Friday Mental Massage: The cataclysmic edition

It’s been a while since we enjoyed a Friday Mental Massage. Because I am as unfocused as I can possibly be right now, it seems like a good time to work out the noodle knots (see the posts below this one for anything resembling writing or real news).

  • The wife is toeing at her due date. Despite one round of false labor last weekend, it’s been all quiet on the uterus front. Too quiet, in fact. So quiet that a jumpy tech got everybody in a lather for a few minutes Thursday. Yesterday we tried just about every natural labor induction method you can imagine, including walking all over downtown Greenville and eating spicy foods (hurray for the re-opened Cantinflas). This weekend marks yet another festival in our fair city. Artisphere is, as you might expect, a celebration of the arts. Yesterday, we saw a guy celebrating in a rather extreme way. I only had my iPhone with me, but I think this photo captures it. I really do love this city.

    extreme-art

  • I grew up at the end of tornado alley. Most of my family still lives there. Last week, my grandparents got hit by some of the most amazing hail I’ve ever seen. It piled up like snow in their yard. Every window in their house was broken. The screens on the windows looked like somebody had thrown bowling balls through them. Fortunately, the insurance adjusters were on scene quickly and got everything repaired. Then, this morning (actually as I type), this rolled through.

    missouri-wx

    I haven’t got a full report yet, but it sounds like it was worse this time…all the windows re-broken, roof off another house on the property…and on top of their car, etc. I miss the storms and the excitement, but I’d prefer the weather stop beating up on my grandparents.

  • My summer is in flux as it has been for the last five summers. I tend to not know things about my work plans for June and July until they are just about to happen. This is, again, one of those times.
  • This humble blog is operating with a zero Page Rank on Google. I have no idea why. I’m following all the rules and haven’t been de-indexed. The traffic here is better than it has ever been. I love Google and don’t understand why it treats me so mean.
  • I’ve run out of ways to wait on Dos. I re-landscaped my backyard, got most of my remaining hair cut off, and cleaned up about five years worth of messes and neglect. If the kid doesn’t present himself soon, I’m going to end up sculpting mountains out of mashed potatoes.
  • As I said on the ol’ social networking sites this week: Fetus Siege 2009 requires sobriety, staying in the same place, and getting as much rest as possible. I think they also call this “rehab.”
  • My wife and one of our good friends got pregnant within days of each other. They’ve been crossing paths at the doctor’s office for months. Congrats to our friends for getting their new son out and into the world before we did. You win. Now can we get on with this?
  • clown

    Brad Willis

    Brad Willis is a writer based in Greenville, South Carolina. Willis spent a decade as an award-winning broadcast journalist. He has worked as a freelance writer, columnist, and professional blogger since 2005. He has also served as a commentator and guest on a wide variety of television, radio, and internet shows.

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    5 Responses

    1. Bam-Bam says:

      OH I don’t know. I think I enjoy this ‘non’ writing even more than I do the “real” stuff sometimes.

      Now, under the things you were sure you’d never type heading :

      My Mother swore by braless drives down bumpy roads, as enducement magic. She said Dad seemed to like it at the time too!

      🙂

    2. The Wife says:

      Trust me, all of the suggestions in the world about how to get the baby out don’t work (we tried). Including my OB/GYN trying to go up and “weaken” the membrane. And sex. And stairs. And bumpy golf carts. What finally did it (a week and a half past due) is car shopping and a long walk at the mall . . .

      Good luck!

    3. KenP says:

      Fear not! Even with the genetic material provided on a certain male side…

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmKjUFPna4

    4. Steve says:

      Glad your folks are alright. Saw the pictures in the post above this one, but being lazy, making only one post. Hope the weather leaves you and yours alone from now on. It has been really active here in Alabama this spring also. Right now the current PITA is figuring out how much equipment got blasted by the lightning strike at the high school I work at this past Wednesday about 11:30 in the am. Besides at least some electronic equipment having gone to the great beyond, two pieces of decorative concrete tile were exploded by the flash steam produced by the hit and sent chunks flying at least 50 feet. Impressive, and scary. The place needs lightning rods–this makes 9 major hits in 11 years. A power pole got hit and caught on fire last July. Very impressive, the teacher who saw it said…

      Waiting for the kid is fun, eh? Hope that goes well, and hope it goes soon too. Waiting is, as Valentine Michael Smith said, but waiting is a PITA, too.

      Rick Bragg is going coming to town! Rick Bragg is coming to town! (Can you tell I’m a little excited?) Monday night at his sorta-alma-mater. (He did one semester, then dropped out.) Found out about it reading a column in the local paper that a local history professor writes every week. He’s worth reading too–Hardy Jackson, if you run across any of his writings. He did a Sunday paper article about the strange, funny relationship between bootleggers and preachers here in Alabama that was both informative and extremely humorous in an ironic way. Anyway, the daughter and I are about to head out and buy (among a few other things) a Rick Bragg book for him to autograph. Been wanting a reason to buy one anyway.

      Have a good one, and may the stork be with you, soon!

    1. May 9, 2009

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