Jake in a blizzard....

Blizzards are horrible to me. My cousins got married during one in New Yawk waaay back when, but it seems like yesterday. And their grand-daughter got married in one yesterday in NH, but none of the 158 people came to damage, and were all safe, and seemingly happy. In NH... blizzards are a given, people deal with them, and they are more like pit-bulls biting your pants leg than anything else.... irritating if not outright aggravating.

But blizzards can really change your outlook on things. The last one I experienced was on Thanksgiving in the early Seventies. It was on Thanksgiving day, and I chose early work at a cinema, so as to go to the family dinner in the late afternoon. My aunt did that, and it was an extravaganza, everything you could wish for and believe was possible, and I don't believe there were never less than forty people in the appartment, it was the event of the year... for me at least....

And HOW the snow came down, and wind blowing it into drifts, hey, we were on skeleton crew, and were opening with Clint Eastwood's first directorial film, 'Play Misty For Me', a thriller. The snow was piling up so fast in the streets, it was pitiful, and I was out shoveling half the time, we didn't expect customers, the conditions were horrible. (The trick is to shovel every half hour, and it's less work in the long run... just sayin'...) And then Jake came.

Jake was an old man from Greece, lived a block away, and on holidays, he would come into the cinema and give us candies he made himself. He was a lovely man, possibly seventy, and we all really liked him, and gave him freebies for the movies, and it was always his 'thank you'. I never learned if he had family here. And always had the feeling we were his family. His candies were delicious.

And that day.... he'd probably strained himself getting there, he was smiling with a bag of candies for us... half opened the heavy door, and suddenly gasped, grabbed his chest, and fell back on the sidewalk.

The two stand attendants screamed, and I yelled 'Call an ambulance! NOW!'

And rushed out to Jake, and began doing CPR on him, straightening his head, opening his mouth, and doing what I was taught in first aid, pushing his chest, trying to get his heart re-started, doing mouth to mouth, and screaming inside. And the ambulance wasn't coming, the streets were full of about a foot and a half of new snow, and were unplowed, they couldn't get there.

And I worked so HARD to try to keep him alive, and was freaking out and angry and frustrated. Yelling, 'Don't you DARE do this to us! Come on, come back, damn it!'

It seemed like forever.

And all of a sudden... he took a deep breath, and exhaled, and there was a rattling sound, and I knew he had gone.

But... I don't know how to explain this. He was still there. It was as if his presence was still next to me, telling me it would be ok. And I was crying for this man I hardly knew, but who was so lonely and kind, it was heart-breaking.

His kind brown eyes were still open, as if astonished. The snowflakes kept blowing in and melting in the warmthness of them, and running down in 'tears' on his cheeks.

I didn't close them. I wanted to remember, and he was lovely, and mischievous and generous in his little way....

And then the ambulance arrived. And they tossed him in as if they were garbage men picking up something on the street that got left behind, and I really went off the charts for denigrating. 'Don't you TREAT him like that, he's a HUMAN BEING!'

(Yeah, I was in shock.)

My co-workers had called the owner, my wonderful 'erzatz-father', Bernie. And he got me into the office, and I was just numb. Everyone else was afraid of him, but he was one of the kindest men I have ever known. And he asked, 'Ya wanna go home?' 'No, I couldn't stand it.' 'You gonna be ok?' 'Yup, I will.' I convinced him, he left, and then I quietly went to the wc and threw up.

So we got to see the film, me standing 'guard' inside, and there was a scene that was so similar to what I had just experienced, I was back in the wc.... barfing and crying.

But I was always good at covering up what I felt. Being in the closet can make you be really outwardly deceptive. And I trudged over to my aunt's house with more than a foot and a half of snow and it still coming down, and politely made excuses for being so late... had to work... and I trudged on home with more than a foot and a half of new snow unploweded in the streets, and veryone wondered why I didn't have any appetite. And I just said, 'Well, someone gave me some candy at work. I don't think it agreed with me.'

Inside, I was shattered. I haven't seen anyone die since, and wouldn't wish to. If I think of people who have to see that every day... well, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

And always thought, 'there was something I should have learned in order to save him'.

