Something Nutty This Way Comes

Okay, I've let this stuff build up too long...time to get some of it out.

I mean it's almost Christmas and I haven't mentioned how folks in Austria celebrate this time of year.

They dress up like this:




And like this:



I'm not kidding. I don't really understand it all but the little devil looking guys accompany St. Nick through town and swat kids (and apparently anyone who doesn't get out of the way) with brooms on their rumps.

Anyone else missing Burl Ives about now?

It's sort of confusing but somehow St. Nicklaus is involved and kids get little treats at the end of the event.

Speaking of treats...did you see what the Pope got?



Yes, Pope Benedict was given a steering wheel the other day. The head of Ferrari gave it to him. It's even inscribed:"The steering wheel of the Formula 1 World Champion to His Holiness Benedict XVI, the driver of Christianity."

Where do you suppose the Pope puts stuff like that? I mean it presumably doesn't exactly fit the decor of the Vatican?

It's not like he needs it in the Popemobile?



Oh well...maybe he'll make it into a lamp or something.

In any case it allowed me to lighten things up around here a bit. If you want to lighten things up...and you have a high speed connection...click here.

The Pictures Promised

Just a quick note - as promised when I wrote the entry about the Gomez family's dog April - I augmented that post today with some pictures. This is the link.

No Sleep Tonight

Amy and I are currently in bed playing with our Christmas toys....

I'll wait while you get your mind out of the gutter.

That's better.

We splurged - a little - and scrimped a lot and now both own laptop computers. We purchased them early because the rebate deals were too good to pass up and we can justify them - probably even write them off our taxes - if we squint a little. They're not top of the line computers but they're functional. So now my wife and I are in bed...watching TV...and surfing the net. Things are really heating up too...

We have an electric blanket. Shame on you.

Egg Shells, Emotion & Exxageration

This is not going to be the lightest of posts I suspect...for that you can blame Hope. I'm only kidding - about the blaming Hope part - not about this likely being a bit more introspective than I normally care to be here. I write on the fly but I can tell which way I'm heading.

Hope left a comment recently saying essentially that she thinks some of my posts reflect an "emotional and physical weariness" especially since the Gomez clan has taken roost in our home - this is without a doubt a dead-on conclusion. She also said she suspected I was masking some of the burden of sacrifice and this too hit home.

It is not easy.

No one said it would be.

When people at my office complain to me about work I have been known to say, "That's why they call it work...if we all enjoyed it they'd call it sex."

They still hate work, but usually they laugh.

No one said it would be easy...and it has been hard, harder than we expected - at times.

At times it is hard to find our place, our purpose, and our peace. Quiet is often a luxury in our home and there is a temptation to retreat in ways that are unhealthy - mentally and physically. I have been guilty of both, but I suspect this hopefully momentary delving into the dark may be a step in the right direction.

Don't let the minor become monumental - that is my first rule of sanity and we have tight roped along it lately some times without success.

Amy and I have allowed little things to become big things on occasion. We have both exaggerated situations and made some decisions based on the emotion of the moment which we regret and which in truth made our lives only more difficult. Yet I know with a certainty that can not be challenged that we shall recover from those moments...for that's all that they were - "moments." I have been blessed to know both love and grace in portions so undeserved that I am even bold enough to expect more.

God is with us.

We are not alone. We have shared the minutiae of the balancing act of trying to co-exist with the Gomez family while trying to lift them to independence with our church leaders. We have help - spiritual, physical and financial but it is still hard.

Sprinkle in a dose of worry into the mix and you'll be better able to sample our daily diet.

We are still awaiting results of some of Amy's medical tests...we expect the hours spent keeping those fears and worries at bay to amount to a complete waste of our time...we have hope...but we've still given aid and comfort to the enemy...to fear.

So we tiptoe.

We tiptoe around emotional egg shells.

No, I don't share all the disappointments and emotional shifts here, nor do I share every wondrous moment and there are many.

I hope my reluctance to outline so many details is not because I want to put the best face on our situation - although I'm not big on reading people's whinings foremost my own. Rather I hope this is a season I am going through and the setbacks, the frustrations and exasperations are temporary. Perhaps it is an illusion but I'd at least like to believe what I write is less ethereal and the distant horizon of passing time will better reflect reality.

So I am perhaps quieter these days...but these days will pass.

There is indeed forfeiture involved in sacrifice, but there is also purpose.

It is to that purpose that Amy and I find ourselves clinging a lot these days and oftentimes we feel like we are barely hanging on...but I am still convinced one day we will suddenly stop tip toeing about the fragile and instead begin to frolic.

One day soon we will look down upon the eggshells…and we will dance.

Oh That's What That Button Does!

For a while there I was thinking - yes, I know that's a rarity - that I was not provoking any reaction at all...even with my as of late, limited postings.

