An Aside

Can I just say that I have some really evil fucking relatives? Because with everything else going on, I really need to deal with them too.

No Funny Title

I can't link to this AP story because it is on AOL and I can't find it anywhere else yet, but:

In a stunning example of how desperate the situation has become, 25 babies who had been in a makeshift neonatal intensive care unit at New Orleans' Ochsner Clinic were airlifted Wednesday to hospitals in Houston, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Birmingham, Alabama. Many were hooked up to battery-operated breathing machines keeping them alive.

Their parents had been forced to evacuate and leave the infants behind; by late in the day, most if not all had been contacted and told where their babies were being taken, said hospital spokeswoman Katherine Voss.

"We actually encouraged them to leave. It would just be more people to evacuate if there was a problem," said Dr. Vince Adolph, a pediatric surgeon.

When Peanut was taken to the NICU after she was born, I was willing to risk my life to get up and get to her. I can't even fathom what these parents were feeling.

My good friend and boss, Dana, has all of her extended family in New Orleans. Well, had, as most of them evacuated. One family member that stayed behind to help those he knew were going to need help has been rescued (after helping others that couldn't leave be rescued), but the fate of her grandfather, seriously ill in a nursing home that did not evacuate, is still not known. All of these people have lost their homes, their jobs and businesses, everything.

Please send a donation to your local Red Cross. All the local branches donate to the effort, and these people are going to need the help. There is no insurance that covers the rebuilding of an entire major city.

I can't even start about the tragedy in Iraq--it's just too much to comprehend.

Here

... but really fucking tired. And since my boss reads this blog (hi Dana), I won't be able to post from work, even when finally get a computer in the office. Because of course I will always be working.

I miss Peanut so much when I'm there that it hurts.

She has chosen the last week as the appropriate time to

1) Start talking.

2) Stop sleeping.

She ask for Mama now, and she says quack and knock-knock and Ow for meow. She pants when you ask her what a dog says, and she sticks out her tongue and hums when you ask her what a cow says. This makes sense once you realize that her major exposure to cows has been from this book, which my mother makes lick her. She uses sign language for cracker and cheese and milk and all-done and want and eat and sometimes please and more and banana and applesauce, as well as for some other things I can't figure out yet. She can make the signs for a lot more stuff, but hasn't felt the need to do so after the one day she showed me she could. I guess that makes sense. While this is nowhere near what most kids her age can do, when you consider she said nothing but an occasional mamama and had only three signs in mid-June, I'm feeling pretty pleased.

Tomatoes, Tomahtoes

Who Would Jesus Kill?

Salt Mines

I am back to work. The fact that Peanut seems to be adjusting well is because she is so securely attached to me that she isn't concerned that I'm not coming back, especially when Grandma is so much fun in the meantime, right?