"Monday, Monday. Can't Trust that Day!"

     My alarm goes off at 4 a.m. Monday morning to the beautiful tune of the piano. I roll over slowly, dripping in sweat because it is stifling in my bedroom to turn off my alarm. I rub my eyes longing for my bed again. I walk to the bathroom like a zombie and there I brush my teeth, comb my hair, put on my make up, and get dressed. I call my giant Great Dane, Hiro to come to the back door where I will be letting him out. It was pouring down rain outside, but because I was so hot I did not put on shoes or a jacket. I had a hold of Mister Hiro’s collar and before I could put him on his lease that is in tacked in the ground he leapt in the other direction playfully. “Hiro, no, no boy!” I said sternly reaching for him quickly. He leapt back again before I could grab him and ran for the neighbor’s yard as fast as he could. I promptly ran after him, tripping over a giant limb that had fell from the night’s storm, my face falling into a big puddle of water.  I had no time to get angry because I did not want my dog to get hit by a car, or run away. I jumped from the ground as quickly as possible and looked up. He was nowhere to be found. “HIRO!” I called fearfully as I crept through the lightless alley. I saw a shadow moving through the darkness. “That better be you!” I said in a shrill voice, running at the shadow, the rain beating down on my head like a waterfall. I reached the end of the alley where I found my dog just standing there waiting for me, as if his little game was over and he was ready to go home now. “BAD BOY!” I said to him and pulled him by his collar, back to the house and put him inside. I had fifteen minutes to dry off and be at work! I dried off promptly, grabbed my umbrella, and jumped in the car. As soon as I got to work I opened my car door and got out my umbrella because it was still raining really hard. I was not looking forward to walking in the rain again but at least this time I had by trusty umbrella! I pulled my umbrella close to me like it was my only friend, grabbed my purse, and jumped out of the car, making a run for it. As I ran, my shoe fell off and a large gust of wind took over my umbrella, pulling me to the ground as I held on to it as if it were my only child being swept away by the high tides of the ocean. I couldn’t keep my grip on the umbrella and it blew away. I got up, feeling defeated, but also glad that wasn’t really my only baby.  However, if this was a test, and I was truly supposed to keep a hold of that umbrella because it was my baby, then I definitely failed it! I unlocked the door and went inside, water dripping from my body. I walked through the doors for employees only and there was the last person I wanted to see, my decorator. “Well you look pretty today!” He said sarcastically. I pictured myself punching him in the face and then calmly walked to the break room and grabbed a towel to dry myself off. That is how my Monday morning went. Hope everyone else’s was much better than mine. I still can’t decide whether to laugh about it or cry about it.

Who has my Kidney?

Sometimes in life organs go bad and you have to get them replaced. How do hospitals decide who gets an organ transplant? Do they investigate the person’s family to see how kind this person was considered to be and whether or not they were a drain on society? Do they look at their medical records and see if they have had a long history of trouble with the certain organ that is needing replaced? Do they investigate why this organ has gone bad? Was it from too much smoking, drinking too much alcohol, or eating too many fried foods or foods that were not good for them? Some donors will tell the hospitals that they only want their organs to go to a person who is in their family that needs a transplant and others will request their organ go to someone who will not misuse it. For example, let’s say that someone is donating their liver and they want it to go to a person whose liver did not fail because they drank so much, or something like that. Some rude donors will say that they are going to donate their organs only to a person of the same race as them, which is not right in my opinion. It seems pretty cruel to refuse an organ to someone who needs one. Most hospitals will look at the donor’s preference when searching for who gets the organ they are donating. The person who is to receive the organ first of all must be able to pay for the organ. This means that most people who cannot afford the organ will not get the organ and will likely die. I think that is very sad. I wish there was a way that we could change something like that because that means that a very deserving, good person could die. After that they usually go with the standard procedures of picking out a recipient. Who needs the organ the most? If there are two people that equally need the organ as badly as the other then they must go with who was on the list for the organ first because it’s first come, first saved. They will also look at whether or not you are of this nation because tax-paying people’s money is sometimes paying for this organ. I’m not sure if I agree with this but I guess when you think about it, I could see some people saying that. An example of this would be a prisoner. Would you want a prisoner to get your heart if you donated it? Convicted rapist Kenneth Pike, of Auburn, New York was put on the heart transplant list. He was recently offered a heart and turned it down even though it would save his life. The reason he turned it down is because it was causing such an uproar with the public. People did not want their tax paying dollars to go toward giving a new lease on life to a man who was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl (who was related to him) in 1992. The heart transplant would have cost $800,000 and because he is in prison, tax payers would be the ones who paid for it. Kenneth Pike, who is 55 years of age is supposed to be serving 18 to 40 years in prison for this horrendous act, so would he even get to use this heart if he received it? If he was imprisoned in 1996, then that means that he has about three more years to go if he is to be let out at 18 years, but will he rape another? You would think that someone like this wouldn’t even be considered because of what they did. Do you think that this man deserved a new heart?

