A (Chilly) Blast From the Past

It's fun every now and again to look at old photos. These are from our Christmas visit to Virginia in 2004. We were driving along Skyline Drive (from the Rt. 33 entrance west of Stanardsville, I think we went north, but can't remember) and saw these huge ice formations on the side of the road. They were so beautiful!

So Easily Amused!

Ah, to be 2 again!

Read the Signs, People!

One of my biggest pet peeves is the way people in Arizona merge (or fail to). One of the first things I noticed driving on the highways here is that if a lane is ending, the people driving in the ending lane do not merge. They blindly continue to drive until all of a sudden their lane is gone and they're in YOURS! If you don't speed up or slow down to accommodate them, they will hit you! This is a major source of stress for me; I hate driving here (unless I'm in the country and there are no other cars on the road, then I love it).

The WORST thing is when people can't read road signs. Take a look at this one:

This one means the LEFT lane is ending and the people in the left lane need to MERGE into the right lane. Do they do that in Arizona? No, they do not. They simply continue to drive until their lane is gone, then are suddenly in YOURS and yes, they will blow their horns at you for not merging for them. To the dear people of Arizona: please learn to merge and please learn to READ THE SIGNS!

Now, in Virginia, they are seriously lacking on road signs. When Todd and I lived there ('05 to '06), I was happy and comfortable driving the back roads with all their twists and turns. Todd was totally freaked. He would come to a stop sign with the road curving madly in either direction and peaking over a hill. In some places, you really just had to guess whether a car was going to pop up around the bend and whether you should go or not. This didn't bother me much. Todd adapted by developing his own way of dealing with it: wait a few seconds, then floor it. It seemed to work. There were no signs to warn you, but then again, I guess it was just all too obvious.

And if you've ever driven in Pennsylvania, you've probably seen this sign, which makes me smile:

Speaking of Manolos

I suffer from an affliction. (Which one, you ask? haha, very funny, you!) You see, I was born with a natural attraction to the finer things in life. Those Manolos I mentioned a couple posts down? Something in me just tingles at the thought. Those black Manolos on the left there? $1,095.00 Yes, a sweet grand for a pair of shoes. I could live with the absolutely adorable Betsy Johnson's (the blue and the pink/leopard) which come in at just under $200 each. But those aren't in my budget either. There was a time in my life that I could afford a little luxury and I had a couple of Betsy Johnson dresses, but I've yet to live as large as I would like. And that's okay, totally okay. I have all the "things" I need: a house, a car, food (well, most weeks), running water, electricity, and most importantly, a family I adore. But I still have that inexplicable attraction to pretties and sparklies.

Did I mention Hidalgo rings? Yum! Ed Hardy, Dolce, Bb, organic foods, fine furniture, you name it, if it's expensive I will naturally navigate toward it. Of course I don't indulge in these things; I have kids to feed and medical bills to pay off. And if I have to confess, sometimes it makes me sick the way I'm drawn to these things. But honestly, if I did have a buttload of money, I would so rather spend it on someone else. I volunteer for a lot of things, and have an itch to start a charity for people with type 1 diabetes who can't afford medical coverage or the cost of staying alive with that disease (which is about $400 a month, yes, really!). So, please do a couple of things for me. Visualize that I'm filthy stinking rich. And secondly, if you see a rich lady with size 5 feet throwing out her old Manolos, grab 'em for me!

Yesterday Sucked and Reality Check

I don't know when I've been more glad for a day to be over than yesterday. Okay, I know I've definitely had worse days, but yesterday really sucked. I was at the computer waiting for purchase orders to arrive so I could work. The PO's never came, so the waiting at the computer turned into "hmmm...let's see if I can put a third column on my blog...." As you see, my blog still has two columns and the whole 8-hour mass of confusion has left me butt-sore.

First, I do a Google search for "how to add a third column to my blog." I get several different options and over the course of the day, try them all with varying degrees of success. At one point, I did have three columns, but I lost several of my widgets (side bar content) and the page just didn't lay right. Plus, I couldn't upload the groovy new header image I had made, which was just peeing me off. So, having backed up my original template, I decide the best thing to do would be to just scrap the three column and go back to my tried and true two column.

I upload the two column and most of my widgets were gone! I lost my favorite links, my "Things to Ponder," my Feedjit, PlayList music player.... Argh! Frustrating.

To top it all off, I finally found the place where you switch the post footer text, i.e. you can change "Posted by...." to "Lovingly handcrafted by...." or whatever. And instead of "Comments" you can put whatever (as you see I put "holla'd back." Well, I was so happy I finally found it, but in the course of infecting my once clean HTML with so many various unclean templates during my vain attempts at producing a third column, my "Lovingly handcrafted by..." refuses to show up!

