Friday Review

I spent a great afternoon with Kathy yesterday - Jim was in and out, running errands, and Sarah brought my grand-niece Evie, who kept all of us occupied.  Sister-in-law Tracey stopped by and joined us for lunch, and we had a great family meal.  Kathy received a pile of get well cards yesterday, and a couple of neighbors stopped by with cards and flowers.  Evie finally hit an overload point without her nap (she is, after all, only 15 months old), and Sarah took her home. Kathy finally had some quiet time time for a nap, and Jim went shopping for essentials - toilet paper, milk, and some fresh vegetables and fruit.  After returning, Jim ran me home before Lynn was to arrive with last night's meal...
   The weather folks said we'd have a clear, but cold, morning here with temperatures dropping again, and with snow in the afternoon.  I walked to the store this morning, grabbed a couple of bagels and some crunchies for the kits, and walked back home.  On the way back, I realized that teeny, tiny snowflakes were falling - they looked almost like glitter on the ground.  Right now, the snow is falling and swirling as if we were trapped inside a snow globe.  As soon as I returned this morning, I put out more nuts and dried fruit for the squirrels, and I re-filled the bird seed bowl.  While writing this, I keep seeing squirrels peering in the window and quite a few birds flying in and out, grabbing seeds.  And, just for the heck of it, it was 21 degrees when I went to the store; it's now 17 degrees.
   I am still shaking my head over some of the "news" stories I seen over the past few days.  I agree that the story about the 35-foot sailboat that ran into the pilings along the Chesapeake tunnel of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was news.  The captain of the boat lost his engine, and the boat hit the bridge pilings, breaking a part of the mast.  The Coast Guard transferred a man over to aid the sailboat captain, the sail was untangled and taken down, and the engine was started.  There was no damage to the bridge-tunnel pilings.
    The story about the "medical miracle" of a young man who survived "internal decapitation" might be news-worthy.  If the young man had been wearing his seat belt prior to an accident that threw him out of the back seat of an SUV, this probably would not have happened.  The impact moved his skull away from his spine - usually, there is a space of 1 millimeter or less between the top (C-1) vertebrae and the skull.  This young man had a 6 mm separation - and his spinal cord was not compromised.  He was extremely lucky to be up and walking about in a neck brace and expecting a full recovery.
   The story about the young man who had a 100-plus pound tumor removed from his scrotum, however, seems to feed the prurient interest groups.  I'm sure it was a wonderful moment to have this tumor removed - in a surgery that took 16 hours - but it's not something I'd want reported all over the country and/or world.  And the surgery was not without complications - a nerve was "touched" during the surgery, and the man no longer has any feeling in his legs.  He will have to learn to walk all over again.   Again, I can see letting a few friends and family know this - but to have USA Today coverage  seems a bit much.
  I have to admit it was curiosity that led me to read the story about the lady who set her underwear on fire, draped over the telephone in her cell, causing the destruction of the telephone, and making scorch marks on the wall to the ceiling of her jail cell.  It appears she had been carrying her cigarette lighter in a space available only to females.  She had originally been arrested on drunk and disorderly charges.
   The only big news around here is that the motion picture "Christmastime" is being filmed on the Pearl Street Mall (here in Boulder) for the next week; and that the Denver Broncos are re-signing Champ Bailey to a one-day contract, so that Champ may retire from the NFL as a Bronco...
   Have a great weekend!