Funny News

     Do you ever just need a laugh? Some people read jokes; some people watch funny movies or read the funnies from the newspaper. I think you should consider looking for funny news headlines. In Virginia a woman walked into the courthouse for a trial like it was any other day. While she was being checked in security they did not realize that she was holding a tiny monkey in her bra. She entered the court room and out comes a tiny monkey in a beautiful flowered dress! The court was silenced and the monkey had to leave.  She said that the reason she had the monkey was not to disturb others, but that she had to keep him because he was still a baby and he could not be left at home by himself. You would think that going to something so important such as court, she could find someone to baby sit her baby monkey for at least a couple of hours. I can’t really understand why you would even want a monkey for a pet, but that is just my opinion. I mean, a few years ago I watched a news clip about a lady who got her face ripped off by a monkey!  In Berlin, a German Circus family was arguing with another circus family about tent space, and because they could not resolve to argument they felt the need to start a shoot out to resolve their problems! How crazy is that? What person in their right mind would want to resolve a problem with a shoot out? No one was killed but some were injured. It doesn’t seem like a proper way to argue. They are giving circus people a bad name!  The one that takes the cake for me is about the man who wanted to rob a bank. He walked into Bank of America and decided he wanted to rob the place. He wrote on the back of a Bank of America deposit slip “This iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag.” He was standing in line and got nervous, thinking perhaps someone had seen him write this stupid note. He then thought he could take it across the street to Wells Fargo. He proceeded to the Wells Fargo teller line and waited in the long line. He then gave his note to the teller. She noticed the terrible grammar in the note and that it was written on the back of a Bank of America deposit slip. She then told him that she could not accept this and that if he wanted to withdrawal something that he had to go fill out a Wells Fargo slip and get back in line. He said that he understood and went back to Bank of America to their long line and before he could get to the teller he was arrested. That is amazing. How stupid could you actually be to believe what that teller was saying? If you are going to rob a bank you need to plan it and do it right. You should also start by getting someone who is not so stupid to help you do it. Banks have pretty high security measures. Did he have a weapon when he did this? He should have used it if he was going to be that stupid. It amazes me how stupid people can actually be.