Ya see there's this little button in Blogger which I noticed the other day that says, "Moderate comments." I thought that would be a dandy idea, assuming it would allow me to delete anything offensive (although I really don't get offensive comments - and no I'm not seeking any) or spam comments of which I get a few.

What I didn't know was that if you "Moderate Comments" you have to um...moderate comments...before they publish.

I don't have time to sort my laundry much less go through each comment and give "permission" for it to publish...so I turned that feature off this morning. Lo and Behold! Comments have burst forth!

Sorry I didn't respond previously, I wasn't ignoring you...I was worried you were ignoring me.

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Reminder to self: eggshells...I want to write about eggshells.

Up & Crawling

Apparently I bollixed my computer worse than I imagined, but Amy has manage to restore my critical stuff - like my ability to pay creditors and see how much money we don't have in the bank. It's going to take a while to get everything else going. I love this little blog editing software - wbloggar - which I have used for some time but now I've discovered images I embed with this program "disappear" when you bring them up via a permalink or through the archive. I detest writing in Blogger itself...and none of this matters to anyone but me.

I'm vowing to set aside time to write...but it's coming after my vow to set aside time for Amy and for the needs of the Gomez family. To tell you the honest truth the only reason I'm writing this is to see if the settings on this little editor are correct.

As an apology of sorts I'll turn you on to two sites I've found interesting lately.

The first is Woot.com which every Geek looking for a bargain should check out daily.

The other is One Red Paper Clip.

He's a blogger whose been trading up from one red paper clip on his way to a house...and he's well on his way.

That's all for now...time for vow #1.

April, Ingrid & Mountaintop Miracles

April was a dog.
Ingrid is an Internet user in Belgium.
Katrina was a hurricane.

April belonged to the Gomez family...Lee says she was really Michael and Ana's dog. She grew up with them but she grew old as Michael and Ana grew from children to young adults. Dogs do that...they grow old faster than we do.



When Lee and her children were literally washed out of their Midcity New Orleans house by Katrina the Hurricane, April and Kiki - the family's other dog - were left behind. Ana was certain they had drowned...in her journal she wrote, "...the dogs were in the back room...April and Kiki...they did not make it.

R.I.P.D."

Ana's words stung...the hopelessness...the helplessness.

Ingrid lives in Belgium, far away from New Orleans. To my knowledge she has never been to the United States, but she shared something with the Gomez clan...a sense of helplessness. She wanted to do something for the victims of Katrina so Ingrid has spent hours and hours of her time on the Internet looking at pictures of lost pets/found pets and then trying to locate their owners.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Ingrid. The first email I ever received from her...or from Belgium for that matter. Attached was a fuzzy picture and a politely worded message saying essentially she had run across a picture of a found dog with a rabies tag and the tag led the dog's current caretakers to believe the dog might have belonged to someone in New Orleans named Lee Gomez. Doing a search over the Internet she was led to my blog, she read the Gomez family story and said, "I know the family thinks both dogs drown but could this dog be April?"

I showed the picture to Lee.

April was alive!

The discovery brought great joy and some consternation to our household.

April was not only alive, she had somehow escaped Katrina and New Orleans and had made it to Arizona to a Humane Society shelter! With Ingrid's help, I put Lee in touch with the folks caring for April. Despite having heartworms and being nearly 12 years old, April was doing okay and a woman at the shelter had "fallen in love" with her. They were pampering her a plenty.

Reuniting April with her family was a dream, but we weren't sure it would be a reality. We have three dogs...April was old and sick. Getting her back here could be done but whether she'd survive the heartworm treatment she'd have to have was questionable. We were frankly unsure how to proceed, but in the interim the woman in Arizona was gladly caring for her and promised to continue doing so until we figured things out.

She was also taking April on great adventures. One adventure took her to the top of a mountain...another day she spent visiting with a tame cougar! April was exploring worlds she certainly never knew existed and she was in loving hands.




Yesterday April died.

She was old and sick and her heart gave out. No one expected her to live through Katrina, she had long been given up for dead, but somehow she survived...somehow she was taken in by gentle people filled with love, and somehow a woman in Belgium managed to find Lee Gomez via my blog to let her know.

It was sad and it was joyous.

Lee was devastated as was April's caretaker in Arizona. April was old...April was sick - it was a miracle she lived through Katrina at all - but that didn't lessen the sadness.

When Ana and I spoke about April she said, "It's like in the movies where someone knows they're dying but before they go they get to take this great trip...to see things they never thought they'd see...."


And she was right...it was like that...the trip of a lifetime...at the end of her lifetime.


From New Orleans, to Belgium, to Arizona, to blogs...this is where miracles are at play.

I believe in miracles.

Sometimes miracles have sad endings...but I think they're miracles still.