with six of us. We all contributed treats for the game night. I made "cake like" brownies. There was also apples and carmel, various cheeses with a sliced beef stick with crackers, cream cheese with pineapple jalapeno salsa, chunky nacho cheese dip with tortilla chips.

Today, I helped my second son and his broken foot get to his football pictures in his pads and crutches. He and I then went to watch his team play their Saturday game without him. We sat on chairs by the end zone with a third chair propping up his foot and watched his Cowboys beat the Sky Hawks 14 to 6. My son could hardly sit still, he wanted to play and be involved so badly.

We returned home after the game and my oldest son and I continued the framing project until we ran out of wood.

My wife has now left for the General RS Meeting with her sister and one of the neighbors. We are glad that she could go and enjoy the meeting and get away from us for a few minutes. She looked really cute in a pregnancy denim skirt and pink top layered with a white shade.

She had dinner in the oven for us before she left (Yummy chicken and rice casserole with green beans, apple sauce and pears). I hope that she stops for ice cream before she comes home (peanut butter cup blizzards)

Church will dominate my day tomorrow. I have to be at the church at 7:50 AM and am slated to be there until around 4:30 to 5:00 PM right now.

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It has begun! (ominous organ music..da ta dahhh)

My son and I have constructed a rudimentary framework along one short wall of the basement. Those construction types might call this "framing!" I would not be so bold. Although, it does look a whole lot better then the "framing" in the boys bedroom. You learn.... you mess up... you learn....you mess up....you hire professionals.... you read a book. (The construction circle of life) I can almost see little pumba in a construction hat right now.

One short wall and window down, about 18 times the work still to go, including a bathroom.

Goal: Carpet installation before Thanksgiving.

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Mooooving Days

I am moved again.

Officially back into the Springville branch of Family First. I still have 6 boxes to go through.

I am still pretending to be a mortgage lender as Family First is still not able to do business lending.

I am glad to be closer to home. I even got the chance to run over to my daughter's school and pick her up for lunch on her early day. What a treat! I took each of my daughters out this week for a few minutes of one on one time in the evening. This usually includes riding in daddy's truck and getting ice cream. I love the few minutes to watch and listen to them.

I am determined to begin buying 2x4's tomorrow so that I can begin framing the basement.

Chau

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I'm slimy - Its working

The water softener seems to be a success. I am slimy!

Next on the horizon...... the dish washer, clean it out and see if the soft water helps to get things clean!

And finally, I will be buying lumber this week to start framing the basement. A living room, a extended bathroom, a large boys bedroom, a game room and a door to the cold storage.

It needs to be completed by Thanksgiving.

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Water water soft and wet

Is it bad not to remember the beginning of the work day?

Oh thats right, I set off the alarm at the branch. I was the first one in today. No one told me that they changed the code yesterday. I spent the day driving to and from St George for work. Home after 9:00 pm.

Arrived home then spent the evening with the help of a friend installing a soft water system in the basement. I am still wet from the shower while cutting through the main pipe. I am crossing my fingers!

I am hungry.

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Beginnings - And Her Blood Ran Cold……

Maggie placed the small cloth purse on her lap and held it in a clutch like a child would a rag doll. She wasn’t truly far from being a child herself. The metal bench was cold against the back of her bare legs, which protruded from a tattered black miniskirt like carrot sticks, thin and shapeless. She had always thought that her legs were her worse feature. This had been confirmed time and again by countless “johns” who cared less about her feelings then about getting their eighty bucks worth.

It was too cool for a late May evening and Maggie shivered involuntarily. She had been sick, a cold, maybe a slight fever, who knew for sure. There was no one to check her temperature and she had no where to go so she stayed on the street, huddling against the chill, sneezing and sniffing.

The thin cotton jacket was more for show then for warmth and barely kept out the wind. Underneath, a tiny sleeveless thing, designed to emphasize cleavage, gave no insulation to her narrow ribbed frame.

She waited at the bench for no one in particular, simply to give her feet a rest from the pinch of the cheap plastic high heels. Traffic was slow tonight. There was very little movement on the streets, just a few girls like herself, standing in little groups, waiting and wondering.

The night seemed heavy, as if pressing in around her. It whispered a message of foreboding as if the darkness was trying to warn the frail little girl of danger.

