If God really wants you to touch the sky, He'll give you wings.
June 2009
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 Colby Curtin (OC Register) HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- A 10-year-old cancer-stricken girl had her dying wish fulfilled when Pixar arranged to bring the new movie "Up" to her home in Huntington Beach.
Colby Curtin desperately wanted to see the new Disney-Pixar flick, but she was too sick to go to a theater.
A family friend got in touch with the movie studio Pixar and an employee of the Emeryville-based company arrived at Colby's home last Wednesday with a DVD copy of the movie.
Colby died later that night.
The girl's mother, Lisa Curtin, said she had asked her daughter if she could hang on until the movie arrived.
She said her daughter replied, "I'm ready (to die), but I'm going to wait for the movie."
"Up" is the animated tale of a grumpy old man who, after his wife's death, tries to fulfill their joint dream of visiting South America by tying thousands of balloons to his house and floating away.
Colby, who was diagnosed with vascular cancer in 2005, could not open her eyes during the movie, but her mother described the scenes to her as she listened.
When her mother asked if she enjoyed it, Colby nodded.
The Pixar employee left after the movie, taking the DVD, which has not been released. A family friend says the employee's eyes welled up with tears during the ordeal.
Colby, with her parents nearby, died later that night.
Her mother says at first she didn't realize what the movie was about, but she now feels that "Up" symbolizes her daughter going "up" to heaven.
Copyright ©2009, KTLA-TV, Los Angeles
Today we found out that we're getting a dog. It happened like this. Cassie said she wanted a dog. Okay, that was pretty much it. We, as responsible loving parents promptly "rolled over."
The first step in getting a dog is careful research of breeds, what to expect from each breed, what breed would offer us - as a unique family - the best experience and fit. Of course, we skipped that step. That step involved a lot of reading and books and stuff.
The next step was to decide where to get a dog. One option is a breeder, who somehow makes dogs, mostly out of that stuff you use in quilts, and that bendable wire and a whole lot of tape. However, that stuff you use in quilts apparently costs billions of dollars because it can only be harvested under a full moon by yak herders in the mountains of Nepal, and yak herders have recently unionized and that's affected prices. So a breeder dog costs just shy of $28,000.
So the next step after that was to look at rescued dogs. This is actually what we wanted to do, because if we can give a rescued dog a good home then we've accomplished two things: we've given a rescued dog a good home, and those yak herders don't get another dime of my hard earned money.
Cassie began browsing for a dog via Petfinder (using all of the carefully amassed data in step one) and found a candidate. However, I contacted the owner and it had just been given to someone in Nepal. The second dog Cassie found is named "Midnight." Instantly this seemed promising. There were no dogs listed like "Misery," "Despair," or "Anguish," so it was likely we would have to settle for something like "Midnight."
I contacted the owner and that set off an application process so thorough it makes me feel guilty no one questioned me more when I had live human children. I had to provide references. I had to give my birth date. I have to divulge my work place and profession. I had to share what vet we use. After the initial application, we were told the dog was being removed from the Internet because of all of the applications, but that we would be considered.
In the meantime Cassie had become the model child. Cleaning up the house, checking out dog books from the library, watching dog shows on TV - all in an attempt to learn more and roll her parents. So far her diabolical plan was working. The next step in the application process - and no I am not making this up - was to take pictures of the inside and outside of our house. At this point I passed the application process on to Alert Photographer Tammy, as there was no way I was going to photograph the interior of my house for a pet who likely wouldn't appreciate the photos I'd take anyway. I said I would support her continuing the process (this involved me standing some distance away, putting my fingers in my ears, waving my hands while making a pffffffttttttttttt! sound with my tongue) but that I wasn't going to steer it. She took the pictures and sent them off. We were hopeful that should this be a colossal mistake that God in His infinite mercy would destroy our block with a meteor.
Tammy received a response right away, and we were asked if we had a 12-year-old daughter named Cassandra, and if she had been emailing anyone at the rescue. Head smacking keyboard moment. We said yes, and if she had been a bother we apologized. She received a response to that, saying that we could have Midnight because the owner of the rescue, whom Cassie had been writing, was so impressed with her questions and her maturity.
