Saturday, May 30, 2009

News from Southbury Moms

My best friend of 32 years started a new blog in the same vein of "Nobody Tells Me Anything" where a few of us former Southbury residents will be able to post news that we hear from our best sources of info: our moms.
Are you from Southbury, and you've moved away and are missing out on all the juicy details? Or are you from a similar small town and have moved away, out of earshot from the local news? Stop by and have a gander. I'm sure you'll find it interesting, if not informative.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Still, Nobody Tells Me Anything

I created this blog a few years ago to keep my family up on the happenings in my growing household. I had recently married, and we were having kids, and since my family were still living up in the North, it made sense.
But I didn't know what to call it.
Then I heard the news about my Grandmother kicking her second husband out, and *ding* there it was. The rest was history.
There have been other times that have come up since then giving me the opportunity to grouse about my lack of news from my Northern relatives. Usually it's about people getting married, having babies, or the health of my Grandmother. I deal with it pretty well, i think.

I just heard in an email from my friend that my Dad has cancer.

Okay, that's a little dramatic. He has a "melanoma" on his skin, his forehead I think, and he's seeking treatment for it this week.

Here's the email from my friend:

um, you did know this, right?

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 9:26 AM,
Jeremy K <myfriend'semail @
gmail.com
>
wrote:
> Dude, sorry to hear about your dad. I hope everything goes well with
> the surgeon. Melanoma is serious business ... hope they get the sucker
> out before it gets too deep. We'll definitely keep him in our
> thoughts.
>
> Jeremy

When I first read it, i actually thought he was talking about his father. My heart dropped, my stomach lurched, i pictured myself on a flight to meet him in CT soon... all kinds of unhappy images. I sent him a quick reply back, asking for details and clarification.

I couldn't wait for a response and just called him on his cell phone, something I rarely do. Turns out he heard from his Mom that she saw my Dad over the weekend and he has a melanoma on his forehead and he's going to see a surgeon for it.

("Uh, Hello, Brain? Yes, this is Chest. Mm-hmm, it seems that we have lost contact with Head. Yep, the Jaw has gone slack and has dropped against our upper sternum area. No, no damage to report, but I can't contact Head to reel it back in. Right, totally unresponsive.")

My Dad? Holy crap. It crossed my mind that this was a joke of some kind, but that quickly got squashed because that's not really funny. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Yeah, it's probably not as serious as he's making it out to be.

I walked out of my office and called my Mom on the phone. I can't explain why I didn't just call my Dad. In fact, I still haven't. I think I'm too nervous. So I get her on the phone and immediately launch into, "So what's this I hear about Dad and Cancer?" She says it's nothing big, no need to worry. He's going to see a surgeon on Friday to take care of it. "Okay. All right," I ask, "So, he just goes in and he snips off the bad part and he's all set?" "Well," she says, "It's a little more than that."

Aw jeez.

Angry about how things are turning out?

Okay, okay, i know it's spam, but i got this in the mail the other day, and got a kick out of how angry it was. Take a read.

To the youth of
America,


Thank you for turning out to vote in your first Presidential Election. I
am sure that many of you have never followed or been interested in politics
before and chose this occasion to be your first experience. You probably
voted against your parents thinking that your youth made you more aware of the
new global environment than their years of experience in
life.


Thank you for protecting the illegal combatants who are detained in Guantanamo
Bay. Ensuring their Constitutional Rights IS more important than your
right to live. Even though they waged a war against innocent unsuspecting
civilians in the United States, they themselves have been mistreated. The
inhumane torture that they were subjected to of being gently suspended on a
blanket while having small amounts of water poured on their heads is far worse
than crashing planes in to buildings in urban highly populated
areas.


Thank you for giving Congress a Democratic Majority. Now they are free to
pass legislation increasing the National Deficit by far more than it has ever
been after they campaigned on a balanced budget and reducing the deficit.
Nancy Pelosi is now free from any charges of purgery from only being informed
about CIA interrogation practices rather than being briefed on them. Now
we can move forward with prosecuting the former administration for keeping the
Country safe from Man Caused Destruction by means of the Over-seas Contingency
Operation. It is more important that Bush lied about the foreign
intelligence that we received to get us involved for a war for oil than the
Democrats telling any partial untruths about Our military harassing and
murdering innocent
civilians.


Thank you for helping keep our boarders open. For too long illegal
immigrants have tried to dangerously cross our boarders and exist in our country
without following the legal path to citizenship. Now all of those people
can live without fear of being sent back to their country of origin and receive
government assistance in the form of healthcare, childhood education, and food
stamps to which they do not
contribute.


Thank you for helping to reduce Carbon Dioxide levels. We should not be
responsible for providing a resource to plants for their existence. The
earth has never regulated itself in the past from occurrences like volcanic
explosions until government came along to test the air quality. Maybe now
we can find a way to tax the production of oxygen from the carbon offset
farms.


Thank you for expanding healthcare. Now non-citizens have expanded
healthcare coverage available to them at no cost. I suppose in this ever
shrinking job market you all have already found steady employment to pay for the
services that they are receiving. Businesses like hospitals should not be
in the practice of making enough money to cover both their operating expenses
and payroll when we have big government to decide who will receive healthcare,
when, and to what
extent.


Maybe now that all of the world's problems have been resolved we can focus on
education. It is clear that in this country that we need reform. We
not only need to be more competitive in the areas of math and science with the
rest of the world, but it is now clear that we need reform in American History
class as
well.


It is apparent with sites such as http://www.moveon.org, http://www.codepink4peace.org, and http://www.communalprosperity.net
that radical liberalism has moved mainstream. Politicians such as Janet
Napolitano have redefined radicals as people who believe in the Constitution and
religion. No longer are people in the radical movement confined to the
outskirts of society like they were in the 1960s. We now can be weary of
our veterans and people who want limited Federal Government
intervention.

Thank you for believing in Change,

Jason
Sanborn
From the soon to be former State of Texas