#535...on rages of a different kind. The Choking Game.

Thanks to Sister Rose Pacatte, old ghosts came back to haunt me today.

And some ghosts, it seems, never learn to die...

And so, I thought I should do a little Ghostbusting of my own today, and hope you all will please join me with getting the word out - even if it's only in your own home, or own street, or school, or community.

for Ghostbusting you see, is really an easy task - real ghosts just hate it when we talk about them - it scares them away.

It switches the lights on.

It wakes the neighbors.

It opens the closet door on them for all to see.

and as an extra, extra, bonus - some kids will hate you for it -

for busting up their playtime - for being a kill joy - for "over-reacting" -

for being uncool.

for being a parent. (You know, exactly the kinda stuff we live for..)

Now gather closer peoples and listen up.  This alert just might save your child's life.  I'm not kidding.

Please read the story of Sister's nephew, Gabriel - who died accidentally while playing a very dangerous "game" - called the choking game.  Visit his mother's website - devoted to Gabriel, and who has worked herself to exhaustion trying to get the word out - so that he did not die in vain.

Yes, you heard right, the choking game.

Also called the Passing Out game, or Spacemonkeying, or The Dreaming Thing game... “suffocation game,” “blackout,” “funky chicken,” “space monkey,” “flatliner,” “tingling,” “suffocation roulette,” “space cowboy,” “knockout,” “gasp,” and “rising sun,” to name a few. (kids can be so creative.)

My own ghost, is now 11 years old.  I thought we were an isolated event.  I never realized how far reaching, how pervasive, and how persistent this children's game still is

today.

This game is in your own town, right around the next corner, the next block, or maybe even in your next room.

My ghost came into my house on a beautiful clear sunny day - when my daughter who wasjust 12 or so, came bounding into the house - laughing and giggling, eager to tell me about this cool game that her friend had just "done to her."  (Three words a mother never, evah, evah, evah, wants to hear...)

"Mom! - guess what (name intentionally omitted) just taught me - let me see if I can do it to you!..."  "It's really fun - it makes you feel like you're almost going to pass out and it makes you tingly all over!.."

Immediately, I felt my parental antennae go up...and a cold chill go down my spine.

My daughter - my vibrant, intelligent, honor student, beautiful, christianity awarded, innocent, young daughter - proceeded to then tell me and demonstrate how her friend applied pressure on either side of her neck - "right here" (over the carotid arteries)...

"...and Mom!  I almost passed out!"  "Everything went black and my ears were ringing.." "It was really funny..." "and afterward I got all tingly all over!"  "Joey even fell to the ground - hysterical laughing...and then he did it to the other kids and now they're all out there now trying learn how to do it."

WHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTT!!!!  I screamed..

At that point - complete horror turned to anger and every fiber of my being had to be held in check to not reach out and strangle my incredibly stupid innocent daughter for myself.  (That would be considered justifiable homicide, right?)

My daughter looked at me dumbfounded as I immediately grew my second head and ran outside to break up the little choking ring that was taking place right on my own front lawn. 

The other kids immediately noticed my two heads too, as I freaked out on all of them for being so stupid. (It's a parent thing)  Once I calmed down, I explained exactly what they were doing to each other physically, and asked them if they understood how dangerous and deadly this game is and could get. I asked them how they would feel if they accidently killed their friend - or themselves..with this game.

Upon hearing that - they were amazed that I now grew a third head - and honestly didn't believe that kind of thing could ever happen. "But it's only a game!"

In the end, all of the parents got called, as well as the school, and the pediatricians. I happened to sever a couple of my daughters friendships for her too, as a result.

Incredibly, some parents even thought I was "over-reacting". Ya know, making a mountain out of a mole-hill -   "It's just kids being kids..."

Unfortunately for them, I'm still waiting to lose sleep over that.

Please, talk to your kids. Familiarize yourself with the warning signs, find out which monsters are hiding out in their closets or under their beds.....

After all, when all is said and done - your kids and their friends will be around to hate you for it.

but that, we can all live with.

 

I'm curious - Anyone else out there have their own story? 

 

for more info: 

http://www.stilllovingmygabriel.com/

http://www.ksbitv.com/home/1839477.html?video=YLO

#534...because it's all the rage...

and...

it's pointless.

Take my Quiz   <------go ahead, I double dare ya.

 

#533...on getting old.

 I'm old. 

And I guess my memory just ain't what it used to be -

So many thanks to Conzo - for wishing me a Happy Journal Anniversary Birthday wish today. 

Without her reminder - It would have completely slipped through my head today, cause obviously there is no one up there minding the store lately - (and I suspect some of you already know this.)

yessireebob - I be two years old today.

And in journal years - that's ancient I tell ya.

And just like a toddler - little did I know what I was getting into then....or now...

So hat's off - and Happy birthday to... well, me.

