I Quit

Let's hope this damn thing posts.

I've quit Blogger. They've been wonky for two days now, and I'm all done waiting around for them to get fixed. My new address is http://shelbisblog.wordpress.com/. I'll try to get this blog's entries imported to the new Shelblog at some point, but with them being all jacked up, I'm not even going to try it.

Here goes...

Hero

Every once in a while, I have these fits. They're a little like fits in the old sense of the word in that I have times when I can't control myself.

*Big confession here*

Every once in a while, I write poetry. I don't know what good poetry looks like [I usually can't stand to read it... too obscure for my liking. I'm a blunt girl.] which means that mine probably sucks. However, it is honest, and that's what I value most in people, including myself, so it makes sense that I would be honest in my poetry.

My favorite one is about Steve. Readers who don't know me in real life don't know it yet, but my husband is a State Trooper here in our home state. When I wrote this poem on April 14, 2005, we had just lost one of our troopers to a murderer who ambushed him in his driveway, all because he was under investigation for a hit-and-run accident that resulted in the death of the driver's best friend.

The trooper who was killed was involved in the investigation, and for some reason, the killer thought that by killing Sgt. Graham, he would stop the investigation [maybe, I really don't know what he was thinking].

It was the first trooper we had lost since Steve joined the patrol in January, 2005, and I still can't believe how personal the loss was for me, since I had never met the man. There is a strange brotherhood between cops. Sometimes it can be a bad thing [we've all heard stories of cops giving fellow officers 'breaks' when perhaps they shouldn't have] but for the most part, it is a good thing. I can't tell you how much it adds to my peace of mind that our city and county officers stop and check on Steve when he has someone pulled over.

They look out for each other's safety on the road, and that is a good thing.

Six days after I wrote the poem, we lost another trooper in the line of duty. He was on his way to help with a manhunt for a fugitive who had shot a deputy in the face. The deputy survived, but Trooper Tatoian hit a semi who was parked partially in the passing lane of the highway. The truck driver had stopped to help in another accident, and instead of parking on the shoulder of the driving lane, he parked on the other side. Trooper Tatoian avoided the accident, but couldn't see over the top of the hill, and rear-ended the semi. He was killed instantly.

In the first seventy three years' history of the Missouri State Highway Patrol we had only lost twenty three officers in the line of duty. In 2005, we lost four, bringing the number to 27. Cpl. John A. "Jay" Sampietro and Tpr. Donald K. "Kevin" Floyd were both killed by sober drivers who weren't paying attention to the road. In Missouri, we have a law that requires motorists to change lanes or slow down [if changing lanes is impossible] any time they see an emergency vehicle parked on the side of the road with its lights flashing.

The law has been on the books for around three years, it was put into effect after Trooper Michael L. Newton was killed in 2003. Both Cpl. Sampietro and Tpr. Floyd died because motorists ignored that law.

I was taught that it was common courtesy to change lanes when I saw some one on the shoulder, whether it was an emergency vehicle or not. People are so busy now that they forget to pay attention to the road. We all do it. Hell, I get distracted sometimes, too. But nothing you do in your car is worth the life of another.

Each of the troopers who died last year left behind families. Sgt. Graham left his fiancee and a four year old son. Tpr. Tatoian left a wife and three kids, including an eight month old son who will never have his own memories of his father. Cpl. Sampietro left a wife and two young sons, ages four and ten months. Tpr. Floyd left a wife and two teenaged kids.


My kids are eight, five, and two. To say that these deaths hit too close to home for me is an understatement. And sometimes when I feel stuff a little too much, I feel the need to write a poem about it.

The poem isn't about the troopers who were killed, but it is about my husband, who really is my hero.

