Suckity, Sucky, Suck

Please forgive me as I blather on about issues that really are not of any great concern or importance, when you consider that I know people in the hospital, on the missing list, and-- by the tally going on in my head-- I now know at least a dozen family/friends/high school classmates who lost houses six short days ago. My goal is to get all of this nonsensical whining out of my freaking head so that I can concentrate on better and more productive things. Like helping out.

The week of suckiness started with an EF5 tornado taking out half of Joplin, less than twenty miles away from my hometown. Did I mention that this happened on my ten year wedding anniversary? And while we were on a mini-vacay? It did. Now the fundraising t-shirts that I want so desperately to buy all are emblazoned with the date: 5/22/11. Each time I see my anniversary date, I cringe.

I will buy them anyway, but it is a bummer.

Tuesday was the day that we were rear-ended by a hit and runner during my lunch break. Thank goodness we haven’t bought a new car yet (we’ve been waffling, as usual), because I could care less about the crappy car with the transmission problems (again) and the short circuit (God knows where) and the mass fuel index sensor that needs to be replaced (for the fourth time. See short circuit above).

The only thing missing was the green in the sky

Wednesday we had our own storms up here in CoMo, which necessitated spending an hour in the basement/hallway at work, trying to get cell service so that we could check the weather, and viewing a dozen SMS messages from the kiddos’ schools notifying me that they were locked down and in ‘shelter’ mode.

Let me just say now that Ant has ‘adequately’ expressed his distaste for spending an hour in the duck and cover position in the crawl space by the media lab. Poor kid.

And then the locusts descended.

These are just seven of gazillions. Ugh.

Of course, there’s the cicada issue. Apparently there’s a great big swarm of them that pop into CoMo every thirteen years or so. I’m fairly certain that this should have come up when we moved here. Someone should have told us—since cicadas really, truly, creep me out like no other bug. What does one of our local newspapers suggest we do with the surplus of cicadas? Eat them. Not joking, here! Eat them. They even provided recipes.

Disgusting.

It’s not even freaking June yet. Do we know for certain that Harold Camping was ‘good’ enough to ascend if the rapture, had, in fact, occurred? If I listen to the Facebook chatter, it appears that only Randy Savage was found worthy.

There. Done. Whew! I DO feel better. Does venting about issues such as these make anyone else feel better, or am I just a whiny weirdo?

J was worried about my emotional well being the other night, and did take me out for dinner and stout beer. That helped immensely, but the kicker of the evening revolved around a free scratch ticket he got from work, and the half dozen gas stations we hit up every time he scratched for free tickets on our stop-and-go car ride home. By the time we got home it was already bed time for the kiddos (bad parents, bad!) but I had not laughed that hard in a LONG time.

This weekend I plan to post about our recent trip—which was completely fun and awesome before we got the news of the tornado. It will have pictures and snarky commentary and be more in line with my usual self.

I am also thinking of ways to put together a bloggy fundraiser—I’ve seen some others doing the same. Every little bit helps. So… if you have good ideas about a bloggy fundraiser, feel free to send me feedback! You can comment below or send me an email directly.