Silent November

Wow, has it really been nine years since I wrote this? How the years fly. This cut still stings a little on this day, even after so much time. Wow.

Silent November

Here, here on this second day of eleven
Strangers were we when last we were here
It seems prehistoric like yesterday
'Tis only a year since.
The shadow you threw at the walls
Elusive of my luggage
Warned me of what was to come
I knew it then
But I didn't listen.

I was a child lured into a van
Promised candy and electronic toys
Blindly I followed you down there
I opened my mouth and let you reach inside
Thinking you'd embrace my heart
The shadow you beat on the ground screamed
Mama told me not to talk to strangers
I knew I shouldn't
But I didn't listen.

A turning point, you could say
The greatest day in 22 years - the worst as well
Hindsight has a funny way of doing that.
I try to remember so I can close my eyes and see you anew
I try in vain to forget, wishing you never had come.
The shadow you hurled from the train
Taught me you can't divide by zero
I knew I couldn't
But I didn't listen.

Here, here on this second day of eleven
Three-sixty-four and a quarter gone
Shamefully I share this secret, exposing my soul
Hiding behind 6,000 miles and a backlit screen
Fearful of unkind response
The shadow you bless on another's stoop
Advises to shut up and listen
I know now it was right all along
And I am listening.

I am listening
But November is silent.

I have got one HAPPY little Luigi

This kid could barely contain himself long enough to put the thing on. Glad he approves of the costume I put together for him! Off to his class Halloween party...

I can't wait to see both my little Super Mario Bros. together. They're going to be SO cute!!

DIY Super Mario Bros.

My five year old wanted to be Luigi for Halloween this year and my two year old conveniently doesn't know what Halloween even is yet, so I took the opportunity to cast him as Mario to match his brother. Sure, I could have gone the easy route and bought the pre-made costumes from Wal*Mart for $20, but it's been my experience that those costumes fall apart at the seams and get runs and snags all over them within a week, and kids love to dress up in their costumes all the time once Halloween is over. So I decided to do right by my boys and make them Super Mario Bros. costumes that will last until they outgrow them. I found most of the actual clothing on Amazon.com and the rest of the supplies at Michaels, which consisted of some felt, wooden discs (for the buttons, I spraypainted them yellow), a little bit of hot glue, and some industrial strength velcro to attach the buttons. There's no way these costumes are going to fall apart, and I think they look so much better than the store-bought ones anyway!

Flashback Friday

One of the more awesome nights of my life...

Those aren't scribbles, they're autographs.

Happy Caturday

Photo Phriday

Is my baby really that big? He has homework this year!

D felt left out and wanted to do some homework as well (which consisted of scribbling randomly with a crayon for about three seconds)

The impact on our children

Today as I tooled around on my computer, my four year old son (well he's almost five, next month) came into the room and I heard a sweet, innocent voice behind me ask,
"Mommy? Will the oil spill be cleaned up soon?"
This took me by surprise as I wasn't aware that he even knew much about the oil spill, or what oil even was. I checked the TV in the living room to see if he'd put it on a channel that might have had a news blip about it prior to his question, but nope, just good old Spongebob being yellow and porous on Nick Jr. Though, judging by the tropical sea floor location of Bikini Bottom, I suspect that ol' Spongebob might share our concern.
"No sweetie," I told him, "The oil spill won't be cleaned up soon."
"Will the oil spill be there forever?" he asked with a very concerned and slightly sad look on his face. I immediately thought of recent footage I saw taken from a pebbly shore of Prince William Sound, where the famous Exxon Valdez spill occured over twenty years ago, and in this footage you see someone dig only a few inches into the seemingly clean pebbles and pull out black, slick, smelly rocks before the water quickly fills the hole with a visible oily sheen floating on top. And the estimates of the amount of oil spilled there are just a fraction of what has come from the Deepwater Horizon well. (The Exxon spill is estimated at between 250,000 and 750,000 barrels while the Deepwater Horizon is at nearly 5,000,000 barrels) With a heavy heart, I answered my son's question as honestly as I could.
"No, it won't be there forever. But it will be there for the rest of my life. And probably yours too. They may get it looking clean on top, but the oil is still going to be in the sand and deep in the water for a long, long time. And the damage done to the wildlife may never recover. I'm sorry, sweetie."
"Oh," he said, as he dropped his head and moped back into the living room to resume his cartoon watching.

