Better (well) Read than Dead

An old high school friend of mine (who doesn't have children) recently posted on Facebook:

A co-worker says that once you have kids, you don't time to read anymore. Is this true?

The long list of comments then reiterated what the co-worker said, talking about how motherhood prevents them from having the time to read.

I just wanted to yell out, NO! DON'T BELIEVE THEM! IT'S NOT TRUE!

I'm posting my "Shelfari" list on the top of this blog to prove that moms do read. I've been in a book club for over five years now and I love the variety of books and genres this gets me to read. I'm constantly going up to my friends (and I'll admit it, even strangers) and asking them what they're reading. My kids know that every night at 8:30 PM is "mom's reading time." Even my cat knows it (she knows that that means cuddle time).

I'm lucky in that my work gives us a paid day off every year for our birthday, and I use that day to lay in bed all day reading. My daughter, Frances, is now a total book worm, too. She constantly has a book in her hands (I'm hoping the other two will follow suit).

Now my mother, Dot, has always been an avid reader. Even with nine kids and five foster kids and running a daycare center out of her home (yes, we were THAT house in the neighborhood), she was always reading. She makes a point of reading all the Newbery Award winners (something I also do) and she loves, loves, loves Charles Dickens.

Don't have time to read because you have kids? Then read aloud to your children! Even the most adult books will have something you can read to them. My children love David Sedaris books -- though I read to them very edited chapters (they especially like the dying mouse story).

All I can say is, better (well) read than dead.

Miracles

On this Christmas day, I'm pondering on the miracles that have happened in my life:

The neighbor who saw my dead car on the side of the road and me walking and instinctively knew that the kids I carpool home would need a ride home -- even though her kids don't even go to the same school. Thank you.

I couldn't find my cell phone charger. Then my cats knocked down a huge painting in my bedroom and as I went to pick it up, there in a Darth Vader helmet under the fallen painting was my charger. Thank you.

My other neighbor who saw my dead car at the mechanic's and called to see if the other carpool kids would need a ride home. Thank you.

The car that decided to die a few hours AFTER I drove my nephew to the airport so that he wouldn't miss his flight. Thank you.

My work's janitorial crew who forgot to clean out the fridge so I could reclaim my cartons of milk and orange juice that I had left behind the day before. Thank you.

And these are just the ones that happened this week. I think my new year's goal for 2012 is to pay more attention to the many miracles in my life.

Closed Captioning Follies

As one who enjoys closed captioning mistakes, here's one of my favorites:

Instead of,

"Will my kids live better than I do?"

It read,

"Will my kids lisp better than I do?"

In my case, I would say yes, yes they will.

TV Follies

I don't know if the TV producers are getting dumber or if they assume that the TV watchers are getting dumber. Two recent examples:

I was watching "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" (yes, I'm admitting it -- I watch it) and they were describing their trip from Los Angeles to some exotic island local. Anyway, here's the map they showed of their starting point:


Wow, I had no idea that Los Angeles is in the middle of MEXICO! I can see putting it a little bit too high or too low or too far east on a map, but didn't that huge peninsula called Baja California give you a clue that you were a little too far south?



The other day, I was watching an infomercial for Victoria Principal's skincare line and they were advertising it for $89.99 for a 90-day supply. But if you called right now, you could get their special offer of a 30-day supply for only $29.99!

Now I'm no math genius, but even I could see right through that one.

Stupid Car!

The good news -- my right blinker miraculously healed itself and is working again.

The bad news -- now my driver side window is stuck permanently down (just in time for winter!).

I'm not friendly, I'm just lazy

The right turn signal on my car isn't working.

(If my father is reading this, I mean my "right turning indicator." As he likes to say, "ANYTHING can be a signal, so be more specific!")

I know that on this model of car this happens a lot, so I'm too lazy to get it fixed. Instead, I'm going "old school" and using hand signals. Luckily, Nigel had a driver's handbook in the house because I couldn't remember which way to hold my arm (obviously, I don't ride bikes much).