And many heartfelt thanks to each one of you for sticking around me, and to me, and by me, after all these two years - in spite of my big old bad self.

thinking... we really are just one big extended fambly, eh?

cool.

 

 

 

#532...on crisp blue skies...

The sky is as blue today as it was four years ago - but the horror of that day is still no less horrific.

9-11 remembered - a personal pilgrimage.   Full moon. (Blue moon actually) November 30, 2001.
    
"So profoundly sad." 
    
     Three words that kept going through my mind and heart over and over.  Simply, I was not prepared to be as moved again as I was while watching the terror events unfold as they happened in the early morning hours of September 11. 

     We arrived at about 1 p.m., maybe it was 1:30 p.m., to a hauntingly quiet and devastated Ground Zero, now a huge gaping hole of twisted steel and pulvertized concrete; still surreal, so completely unbelievable.           

     People were scattered in pockets here and there, some quietly going about their work, other people simply there, as we were, to experience it.  To burn it into our memories, to notice the small and hideous details, to try in some small way to comprehend the incomprehensible. 

     All around me, and in every part of town, New Yorkers were in pain; yet bore their pain openly with strength, and dignity and quiet resolve.  Standing as sentinels over their lost children, over their lost structures, over their lost skyline.  And still, we (technically outsiders) were welcomed into their home and greeted with kindness and tolerance.  (I wondered if they realize we are as proud of their city as they are.)
  
     I looked closely at the blend of people around me.  Every face was different, every nationality was present, but together we shared a common feeling of loss, and tragedy, and pain.  
    
     Oh, there were other emotions too, embarrassing, ugly, and unwanted ones in this, now holy place.  It felt dirty and wrong to be feeling anything other than sadness here.  But the more I absorbed first hand, the hugeness of this obscenity before me and allowed the senselessness of this tragedy to seep into me; I couldn't help but become angry and crave immediate revenge.

     And justice. 

     And punishment.

     (Damn - you just do not use innocent people as guided missiles!)

     We walked around and saw an entire street covered with memorials to those lives lost, and as of yet, unidentified or recovered bodies some two and a half months later...so thorough was their destruction.

    Mountains of trinkets and teddy bears and photographs and prayers and candles and flowers and love notes...Oh God, and look, a child's desperate plea to the Virgin Mary, his carefully framed and documented hopes for the return of his lost young father - a calendar with the words "Said 200 Hail Mary's for Daddy" hand scribbled inside each and every day for the month of October.

     And policemen quietly standing guard.

     And the firemen continuing the recovery efforts.

     And workers clearing the rubble.

     And the people's tears.

     And the small choking gasps.

     And the held back sobs.

     And the overwhelming and heavy quiet that hung in the air.  As thick and heavy as the stench of the still smoldering fires and cement dust, and jet fuel, and probably dead bodies.
 
     I understand evilness today.  I believe now.
 
     An overcast day, mild in temperament, unusual for November, but then, nothing about this place is usual anymore.  Huge neighboring buildings were draped in shrouds of black netting, I suppose to contain the dust, but more importantly, to contain the souls and the battle scars of a nation at war.

     No warning.

     One building, mortally wounded, held as its shrapnel, a massive piece of the towers, a hundred or more foot section, all twisted and mangled.  Hideously jutting out of its side, halted only by the compacted debris as it literally tried to cleave the building in two.

     And the steam shovels droned on, and the cranes raked away debris.  And the quiet calmed and soothed us.

     Two men up over there to the right, on scaffolding some twenty stories high, intently power-washing a building, dressed in yellow slickers and yellow hard hats - easy to find against the black soot that covered the entire skyscraper...

     My husband's angered whisper:  "We should bring every one of those bastards here and say, "Here. Now clean it up. Clean every last damn bit of it up."  I watched as my daughter collected a long piece of yellow police tape that was blowing along the sidewalk.  I fought to hold my tears in check.

     Silently, respectfully, we watched the whole procession of the victim's families, a full city block long, four abreast in line, walk in complete silence, along and past the memorials and into the restricted site - an area reserved for "Authorized Personnel Only."
 
     "Your pain is our pain too,"  I told a grieving widow with my eyes.  Together we blinked our tears away.  And high above us all, draped from yet another wounded building, hung Old Glory - big and bright and strong; unashamed and unafraid - a huge comfort, actually.

     And there on the ground, under a bush, near a cobblestone curb, a fireman's wrench, still covered with terror dust.  We brought it home for safekeeping.  It felt wrong to leave it there, unattended and alone, open to the elements.  I wondered whose hands had once curled around it....

     I made my children take notice of every detail that day, and reminded them that this was their "Pearl Harbor," not yet sanitized and memorialized, as time would undoubtedly do.  But this, their Pearl Harbor, is open, and bleeding and dirty and new.

