Mom, don’t read this.
It’s a tough choice, the next cutesy buzzword with which to label a subgeneration. “Kidults?” “Twixters?”
Category: Angst
The Saddest Recipe Ever
From the back of a Ritz box (seriously):
Easy Cheese© Sun
Use KRAFT EASY CHEESE Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product to draw a sun on a RITZ Cracker.
Makes 1.
There’s not actually a Carver Street in Louisville, but I think this McDonald’s is on my block.
I can’t believe they actually did it.
If you don’t live in Kentucky, you’re almost certainly unaware of this story (and likely won’t care about the rest of this entry), but in the November elections, Republican candidate Dana Seum Stephenson defeated Democrat Virginia Woodward by over a thousand votes for the 37th District state Senate seat. The 37th District is Jefferson County, which is now effectively metro Louisville.
The only problem was that from 1997 until December of 2000, Stephenson lived in Jeffersonville, Indiana. She owned a house there. She paid Indiana taxes and voted in two Indiana elections. According to the Kentucky constitution, you must be a legal resident of Kentucky for six years before you’re eligible to run for state Senate; Stephenson was three years short.
The news about Stephenson’s residency issues only came out close to Election Day, when she was already on the ballot. She dismissed the whole thing, saying she had remained a resident of Kentucky the whole time because she “always intended to return.” She pretty clearly won the popular election. It was only a couple weeks ago that a judge ruled that she wasn’t eligible to run in the first place. The judge refused to issue an order for Stephenson to concede, however, passing the buck to the Senate.
They took it, appointing a special committee to determine the issue. That committee recommended, 5-4, that Stephenson be rejected and Woodward seated.
You have likely guessed by now that last night, the Senate ignored the constitution, the judge’s ruling and their own committee, voting 20-16 straight down party lines to swear in Stephenson. One Republican, Bob Leeper of Paducah, abstained and announced he’d be drafting a letter of resignation (he later said he’d decide for sure “within a few days”).
The other Republican abstention was, presumably, Stephenson’s dad, Senator Dan Seum of Louisville. He’d earlier stated he was going to abstain, at least, so good for him, I guess. Oh, and by the way, this state is currently running without a budget.
KENTUCKY.
In addition to Caitlan’s car, which (after its acrobatics last Wednesday) is totalled, Ian’s car is now a danger to drive; he’ll probably have to sell it for parts. Regarding Mom’s van, the mechanic told her to keep driving it for what time it had left, then leave it wherever it broke down.
Jon and Amanda, on their way to Tennessee for Christmas, skidded on ice and ran head-on into a truck. They’re okay, but the car is gone, and Amanda’s collarbone is broken.
It has been a bad December for cars, and for my family; but I am shaken by how much worse it could have been.
A year ago I was writing about the earthquake in Bam. I thought an earthquake death toll of around 50,000 was the worst I’d see in my lifetime. I was wrong, of course.
Update 2330 hrs: And my grandparents flipped their truck on ice on their way to Florida for Christmas. They are also miraculously okay, and also currently without transportation.
Joe died very early Wednesday morning, in his sleep. The first report from his autopsy hasn’t established a certain cause of death; his heart was greatly enlarged, and he had a little cardiovascular disease, but was otherwise healthy. They’ve established that it wasn’t a heart attack, a stroke or an aneurysm. His sister Laura, a nurse who specialized in cardio, believes it was a rhythmic irregularity that could not have been predicted: he had no risk factors except that he was a male in his fifties with some family history of heart disease.
Ian, Caitlan and I are here in Richmond with my mom now, staying nights at Joe’s house near Lancaster to take care of the dogs and keep the fire going (it’s heated with wood). Caitlan flipped her car twice on the way to see Mom that morning; the car is probably junk, but Caitlan is okay aside from some whiplash. She’s attempting to incorporate her neck brace into various turtleneck ensembles.
Weather and other delays have moved things to after Christmas. The visitation will be at Spurlin Funeral Home in Lancaster from 3-8 pm on Sunday the 26th. The funeral will also be at the home, at 10 am on Monday the 27th. After the funeral we’ll proceed to Blue Bank Farm in Casey County, where Joe will be buried in our family cemetery, next to my father and my mother’s father.
Thanks to everyone who has sent condolences and well-wishes. I appreciate all your words; I don’t have time to answer you individually right now, but your kind thoughts mean a great deal to me and my family.
Donations may be made, in lieu of flowers, to three things Joe loved: the Garrard County Humane Society, Kentucky Educational Television, or St. Mark School.
I’m starting to think of my friend Yale as less a single person and more a state of mind.
Or a syndrome.