So, with the email up on Alert Dog Acquirer Tammy's computer screen, I called Cassie into the room and asked her in a stern voice if she had been emailing about Midnight. She nervously said, "Yes, why?" Tammy said "You better read that email young lady." Trembling she sat down and read. Then she shouted and jumped up and down, laughed, screamed and sobbed all in about 60 seconds.
We will likely visit Midnight this weekend (Cassie turns 13 on Friday) and if everything seems to click we will bring him home. He's a lab/shepherd mix, and we're told that he will grow to be 18' tall and eat a buick's weight in food each day.
In a pinch he'll also be good at herding yak.
Buying an ice cream cake at Cold Stone Creamery.
Sadness is getting it home and finding out it's mint chocolate chip, instead of chocolate chip.
Sigh.
(Alert Ice Cream Purchaser Tammy: "I wondered why you were buying a cake that was all green and minty-looking.")
I was in the supermarket this morning and suddenly it all came together. I KNOW WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING. I looked over towards the fresh bread section and saw the large donut case. Then I saw those flimsy donut "tissues" you're suppose to use to get your donuts. And then I had the epiphany.
Sometime before 7 a.m. local time on a weekday (probably a Monday) very sick terrorists (with pig flu, or bird flu, or mad cow disease, or the rarer but as yet unknown pimento loaf flu) will be dispatched to grocery stores all over the country. They will arrive in pairs. One will cause a distraction in the bakery area - probably by asking for a really good cinnamon bagel that doesn't have raisins - and the other will go to the donut case, PRETEND to take a tissue, and then reach in and start touching donuts. Mission accomplished, they will leave the store and wait for further orders.
Meanwhile, unsuspecting executives will arrive and purchase donuts for their workers, given it's a Monday and everyone would otherwise have the a Case of the Mondays. The unsuspecting workers will eat the donuts because I mean hey, Free Donut, and will contract pimento loaf flu, which causes some sort of hives or something. That night they'll get all itchy and call in sick the next day. American productivity will take a huge hit because millions of workers will be home watching Dr. Phil and scratching furiously. The economy will further tank. And we'll be no closer to a really good cinnamon bagel without raisins.
And the terrorists will win.
(So please, be careful out there.)
I never know how to categorize these blog posts. I'm putting this one under "End Times" although I was strongly tempted to created a category. I almost created a "donuts" category because every good blog needs a donuts category. Then I thought, "No, this is a story about a lack of donuts. Perhaps I should created a category called 'Fail' instead?"
I stopped by Dunkin' Donuts because I didn't have any money with me for parking. You know how this goes - you end up the in parking garage and you're on the hook for 75 cents, minimum, and then you discover you have no money. So you check all of the interior car compartments, look in the seats, under the floor mats - and now you have 28 cents which isn't going to do anything for you. So you have to get the ATM card out, but the ATM won't give you anything smaller than a fifty, so you look around and, well, there's Dunkin' Donuts. So you go in with your fifty and look around and THERE ARE NO DONUTS.
I mean every single donut tray is empty. The cashier looks at me, I look at the trays, she looks at the trays, I look at her, she looks at me. Then she has this apologetic expression, and says (wait for it) "We're all out of donuts."
I pause. I look around again. "You're all out of donuts?" I'm thinking, this IS Dunkin' Donuts right?
She looks more apologetic; maybe even embarassed. "We don't make the donuts here, and we estimate how many we'll need, and we were hit hard today."
Everything starts to spin and I feel faint. "You don't make the donuts here?" It's like finding out about the Easter Bunny. I hear it echo in my head over and over again. "We don't make the donuts here..."
I grab the counter, steady myself, and buy a chocolate chip cookie that is considerably less than fifty dollars. Armed with absolutely NO DONUTS and at least one dollar bill I leave. I can now pay for parking and escape the garage, but I also had my Dunkin' Donuts myth shattered. Not only are there times when the trays are EMPTY...
