The Standards in This Hotel Are Slipping

Just came in and found The Dog (who is on my shit-list and therefore shall not be named) lolling on my bed like Madame Recamier. Actually, she looked very stylish, but this is not allowed, and she knows it. I must clamp down.

Decreasing the Level of Suck

Anyone who knows either editrx or her husband baron_elric knows they are excellent people: smart, kind, enthusiastic, funny, and generous*. They also have been hit by more calamitous health-and-life-related trouble than should be allowed, even by the Chaos Fairy, particularly in the last year. They live in the Northeast, where the heating bills are fearsome; they have a mortgage and medical payments and, as skilled freelance toilers in the text wrangling business, have been facing the same downturn everyone else has, magnified by the publishing industry's woes. So a bunch of kind people have established a fundraiser--actually a matched set of fundraisers--to help them out:

http://community.livejournal.com/project4editrx/

Fundraiser One: an anthology of original fiction.
Fundraiser Two: a cookbook

I've already sent in one recipe (no, not for cake; predictably the editor of the cookbook is awash in desserts and needs "real food" recipes) and intend to send another couple this afternoon (alas, until the Book is done, no short stories for me). And I intend to pony up and purchase books when they come out. One of the things I've been impressed with in the LJ community is its willingness to help out individuals and causes we believe in. I believe in these people, and I believe it's time the tide of karma started flowing toward them for a little while. If you feel likewise, check out the link above.


*yes, guys. You can stop blushing; it's all true.

Not the Day I'd Expected

Certainly I didn't think I'd be cleaning blood off the kitchen floor like an episode from CSI.

No one is dead. Or even terribly hurt. But this morning, when Avocado and her sleepover friend came down for breakfast, Avocado reached for a glass from the cupboard, an action she has performed many many times in her young life. This time she fumbled it spectacularly and the glass shattered. At first my thought was: we're all barefoot, let me get some shoes on and clean up. Then I see the blood. The top of the girl's foot was bleeding quite aggressively, so much so that for a moment I thought she'd nicked one of the veins that runs along the top of the foot. So A's friend, who once had a very serious cut herself and therefore has chops, kept pressure on the cut while I cleaned up the worst of the glass so that no one else got sliced. Then I sent Friend upstairs to get her clothes on, and, with A hopping on one foot (the injured foot raised, with lots of pressure on it) got her downstairs to the car and off to St. Luke's ER. Happily, they took our insurance, gave the kid a wheelchair (Friend continued to hold on to Avocado's foot until the triage nurse inspected it and put a dressing on it--by that time the wound was only seeping, so my fears about hitting blood vessels were exaggerated) and got us into the system.

It always takes forever if you're not in a truly emergent situation, of course. But everyone was pleasant and professional; Avocado and Friend and I chatted about past hospital visits we have known; and when it was over the kid's wound had been glued shut (!) and she had a note getting her out of PE for the week, to give the wound time to heal. I took the girls out for ice cream at Mitchell's, then returned to find Emily very concerned about Avocado--and about her overdo visit to the dog park.

So now, at 4:50, the dog has been dragged, the Friend has gone home, Avocado has cried off from a previously existing movie date, and I have cleaned up the kitchen floor. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Or stanch it.