Six-year-old has Gun

     Imagine the feeling you would get if your child’s elementary school called you telling you that there had been a shooting and you must go pick your child up from school immediately. That is exactly what happened Wednesday in Houston, Texas at a local Houston elementary school. A six year old boy had stowed away a gun in his pocket and when he went to lunch, he went to sit down and the gun fell to the floor, firing. The boy was injured, including two other children. A five-year-old girl’s knee was injured, and then the boy with the gun suffered a gunshot wound to his foot, while another six-year-old boy was injured by shrapnel grazing his leg.  I’m sure that many parents are feeling extremely unsafe right now. It makes you want to reconsider letting your children out into public! I wonder what was going through that boy’s mind when he brought that gun to school. I also wonder how no one could have noticed a gun that would be huge in a six-year-old boy’s pocket. Kids are small and guns are usually pretty large compared to someone so small. Was it a hand gun? The article doesn’t even say. Perhaps that child had some pretty big pockets. Was there anything out of the ordinary going on with his body language? Did he seem nervous, or perhaps upset in any way? Did anyone pay attention to the child? Was he neglected by his parents and he was just seeking a little bit of attention that he never got at home? Just seems that there could have been some way to prevent it. Perhaps they had never had problems like this at their school, and it is sad to think that you should have to take such high security measures such as a metal detector at an elementary school.  It scares me to even let my child go to a public school! I don’t think I would ever even have a gun in my house that was not in a safe, or somewhere children would never reach it. I’m sure that every parent in that school had thought, “what if it had been my child?” What would you do if your child was shot in school? How would you react? If they were okay would you let them go back to that school? The school in Houston says that they are going to heighten security measures from now on, but it is so sad that they even have to do that. It seems like younger children are getting into more trouble and it makes you wonder why.

PDA

It’s five a.m. and I’m cracking eggs into a bowl sleepily as the cake decorator plays BBC radio yet again. I was way too tired and way too cranky to be listening to the dull voices broadcasting through BBC. I know that sounds offending, but I have always found news voices dull and add an English accent to it and it makes me even more bored. The news anchors were talking about the radiation in Japan, Grace Kelly, and local London news. A hot debate began shortly after speaking of Grace Kelly. Apparently two gay men were kicked out of a bar in Soho, London, after kissing each other. A woman that said that she owned the property told them that they needed to leave because they were being “obscene!” The report later on stated that one of the men said it wasn’t like him and his boyfriend had been making out, it was merely a kiss on the lips. In my opinion, if you are in a bar, you will see lots of different things that you would not see on a normal basis, so I don’t think that they should have been kicked out and I figured that was what this heated argument was going to be about, but it was not. Strangely enough, the debate itself was short lived about the sexual orientation of the couple. Some people may find it offending that two people of the same sex were actually kissing, but in today’s society homosexuality seems to be easier to accept. The two women on the radio were arguing their beliefs about public displays of affection, they didn’t really care that it was two gay men who were actually kissing. One of the debaters was very conservative and did not think that a public display of affection was ever necessary. She thought it was disrespectful to others to do things like that in public, because you do not know how other people feel about public displays of affection (PDA). The other lady debater disagreed because she believed that some public display of affection is okay, such as a kiss on the lips, holding hands, or hugging was okay, but going further than that would be too much public affection. I completely agree that some public affection is okay, but after hearing the conservative lady talk about how her family was very religious and did not believe that public displays of affection were appropriate, I started to wonder how other people felt about it as well. I decided to do a little research and one lady brought up some very good points about PDA that I had not thought about. Her article actually made me smile and almost laugh. She said that perhaps some people hate PDA because they caught their boyfriend making out in a movie theater with another girl, or caught their daughter necking with a boy at the city park, or maybe they are just plain jealous because they do not have anyone to kiss in public with. Another article called Public Display of Affection Etiquette sums it up perfectly in my opinion. This piece states that when thinking about PDA, remember the ten rules:

1. Make it look good

2. Stop when it is uncomfortable (not for you, for others)

3. No Kissing (making out)

4. Don’t bite and lick

5. Don’t flash skin

6. Don’t use PDA to seduce someone else

7. Watch the age

8. Don’t touch someone else

9. Don’t stick your hands inside the clothing (that one I had to censor a little bit)

10.  Keep your reputation in mind!

These ten rules seem pretty acceptable to me. How do you feel about PDA?

Tonight's Potentially Severe Weather ALERT!