During the final years before Maggie ran away from home, her mother would often slouch on the edge of Maggie’s bed, late into the night, spewing forth philosophy on men and the world. Thinking back, Maggie had never given much credence to her mother’s bitter blusterings. Frankly, it had been difficult to even understand her mother through the thick slur of the alcohol induced stupor. One thing her mother said, though, had stuck with Maggie, something that her mother had firmly believed and repeated time and again.

She would suddenly become still, drunkenly lean toward her and then hiss in a hushed and determined whisper.
“Maggie, listen well to the night. It will talk to those who want to know. It will tell you the good and the bad. It knows.”

It might have come from her mother’s own mystic upbringing. The daughter of a backwoods bible thumper father who fancied himself “touched” by the spirit and a mother who claimed to read fortunes, good and bad alike, in the scattering of chicken bones, kept in a small dirty sack, which would be spread across the end an upturned whiskey barrel like rolled dice.

To Maggie, it didn’t make much sense but she still remembered. She strained to listen now, to feel the night’s warning and she thought of her mother.

The doctor stepped down from the van and adjusted the heavy coat. He wasn’t accustomed to such coats, thick and bulky, preferring the starched white clean lab coats that befitted professionals of his caliber. This subterfuge was beneath him.

The doctor walked quickly to the side door, slid it open and leaned inside. Everything was prepared and ready. He placed the bottle and the rag in the coat pocket and slid the door closed quietly, leaving it unlocked. This shouldn’t take too long. He had seen one sitting alone on the city bench, just around the corner.

He approached the specimen from behind, shuffling silently in hospital slippers hidden under the low cuff of the wool knit pants. All part of this “common person” disguise that he despised so. She heard his final foot falls as he reached for her throat. She grabbed instinctively for his hands. Too late, a wet, sour tasting cloth rag was pressed over her nose and mouth, cutting off the chirp that was to become a scream for help. Methodically now, he held her close from behind, fending of the weakening attempts to scratch at his gloved hands. Foolish girl, he thought with contempt, I will take you like the others before you. These vain and feeble attempts to struggle will afford you nothing but a more painful death.

Glancing from side to side for possible observers, he pulled her head against his chest and stepped backwards toward the shelter of a grove of pine trees. The movement lifted Maggie’s frail, barely clothed body up and over the back of the bench. Her purse fell from her lap and flopped into a muddy puddle of water. She became frantic. As the doctor continued to pull her backward, she began kicking and swinging like a grasshopper stuck to board of foam with a needle.

The doctor was tired of playing with this insolent girl. He had tasks to accomplish of which she was but one. Much more important tasks yet awaited him. As they disappeared from view between branches, the doctor lowered his chin towards the struggling girl’s ear and whispered.
“Do you know fear? Your blood will run cold before the night has ended!”

Maggie’s eyes widened for a fraction of an instant before rolling back into her skull. She became limp in his arms. A rush of accomplishment filled the doctor. But only momentarily, a doctor must remain calm, collected and in control at all times. He removed the cloth and lifted the body, cradling the girl in his arms. Walking through the trees, following the street, the doctor returned to the safety of the van. He opening the side door with two fingers and, unceremoniously, dropped the lifeless form onto a mattress lying on the floor. She landed with a muted thump, her thin carrot stick legs sprawling into very unladylike positions. The doctor huffed in disgust.
“Dirty Whores!”

Now, less concerned with discretion, he slammed the door closed and rushed around to the driver’s side, pulling off the coat and gloves as he went. Once behind the wheel, the doctor reached under the front seat and pulled from it a syringe filled with amber liquid. He turned in his seat, pulled off the needle guard and plunged the narrow shaft of steel into the pale white skin of the girl’s exposed upper thigh.

“Sleep, glorious sleep…..” The doctor rolled into high pitched falsetto song as the van pulled from the curb.

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It will be an early Christmas

It will be a ..GIRL..
claims the doctor (right...Deb)

Due date: December 13th

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Beginnings - Cement City

Lemon drops rained from the shattered glass dispenser along the back ledge, fronting the wall length mirror, and bounced in all directions across the Italian marble floor of the ancient corner candy and ice cream counter.

“The next one is in your head!” snarled the menacing yet clean cut hulk of a man in the midnight blue, hand tailored suit, holding a large black handgun. Smoke eased wistfully from the black eye of the muzzle. The man’s attire spoke of money and power, from the hundred dollar haircut to the four hundred dollar pair of black wingtips which glistened from hours of polish and buffing.