So now I'm driving down the street sticking my arm out the window (luckily it's summer) before I make a turn and everyone thinks I'm waving at them. They either wave back or give me a weird look like, "I don't know you, how dare you wave at me!"

It's gotten so bad that the other day the man in the car ahead of me was signalling for me to go around him. I just sat there. Nigel finally had to poke me and tell me to go around. I thought he was signalling for a right turn, too!

Jeffrey's Version of Events

So, so I think that the lady was probably -- wait, driving to the hospital and she was drinking out of like a soda--drinking a soda or something and I'm guessing that just maybe she dropped it and was reaching down to get it and then while she was reaching down, she probably accidentally turned the wheel and then she probably saw herself going to the side, so she like put on the gas and went--oh wait, sorry, I missed a part. Wait.

Lois interjects -- why don't you just tell it from your point of view, what you experienced. So where we you?

I was just napping, then I--wait, then my hermit crabs woke me up. And then I heard a bang and then I went into my parents' room and I thought my dad's breathing machine thing blew up. Then I saw a hole in the wall. I told my sister and we went outside.

And we saw a car. Just then the wall.

Then our upstairs neighbors took us into the house for safety. And I don't know what happened after that.

Lois -- didn't the neighbor have you go in the house with him?

Yes. I didn't quite get to see what--see the room.

The end.

Lois -- what about the missing cat?

So we thought that Roger ran away because she was scared, but at the end of the day we--my mom found her in her closet. Wait, wait, wait. And yes, I said Roger is a her.

Nigel's Version of Events

So I work for the condo association, so I was across the street. I had just checked the pool for chemicals and pH and I was in the office doing stuff when the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and didn't recognize the number, but figured maybe I should answer it anyway, even though I wasn't "on duty" at the moment. It was Frances on the phone. She was hysterical and crying. I knew it was a big deal because the last time I heard her cry like this was when our pet rabbit died. All I could understand her say was there was a car accident and something got hit, but I really had no idea what was going on. I thought I heard her say the word London, and she has a good friend named London, so I thought maybe she was calling me to tell me that London was in an accident.

So I ran across the street and that's when I saw there was firetrucks, so I knew it happened right here and it was bigger than I thought. Then I saw the fence had been destroyed in the area and as I got closer, I saw the car that had hit our building. One of the neighbors, George, ran up to me and said "I was inside your house looking for you. The kids thought you were still in there."

Um, I'm trying to think what happened next.

And I said, "My kids, where are my kids? Are they OK?" And someone said they're upstairs. So I went to the upstairs condo--oh, wait, I really can't remember who told me, it's kind of a blur, but yeah, someone said they were in the upstairs condo. They girls were sitting on the couch of our neighbors and Frances and Alice-Grace were crying hysterically and Jeffrey was just kind of staring, he looked kind of shell-shocked.

I found out later, that because he was the only one that wasn't crying hysterically, he had gone inside with George to look for my body.

So we spent a lot of time hugging and talking to each other and the girls told me they were in the living room when it happened.

(Interjection by Frances -- "I wasn't in the living room. I was in my bed.")

Oh, you weren't?

Jeffrey told me he was in his room when it happened, which freaked me out because I still hadn't looked closely at the accident and I thought the car had actually crashed through Jeffrey's wall. By this time, someone told me the police wanted to talk to me. I didn't want to leave the kids, but I had to. So I went downstairs and this was the first time I got a really good look at the accident.

The car had crashed through our bedroom wall. The damage actually didn't look that bad. Some of the bricks were missing and the hole seemed fairly small. Let's see. Um.

(Interjection by Frances -- "I'm not the only one who gets lost")

The police officers kept asking "Now who's the owner and who's the property manager?" I said, "I'm both." They looked at me kind of puzzled and said, "Now who are you?" I said, "I own the condo." And they said, "Who's the property manager?" I said, "I'm the night and weekend manager." So in all the excitement, it was kind of a blur, but between various police officers and various EMTs, I got asked this same question about a half dozen times.

