You're out of the woods, You're out of the dark, You're out of the night

My blogging activity has experienced a steep decline in the past couple weeks. I tend to write about marriage, motherhood, friendship, light-hearted observations, pop culture. I'll write about any little thought that crosses my mind, but I keep it upbeat. The past couple of weeks I have been met with an onslaught of sad events, and while I wouldn't say that I'm overly affected, I would say that my blogging inspiration has been temporarily extinguished. I mean, really, how could I joke about dogs humping babies and adventures in Netflix at a time like this? I'll return to blogging, just as Dorothy returned to Kansas, but consider this my attempt at a graceful segue: Things that happened while I wasn't blogging, that kind of made me feel like I have nothing to blog about.

North Texas is spellbound over case of missing woman: for the local reader, I could sum this up by simply saying the name "Susan Loper", but I'll recap for my non-Dallas readers:

A beautiful mother and local fitness instructor is kidnapped in the early morning hours from the local country club where she teaches Pilates, leaving behind only her phone, her purse, and signs of a violent struggle. A touch of irony: this was to be her last day of work at this country club before realizing her dream of opening her own Pilates studio. She is found a day later, brutally murdered, in an open field off a major road that I drive every day. Adding to the tragedy: she has an eight-year-old autistic son. As our peaceful suburb comes to terms with this shocking tragedy, police finally name a suspect. News outlets show his photo and photos of his home...and he lives across the road from me.  Authorities announce that they have located him. In the Grand Canyon. After he jumped into it. And lived. It's just awful, piled on top of tragic, smothered in horror and sprinkled with bizarre. Family and friends of Susan Loper are asking donations be made to help secure her 8-year-old son's future. You can assist by sending donations to

Jake Loper Trust
c/o Ferguson Law Group
2500 Dallas Parkway, Suite 260
Plano, TX 75093

Make checks payable to Jake Loper Trust


Tornado devastates Tuscaloosa: The level of devastation throughout the state of Alabama following this tornado is really beyond comprehension and I'm deeply saddened by it. At the same time, I feel kind of disconnected because I am all the way in Texas. We don't have to be in Tuscaloosa to help, though. Anybody can make a donation (every dollar helps) to the American Red Cross.

This picture touches me because those kids look just like my friends and I did when we were in college. I'm so sad for them over what has happened to their college town.

The Royal Wedding Happened: The coverage began around 3:00AM, as did my dutiful DVR, but I didn't press "start" until about 9:00AM. My mom's house was without power, so, being the good daughter that I am, I took photos of the television screen with my camera phone and sent picture messages of Kate's wedding dress, and I downloaded photos from online gossip sites and texted those to her, so we could discuss the hideousness that was Princess Beatrice's Fascinator (also, I'm proud to have learned the difference between a hat and a fascinator), and debate just how little effort we believed Chelsy Davy put into primping for the day.

It's my personal belief that her messy updo was the product of an all-night bender with the boys, and that her hangover hadn't even kicked in yet. Takes one to know one. Not for nothing, the girl's as cute as a button and would look good in a paper sack, so I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just sayin'. Also, if there had been a betting pool for being able to best predict Kate's wedding gown description, my mom would have a fistful of cash right now. The day before the wedding, since she was bored and without power, I indulged her in a little game of "What do you think Kate's dress is going to look like?" Her prediction: full skirt, strapless bodice, long lace sleeves, plunging v-neck, "very similar neckline to the blue dress she wore to announce her engagement". Well, how do you think my mom did?

Special thanks to Pippa Middleton for setting the bar for aspiring foxy bridesmaids everywhere. I have my work cut out for me if I want a chance to compete for the title of Hottest Bridesmaid 2011

Osama bin Laden was killed: Steve and I are watching TV in bed and simultaneously surfing the Internet on our respective phones. I know, it's good, quality time spent together, right? Steve catches a whiff of something on the Internet about an important announcement from Obama that will be taking place in moments. Of course we now know what that announcement is, and that we were kept waiting for over an hour to hear the announcement. Steve turns the channel to CNN, where the journalists, stalling as the press conference is pushed further and further back, repeat that they refuse to speculate as to what the announcement may be. Steve is all up in arms over this, but I'm all like, "Pfft, Barack Obama schedules press conferences more often than I schedule pedicures. He probably just wants to tell us that he saved a lot of money on car insurance by switching to Geico...or something." Steve insists, along with the news anchors, that this announcement is going to be major. Well, if this announcement is so major, where is my silver fox, Anderson Cooper? Steve gets bored with CNN and their refusal to speculate, so he changes the channel to Geraldo Rivera. I know, I know. Geraldo is so amped up, his voice has gone up a couple of octaves. He, of course, is not above speculation. He keeps shouting in a high-pitched voice that this announcement is going to be earth-shattering, etc. Not even looking up from my celebrity gossip, I nonchalantly mumble to Steve "The only way this is going to live up to the hype is if Obama is announcing that they've killed bin Laden." Steve gasps, "You think?! That could be it! You could be right!" "I've been right before," I say with a shrug. Moments later, Geraldo rips a printed email out of the hands of somebody off-camera and excitedly reads aloud on-air that Osama bin Laden is dead. This news comes as a relief, but I'm always going to kind of hate that Geraldo Rivera is the person who told me. I wish it had been the President. Or Anderson Cooper. Or Hugh Jackman.

So, throughout this flurry of events, my mom is living for six days like a pioneer woman--without power. This of course, is due to the aforementioned massive tornado. She calls me on the morning after her power is restored.

Mom: Well, I turned on the TV for the first time in nearly a week. I'm finally seeing footage of the tornado that has ravaged our state and only missed my house by about ten miles. Charlie Sheen is visiting Tuscaloosa to assess the damage. There was a Royal Wedding. Osama bin Laden is dead...

...My lights are back on, and it's a dramatically different world than when the lights went off.

Me: It's frickin' trippy, right? Did The Lollipop Guild greet you outside?

Mom: Pretty much.