Is somebody cutting onions?

There was a thread on Reddit on what your parents did right in your life.

This made me cry.

"But he was there. And he was the greatest."

Tornadoes

My hometown got hit with some nasty weather on Tuesday night.

The Pugs were worried, but I wasn't worried at all. While I don't have television, I was smart enough to grab my laptop, take it downstairs and live-stream the weather online.

They said it would stay to the west of town. I live in the middle of town, so I figured it'd be okay. There were some nasty sounds, though, so the dogs and I stayed downstairs for a couple of hours until we were given the all clear and the sirens stopped going off.

It was a long night.

It turns out, though, I should have been worried.

I could hear the storm chasers in the background saying "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God" over and over. It took a minute to cut to their video, but when they did, it showed a tornado from 14th Avenue.

Um, 14th Avenue is in town, folks. If I understood them correctly, the tornado just appeared in front of them. They weren't expecting it.

My parents called me later that night to check up. They watched the tornado from their front porch.

I was at their house earlier that night. If I had stayed there, I probably would have had to change my pants.

Some houses were destroyed and some people were hurt. Thankfully, no one died.

Seeing tornado damage as a reporter was something I never wanted to do in my career, ever. The last year I worked as a journalist, though, I got sent to a town that was basically wiped off by a tornado.

Three people died.

The smell is what I remember most. It smells like lumber, because there's pieces of houses and pieces of trees everywhere.

Even the houses that were still standing had to be demolished. The tornado had lifted the houses off of their foundations. The houses were dangerous and weren't savable.

I was always proud of how I treated people that day. Unlike the national media circus that was there and only wanted to talk to families of the people who died (seriously, that actually happened) I took time out of my day to talk to people.

I walked through town with one of the residents. I listened to him. I went there early, hoping to avoid the national circus that came later in the day.

I can't imagine what it's like to lose everything that you have, even if it's all just stuff. And I can't imagine having a loved one die in a storm.

Several people have asked me if I'm going to drive around and look at the damage this week.

My answer is no.

These are people's lives. If it happened to my house, I wouldn't want gawkers staring at me while I'm cleaning up.

Anyway, here's a picture of two Pugs bickering after the storm ended.

The things that you carry.

Three calls to action:

1. Stop the madness for constant group work. Just stop it.

2. Go to the wilderness.

3. Take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase, and why you put it there...Whatever it is, I hope you take these things out every chance you get and grace us with your energy and your joy.

But introverts, you being you, you probably have the impulse to guard very carefully what's inside your suitcase. And that's okay. But occasionally, just occasionally, I hope you will open up your own suitcases for other people to see, because the world needs you, and it needs the things that you carry.

(This TED talk is not new, but it popped up on my Facebook feed today. I've listened to it at least a dozen times. I'd recommend you listen to it as well.)

Conversations in the Springer household

My puppy gets a lot of attention. If I don't love on her enough during the day, she'll let me know at night.

I will literally have a little black dog on my head until she's had her fill of attention.

Penny, my oldest Pug, and I are pretty close. 

Raven, my middle Pug, oftentimes gets the shaft. She's my middle child. She's not too needy, but she's not afraid to come up to me at night if she needs some cuddles.

Last night, I pushed the puppy away and loved on Raven. She's a puppy mill survivor who still cowers down when someone approaches her. 

I told her I hope she likes her new home, her Pug sisters, and her new life. I told her I hoped her life was better than that stupid puppy mill.

She wagged her tail. I have no idea if she understood me, but I like to think that she did.

"The 5 Least Sexy Experiences Everyone Goes Through."

I read one of those stupid click-baity articles earlier today.

It was titled something like "The 5 Least Sexy Experiences Everyone Goes Through."

Having the flu was on the list. Now, I'm not exactly bashful when it comes to embarrassing medical problems. I've had cysts removed, I've been poked and prodded when something needed to be biopsied (it was fine, no worries), and I stopped counting how many people saw me missing some article of clothing during the biopsy problem a few years ago.

Oh, and I slobber a lot during root canals. Like, an insane amount. I'm pretty sure it's not normal.

These things don't normally bother me. A body is a body is a body, and I'm no different.

Right?

But something about having the flu just seems like the end of the world is near. A week later, I'm just now starting to get hungry and eat solid foods.

But like I said in my previous blog post, the last week of my life has not been the best week of my life. There was one particular moment when I felt especially low. I was walking through a store that rhymes with "shal-mart" and waiting to pick up my anti-nausea medication.

That involved sitting in a doctor's office and explaining my symptoms to more than one person. My doctor's office does a pretty good job of coming up with solutions to my weird requests. (I couldn't stand the thought of swallowing medicine, so I got something that dissolved instead. It worked wonders.)

That particular day last week, I was holding pepto, toilet paper, and the pharmacist who is probably a lot younger than me was talking to me about the side effects of the medication, which apparently includes constipation.

I looked around and saw several people I knew in the store at about 1 p.m. on a weekday.

I avoided them all.

Life is not always pretty, folks.

Haitus

You might have noticed that I've been missing in the blogosphere over the past week.

That wasn't planned. That, as it turns out, is a pretty gnarly case of the flu that I'm still working on getting over.

I'll spare you the details, but between the bodily functions malfunctioning, the headaches that made me wear an ice pack on my head like a hat, to the intense body aches that kept me up at night...that was hellacious, guys.

I can successfully eat, now, without nausea medication.

It was not the best week of my life, but life goes on.

You should be here

It's perfect outside it's like God let me dial up the weather
Got the whole crew here, I ain't seen some of them in forever.
It's one of those never forget it, better stop and take it in kinda scenes.
Everything's just right yeah except for one thing.

You should be here, standing with your arm around me here.
Cutting up, cracking a cold beer, saying cheers, hey y'all it's sure been a good year.
It's one of those moments, that's got your name written all over it.
And you know that if I had just one wish it'd be that you didn't have to miss this
You should be here.

You'd be taking way too many pictures on your phone.
Showing them off to everybody that you know back home.
And even some you don't yeah
They say now you're in a better place
And I would be too if I could see your face.

You should be here, standing with your arm around me here.
Cutting up, cracking a cold beer, saying cheers, hey y'all it's sure been a good year.
It's one of those moments, that's got your name written all over it.
And you know that if I had just one wish it'd be that you didn't have to miss this.
Aw you should be here.

You'd be loving this, you'd be freaking out, you'd be smiling, yeah
I know you'd be all about what's going on right here right now.
God I wish somehow you could be here.
Oh you should be here.

Yeah this is one of those moments that's got your name written all over it
And you know that if I have just one wish it'd be that you didn't have to miss this.

Aw you should be here.
You should be here.

Pretty.

I got some new toenail polish the other week.

I introverted for most of the day yesterday. I painted my toenails bright yellow.

Last night, I went to my brother's house.

My little, adorable, blonde curly haired two-year-old niece took my flip flops off and inspected my toes the minute I sat down.

Her verdict?

"Oh, pretty!"

:)