One year ago today…

I was freezing. I had a wool overcoat and pair of thin, inadequate leather gloves. A medivac helicopter carried a South Carolina state trooper into the gray sky. He wasn’t breathing then and would never start again. Somebody shot him. His name was Eric. He bounced around so much–vibrant and loving his job–people called him Tigger.

I spent hours there that day, cold, having to pee, trying to tell a story that made no sense at all.

It still doesn’t make sense today. I talked to the trooper’s wife a few times in the the last week. She’s remarkably strong. She organized a blood drive in her husband’s honor. Turns out, the last time she saw him was about an hour before he got shot. He was giving blood at a drive at her office.

Right now, I’m sitting at my desk, much warmer than I was one year ago today. The TV above me is spilling out unconfirmed reports of 35 people shot at an Indiana factory.

The last two days have been a bear for me. In fact, they’ve sucked. But, I think about that Trooper’s wife and the families of those folks in Indiana…and I don’t feel like bitching too much.

So, rather than bitch…a few odd facts to send you into your evening…courtesy of the lady of Mt. Willis:

*A pig’s orgasm can last 30 minutes long.

*You can rip the head off a cockroach and it won’t die until nine days later when it starves to death.

*Banging your head against the wall burns about 150 calories per hour.

I think there’s something to be said here about pigs, but I can’t quite come up with what it is.

Oink, oink, my readers.