Literally just yesterday I was thinking how I'd give anything to know what my little boy thinks about when he isn't thinking about Super Mario or Transformers. I never thought in a million years that my child was thinking about the worst environmental disaster in history. I find that quite heartbreaking. And even more heartbreaking than his thoughts is my knowledge that he will live out his entire life never knowing the gulf, and quite possibly the entire ocean since we don't yet know the extent of impact this will have, in the way my generation and those before it knew the waters and the beaches.

Even if the beaches seemingly recover (aesthetically, anyway) what about the long-term effects on wildlife? The Gulf is home to one of the world's most endangered animals, the sperm whale, and thanks to the chemical dispersants allowing the oil plumes to sit much deeper than they would if left alone, these amazing aquatic mammals may very well perish. Whales and dolphins, whose lives I consider almost as valuable as humans, are facing enough challenges for survival thanks to humans hunting and polluting their waters. But now THIS on top of it? Thinking of my children growing up in a world where they can only be told stories of whales and dolphins and see their pictures in books, is enough to bring me to tears. In fact, I'm softly sobbing as I write this. I don't want to have to tell my children about the time a whale came so close to a boat I was on that I could reach out and touch the barnacles on its back, and know that they will never have an opportunity for close contact with one of these animals because they simply don't exist any more.

The world is a changed place since the day that rig exploded into flames, and I am deeply saddened that my children will never know the world as I knew it. I had plans this summer to take my kids to a beach on the Gulf coast for the first time and let them splash in the warm water and build sand castles and do whatever else four and two year olds do at the beach. I've never been to the Gulf either, despite having lived in Mississippi for the last six years, and I was really looking forward to it. Obviously, those plans were cancelled. They probably will be for the rest of our lives.

Just a lazy Caturday

Stupid things I think about in the shower

Some people sing, some people mindlessly wash, I think. Of REALLY. DUMB. SHIT.

Today I was thinking about the recent victory in the proposition 8 case (yay) and from there my mind jumped to what if my boys ended up transgendered, what would they change their names to?

Connie and Danielle seem the most obvious choices.

Yep, that's what I do in the shower.

I'm not pale, I have an IT tan!

Today I saw my doctor and got the results of some blood work they had done last week. They said that everything looked stellar except that I'm SEVERELY vitamin D deficient. I asked the doctor, "Okay, well what do you get vitamin D from?" Her reply: "Sunlight."

Well that explains a lot, hehe.

"Get the kitty!"

This is our female dog, Danger, humping our male cat, Achilles, while the other little dog, Wicket, goes in for some salad tossing. They do this on command, not even kidding!

C's obsession

At first it was cool that my son was into Transformers. I was into them as a child, as was my husband, and just about every other kid who lived through the 1980's. But a year or so ago, my husband decided to buy the entire animated series on DVD and C knows how to work the DVD player in the office. I swear, if I have to hear that damn theme song one more time.....

Niiiiiiice

Fortunately, I archived almost everything from my old site. And it doesn't seem like it'll be too much trouble to move the posts here. I can't use my groovy stylesheets (or maybe I can, I don't know, I just signed up at blogger a few hours ago) so it won't quite have the same look, but the content will be there. Most of it anyway.....

Grrr

Some ghettoslut took the address evilcarrot.blogspot.com six years ago and then never used it again. By ghettoslut, I mean the type of person who intentionally misspells words (god I hope it's intentional, if not, go back to school ghettoslut!) and is all like "Ohhh I luv my boyfriend 4eva" /gag

So anyhoo, I'll be posting here until my old domain (evilcarrot.com) is back up and running..... Not that anyone cares much about my cynical potty mouthed bullshit, but still.

I'm blogging again DERP DERP