Facie’s Ramblings

While on Facebook this morning, I noticed that WTAE-TV Pittsburgh posted a video reporting about a massive brawl that occurred among local high school students and some parents/adults near a school bus stop after school yesterday. At one point there were as many as five different fights going on. Naturally, someone took the video and posted it to You Tube, because that seems to be a requirement anymore anytime something violent happens. Apparently, there were two different videos posted; a brawl actually happened two days in a row. WTAE posted a few snippets of the fights, blurring out the people since some are minors. If you want to view the video, you can find it on the station's website or Facebook page. I am guessing the complete videos, with full-on fighting are still on You Tube. I, however, have little interest in watching the savagery of people anymore than what I already witnessed. And, quite frankly, it is stretch for me to call these fighters "people." As I...

I have "written" versions of this post in my head many times. In fact, if I went back and looked, I would probably discover most of it in an older post. But since I don't feel like trying to figure that out and because this is what I am thinking about now, I am just going to put it out there now. Not well written, but, to quote one of my favorite sayings, it is what it is. I cannot seem to go more than a few days without lamenting that I have only one child. This was a mostly intentional decision, mind you. Brian and I had said we would have another child once we sold our house and moved into another. But we tried the house selling in 2007 and 2008, and got nowhere. By the fall of 2008, I really did not want another child, so I gave up that thought. I still don't want another child. Really. But much like some (many?) childless people, I wonder if I won't regret having an only child down the road. There are many days when I think about it. My kid is stuck with ...

I just wrote two very short (incomplete, really) and entirely different blog posts, and I decided to delete them both. I want to share things that have been going on in my life, if for no other reason than to document events. But I just cannot seem to get into the groove of blog writing. Oddly, I have started writing in my journal again over the past few months, something I had not realized how much I missed. As I said in a post some time ago, I am unwilling to lay it all out here for anyone to read. I don't care what strangers think about me. But I do have friends and the occasional relative who read my posts, and I am pretty sure there are a number of people I am connected with one way or the other (two or three degrees of separation) to whom I cannot bare my soul to. And that is where my trusty, not-out-there-for-all-to-see journal comes in. I can write about a fight that Brian and I had and not worry that someone will think my marriage is in trouble. I can lament about wo...

In the past few days, I have read in the paper/saw on the news two heinous acts against children. A boyfriend of some woman beat her 11-year-old son over the course of a nine-hour period, and the boy eventually died. I won't go into any more details, other than to add that the mother waited over an hour after she got home before calling 911, because what I just wrote is so disturbing as it is. Then last night, I saw on the news (and read this morning) that another boyfriend of another woman sexually assaulted a three-month old. I am so incredibly sickened and angered by this. What normal person would not be? And that is the thing: these people cannot be normal.There are lacking something, but what I do not know. In the first horrendous crime, some neighbors who were interviewed cried, saying they should have done something. This made me wonder, how many people hear screams or crying down the street or down the hall and actually call the police. Would you? I am one of thos...

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

I have been in a weird place lately. Over the past week or two, I have nearly "written" several posts in my head and pretty much finished one while at the park Thursday. The ramblings lent themselves to names such as the following: "If I actually publish this post, I am pretty sure some friends will be calling me with great concern" "Where is my happy place"  "I can't cry hard enough" "Missing person" "Paralyzed by fear"  As for the first title, well, it is probably obvious that when that post was swirling around my head, I was pretty down. Fortunately, that post never came to fruition. Later, things looked up and something got me smiling again. But, alas, something else had me singing the blues before too long. It could have been another struggle with Jordan (that happens a lot lately, and I am quite sure a post will eventually come of it). Perhaps Brian and I were arguing about Jordan (yeah, it's a problem) o...

I spent over an hour today trying to resolve an online banking issue. For some reason, when I paid my sewage bill last week, I chose the old bill payee, the one that has not been the payee for over three years (our water company took over for the sewage company, FYI). I won't bore you with the details of the various phone calls and time spent online. And, yes, the error was all mine (why I did not delete the previous/old payee, I don't know). But it does make me wonder how accounting works in companies. When my check was electronically deposited into the old sewage company's account, didn't they check to see why they were getting money from us, when they had not in years? Can anyone explain that? It does not help that I am tired today. Tired because there was a domestic dispute three houses away last night after 11, when I was sound asleep. Unfortunately, when four or five people are shouting in the streets nearby, as a light sleeper, I will hear them. The upside is t...

Well, another Penguins season has come to a close. What can I say? A few things, actually. Considering the injuries to players, most notably Sidney Crosby, who is arguably the best hockey player in the word, you have to tip your hat to the Pens for making it to Game 7 of the first round. When you are without Crosby and Malkin, the fact that you can win more games than lose (until this series, anyway) really shows that the others stepped up. Kudos and rah-rahs aside, when your team has a 3 to 1 series edge, it is almost inexcusable to go out and lose the next three games and ultimately the series. That is a tough pill to swallow. They needed to win only one of their last three. How could they not do it?! Last night, the Bolts scored only one goal, and the Pens could never get on the board. The Pens definitely played hard; they played their hearts out, which made it all the more frustrating. But if you can't score a single goal in a Game 7, well, you just don't deserve to win...

Last night, there was some turbulence in our house, for lack of a better word. The impetus was food (and actually not my cooking, surprisingly). Things were said, and I eventually got so mad that I left. Drove away. After first telling my kid that I loved her and kissing her good bye. Up until I was a senior in high school, my parents almost never fought. From the time I was born (or from the time I could actually start remembering things) until I was in my mid teens, I recall only three fights my parents had. They seemed pretty bad at that time, and I still remember a few details from each, but the other thousands upon thousands of days of my life, my parents were pretty happy together. We had a really great family life. Unfortunately, things started to go a little south my senior year in high school before getting worse my freshman year of college. I actually don't remember things being as bad my sophomore year, but that was the last year my parents were together, so... Why a...

Have you ever been mad enough at someone to throw a dish at said person? And by someone, I am pretty sure I mean a spouse/significant other/partner. I have contemplated doing just that to Brian on more than one occasion. And by more than one occasion, I am pretty sure I mean about 30 times in our almost 12 years of marriage. And I might really mean 30 x 30. :-) But I have never done so, for practical reasons (i.e., I am cheap). We have 10 dinner plates, mostly acquired via wedding gifts. We have only six matching smaller (salad?) plates. And although we rarely have more than a few people over for dinner (and it is not too often when we have people over to begin with), I just can't imagine wanting to forfeit these discontinued dishes. But, alas, today, I said good bye to one of our dinner plates. I washed my hands just before I unloaded the dishwasher. Not wanting to take the five seconds to completely dry my hands, I proceeded to start putting dishes away. Unfortunately, one ...

Last evening, I had a scary experience, though not so much for me. While playing with Jordan, I heard yelling down the street. I looked outside, but saw nothing. A few minutes later I heard it again, and this time Brian had opened the window and said he could actually hear people hitting/punching each other. As a member of the local crime watch, I did what I should do: I called 911. I could hear the call being recording, which kind of freaked me out. But what made me stop cold was when the 911 operator asked me if there were any weapons. I was several houses away and it was dark, so there was no way I could tell that. But I immediately thought back to last April when the three Pittsburgh police officers were killed responding to a domestic disturbance, thinking there were no weapons. And just last month a Penn Hills police officer was shot to death while sitting in his car, again responding to a disturbance. As the 911 call was wrapping up, a car with the "fighters" drove...