Hero

By Shelbi

Sleep pants, t-shirt
Fuzzy morning hair
He plays
Feeding Kids
He laughs
Changing diapers
He cries
When it hurts
He sings
About everything

Midnight blue
Stressed-out mom
Vent sessions
He listens
Holds me close
“I love you”
Ten years together
I see in his eyes
He still means it

So proud of him
For reaching the goal
Living his dream
To protect and serve
I know the danger
But how could I say “no?”
It changed my life
Watching him succeed
Made me believe
In myself
For the first time

Change comes
With the uniform
No longer just my safe,
Precious husband.
Quiet confidence
A layer of steel
Compassion, danger
Servant and protector
Of the nameless public

He catches “bad guys”
But mostly good people
Making bad choices
Tough decisions
Routine with this job
Change lives in an instant
Maybe mine
If someone forgets
Takes it personal
Becomes a coward
And Fights

Twenty-seven
Have made the ultimate sacrifice
Not a day goes by
That I don’t remember
Think of their families
And pray
That such pain
Never becomes mine

No guarantees
In this life
So I cherish each day
And pray for another
With him
Every time I hear
His key in the lock
Relief rests
On silent wings
And I go to welcome
My hero Home

I love you, Stevie.

Shelbi's First Sex Post

Okay, I actually posted something last night, but Blogger Blew up again, apparently.

What I said was:

"Um, actually what this means is that I'm not blogging tonight so I can have sex with my husband.

He's doing the happy dance, so I'd better go.

Have a wonderful evening, everybody."

*Yeah, well, I was in a hurry last night, so I didn't fix it when I realized Blogger shot the shit again. It was taking about five minutes to load a page, so I was going to have to wait another 15 minutes or so to see if I could try to post my entry again.

I may actually do a sex post at some point, though. It's just about the only topic I haven't blogged about, so we have to go there eventually, right?*

Right now, we're in the midst of breakfast, so I'll talk to you later.

Something Worth Doing

The bottom part of this message is canned, but I hope you'll take the time to read it and think about responding.

Please take the time to go sign the petition. I don't know how much good these things do, but it will only take 30 seconds of your time, and if it does something good, then it's worth it.

We, the people, must send a clear message to our current president that he is not the king of the world. We have a responsibility to speak up or we very well may lose the right to say anything against our government.

The things that the Bush administration has allowed and even encouraged in the name of the War on Terror is nothing short of evil. Torturing detainees for any reason is evil. Listening to phone conversation without a warrant is illegal, and undermines one of the basic rights on which this great country was built.

The president is always throwing out the phrase, "The American People want me to..." but the thing is I am the American people, and I never once told him he could do those things.


So I'm doing a little something [and I stole the link from Doug, who also has an interesting post here about activism].

Please, take the time and go sign the petition. It'll only take a minute, and it might make a difference.

Here is the canned part of this message:

"I am deeply concerned that the White House has broken the law by secretly spying on American citizens without a court order.
Senator Robert Byrd has created a petition to investigate the secret spying and I encourage you to show your support by signing this petition.
No President is above the law and the White House needs to hear from us.
Please show your support for an investigation by visiting http://www.byrd2006.com/wiretap/ and signing Senator Byrd’s petition."

Thanks, friends.

New Strategies

So I've been mulling, and thinking about some different things. I'm still groggy as hell from yesterday's migraine adventure, so I've been as close to a blank mind as I'm capable of getting.

There seems to be a lot of stress-related illness going on in my life lately. Has anyone else noticed that? I dunno what I'm doing wrong. Okay, I have a couple of ideas.

I haven't been meditating regularly. It seems like the crazier life gets and the more I need it, the less I do it. I haven't been communicating very well with my beloved, either, so I need to work on that. He's laying in bed looking at a Harley-Davidson flier we got at the Harley plant the other day. I should be cuddling with him instead of blogging.

I should be meditating. My headache is trying to come back, and my ass [as well as the rest of me] is tired. This might just be a cyclic thing with me. It's almost spring time, which is always when my depression picks up tremendously. Weird, isn't it? And then there's the hormone thing.

I don't know what my deal is with estrogen and progesterone, but they screw me up anytime I get some. When I'm pregnant, they screw up my heart rate, emotions, etc. And at different times during my menstrual cycle, they jack my world up too.

Of course, I don't know which parts of my menstrual cycle screw me up, because I don't have regular periods, and sometimes when I have one, I didn't ovulate the 14 days before the start of my period like I'm supposed to. I wonder if it's possible for a woman to be allergic to her own hormones?

We've got autoimmune diseases out the wazoo these days, maybe there's a hormonal autoimmune disease, too. I don't know. I'm thinking I should be better here in a couple more days. In the mean time, I've got nuttin'.