He spoke, like one who was accustomed to getting his way, to the smallish, frail old balding man in the red apron, cowering near the floor. In an angry yet controlled hiss he spoke again.
“Now then, we will try this again. Where is your boss, McCloud!”
The shrinking man, clung to himself and squeaked faintly but did not reply.

The large suit stepped around the corner and strode toward the quivering mass. In one gloved fist, he grabbed the old man’s shirt and lifted until the man’s tan loafers hung in the air above a scattering of yellow marble sized confections.

“Charles!” reading the name off a faded badge pinned to the crumpled man’s apron, “Charles, you don’t want to die, protecting scum like your boss McCloud, do you?” He waited, holding the man aloft as easily as if he were a holding a finger in the air to check for wind. “Now answer the question!” He screamed suddenly, shaking the man in the air.

“I….don’t…know where he is…” Charles finally sputtered. “I haven’t seen….him since…Saturday morning, Mr. Woods.”

“You know me? Huh!” Mr. Woods chuckled with more menace then humor.
“I’ve heard..a..heard of you, of course.”
“Well, then you know that I am not a patient man, Charles. Especially with people who are loyal to scum bosses and who lie to me!”

But..bu..bu” Charles stammered like a rapid spattering of hiccups.

But Mr. Woods was done chatting. He dropped Charles to his feet, with a thud by releasing the grasp of his left hand while instantaneously bringing his right around in a tight efficient swing. The swollen right fist, holding the gun by its barrel, came down against the side of Charles’s skull with a crack. Charles collapsed without further sound into a limp pile on the Italian marble among the scattered yellow lemon drops.

Mr. Woods stepped, dismissively, over the mess on the floor and walked with purpose towards the front door but not before stepping to the counter and, with one meaty arm, knocked every glass candy container to the floor, leaving the floor covered in broken glass and colored sticky sweets.

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Frustration

Spent the day waiting.... waiting for the underwriters to look at the loan files and generate additional conditions or to clear them for loan documents.

I waited for clients who don't seem to be nearly as motivated as I am to finish up their loans. "No, I didn't get to it this week.... we had company over the weekend so I couldn't sign the disclosure..... my accountant went camping this week." Meanwhile when their locks expire and they can't get the same loan rate....are they going to blame themselves for it....NO.... Right here! The big bald guy. He's the jerk who couldn't get it done. The FAT man!

Waiting for a company to fill out some questions on a third of a page of paper about employment of one of their employees.....all day.....no return fax.... probably still sitting on someones desk while they pick their noses or talk on the phone about their plans for the long weekend.

Waiting at the church in a white straight jacket and tie, after wolfing down a wonderful dinner so that I could be on time for interviews planned at the whim and choice of the bishop..... only to discover that, after opening the church, the bishop's office and the clerks office and adjusting the air conditioning in the bishop's office so that he would be more comfortable, that after twenty minutes where no one showed, to call the bishop who is still sitting in the comfort of his home and have him tell me that he decided to move them back two hours. "oh, I tried to call you but no one was home. maybe I should have tried your cell phone." Or, I have an Idea, how about just leaving a message on that little thing I call the idiot box or the sifter of stupid phone calls.

Coming home from the church, to watch my daughter be oblivious to cars while she rides her scooter on the streets and to have some MORON, who obviously beats his children and wife, after stopping as my daughter dawdles by the front of his suburban, then lay into his horn for twenty seconds to prove some point or teach a lesson. If I had been close enough to yell at him, I would have taken his horn and performed an intimate colonoscopy, gratis, through his nose!

Now, I sit, knowing that I should be doing something productive, but, trying to let the day fall away.

Frustration!

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Bread

The long green tubular veggy that grows inches overnight while you slumber has been the source of my focus for the past two days.

I shredded 6 cups of the stuff, which equated to 2 oversized veggies. This has become six loaves of bread. 4 on Saturday and two more on Sunday afternoon.

The nine brown frozen bananas in the freezer also gave of themselves to become 3 additional loaves. 1 last night and two more this afternoon.

I purchased two glass loaf pans a few weeks ago and I am having a ball using them!!

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another day

Off to scout camp for the day tomorrow morning.

Spent today collecting loan conditions on various loans. Drove to Fillmore for more conditions, no lunch, left work at 7:00pm.

My headache continues for a third day. I don't normally get headaches.

My hands continue to twitch more and more consistently over the last six months. It was just in the evenings initially. Now it goes on throughout the day. I don't know what it is.

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