They don't even make the donuts there.
If you know me you could probably guess I'm not a huge sports fan. I am from Pittsburgh, though, and have long been a fan of the Steelers. So I was delighted to not only see them win tonight, and win probably the most exciting football game I've seen in many a year (I don't see many), but I also was delighted to see how the kids enjoyed the game. Toward the end there I thought I was going to have to get some oxygen for Connor. Or a paper bag. Or something. But things turned out well.
You can order your "Terrible Towel" online, of course.
Random hospital inspired haiku...
Trip to the ER,
An IV bag of fluids.
Twelve hours later...
Blue hopital gown,
I think it ties in the back,
I feel a cold draft.
Appendicitis.
It's hard to fit in Haiku.
Take that sucker out.
Early morning update: I was going to write this entire update in haiku but I'm tired. It's 1:16 am here and we've been home about an hour. Everyone's in bed and the house is quiet (save for my laptop, which is playing a mix of Third Day and OneRepublic) and I'm trying to get some work done. I took Cassie to the ER because of stomach problems and dehydration. They did the dreaded IV bag O' fluids, an ultrasound and a ct scan. They told us that no problems showed up on the ultrasound/ct, but that there could be organs in there just waiting to explode so if Cassie felt the same tomorrow (which is now today) we should come back.
I KID YOU NOT. We should come back to the ER. At that point I was going to say we would just camp out because the odds of not coming back after a set-up like that were nil, but we left.
Bag o' fluids sir?
The nurse asked, needle in hand.
No thanks, I'm driving.
Today's the start of an exciting new Blog Hero feature which I call... Dear Carl. (I named it after how people address the email questions they send to me.)
What I'll do is I'll choose one of the many questions I get via email and answer is publicly here. This will accomplish several things: it will take up a blog post (checks that off list) it will answer the question of the original emailer (assuming they're reading here, check) and it will also help untold thousands who probably were wondering the same exact thing but didn't have the courage to ask (or didn't have my email address - see email address at left.)
Today's installment:
Dear Carl,
Normally I ignore every single application request I get on Facebook. I find this to be good policy (note from Carl: this is an excellent policy.) However, today I was faced with a quandary: a friend sent me an application invitation called "Request for Good Karma." What was I to do? Surely refusing a Good Karma Application Request - while in keeping with my overall policy - would doom me. After several seconds of staring at the request I finally caved and clicked the add application button.
I then waited for a few minutes, only to receive a message that the Good Karma Application failed to load properly.
My question is - should I wait for the inevitable doom of being unable to add a Good Karma Application, or should I just shoot myself in the head with a bazooka now? It seems either way I'm done for.
Sincerely,
Bad Karma in Topeka
Dear Bad Karma in Topeka,
Thank you for your note! (Throws pinch of salt over left shoulder.) I'd really, really like to help you (knocks on wood three times) but at this point I hope you'll understand if (kisses horseshoe before throwing it at black cat walking under ladder made out of mirrored glass) I have to pass on this either way. On the one hand I can't condone violence of any sort, particularly with a bazooka. On the other hand, it's pretty clear (hits self in forehead with open palm facing outward twice, yells "OOGA BLOOGA!!" at top lungs) that you're doomed. I would suggest you sit out in the middle of a grassy field, away from any cattle, and hope for the best.
Sincerely,
Carl
(OOGA BLOOGA!!)
The domain name (bloghero.com) is working again, and should redirect properly. There are still some design issues to fix but it's getting late, the snow has turned to sleet and the Vicodin is wearing off. (I'm in that gray, uncertain time period - do you take more pain medication so that you can sleep - with the odds beings that you won't get much use out of it - or do you just "tough it out" and save the extra pills?)
If anyone out there reading this uses an RSS client, please let me know if the feed is working for you. I tried NewsFire for the Mac and it all seems to be there.
And thank you to the people who have contacted me via email and Facebook or who have left comments on the blog: I appreciate all of the kind words. :)
Midnight here and another snow storm looks to be turning into flurries, sleet and ice. I don't know who took our winter, but I'd like it back...
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