Once they figured out who I was, they asked what the damage was like inside and I said, "Actually, I don't know. I haven't been inside yet. Is it safe?" And they said it should be.

I forgot to mention, this whole time our Neighborhood Watch chair had been on the scene.

Anyway, we were inside and the wall inside looked a lot worse than the wall outside. The hole was probably about--the damage is at least six foot square. You could see the drywall was broken and you could see the studs were poking through. The car really wasn't protruding into the room, but you could see outside through the insulation.

There was a pile of bricks on Lois' side of the bed and there was lots of rubble in the room, lots of dust. They told me the building inspector was on his way to look at the room. I asked if I could get back to the kids, told them I'd be upstairs. While I was upstairs, I called the general property manager. I can't remember if I called Lois now or earlier. The general property manager told me to call me and Lois' homeowner policy insurance agent. And told me to call the insurer that the HOA uses for the exterior of the building.

When I talked to Lois, she was at work and I said that a car had hit the building, everyone was fine. There was a big hole in the wall and that she should probably come home. And at the time I thought it was strange that she had a tone in her voice like "Why is this important enough for me to come home?" I found out later, based on my description, she thought the building has been crashed into on the other end, which would be someone else's condo.

I also called our Bishop (ecclesiastical leader) to let him know what happened.

Lois interjects -- "This is going on forever. I don't know if my blog has this much memory."

And then in general, our Neighborhood Watch chair called a guy from the neighborhood who is a contractor and also owns a unit in the building to come out and patch the hole, especially since they were expecting rain the next day.

There was a tense few minutes where they suspected the support joists for the building had been damaged and they might have to--the building inspector might have to declare the building uninhabitable, especially on that end. Luckily, the contractor from the neighborhood pointed out to the inspector that the support joists ran in the opposite direction than he thought they did, and were therefore unaffected by the collision.

I guess that's it for what happened right then.

Frances' Version of Events

OK. So I was sleeping and I hear this loud crash and I assume that the girl upstairs had knocked over her toy bin. And then a little while later, Alice-Grace comes running in my room and yells that Daddy's wall had fallen down and that we need to get out. So we ran outside to the circle thinking it was an earthquake. And then I saw the car and I freaked out. And this guy came running over and he was like "Are you all OK?" And I said my dad was in there. And so he ran off with Jeffrey to look and my dad wasn't there. So I was like he's probably at work then. And then I saw our upstairs neighbor and he was on the phone with 911, I guess. And he had us come inside where we called my dad. And halfway through the phone call, I started crying, so he couldn't understand me. And then he came over--my dad came over--and he was all worried about Jeffrey because Daddy thought it had hit Jeffrey's room.

Give me a minute. Sorry, I got lost. Give me a minute.

OK. And so our neighbor upstairs was giving us breakfast and whatever and Daddy called Mom. And we just kind of hung out at the neighbor's house and then after a while, I went outside and went inside to get my camera. Everyone was--all these people were outside talking and taking pictures. And I took a lot of pictures.

And then this like construction dude came and he was like pulling the bricks out of the wall. And they like cleaned up inside and they vacuumed my mom's box of tissues, which I thought was funny.

We couldn't find Roger. And we like looked around inside and outside. And so we asked Aunty Rena what to do and she said to just leave Roger alone and leave tuna out for Roger. And then later on we found her in the closet.

And they had temporarily fixed the wall with a piece of wood and some plastic because it was going to rain. And we were on the news for like one minute.

And then on the night it happened, me and Jeffrey slept over at our friends' house and my parents and Alice-Grace slept somewhere else. And since then, we've been sleeping at our other friend's house, since they have an empty apartment.

Hole in the Wall Update

Guess who doesn't have insurance?

Yes, the lady who hit our home.

Her policy lapsed June 9th. She hit us June 18th.

Now instead of getting my wall fixed right away, I have to wait for the various insurance agencies to fight it out.

Oh, joy.