And then it was too late.

Blizzards bring up horrible memories.

Oh...Sky....God!!! Flying Spaghetti Monster, or

whatever is out there.... Why do YOU have it in for us, huh? Do you think this is funny, or something? Just because I used to call you 'The Big Joker in the SKY' ??? Well, whoever you are, it isn't! So store that in your data banks.... and crunch some numbers with it, hey...

So all this time YOU let me look after my friend, and on the worst days, his sugar level went up to the 250 region, which was bad enough. Now, you DORK, you slipped the carpet out from under me, had him sent away to gawwd knows where in a rinky-dink village, with obviously incompetent doctors. And got his sugar level up to 520 and climbing, and he's nearly delirious.

Way to go, hey. And to top it off, YOU got her to the point where his doctor said she was 'at the end of her art.' She probably excels in macramé, you incomprehensibile parable of the Unknowable... I'll bet you farted till you shit your unendless pants, just through laughing.

Well, the joke is on you, Big Something... she at least knows what the Peter Principle is about, and if there is no improvement by Friday, she shunts him back to Graz, you unholy Hornochse! Which would mean the joke is on YOU, you incomprehensible s.o.b.

Because then I can be there and keep a watch out.

And hey Big Wheel... am not gonna let you win so easily.

So BRING IT ON!
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Sorry if anyone's sensiblilities got offended by this, but hey, that is how I usually pray. Except this time, was doing it on line.... sue me.

One of these days I might re-write the Book of Job, but not before I get an enlightening experience, and I really do not think that will be any time soon.

(Well, it is better than whining about it, isn't it? The facts are accurate... but I have never seen the Flying Spaghetti Monster, nor the Cat In The Ceiling, nor anyone else who 'created the world', so am agnostic. Sorry....)

(Google Ceiling Cat. Lillian would have loved it.)

Ummmm.....

Weird study out of the University of Graz. Something in sperm can help retard ageing. Link here.

Hat tim to Joe.My.God

Oh, this is too funny...

On he 23rd, I believe it was Senator Coburn who asked the Senate to pray that at least one of the Democratic senators would become ill or something, and thus have the bill fail. Very Christian of the good senator, since he probably meant 92 year old Robert Byrd.

Well, Mr. Mountain, aka Sen. Inhofe, didn't show up for the vote, and this teary 'devout' old guy gets on C-Span, and thouht they prayed so hard, he was afraid they killed one of their own.

Awesome. One should always be careful about what one prays for, uh-huh...


Update: it might have been a hoax, but nowadays the crazies are so out at the boundaries of reason, who knows? Link HERE. Just the fact that a sitting Senator asked his colleagues to pray for the sickness or eventual death of Byrd leads me to believe that anything is possible...

Now THIS is macabre!

A woman who just missed the doomed Air France plane that crashed some days ago... died in a car crash in Austria a few days ago. Remind you of Final Destination films? Story here. Give you a shiver, or anything?

I have been carrying this around inside me for some days now...

It has to do with a neighbor. Yes the foreign legion guy.

He called me up and asked me to help him with a problem on his pc.

So I went over.....

But it wasn't about anything he ever wanted....

It was about a stick, and external drive. And he wanted me to look through it because the thirteen year old daughter of his new girlfriend got abused by her father.

Her child showed her stuff on the stick what she and her dad did, and the mother was a total wreck.

And I said, hey, this is NOT my expertise.

Whatever, I called it up. It looked harmless. Someone playing a computer game and saving levels. But if you clicked on the saved game files, there were sub-files. And more. It was disgusting.

No, am not going on with the gory details.

I like to think of people as being basically 'goood'. What I saw was so evil, I puked.

Am not so naive or stupid, I know that that happens, but when it is happening to someone you know... it is frightening.
'
Whatever, I said, 'take this to the State Attorney' and let them look. I can't deal with this.

And then I threw up.

I use the Internets for info. Others use it for nefarious things that I had never imagined.

It was so disgusting I can't digest it....