As of bedtime last night I was ready to scrap my entire blog and start a new, fresh, clean one. Todd and I sat and thought up nifty names, but they were all taken. So here I am, depleted and defeated, realizing this blog has become more than just some silly little place to put words and pictures; it's bordering on obsession or ego or something. All I can say after this whole affair is "Crapstain!"

Todd-isms

Todd has a clever way with words. He's really very funny, but you have to "get it." He has his own style of humour and it just cracks me up. He makes up words, too. Like if you take an everyday word, and simply add "-iferous" to the end, you have a Todd word. Like, orangeiferous or splendiferous. He says it's Greek Mythology. Ummm, it's not.

When we were camping on the rim a couple months ago, Todd was telling ghost stories to the kids. One was about a woman whose daughter, Mona, was lost in the forest and never found. The mom would roam the woods at night calling "Monnnnaaaaa." You know, in that spooky ghost voice. So a little while after telling the story, it was quiet in the tent and Todd starts going, "Monnnnaaaa..." but the kids weren't impressed. Undaunted, Todd lets out into the darkness, "Moniferous," and I start laughing and can't stop. At that point, I'm about to pee my pants but it's too cold to leave the tent.

Todd also comes up with great ideas and sayings. Over the 4th of July weekend, we had to go to Greer so Todd could work on the furnace/air conditioning system for the cabin his sister and her in-laws are building. It was long work and I was really tired of keeping Bryce out of trouble. Jerilyn (Erin's mom in law) stopped to thank us for sacrificing our weekend for them and said she knows they don't reward us much, but hopefully we'll get rewarded in Heaven. Todd replies, (I love this) "If we don't get into Heaven, I guarantee I'll cool down Hell." Again, I could not stop laughing. I love having a husband who makes me laugh daily. I would not trade him for all the Manolos in the world.

Japanese Water Fueled Car

I LOVE Japan and the Japanese people. The two years I lived there were so amazing; I would live there now if I could afford it! I always tell people that the technology there would blow your mind. Their electronics: video games, cell phones, tv's, etc., are all at least 10 or more years ahead of ours. I saw a Game Cube there in 1991...when were they released here? 2001? Something like that. Anyway, now they're fueling cars with good old H2O, and no, it's not a hoax. They're just that darn smart!!!!

Add Lopez Lomong to my List of Heroes

Update on Aug. 7, 2008: a video from Beijing of Lopez Lomon on The Today Show:



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From the International Herald Tribune, I saw this story on the Today Show this morning and bawled. How people overcome unthinkable situations and still smile at the end of it all, I don't know. Lopez Lomong is one of my heroes!

Link to article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/01/sports/runner.php?page=1

It was last Christmas when Lopez Lomong finally returned to the village where his parents buried him 17 years ago.

A small pile of rocks still marked a memorial, he said.

"No, I'm here," Lomong, 23, told himself. "I did not die."

His attempt this week to make the U.S. Olympic track team in the 1,500 meters will culminate a heart-wrenching journey from child prisoner in war-torn East Africa, to refugee among the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan, to American citizen and elite middle-distance runner.

"After all he's been through, he's not easily rattled," said John Hayes, who coaches Lomong, a favorite to claim one of three Olympic spots in the metric mile. "He doesn't fear anyone."

At age 6, Lomong was swept into Sudan's long-running civil war. He and other children were abducted in 1991 by a government-backed militia as they attended Catholic Mass in the southern village of Kimotong. Lay on the ground, the soldiers ordered the parishioners. When Lomong's father tried to resist, he was hit with the butt of a gun. The boys were placed in a tarp-covered truck and driven away.

His parents futilely searched the area, then held a funeral in absentia. Lomong presumed his father and mother were dead, too, along with two brothers. For 12 years, he considered himself another orphan in a war between the Arab-dominated north of Sudan and the tribal black south. Eventually, two million people died and tens of thousands of children were enslaved.

Lomong remained in the militia's hands for three weeks. Nearly 100 boys were thrown into a room, he said, given sorghum mixed with sand, beaten when they tried to leave to use the bathroom. He watched others die around him from dysentery and lack of food, fearing he would also be left to waste away.

One moonless night, Lomong said, three teenage boys who knew his parents came to him. They had found an escape route from a work camp. One took his right hand, another his left.
"We are going to see your mother," they told him.

