problems with dups when they're posting, or am I the only one singled out for such a distinction? It's been happening a LOT over the past few days.

I mean anything.

Doesn't necessarily mean I'll answer, but the odds are good.

yup.

That says it all.

Thanks to every single one of you. I really would've curled up in a corner without y'all, I think.

We just got home and I'm completely wiped.

More tomorrow...

Thank you really doesn't seem like enough.

I love you all.

:loveya

She's HOME!!!!

This is my daughter, Sarah:





She's 5'6" and 130 lbs with blond hair, brown eyes and freckles across her nose.


And she's still missing.


I am so grateful for all the love and support and energy that everyone here has offered us. I started the original thread because I was scared and upset and needed to vent and I've seen the good things that the Lounge 'positive vibes' can do...and I needed that.

I found so much more. I found a whole group of people willing to help in whatever ways they could and I owe everyone here such a debt of gratitude. When she comes home, it's going to be because of all of you.





You're all truly special. I don't know what else to say. I love all of you.

Thank you.

Nothing's changed. I'll think I get something and then that brick wall smacks me in the head again. She doesn't have a computer...doesn't go online very much at all. She does have a MySpace page that a friend set up for her but that didn't give me anything. I've e-mailed the few people that she knows that are out of town, so far I haven't heard anything. I spoke to another of her friends again this morning...but the only information she had for me was information I already had. She has agreed, if my daughter contacts her, to suggest that they meet somewhere to 'hang'...and she'll call me with where and when.

I don't expect it'll happen, though.

She took a cab to get wherever it is that she went, but the cab company won't tell me where they took her without a warrant and the police won't issue a warrant unless there's something 'suspicious'. I guess a 13-year-old being missing for 36+ hours isn't very suspicious. I guess...never mind. I don't want to go there. Anyway, I pushed the police into at least calling the cab company but they didn't get the information, either. I went down there with a police officer in tow...nothing.

Assholes.

I sat up last night until the sun came up, crawling out of my skin every time a car drove by and jumping at every little sound. At one point, at about 1 a.m., four cars pulled up in front of my house....but before I could get to the door, they had pulled away down the street about a half-block, turned around and left. I ran out to try and get a license number but couldn't...

Shit.

Anyway, I was hesitant to bring this all up again...you've all been so wonderful and supportive and helpful with ideas and suggestions and good wishes and...

Girly-poo and I couldn't ask for more.

I tried to edit my other post but it won't let me. Something about time limits...



The latest news is that there really isn't any. She's still not home and I still haven't heard from her. I think I've tracked her to one of the phone numbers that I had and I've called it several times but they still deny knowing her. Funny thing, though...when one of my boys called the same number from a different phone, they told him they were working on it. Hmmmmm...I think someone's lying to me, don't you?

I've done the reverse directory thing on the number and can't get any information other than the fact that it's a land based line in Colorado Springs. Which I'd already figured out, being the genius-type person that I am. And being that that's where we are and I don't have to dial a 1 + the area code to call it. And being that I hear the same voices in the background every time I call. And being that you can tell when someone's one a cell phone, 90% of the time.

I don't know what I'd do without y'all. I really don't. You're my rock. I read the thread I posted earlier and I've never been so touched by a group of people in my life. I've been by myself almost all day long (my boys have just recently gotten home) and this whole thing has made me literally sick.

Y'all are the best.

But my daughter needs all your positive energy, prayers, vibes...whatever you can spare. She kissed me goodnight last night and I haven't seen her since. She wasn't in her bed this morning...apparently she snuck out at some point last night...but she meant to come back. Her clothes are all here...she took the garage door opener so she could get back in...her makeup's all here...her EYELINER is here.

She's not.

She's thirteen years old and I'm scared half to death.

No...there's no 'half' about it.

I've never been so terrified in my life.

It started as a purely defensive thing...and then I surpassed all of 'em.

They're my guys!

Heh...and yup...I've got a soft-spot for the underdog.

This is from a few years back (obviously):


Only a Game


Being a transplanted Cubs fan, even though there are tens of thousands of us scattered from Boston to San Diego, from Seattle to Miami, is a lonely thing. From April to September I sit in my living room and watch my loveable losers while everyone else on the block is mowing their lawns. I’m yelling at Dusty Baker for what I see as his unforgivably managerial decisions while my neighbor is out in his back yard, pushing his kids on the swing set that appeared just after Christmas. The sun sinks below the horizon, coloring the evening sky an incredible shade of magenta, streaked through with vibrant purple but I don’t see any of it, too pre-occupied with Gonzales’s wide throw to first with two out and a runner on third that’s going to score on the error.

