Update:

Uncle told the detective some things he didn't know. I now know that it was a gunshot wound; not the normal MO for a woman. Also, no note, and Uncle had talked to her the day before and she was chatty...not the kind of behavior you expect then to not leave a note. Her husband plans to have her cremated.

We will have memorial service here, at some point.

Holy joe---I missed this one, Shawnee. Sounds awful.

Wow. There is so much pain...

I'm so sorry...

ETA: I just read thru this...there are no words...her two kids...oh-----shawnee, you've been thru the wringer lately...my heart is with you.

I am so sorry, Shawnee. What a damned tragedy! Please accept my condolences and well wishes.

And I hope they figure out what really happened very soon, so you and your family can begin the process of dealing with the grief.

Uggghhh! So sorry

How does Facebook work? My mom said my cousin had a page, but unless I ask her to be my friend and she agrees it won't work? I went through the sign up process but that is as far as I can go?

You probably need an invitation from her to see her page, but sometimes people have their settings lower than that and let anyone in their "network" see their page. That could mean if you said you were from her city, you might possibly be able to see her page. Not likely though.

Oh, OK. Thanks glatt.

It gave me all this stuff, with pics, from people I went to HS and college with. I didn't really want to go there, I guess I'll check my settings.

Yeah the way Facebook works Shawnee is depending on how private one makes their profile determines how accessible it is. You can adjust this in the Privacy Settings from the Settings drop-down button at the top. More often than not, people will set their page to only be viewable by those who are "friends" with them. This is established by sending a "friend request" to the person which they then choose to approve or deny. Facebook also works on a "Network" system where you exist within a particular Network or two which is just about anything these days from a school, to a larger company, to a city. You can set your profile to be viewable by everyone within your Network(s) or not, up to you. Friends of Friends cannot see each other's pages unless they are in the same network or are Friends with each other. How open or closed your profile is and what information you make available is entirely up to you. That said, I would lean more towards less info than more due to the somewhat shady status of what rights Facebook retains to info put on its servers for future use as well as how long said info stays on their servers.

Example: a few months ago I had issue slogging into my account, their customer service sucks hairy ass so it took weeks to actually get the problem solved. However when they "fixed" it initially, I was sent to an old profile I had from my freshman year in 2004 with all the old info from that page still alive and well even though I had merged that account with my current one at my current school and had since long replaced or removed that information from my profile. Apparently, Facebook's servers held onto all of that from 4 YEARS ago, which makes me nervous about how long they retain supposedly deleted information, which coupled with what rights they reserve to use of your info leads me to believe that the less info you give Facebook the better.

They retain everything forever. Even told me so when I deleted my page. I'll NEVER have one again. What they have is already too much. Whatev3r you put on the net is never yours again - its anyone's and there are too many people who will exploit that for personal gain.
:headshake NEVER AGAIN :mad2:

Nothing can change the way things are, Shawnee. But I pray for peace for you and your family.

I have to agree. I have one. Never really did much with it. I have some pics and a bunch of extended friends I know. Haven't looked at it in month. Who needs Face Book when you have The Cellar.

I need facebook. It's excellent for keeping in touch with my family who don't live close by.

eta: and also for sending out invites and things for upcoming events.

I like the Facebook, particularly how people from my distant past have located me and now send me tidbits about their lives.

wow, good old Bob was gay! and Tom too? why didn't they come out to us in college? were they afraid?

Speaking of...your face appeared when I signed up, UT. How does that thing KNOW who we know if we didn't go to college or HS or work with them? Another friend from my old job that I haven't seen in a long time popped up, with nothing to associate him with me; I put no work info in.

Spooky. Not that I'm complaining.

Don't you know the great UT is omnipresent?

Thanks dar, and all. I guess the detective has been interviewing friends and cow orkers. It's all unfathomable to me; you hear about it but you rarely know someone that it has happened to.

Again, the support I've gotten here has been something I will never forget. My family won't talk about things like I can here, so I'm forever grateful.