     I was floating out in the lake, soaking up the rays of the sun right next to my favorite cousin, Jeremy, looking up at the beautiful, sunny sky. Fluffy, white clouds were rolling, looking like puffs of smoke coming out of a factory; we were trying to guess their shapes. One cloud in particular caught my eye. It was particularly fluffier, and larger than the other clouds in the sky. I looked over at Jeremy and pointed out the cloud to him. “I bet that cloud is going to mature into a severe thunderstorm,” I said. “No it won’t! You don’t know anything!” He said back, laughing. We used to chase severe thunderstorms before, but we had not chased any in a long time because every severe storm the weather radio claimed would produce tornados didn’t produce one. We watched the cloud like a hawk while we barbequed rib eye steaks, for lunch. The cloud just kept growing larger and larger until it looked just like a supercell. We headed back out to the shore of the lake to sit and eat our delectable steak and watch the massive cloud. It was the most beautiful storm I had ever seen, maturing so silently, lightening flashing throughout its puffy core. I had done much research on supercells, but I had never actually seen one. I was in complete trepidation. When you think about the name “supercell,” it kind of sounds like an invincible kind of blood cell, but it’s not and it is in no way cool unless you are a storm chaser.

The clouds from this bad boy are pushed in an upward fashion, bubbling and unfolding into the sky. Supercells have strong rotation in them, a lot of times tossing out tornados like they are free candy, but not always. These storms also produce high wind gusts, heavy rain fall, ferocious lightening, and large hail. At that time our weather radio went off informing us of the horror we already knew. Where would we take cover? We only had a rickety old tent! We decided that this might be a once in a lifetime chance to see a storm like this so we thought we should take some pictures. As the storm crept closer, a funnel cloud began to form on the other side of the lake. We took pictures as it touched down to the ground but the wind started blowing so ferociously and the tornado turned to us. We ran as quickly as we could to the public restrooms and got on our hands and knees and covered our heads by the bench. We could hear the angry roar of the unforgivable tornado and then in suddenly ceased. The tornado had disintegrated into the sky. That was five years ago and I was so scared that I swore I would never get that close to a storm like that again and I hope I won’t have to be ever again. I hope tonight won’t prove me wrong.

                The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has published a hazardous weather outlook for tonight. I am usually never worried about the warnings that NOAA issues, but this one caught my eye, and I for one, am scared because it mentions supercells.  These storms are extremely dangerous! The hazardous outlook reads:

                                                             “SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP ALONG A DRY

                                                              LINE FROM EASTERN KANSAS INTO NORTHEAST OKLAHOMA FROM LATE

                                                              THIS AFTERNOON INTO EARLY THIS EVENING. WHILE INDIVIDUAL

                                                              STORMS ARE EXPECTED TO MOVE TO THE NORTHEAST...THESE STORMS WILL

                                                              GRADUALLY SHIFT EAST INTO WESTERN MISSOURI FROM MID TO LATE

                                                              EVENING ALONG THE ADVANCING DRY LINE. HAIL UP TO THE SIZE OF

                                                               BASEBALLS WILL BE POSSIBLE THIS EVENING”   

The outlook then continues on to say that many storms will be coming through Missouri this evening with possibilities of lightening risk, tornado risk, damaging wind risk, large hail risk, and flooding risk. I am really hoping this storm is wrong about the tornadoes most of all. Everyone make sure to listen to your weather radios if you have one for warnings, watches, and weather. If you do not have a weather radio, tune in to your local television stations or NOAA’s website. Make sure that you prepare for these storms moving in and take cover when you are told to because it is better to be safe than sorry and I would hate to see anyone get hurt!  I hope I am wrong about the weather! My brother called me about an hour ago and told me that he was looking at the doppler radar and the storms look pretty bad and should be here in Missouri around 7 or 8 p.m. Know the signs of a tornado. You can refer to my blog earlier in the year called "What if it's NOT a Storm?" and it tells you signs of tornados and how to prepare and be safe.