It’s a full-time obsession. Every April, hope grows and blooms along with the daffodils…and wilts just as quickly, fading as the injuries mount: Sosa out for two weeks with a concussion and then, before he gets his swing back, an ingrown toenail; Choi with another concussion; Prior with a deep bruise to his pitching shoulder; Patterson, lost for the season, is replaced in the lineup by Goodwin who’s hitting over .400 since coming in for Patterson and then pulls a hamstring running – not sliding, running into second base. The DL turns into a WL: “I wish Prior could start in the series with Houston.” “I wish Choi hadn’t been out so long.” “I wish Goodwin was back – he coulda beat that throw.” And on and on it goes. The injuries and the players change from month to month, season to season, but the refrain’s the same.

This year was going to be different. This year was different. This year we had a shot. Despite the injuries and the fielding errors; despite bad calls by umpires and the media frenzy surrounding a broken bat; despite a year of one setback after another – we were winning. Finally. All alone at the top of the Central Division for most of the first half of the season, we were actually winning for once.

And I had tickets.

The week before the game crawled by but eventually each day came to a close and finally it was Saturday. Deborah had picked up my Cubs jersey from the cleaners on her way home from work on Friday but – and I know she meant well – she went too far when she scrubbed all the grime from the sweatband and bill of my cap.

“I just wish you’d checked with me first,” I said when she showed me the cap. I thought I showed admirable constraint.

“But it was just so…filthy,” she wrinkled her nose as though even the memory of it disgusted her. “I don’t see how you could wear that nasty thing. Besides, it looks so much better now. And it’ll be completely dry by morning.”

I wanted to scream at her. I didn’t want it clean! Who cared about clean? I had worn that hat every time we won. That sweat was winning sweat. That grime was ground in from tearing the cap off to cheer – that was good grime. And now it was gone and she didn’t get it. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

I snugged the still-damp cap on my head and settled in to watch the game.

We lost, 8-2.

************

We got up early on Saturday to make the 75-mile drive to the ballpark and get there in time for batting practice. I tried to feel the excitement that I’d felt for the past month, ever since I had picked up the tickets, but instead, there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“I still don’t get why you’re mad about the cap,” Deborah said. I had tried to explain it to her. You don’t wash ball caps. Especially not lucky ones. You wear them until they either fall apart or your team starts losing. And then you retire them reverently and honorably. You don’t wash them. You don’t throw them away.

We walked the three blocks between the parking lot and the park and I hadn’t trusted myself to say much to her since the night before when she had presented me with my freshly laundered cap. I still didn’t. I tugged on the bill of the cap, adjusting it yet again, and just looked at her. She wasn’t going to get it. Ever. But from now on I’d keep the cap in my truck, safe from her well-meaning fiddling.

If it wasn’t too late.

We found our seats and settled in and, despite the dread I’d felt since the evening before, the excitement of the park started to work its magic on me. Little by little I started to relax. I could feel the enthusiasm begin, first as a little pinpoint somewhere behind my breastbone, then spreading throughout my body. Deborah must have felt it, too. She listened attentively as I explained what was going on down on the field and asked fairly intelligent questions about the scorecard that she found in the program and the starting lineup. She cheered and didn’t duck under the seats when a ball landed in the glove of a little boy sitting in the row behind us.

Then the game began and it started with a bang. Kenny Lofton doubled to the left-field corner on the first pitch he saw and then Sammy hit a ground ball into the gap and brought Lofton home. Alou got on base, advancing Sosa to third and we had runners at the corners when Gonzalez launched a pitch over the wall at straightaway center and then, defensively, Estes went three up, three down. At the end of the first inning Cubs led 4-0.

It was hot, we were in the lead and I’d started to sweat into my hat. Now all I needed was a mustard stain or two to grime up the bill and it might be okay. I headed off to the concessions.

Then it all fell apart. In the bottom of the third, Martinez bobbled a ground ball and then completely missed the throw to second, not only spoiling the double-play but allowing the runners to advance to second and third. Now they had runners in scoring position with no outs and the top of the order coming to the plate. This wasn’t good. Not only that but, in my irritation with Estes giving up a hit to the pitcher, of all people, followed by the error, I kicked the drink holder and sprayed my drink all over myself as well as the guy that was sitting in front of me.

At the end of the third inning, Houston was leading, 6-4, and Estes was still in. What was Dusty thinking? I looked frantically at the quiet bullpen, hoping that maybe if I wished hard enough someone would get up. Farnsworth. Veres. Cruz. Somebody. Anybody. Just get Estes the hell out of there. The Cubs went down in the top of the fourth – one, two, three. A strikeout, a fly ball, and a ground ball to second. Houston scored three more runs in the bottom of the fourth and at last the bullpen was starting to move.

Alfonseca. Of all the pitchers available, Dusty had to call on Alfonseca? He couldn’t pitch his way out of a Little League game any more. Maybe he’d been good in his prime but his prime was long gone. Now he was old and fat and slow and all but put gift bows on his pitches. I slumped down in my seat, wishing I’d never looked.

