Scary

Our sister gas station (same company, same road, but they're bigger and open 24/7) was robbed at gunpoint at 2:30 am Sunday morning by a white man of average build with short hair and wearing a black jacket. The robber's eyes were either colored with blue eye shadow or had blue tattoos around them, and he had tattoos on his neck and arms. He fled on foot. As far as I know, no one was hurt.

This does not make me feel safe. I had gotten to a point where I didn't worry (in the front of my mind anyway) about being robbed. Now it's definitely moved from the back burner, especially as he ran away from the scene rather than drove, so he very well may live in the area.

And blue eye shadow? That's an odd little detail.

Anyway, I reviewed some tips on the Internet for how to handle a robbery and its aftermath. I hope never to have to deal with it, though.

You've got to like Kentucky weather

I took a quick shower, came out, and everything's sunny and bright again. I wish life were like that, don't you?

Well, I did sleep in

Listening to: Rob Thomas' Something to Be, 'I am an Illusion'

to after 4:30 in the afternoon, although I went to bed after 4 this morning, so it was about 10 12 hours (math was never my forté). I got up about noon to check my blood sugar (it was a little over 200) and ate a little breakfast, then went on back to sleep.

It's a gorgeous day, sunny, with a light breeze, so I've opened all the windows. I'm going to get ready and then go make a Kroger run. Then I'm going to come back, wash some dishes and straighten up the house with the Mummy and Mummy Returns on (I got the full collector's edition for signing my lease...I didn't have the second movie before except on VHS. I love them. When I want to relax, I watch them--yeah, it's the library scene with the bookshelves dominoing that grabbed me the first time. Technically I have the Scorpion King now, but I heard it was really, really bad. I might watch it at some point, but it's been so long since I've watched the others, I don't know when I'll have time. Did you know there's a Mummy 3 in the works? They'll start filming this summer for a story with an Chinese theme, moving from Aegypt, so Oded Fehr (did you know he's from Israel and served in the Israeli army?) will not be reprising his role of Ardeth Bey. John Hannah will be Jonathan again. Jet Li will be the villian, and Michelle Yeoh is also listed in the cast, so it sounds like it will be good, but what bothers me is the absence of Rachel Weisz as Evelyn. No word on who is playing their grown-up son Alex, Here is some Mummy trivia for you, by the way.

I also came across an interesting series of books, Aegpyt, by John Crowley (who though born in Maine, apparently lived for some time as a kid in Northeastern Kentucky) I'd like to read (can't believe I haven't heard of them with my mediaeval history background and the fact that at least one scholar, Harold Bloom, lists the first two in his Western Canon).

Okay, it's been awhile since I started writing (so many links take time!) and it's grown overcast. I need to get ready and go to the store before the heavens open up (although hopefully it will be a short storm, like the other day).

I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow

I'm up late working on a project, but it's definitely time to go to bed. Today has been a day of hard truths which will hopefully lead to some introspection. Someone told me today that I'm afraid of life--and that's true. But if you're afraid of it, you'll never live it, and when at any time something might befall us--well, you don't always get do-overs. Sometimes people waste their entire lives afraid of living. I don't want to be that kind of person. So I think it's time to look inside and see what I do want out of life, and try to learn that I do deserve to be happy, etc., rather than continuing to play the martyr and be self-defeating in my attitude.

But, for now, sleep.

A very nice tribute to those killed at Virginia Tech

It looks like the heavens are about the fall down

a storm's coming in, and we have a tornado watch for our area. Hopefully nothing bad will come of it.

Nothing exciting has really happened today, so I don't know what really to blog about. I'm eating dinner (and it just occurred to me I forgot to check my blood sugar).

I'll check the news and see if anything strikes me as interesting.

Yay!

I have a WHOLE WEEK off from the store from Thursday-Wednesday. I just have to come in for a store meeting on Tuesday. My boss had promised me some time off once we got some people to cover the store. I haven't had a Saturday off since March of last year. Of course, it means I won't get paid for that week, but it's the payday after my rent so I'm not that concerned.

Now I just have to figure out what I want to do. I should go home and visit my family, but I think I'll take a weekday off from the hospital closer to my grandmother's birthday instead. What I really need to do is clean my bath tub (pomegranate scrub is not good as far as those little bits of seeds sticking to porcelain) and straighten up the house a bit. We'll see if I manage to do it. Saturday may have a few showers according to the weather (tomorrow's supposed to have terrible storms, but then it was also supposed to rain today and didn't, so we'll see.)

Want to know more about the companies that sell you food, products, and services?

How do they treat their workers? How do they stand on human rights? How safe is their product? What lawsuits have they dealt with? How environmentally friendly are they?

Go to Co-op America's Responsible Shopper page. You'll be able to compare companies' records and see the dirt behind the industry.

Lastly, I was checking out pregnancy earlier today

(because one of my characters in the game is pregnant and I wanted to see when she'd start showing) and came across a new term: Couvade. It's basically when the father or other significant male in the picture starts having pregnancy-like symptoms. There's a debate over whether it's purely psychosomatic or if it's actually a physical 'nesting' response, with changes in hormones and bodily processes.

Cool. Okay, maybe not for the guy with morning sickness and nosebleeds, but isn't nature interesting?

I did a little surfing on YouTube

and discovered, much to my dismay, that the lead singer of one of my favourite bands when I was young died in 2001 from hanging himself. He apparently had a problem with alcohol and depression.

There are several tributes to Stuart Adamson of Big Country on YouTube. They don't have a video for 'The Seer', my favourite ballad of theirs. I always loved the guitar work that sounded so much like the bagpipe, the uniquely Scottish sound to the band (although none of the members were born in Scotland; Stuart Adamson's parents were Scottish and he was raised there, but born in Manchester, England. His Scottish accent was genuine, though.) I hate the fact that when people play them on the radio, they just play 'In a Big Country' when there were so many other songs that were better. I really love the ballads, especially the ones with historical themes.

Here's Big Country's 'Ships':