Our Bucket List

Do any of you have a close cousin that you spend a lot of time with? I have a wonderful cousin named Jeremy. He is one of my favorite people and he is my best friend. I definitely look up to him even though some people tell me that I shouldn’t because some of the things he says and does are slightly wrong. He doesn’t break the law and he doesn’t do anything really bad. It’s just that he says a lot of swear words and if he does not like you, he will tell you because he is very outspoken. He has a tough exterior, but I know how he really is on the inside. I spent my whole childhood going to his house every single day until I was 17 and then when I turned 18, I moved in with him. Every time I had a problem I knew that I could talk to him and he would never judge me, he would just give me advice. If I had a new friend, he would always tell me whether or not he thought this friend was a good person just by having one conversation with them. It is crazy because every judgment he has ever made about one of my friends has always been right. He is a very good judge of character and I’m a terrible judge of character. In October, Jeremy woke up and his legs were not working at all and he could not see out of his left eye. He was rushed to the hospital and spent a week having tons tests run on him but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. Finally he was diagnosed with relapsing multiple sclerosis. I’m not sure if any of you have heard of this but multiple sclerosis is a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. There are four different types of multiple sclerosis, but relapsing multiple sclerosis is where you have symptoms of multiple sclerosis one day and the next day you could be perfectly normal. Symptoms of multiple sclerosis include but are not limited to loss of eye sight, loss of balance, inability to walk, uncontrollable rapid eye movements, numbness, muscle spasms, etc. The disease can progress as you get older and can be treated with physical therapy, but there is no known cure for it. Then, on Tuesday, the doctor found signs of colon cancer. They think they may have caught the cancer early and he can be treated, but Jeremy and I have decided that we will no longer take life for granted. There are so many things that we have wanted to do that we have not been able to do. We want to make a bucket list, but we are having trouble making one. If anyone has any suggestions that would be great! My list is as follows:
1. Do something crazy!
2. Go camping
3. Go surfing
4. Travel ANYWHERE
5. Play lots of games
6. Have a family reunion
7. Bungee jump
8. Invent something
9. Help as many people as possible in any way possible
10. Get in a food fight
11. Watch every movie possible
12. Be on a game show

Autism Awareness Month

     How many of you know that it’s Autism Awareness Month? Autism Awareness month has been going on since April of 1970. Some of you may not quite understand what Autism is. According to Autism Society “Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others.”  Did you know that 1 out of every 100 children is diagnosed with autism and 1 out of every 70 boys is diagnosed with autism? Autism is a growing concern here in the United States and we need to do something about it. My niece was diagnosed with autism. We knew something was wrong with her when she was a baby because she didn’t cry very often and took her so long to walk, and then when it was time for her to talk, she never did. When she was three my brother and his wife took her to the doctor because they knew that there was something wrong with her and the doctor said that she was fine and that she would come around, she was just a slow learner. That was not the case at all. When she turned four she still had not developed mentally the way she was supposed to but they believed the doctor. Finally they decided to get a second opinion and when she was five she was diagnosed with autism. When she got to school she was enrolled in a special education program that was supposed to help her with her challenge. She is now fourteen years old and she still will not communicate. I don’t know what to think because my brother and his wife got a divorce and she will not let anyone in my family really be around her at all. My brother takes her every weekend. I visit her and she still will not communicate, but she is getting better about it. She will tell you when she wants something, such as a drink for instance, she will say “milk” or “Pepsi”, but she will not say full sentences and she gets frustrated because it is so hard for her to communicate. She will become angry and bite and scratch and have fits. It is as if she is trapped in a world inside her mind and she is trying desperately to escape and she can’t. She is not always mean though, she is usually very happy when I see her. She loves things that are shiny, so I like to bring her jewelry. She dangles it is front of her face in the light and laughs. It doesn’t seem as though she is improving anymore in the school that she is attending and my brother is trying desperately to get her into the Ozark Center for Autism so she can get the help she needs. I am attempting to do loads of research and talk to as many people as I can to see what I can do to help her if her mother will let me. Did you know that special care, including schooling, therapy, and at home assistance for families with an autistic child can cost anywhere from $3.5 billion to $5 billion a year? People don’t have that kind of money and because so many people are autistic, that is $90 billion or more a year in costs for the United States. Since April is Autism Awareness Month, many events are being hosted by different places, giving all proceeds to autism research. How many of you love wine? Well Macadoodles here in Joplin is hosting a wine tasting event on April 10, 2011 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and all proceeds will be going to the Ozark Center for Autism. Another event that is taking place is on April 16, 2011. This event is the 3^rd Annual Rummage Sale and will be taking place at Oak Pointe, 1114 Carrington Terrace in Joplin, which is also a benefit for the Ozark Center for Autism. Also in Springfield they have Cardinal tickets for sale to the Autism Awareness Game. Tickets are just $9 each. http://www.blogger.com/ to get more information or get your tickets! The next event is on Saturday, April 30, 2011. This event is the 4^th Annual Walk for Autism (Click link for information). This event will be taking place at the North Park Mall here in Joplin in the JC Penny Court. I will definitely be at this event, as I deeply support children with Autism. Every 15 seconds, a child is diagnosed with autism. Will you help support the cause?

