LifePundit

S. C. Authorities Search for Mother and 555-lb. 14-year-old Son

I wish this news was really a movie because then it would be funny. A South Carolina mother didn't show up for a custody hearing and so the authorities are looking for her and her 555-lb. 14-year-old son. The reason she is in trouble with the law is that his size critically threatens his health.

You can read the breaking news story here.

Somebody suggested they look for them in all-you-can-eat restaurants. But I didn't just type that, did I?

How can you hide a 555-lb kid? How can you fit him in the car?

And I know from personal experience that 14-year-olds can be a bit frustrating. Obstreperous. Difficult. And that's without messing with their food.

I'll resist all the things I want to say, like maybe he ate her.

It's a Bad Time to Drive a Prius

I've had my Prius for two years. I bought it because VW quit making a reliable car (I had two VWs die on me within about three months of each other) and because, as a bumper sticker says, "I'd rather buy green Japanese Technology than Dirty Arab Oil."

I'm voting with my dollars against funding terrorism. As much as is possible.

And I'm very happy with my Prius. It's not as zippy or as much fun as a Jetta, but it has a better work ethic. You turn it on, it goes. You don't have to call your husband or a tow truck (unlike my recent VWs). I place a high value on a car that runs. Even better if it runs quietly and on fumes -- I drive a lot.

I remember Jimmy Carter's oil shortages. When we don't control a commodity we rely on, it can get scary. So part of my reason for getting a Prius was strategic. I want to be able to go places and not need a lot of gas to do it.

But now, thanks to Obama and his addiction to automotive meddling, my car has become the symbol of everything I'm not. While I recycle and try to limit how much I impact the environment, I'm not an environmentalist. I believe in good stewardship of the earth, which could include drilling for oil in ANWR.  And I believe Al Gore is the cause of global warming, which they have yet to convince me exists.

I hope someone is coming up with something other than oil to power our vehicles so long as it isn't made out of crops grown for food.

I'm not a Democrat or a socialist. I voted for Bush twice and think he's a decent, good man who kept us safe. I would go hunting with Cheney.

I think you have the right to drive a Hummer if you want. I won't even say ugly things about whatever you might be compensating for, because honestly, all I know about you is that you drive a Hummer. That's your business. I'll cling to my guns and religion and you go right ahead and cling to your Hummer. This is a free country still -- right?

But now, my car makes a statement I'm not making. I'm not smug or liberal. So I've just ordered two bumper stickers. This took a lot of thought on my part because I don't like bumper stickers, and the ones I really want to use will get my car keyed.

So here's what I chose: The Gadsden Flag and one about the link between oil and terrorism.

Read up on this flag. Very interesting. And it has a S.C. connection.

Sarah Palin's First 100 Days

I feel like I'm watching a bad movie. I keep trying to change the channel but it appears that this Obama guy really is president. The media love him -- they even follow him out if he goes to get a hamburger -- and then delete the part where he orders Dijon mustard. The deletion is the story, not the mustard.

They keep on spinning the story in his favor. Wonder what they'd have to say if Sarah Palin was president? Here's Sarah Palin's First 100 Days.

The Concert Begins at 3:58 p.m.

Okay, Obama gives the British Prime Minister a set of DVDs that not only resembles the gift that you keep on hand in case somebody shows up with a present and you didn't have one for them, but also won't play on DVD players in another region. The PM can't watch the DVDs unless he gets a player made for the American market.

I won't go on, because I know that some of my readers and friends are Democrats. But there is more and bigger stuff that makes me feel like We Are Not in Good Hands.

And it's everywhere. I find out (by chance, but that's another story) that Lily has an orchestra concert on Friday that begins at 3:58 p.m.

Who schedules a concert for 3:58 p.m.? (And if they dawdle until 4:00 for it to begin I'm going to start pounding the floor.) I hope that the school administrator who scheduled this thing has an enormous sense of humor and thought we would find this funny. If not, our schools are truly being run by people with no sense.

How I Killed the Local Bookstore

A few months ago the world's best bookstore, The Happy Bookseller, an independent bookstore, closed. It died, and I'm the one who killed it.

This local bookstore, whose founder was president at least once of the American Booksellers Association (or whatever it's called), did so very much to promote regional and local authors. They generously hosted a big bash of a booksigning for an anthology of the best stories from the S.C. Fiction Project -- and I got to be there and sign copies of the book because I had a story in it. Heaven! That was before I killed the store.

They're at least 15 miles away from me and one of the most pleasant places in the world. The people who worked there were readers. The only thing it lacked was a store cat, but I forgive them for that.

I didn't mean to kill them and I did it slowly (Saintly Brother says he helped). I started ordering my books on Amazon. Like most crimes, I started small. A few things here and there that the local bookstore didn't have. Then it got easier and easier. And soon, I wasn't going to the bookstore at all. I had (and have) become an Amazon 'ho'.

But don't worry. I'm giving back to my community's literary institutions in another way. I just got a notice that I owe the public library $144.00 in fines and the cost of overdue books. Oops! (I can assure you that the overdue books will be quickly returned.)

Do you think they'll arrest me?

Maybe buying my books on Amazon is cheaper in the long run.