     And they did study, thoroughly and carefully, the sight before them.  I was almost afraid to meet their eyes, or answer their questions.  For somehow I felt that we, as a nation, had let all of our children down as their protectors, by not guarding our shores better.  Ashamed that this now, is part of their young lives.  And I grieved the loss of their  innocence, taken from them suddenly and without warning.

     Ashamed too, that as a nation, patriotism had somehow become unfashionable.

     That is not a good lesson to teach our children.

     Well, no more.  At least not in this house.

~floralilia
  11-30-01

 

#531...it's all in the pictures.

 

Yep.  Good ol' george is really ready to work now... see -

                      

                          

his sleeves are rolled up today.

 

               

 

#530...Okay, call me a Nancy Drew geek if you want.

                 

I knew all those hours reading Nancy Drew would pay off.  Oh yes, Flora here, did a little sleuthing of her own today to help the victims of Katrina.

So, I suppose, like more than a few of you - I found it a bit frustrating to get through to the American RedCross online to make a donation - I couldn't connect to the servers because (I thought) of the volume of hits. And calling them too - 1-800- HELP NOW connected me to only busy signals.

But persistance paid off today, and I finally got through online and via phone. Why both Flora? Well, folks, let me tell you. 

Why? Because I was UNABLE  to donate via their online site.  Yahoo donated a merchant account to the RedCross, to be able to handle the flood of donation, the Redcross, in turn designed and published a webpage to take donations, or so they thought...

what they designed was a virtual store, not a donation site.  So when you go to send a donation - it asks for shipping and billing information.   WHAT!?

So I call the 800 number a few times (busy again today) but I am a patient Queen and called called again, until I finally got through.  I spoke with a nice girl in Atlanta and made my donation (which, by the way, took infinitely longer than it would doing it online).  And then I told her about the problem with the website.  She was pleasant, but didn't know who to go to get it fixed.  She didn't seem to really understand the problem though either.

So back I go to the website and search for contact numbers for Redcross - I decide to call the Almighty Yahoo Geeks because they host and help me with my site too www.believablebalderdash.com (<----you just knew I'd get that in there somewhere, eh?)

- who verified the problem with the RedCross site - unfortunately - it was out of their hands because Yahoo only donated the account and does not create or manage the site itself. 

So back I go to get the National RedCross headquarters phone number in Washington, DC - cause dammit, I'm a woman on a mission now...

only to get, rather, not get connected to a filled voice mailbox.  Shoot.  Okay, this now calls for a fresh pot of coffee...

.....brewing.....

So - then the lightbulb goes off - (Amazing what wonders a good cuppastarbucksjoe can do..)

and I locate my local chapter of the RedCross - in Philly - and talked to a nice young gentleman named Gaylord (don't you just love that name?) that runs the Philly RedCross website. -

Gaylord was genuinely alarmed (because he is a geek and immediately understood the problem) and was very thankful that I persisted and brought it to his attention - and would try to get the info to the proper people at the RedCross website Headquarters - people which he didn't exactly know who they were was just yet...

but at least the ball is rolling now...

Here's the thing:  Gaylord and I both realize that this nation as a collective whole has the attention span of a teenage hummingbird on speed. People try once, twice, three times, to give away their hard-earned money - and then after that - well, they go out and buy a pair of  new shoes.

"We'll I tried...."  (Oh, come now - don't act surprised.  I'm guilty of it, too.)

You all know that in a week or two - we're all going to come down with a case of Hurricane Katrina Burnout - and become concerned with our own daily grind, and all the worries that come with that - as well as all the new worldwide crises that seem to change as quickly as the local diner's soup du jour.

People are horrified and want to help in big ways now, not later.  They dig deeper into their pockets today - not tommorrow. 

Which btw, can someone tell me why the rest of the globe is not rushing to our aid in this crisis - which, in my opinion is some ways worse - because we are dealing with misplaced and homeless LIVING people?  Don't get me wrong - but I feel the problems are infinitely more complicated with this disaster in the long run.

- but that is a whole other rant I'll save for another rainy day.

Anyway- (see I can write long long posts...when I feel moved to) - back to the task at hand today:

So the ball is rolling - my sleuthing paid off and I hope they fix it soon. Until then, they're losing millions.  Gaylord - assured me he will do what he can.  I also alerted CNN, MSNBC and the Associated Press. (Oh yes, I did.)

So to recap and for those of you who are lousy speedreaders: 

Skip the .org site, skip the busy 800 number -

Right now, you can easily donate through your local chapters of the RedCross - Here is a link to find your local chapter:  http://www.redcross.org/where/chapts.asp

and be sure to SPECIFY your donations to go to the Hurricane Relief fund. Gaylord told me they cannot co-mingle the funds. Once that Hurricane fund is exhausted - that's it. 

Righto - I'm probably at the 20k limit now - so I did what I could today - what are you going to do?