My Spring Break

     Over spring break my boyfriend and I decided to go to South Padre Island, Texas. We were of course informed that it was dangerous near the Gulf of Mexico because of the drug cartel, so we were very cautious. We wanted to be at our hotel at the La Quinta Inn by check in time, our adventure to South Padre Island began at 11:00 p.m., Thursday, March 24^th. As we cruised happily through Oklahoma, we stopped at every single casino we passed. My boyfriend, Aaron won money at every single one!  Needless to say, so far we were having a pretty fantastic vacation. My favorite casino was the Choctaw Casino. The outside was lit up with beautiful lights that changed colors such as pink to purple, purple to blue, blue to green, green to yellow, and so on. After he won his fair share of money at that casino, we got gas and headed back to the highway. We drove for about one hour and then we saw the “Welcome to Texas” sign! It felt pretty good to be in a state that I had never been to. I finally fell asleep and when I awoke we were in Dallas, Texas. I have never seen traffic as thick as the traffic in Dallas. The roads were amazing and the buildings were even better! I know it sounds weird for me to say that, but I have never been to a big city like that because I have never traveled. I was even happier to know in about twelve hours I would be swimming in the ocean, which I have never even seen before, let alone touched! As we traveled further south the trees got greener, the air got warmer, and the sky was possibly the bluest I have ever seen it! After getting lost about three times we finally made it to Isabella Port where we came to a stop light. Ahead I could see a long bridge that went over the ocean. I was so scared! I did NOT want to go over that bridge. I guess because I have never seen the ocean I thought that it was a lot more violent than it actually is. I turned to Aaron and I said “I am not going over that bridge! Look how long it is!” He just rolled his eyes and said “Are you serious with me right now?” Our adventure to South Padre Island began at 11:00 p.m., Thursday, March 24^th; and continued on his merry way. I was extremely nervous as we passed over the long bridge to South Padre Island. I looked out the window at the ocean and it looked just like we were passing over a lake. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and we weren’t that close to the water. I felt embarrassed for being such a baby about crossing over the bridge. We arrived at our hotel, put our stuff down, and immediately went out to the ocean. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The waves crashed around us as we waded further into the ocean. We were standing about chest deep and a large wave came crashing in that pulled me under water! I can say I do NOT like the taste of salt water! I don’t know if it is true, but I was told that the Gulf of Mexico has the saltiest sea water.  Aaron pulled me up out of the water and my eyes felt like they were on fire and I got hit in the head so hard by that wave my head was pounding! I decided I was done for the day and we that we had better go get some sushi. The next day we boogie boarded and I got hit in the nose and mouth three times by the waves. I’m just not good at boogie boarding, or standing in the ocean apparently. The last day we were there we got on a boat and I saw real dolphins for the first time! They were so beautiful, but I got sea sick. There were a lot of tourists on the beach, and none of them were dangerous at all, except one man scared me.  I thought I would be nice and hold the door for him and his friend. Well I guess instead of saying thank you he decided it would be okay to just grab my rear! I guess that is what I get for being nice (and going to the beach on spring break)! Besides some minor setbacks I had a lot of fun. I swam for hours in the ocean, relaxed, saw some dolphins, drank a lot (don’t judge me, it was vacation!), had the best sea food I have ever tasted, and boogie boarded for the first time. I really hope to go back to South Padre Island next spring break.