For two or three days the boys ran. They carried Lomong when he could not keep up and hid him in caves while they searched for water, bringing it to him cupped in leaves.
They trekked southward and encountered the Kenyan border patrol. Lomong was taken to the sprawling Kakuma Refugee Camp. He does not know what happened to the three teenagers, the ones he calls his angels. The Kenyan camp would become his home for 10 years; other lost boys would become his family.

They gathered firewood, shared rations of corn, played soccer with balls of wrapped paper, cleaning their compound, attended an informal school. A teacher stood at a blackboard placed in a tree, while the boys scratched letters and numbers in the sand. Relief workers began to call him Lopez, which supplanted his birth name of Lopepe. At night, the boys lay under the sky and the older ones told stories to the young.

"If the stars are together, that's how the family is," Lomong said, repeating a frequently told story. "They love each other. They rely on each other. Nothing will separate them."
In the summer of 2000, Lomong said, he and his friends ran 8 kilometers, or 5 miles, and paid five Kenyan shillings - an American nickel - to watch the Sydney Olympics on a black and white television. Michael Johnson circled the track to win his second gold medal at 400 meters.
"I said, 'I want to run like that man,"' Lomong recalled.

A year later, Lomong learned from missionaries that approximately 3,500 residents of the Kakuma camp would be relocated to the United States. As instructed, he wrote a letter, told his story, had it translated into English. Weeks later, he received a reply. A friend read it to him: "You are going to America."

As part of a resettlement program, Lomong was sent to live near Tully, New York, outside of Syracuse, with Robert and Barbara Rogers. From the time he landed at the airport, Lomong was overwhelmed.

"When I told him we had to get our car, he thought I was kidding," Robert Rogers said. "He had walked to the airport in Kenya. He assumed we were walking home."

That first night at the Rogers's home, Lomong slept with the lights on because he did not know how to turn them off. He also did not know that a shower could be controlled for cold and heat.
"I was shivering so hard," the ebullient Lomong said with a laugh. "I thought that's how white people get white, they shower in cold water."

He enrolled in 10th grade at Tully High and showed a propensity for running. Rogers said that a neighbor told Lomong, "You're going to run in the Olympics." It stuck with him as he became a three-time New York state champion.

"He's never turned his head from that goal," Rogers said.

In 2003, still in high school, Lomong received a phone call from a friend in Syracuse, who was relaying a message: A woman who said she was Lomong's mother was looking for him in Kenya. Rogers thought it was a scam, someone seeking money.

"He was so excited; I was cringing," Rogers said.

Days later, a call came from a woman who had never before used a telephone. She kept asking to speak to her son, not understanding that a child's voice had become a young man's voice.

Lomong asked questions. The woman knew his name, his father's name. He grew convinced that the caller was his biological mother, Rita Namana. The family that he thought was dead was alive. He began crying. Even after he hung up, he kept asking himself, "Is it true? Was this a dream? Did I really speak to my parents?"

He had no money to visit his family, which had grown to four boys and a girl. Lomong was not yet an American citizen, so he had no passport. He focused on his running, attended Northern Arizona and won the 2007 NCAA outdoor championship at 1,500 meters, running a personal best of 3 minutes 37.07 seconds, before turning professional.

He was naturalized last summer and was also reunited with his biological family with the assistance of the HBO program "Real Sports." Last Christmas, Lomong traveled to Sudan and also visited his mother in Juja, Kenya, where a number of Sudanese refugees have settled outside the capital of Nairobi.

Many questions needed more complete answers: How had Lomong's family survived? How did his mother know he was alive?

The militia had left his parents alone, his mother said. She and his father, Awei Lomong, a farmer, then shuttled between Sudan and the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. In 2003, Rita Namana had by chance heard someone mention her son's name, saying he had survived. Through the years, mother and son had been in the Kakuma camp at the same time, but scattered among 70,000 refugees, their paths had never knowingly crossed.

"I had no pictures," Lopez said of his family. "I didn't know what they looked like."

His mother now rents a room outside Nairobi, living with two sons and a daughter so they can attend school. Lopez had planned a relaxing visit with them over the Christmas holidays, along with a regimen of altitude training, but a disputed Kenyan presidential election led to an explosion of ethnic violence. Again, the Lomong family was thrown into chaos.

Hayes, the coach, contacted the State Department and arranged for Lopez to be taken to the airport in Nairobi. Lopez declined, sacrificing a month of training, renting a secure place where his family could sleep at night. Finally, Lomong returned to Colorado in early February, to resume his pursuit of the Beijing Games. Monday, he finished fifth in the trials at 800 meters, missing the Olympic team by 11 hundredths of a second. He is better at 1,500 meters.
"Before, I ran from danger and death," Lomong said. "Now, I run for sport. It would be an honor to represent the country that saved me and showed me the way."