I tugged the bill of my cap down over my eyes. I didn’t want to watch.

The slaughter continued. Every time the Cubs would threaten, Houston’s manager would go to his bullpen. The threat remained just that. A threat. Meanwhile, stalwart Dusty left Alfonseca in for both the fifth and the sixth innings, finally pulling him after he’d given up two more runs and loaded the bases with only one out in the bottom of the sixth. Then he replaced him with Remlinger who promptly gave up a grand slam.

15-4.

I closed my eyes and hoped for a quick and merciful seventh and eighth inning. I didn’t think we’d make it to the bottom of the ninth.

At last the game ended. 16-6, Houston. We fell yet another game back and now we were four games out of first place. To her credit, Deborah seemed to sense my mood and quietly gathered up our program, the sunscreen and the souvenir cups and then waited for me to rouse myself.

16-6. Four games back, and we were in Houston for two more days. Six games back if things kept going the way they were and, with my hat freshly laundered, there was no reason to believe things were going to get better soon. I slowly stood up and wordlessly followed Deborah down the stairs to street level and out of the ballpark.

“I suppose it could have been worse,” she finally said. I couldn’t believe it. How could it have been worse? I raised my eyes and looked at her and she smiled. She smiled! What was there to smile about?

“Besides,” she kept going. Some people just didn’t know when to shut up. “It’s only a game.”

It was going to be a long drive home.

when he was about four years old.

Hide the Keys…It’s a TEENAGER!!




Put down your coffee cup, swallow that sip of juice. Sit down and brace yourself, I’ve got news that’s going to knock your socks off.

The best drivers on the road, bar none, are between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one.

How do I know this to be true? Not from statistics compiled by the insurance companies or the police department, not from actuarial tables, either. I got it straight from the source.

My teenaged son told me.

With a straight face.

Really.

We must, of course, consider that source. This is a young man who anxiously awaits foul weather and slippery streets because it’s more fun to ride his bike at breakneck speeds on ice.

“But a bicycle isn’t a car,” he insists.

He’s right, it isn’t. In a car at least there’s something between a human body and the street. At this rate we’re looking to corner the market on Neosporin and hydrogen peroxide, not to mention getting to know the emergency room personnel on a first name basis before the end of the year.

This is also the young man who scared ten years off my life when he tried to make a right turn at close to 35 mph. That’ll teach me to let him drive to work. But he’s a teenager with quick reflexes so it couldn’t have been his fault. It must have been the brakes. It might have been the speedometer. It could have been that I was making him nervous when I suggested – rather vehemently – that if he didn’t slow down he’d never make the turn. He’s a teen; he’s a good driver. But still – curbs are incredibly unyielding and I suspect that we paid a semester of tuition for our mechanic’s oldest child. The front end still creaks like a pair of arthritic knees.

Think he was done? Oh, no. This is the same young adult who backed out of the driveway to park on the street and didn’t see the fencepost. After ten years of jumping over it, climbing on it, leaning against it and sitting on it, he didn’t realize it was there. It isn’t anymore. But he’s a new driver and, as such, is a wonderful driver. Who needs a fence anyway? The missing fence gives the yard a much more ‘open’ and ‘spacious’ feel…doesn’t it?

Yes, he’s got all the answers. He told me so.

With a straight face.

But – I’ve got the keys. And I’m hiding them. And then I think I might just keep my middle-aged, conservative, seat belt wearing self at home indefinitely.

It’s safer that way.

Really.

Definitely.

:insert shameless self-promotion here:

Yankee Doodle

Steve whistled. In the end, that's what did it. When he worked, when he read, when he was in the bathroom, he whistled. He whistled along with the radio. He whistled when he was deep in thought and he whistled when he was bored. At first, it was endearing. She thought it was cute.

When she was eighteen.

After fifteen years of it though, it was fingernails on a chalkboard. And the worst part of it was that he didn't even know he did it. When she mentioned it, he was always surprised. And when she told him that he even did it during their most intimate moments, he flat out denied it.

"I do not!"

"You don't believe me? What…you want me to tape you? Other women get, 'Oh, Susie,' or 'Oh, baby,' or even 'Oh, God.' What do I get? Fucking 'Yankee Doodle'."

"I do not!"

She couldn't get him to believe her. Even when she taped him, he denied it. It was a defective tape. She'd edited it. She PMS-ing. She wanted to emasculate him and it wasn't going to work, damn it.

It wasn't him. It couldn't be him.

Except that it was. And it was going to stop. Today. Now.

June heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway and the car door slam. The garage opened and then it came. The whistling.

Fucking "Yankee Doodle."

June lifted the skillet and waited…

It was going to stop. The doorknob turned.

Now.

:end shameless self-promotion:

I've given this some thought....