I'm no hypochondriac, but....

I believe that I have what they call "Momnesia." I saw it on the NBC nightly news and thought "Okay....so it IS true, and I'm not crazy, and yes its true - I'm losing my mind - but its ok."

I used to have next to photographic memory. I could pull names, numbers and memories out of my head like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Now, I can't even remember what the hell I just did with my coffee cup literally 5 seconds ago.

My "momnesia" is also semi-A.D.D. I start one thing, and I rabbit trail off to something else....and then rabbit trail off from that trail to another, until I come full circle back to the point of origination, and NOT ONE SINGLE DAMN THING GOT DONE.

I also used to be sort of semi-Jason-Bourne-ish where I could walk into a room, scan it within a half second, turn around and tell you that there is are approximately 10 paces to the coffee pot, and 3 more paces to the conference room, a Green Bay Packers magnet on the fridge, a fat man about 57 years old in a green suit behind a yellow desk, a woman about 35 years old with scuffed brown high heels and a creme colored polka dotted dress is half drunk on her way to the back room to probably have a cigarette, and the clock is hung cockeyed, and a little to the left of center of the room, as well as there is water damage to the ceiling in 7 different spots. Now, I can't even remember where I was 10 minutes ago.

I'm tellin' ya.....I'm losing it.

Murderous Memphis

Memphis is really starting to scare me.......

This just happened, and its just another bizarre killing. There is just so much violence. Its getting out of control, folks.

There have been home invasions just about every other night in really nice neighborhoods where the victims have been tied up with zip ties while four masked and armed robbers rip their houses apart for valuables. So far, no one has been killed in those robberies, but some have been brutally assaulted.

Murder, murder, murder - every day. Something new. Just two weeks ago, they found a dismembered body in the Coldwater River, only 40 minutes from here (maybe less).

There are mindless drive-bys. Several pregnant women have been murdered. Many drug deals going bad.

I watch a lot of forensic programs on tv, and many of the stories come straight out of Memphis. I was watching The First 48 the other night, and every episode they feature two murder crimes at one time, but in two different cities. Every episode featured a crime out of Memphis.

It has become number 8 in the top 10 most dangerous cities. Compton CA is safer than Memphis if that is believable. Surprisingly, St Louis was number one worst city. I'm not sure how credible the list is though.... it says that Coral Springs FL is a safe place to live and I know that's not all that true.

Anyway, I don't go there alone, and you can see why. Statistics say that violent crime happens to every one out of a hundred people.

Storm Damage

Last night, in a twist of the unexpected, we had some really bad storms - again. This time, we had damage. We are all in perfect condition, and thankfully we have our lives. In the grand scheme of things, we lost nothing except a few things here and there.

We had been keeping track of the weather most all day, and toward 6pm, we had shut off the radio and we were flipping channels on the tv, not really concerned with what was going on north and south of us (of which, we had been told all day that was where the thunderstorm action was going to be, primarily.). Next thing I know, Joe says "OH MY GOD, Kate - there's rotation on top of our town right this moment."

"What??" I said. "I don't hear anything."

Right then, the wind kicked up hard and our satellite went out. We opened the back door, and it was straight line winds across our backyard. No wind blowing inside because it was blowing south to north, sideways. We didn't hear any sirens going off, but we still grabbed a bunch of couch cushions and headed straight for the laundry room. Once we were safe inside, we practically stopped breathing so we could listen. We could hear something ripping off our roof, and every now and then something bang up against the side of our house.

A few minutes later, we emerged from the laundry room to check out the storm. The winds were not straight lined any longer, but still blowing very hard in every which way. Rain pouring out of the night sky in buckets. JD, Joe's cousin who lives behind us, reported in to us that he had shingles all over his yard from neighboring houses, and the winds had taken down a portion of his fencing. This was the rain and wind situation was the condition for the next two and a half hours. Our street was a river, and our backyard was a pond.

About an hour after we had paid a visit to the laundry room, the doorbell rang frantically. Startled, we ran to the door to find our next door neighbor with a flashlight and raingear telling us that all the shingles in the YARDS were from our house, and that we were missing about 1/3 of our shingle coverage. I ran outside in the rain and flood to see. Sure enough......

I went back inside and began inspecting the house. Within moments, I had found leaks in several rooms in the house.

The attic had 2 major leaks. I crawled up through the insulation and boards and stablized some buckets. Next, our guest bedroom had 3 major leaks, and Joey's room had 2 major leaks. Joe and I moved some furniture and placed buckets out to catch the water. I went to the other attic entrance and found another leak. Our upstairs bathroom had a leak coming through the vent. After we had found all the leaks we could, and made mental notes of the other water damages that hadn't sprouted leaks yet, we calmed down, cooked dinner and TRIED to put Joey down in our room, as we didn't want leaks to sprout over his head in the middle of the night in his room.

Finally the rain stopped. The leaking continued for probably another 30 minutes, then subsided. We inspected the house one more time and found major water damage in our living room.

Our satellite system was still down - most likely damaged in the storm - so we weren't able to see if there were any other storm systems coming. We had a weather radio, but we weren't really relying too heavily on that since it didn't even warn us of the storm that had hit earlier. ((It warned, but not for our town. It just stated that our county was going to get a little hit, but nothing to be alarmed about.))

This morning when we awoke, we were able to see all the roof damages. About 1/3 of our shingles are missing on the south side of our house - we are going to need major repairs (thank God we are renting). One of our vehicles took a hit from flying debris.... most likely a couple of shingles.

And now.......its snowing.

Enid

We took Joey to Enid Lake on Sunday afternoon for a little "beautiful weather get-a-way." He ran around like crazy and burned off some serious energy. We enjoyed getting him out to breathe some fresh air and see a little more of the world than just the inside of our house....