Catching Up

I figured that if I'm gone from blogging long enough to have people asking me when I'm going to get back to it (something I never thought would happen!) I better be bringing the big guns, which is why there's a new picture of Benjamin accompanying this entry. Hope you enjoy! The kid's just amazing. We spent this afternoon playing while mommy took a nap. He's really gotten the hang of walking with his Gobble and Go Hippo and enjoys going back and forth through the den with it. And if you crawl along with him, it's the funniest thing out there. My knees have gotten some rug burn over the past few days!

The images and stories from Katrina have been heart-wrenching. I didn't think I had the personal connection that my friend Deb did, but then I got an e-mail from the wife of a friend of mine. We only communicate sporadically, so I had forgotten that he lived in Hattiesburg, MS, which took a good size hit from the hurricane. He works for the Department of Defense, so he was out of the country at the time, but his wife and their 4-month old got to safety. That's the good news. The bad news was that they had trees in their home and there were a number of people that they had no knowledge of their whereabouts, some that were presumed dead.

Along with that, our city, which is a good ways from any of the affected areas, probably at least 6-7 hours by car, is having refugees start showing up. My parents' church is housing and feeding 100 of them, and a nearby church camp is expecting some to show up tomorrow. I never thought that being this far away we would see the effects of this disaster, but apparently we will. Many of these people will become residents of the town, because they have nothing to go back to.

These stories have really hit me harder than I think they would in the past due to having a child. I see the pictures of those that were taking care of their babies in shelters or carrying them through the waters to safety and I imagine having to do that with Benjamin. While you can never really know the agony and distress those people are going through, just trying to put yourself in their shoes is intensely disturbing. It makes me very glad I live in an area where the only real threat is a tornado, and even that is rare here. At least you can survive a tornado and it doesn't destroy the whole infrastructure of a town, at least not one of this size.

Actually did a little yardwork yesterday. Adam and I are going to have a talk about this when I get to heaven. The whole kicked out of the garden thing I can handle, somewhat, but making us deal with weeds and grass, that's a whole 'nother story. I trimmed some branches and weeds that were really getting out of hand. Some of them reached higher than my roof, so they really needed to be dealt with. My dad dropped off his lawnmower this afternoon, so I guess I will be laboring on Labor Day, at least enough to do that. Thankfully the temperatures are a little lower than they have been, so if I get out early enough tomorrow, it might not be such a bad thing. Then again, as thick as the grass is, it probably won't be a walk in the park.

Cards won two of three against Houston this weekend. Should have been a sweep, but Friday was one of the games that they lost when they should have one. It's a credit to the team that there have been very few of those type games this year. But when you have a lead in the 9th, 10th and 13th innings and blow all of them, it's a tough loss. There was no hangover, though, as Carpenter outdueled Clemens (again), winning his 20th game and, no matter what some say, put himself in the driver's seat for the Cy Young Award. If he continues to pitch the way he has (1.41 ERA since May), he'll win it, IMO. The Cardinals seem to have had the following checklist the last few series:

1) Go to the site of a NL wild-card contender.
2) Take two out of three.
3) Repeat.

Next up, though, are the Cubs, which have packed it in for the season, having Kerry Wood go through season-ending surgery, trading Matt Lawton, and disabling Aramis Ramirez. Add to that the fact they are 20+ games behind the Cards in the standings and the excitement level for this series is way down. They get the Mets this weekend, though, which should be more interesting.

Finished Season 1 of Law & Order. I really enjoyed it and got started on Season 2 today. The older cop gets killed off so they bring in a new guy. I know he only lasts for one season as well, because Jerry Orbach comes in for Season 3 and lasts until Season 14. Still, the original older cop was pretty neat and I wish he'd been able to stick around more.

What's really great about Labor Day (or holidays in general now) is that TV stations run marathons of shows. Tomorrow, a slight conflict. TNT has 11 episodes of Law & Order cued up, which is great. I'm really quite excited about that (Meron's not, but she'll either do something else or I won't watch them all!) but also A&E is running episodes of last season's 24. That's another of my favorite shows, but since I've seen that season and I'll be buying the DVDs when they come out (I have seasons 1-3), I probably will stick with L&O when I'm watching the tube tomorrow.

Good thing I don't have to go to work tomorrow--er, today, since it's now past midnight. I had some YNOT work to do at both sites tonight, which took a little while. And I couldn't leave you any longer without a great blog entry, could I? I'll try to get on a little tomorrow, if I can tear myself away from the TV!