Dense Fog Advisory

There's some kind of little weather-tracking thingy on my toolbar that frequently pops up with a red stop-signed shaped thing with an exclamation mark in the middle. It's supposed to be a dire warning about an urgent weather alert that's been issued.

In my opinion, urgent weather alerts should be the sorts of things that save your lives. Tell me it's urgent and prod me with your pop-up exclamation point if I need to know about a lightning storm that's going to zap everything in my house (it's happened before) so I can run unplug stuff. Tell me it's urgent and send up your little stop sign if I need to stop what I'm doing and get in a closet because a tornado is coming. Or a hurricane. That's urgent.

But for Pete's sake, if all you've got to worry about is dense fog, leave me out of it. In fact, I think I know where the real dense fog is -- between somebody's doomsday-hungry ears.

It's 50 Degrees and Cloudy, So They Cancelled School

I love South Carolina. Right now it's 50 degrees and cloudy. I just got an e-mail, a text-alert on my cell and an automated voice-call on the land line: School is canceled tomorrow because it might snow.

I do hope that it does. I could use some snow, so long as it doesn't hang around. Snow is best for one day or two. Not the whole winter.

Snow is a reason for a holiday. Outside will smell wonderful -- the air heavy with pine because our poor trees weren't made for snow. The snow will collect on the needles and in the branches and be too heavy for the tree. Snap! Down they'll fall. Which is all fine provided they don't fall on your power lines because then, in your all-electric, not-too-warm-from-the-heat-pump house, you'll be cold and in the dark. And if you live in the country and are on a well, you'll also be thirsty and stinky because your well won't work without electricity and you won't have water.

But sometimes it snows and the power doesn't go out. That, my friends, is a real holiday. A reason to cancel school, stay home with your family, and drink hot chocolate and marvel at the stuff floating down from the sky. Snow. That rarest of weathers.

Good Economic News

Yes, there is some good economic news. It barely squeaks by as good news, but I'll take whatever good news I can get. Fiction sales were up ever so slightly, with adult fiction sales up by 0.4 percent. Juvenile fiction (at my house that would be the Twilight series) had a 6.2 percent increase.

I heard at the Myrtle Beach Writer's Conference that the publishing industry slips into recession at a slower rate than other industries because people can't afford to do other things so they turn to reading.

Bad times can bring out good things. Reading, kindness to each other, simpler food, time together and prayer.

Then there's anxiety, depression, worry, foreclosures, skipped medical treatments....

Forget all that and go read a good book. It beats the news any day.

I Love Good Old Boys

If you haven't seen it already, you must watch this video of a Good Samaritan armed with nothing more than a frozen turkey. I love Good Old Boys.

Here's the story: CBS/ AP) Authorities say a Good Samaritan used a frozen turkey to club a man as the man was committing a carjacking at a North Carolina grocery store. According to police: Thirty-year-old Fred Louis Ervin, of Raleigh, stole money from a Garner BP gas station before running across the street to the parking lot of a Harris Teeter in Fuquay-Varina, just south of Raleigh. There, he began beating Irene Moorman Bailey while trying to take her car. Other shoppers came to Bailey's rescue, including a man who hit Ervin with the only weapon he could find: a frozen turkey. He hit the suspect several times in the head with it. Despite head injuries, Ervin got away in Bailey's car, hitting several other cars as he fled. But he was arrested a short time later. Ervin faces several charges, including assault, inflicting serious injury, larceny and hit and run. He was being treated at WakeMed Raleigh Campus. Hospital officials said he was in good condition. Frozen turkeys are, of course, hard as a rock. "I don't know, in my 30 some year career, if I've heard of someone getting in a fight with a frozen turkey involved! " Fuquay-Varina Police Chief Larry Smith told reporters.

The Twilight of My Peace

Twilight, the movie, opened last Friday. Lily went with a group of friends to celebrate one of their birthdays. My minister, who is the mother of the birthday girl, took them all. She said she wanted to know what they were watching, and I was glad to delegate that task to her.

I tried listening to Twilight, the book, on my iPod. I'm clearly not the audience. I couldn't finish it. I think it's the equivalent of soft porn for teenagers, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Lily has read every book in the series.

Lily spent the weekend cleaning up her room. She emptied photo frames and put pictures of the "hot" guys from Twilight in them. She even framed her ticket stub.

The walls used to have posters of large cats from the zoo, zebras and horses. One horse poster survived the Twilight purge. The rest of the frames are filled with Twilight-obelia and "hot" guys.

She showed it all to Paul and me. We made sincere grunting noises. They seemed to satisfy her. Later, Paul said, "At least they're hot guys she'll never meet."

Buddy (her horse) stood at the fence when we drove up from school today. Lily asked me to cancel her riding lesson because she had too much homework, and hasn't been riding much lately anyway. That was convenient for her teacher so we canceled.

Buddy was still at the fence when I walked down to the mailbox. I petted his friendly self and wondered if he could compete with a hot vampire. I think both of us shared this sad moment. He cannot.

I hope she'll come back to us soon. Maybe there's room for both hot guys and forgiving horses. That one horse poster remains.

Horses are forever. Vampires are just immortal.