OMG! I have a 14 year old niece!

Happy birthday, niece o' mine!

and Happy Belated Birthday, lasairfhiona. ::Sends over the scantily clad cabana boys for a belated celebration::

sadness

My dear sweet Aunt Helen passed away Friday. One of her daughters that I've been keeping in contact with called me just a little bit ago. She went in the early morning hours and then they spent most of the day making arrangements - which, with the holiday weekend, made things a bit more complicated.

She was 79 and had been married to my uncle for 61 years. Woah, she was 18 when they married. 5 kids - 4 girls and one boy, several grandkids. Niece loved her to pieces.

Funeral is Monday and I've been told that they'll understand if I don't come, because Monday traffic will be horrendous and I'd have to drive through Atlanta. But if I went down tomorrow, it might not be so bad. Brother is planning to do that. Not that I'll go with him :)

Was talking to Cousin Jeff, who called to reiterate his sister's worry at me driving down on Monday, and he said not to tell Niece today since it was her birthday. When talking to Cousin Dianne, was asked not to tell annoying cousin until *after* the funeral - they don't want her there {g} - and since I'd probably be the one to have to drive her down, I'm happy with that decision.

Such a sweet, sweet lady.

bad morning just went straight to hell

My outbuilding caught on fire.

An ambulance/patient transport was going down the road and saw it. Guy came pounding on the door. Fully engaged, flames and smoke pouring out of it.

He moved my car for me - I park under one of those canopy things and it's on the upper drive by the shed. Back of my car is melted. Vinyl siding on the house facing the shed is melted.

One side was full of my grandfather's tools and stuff. Other side was storage - christmas tree, ornaments, old stuff of my grandparents and parents, and the lawn mower.

We'll be needing a new lawn mower. And tree. And everything.

Lights still work on the car - need to go get some red tape to cover exposed bulb. So I can still go to the funeral tomorrow.

Luckily the propane tank didn't blow up. And the house is fine, just the vinyl siding is melted. Which I'll have to replace.

Fuck.

Fire pictures

Click to see large.

( The Burny Times! )

what's that? a bit of good luck!?

OMG! The world is ending!

In honor of my bad luck morning, I went into the convenience store after gassing up the car, and along with my other purchases, I got two Monopoly scratch tickets. $3 each. I won $10 on each card.

My flabber is gasted. (My gasted is flabber?)

Must remember to redeem.