The Great and Powerful Omnitoad.

If you add anybody from the Cellar, you'll get hits for other active Dwellars, cos we're all added up.

Distant past? Hope it stays there.

Cellar's been d r a g g i n g last nite and this morning. Guess it's time to run a tune up program on my machine.

I was up allllll night last night having this really long heart to heart conversation with my best friend about everything that's going on in her life (this was the first conversation EVER like that in our friendship, she's a pretty closed off person, and I've known her since I was in the 5th grade) then I got up this morning and went to work on 4 or 5 hours sleep. Worked all day, came home and was falling asleep in the chair around 7pm, not the "man I'm really sleepy" sort of tired...the eyes burning and head falling down every few seconds before I wake myself back up sort of tired. So I figured it was stupid to stay up...and went to bed.

Well here I am, midnight, wiiiiiiide awake. Ugh!!

I was late for work.

Due to the necessity to speak to my daughter's principal regarding why she was being sent home for the day.

(Don't ask, I'll post something later. Maybe.)

Sorry SD. That sucks. I hope its nothing too serious.

As were are in reality.
One great big glorious whole.

My fucking car won't fucking start. Fuck.

Let me guess, it is a Jeep and the warranty just ran out.

It's a Jeep still under warranty. Roadside assistance is on the way, but I wanted to leave a half hour afuckinggo.

Unusual, but becoming more common, although a lot of female suicides by firearm will shoot themselves somewhere other than the head.

Her being extra chatty, or even seeming like she's doing really well is not unusual. People who have decided on their plan for suicide are often very happy at that point. They finally have a solution to the mess they see their lives as having become.

No note is not indicative of anything. Most people don't leave them.

And even when you get them, you still don't have the answers you want.

Thank you wolf.

The investigation is still open. The chatty thing: I don't know, much, really, but she was chatty and talking about her plans to file for divorce on Monday. Maybe we'll never know for sure.

We are having a memorial service here next Saturday. At least it will give us some closure.

My sister is being punished for being an exceptionally dedicatedl, hard-working, rockin' pediatric RN. She's been in transport for twenty years and wants to transfer to another dept. They are holding up her transfer for SIX MONTHS and she is going crazy.

She's been published, is a national speaker on ped. nursing, works on numerous committees pro bono and they do THIS to her.

Ya wanna know why nursing is recession-proof? Because they treat you like shit and tell you it's Easter.

??? Easter
I've heard of Pissing on my shoes and telling me it's raining, but I don't get the Easter bit

Oh great. Now my car is missing. This is just fucking wonderful.

I just got docked from an A down to a B on a paper in my class Faith in the World Seminar: The Holocaust, because I referenced Lockean individualism in an argument. The professor wrote "What is this?" next to it. Not my fault you don't know what that is you moron, go look it the fuck up.

They towed your car in for service without telling you?

No, they towed it to the wrong friggin place omg.

Yah myspace does that to me.........."People I might Know". And I do. Scares the hell out of me, because it isn't limited to geographics either.


Wow jinx. That sucks!

If you let it, it goes thru your address book to find people.

Yah I could tell, but it is handy in finding all the people I am trying to forget.

What now?? Are you at home or what?

Easter is on my mind for some reason.

Teh resurrection. All that.

I'm in a morbid spiral of late.

Yeah, I'm at home, my day is shot. They towed it to a dealership 15 miles away that has the same-ish name as the dealership 1.2 miles away. I had to sic jim on them to get them to tow it to the correct dealership where it will be fixed, but not until tomorrow now that they've fucked around all afternoon....

That feeling of "Dude, where's my fucking car?!" sucks ass. It's a good thing they found it quickly.... Jim was all "well who the hell took it?" and I'm like "uh, some dude with a flatbed".... gah

Ask him to clarify his comments. He may be suggesting that in the context of the field you're writing in an explanatory note may be in order, alternatively he may be querying its relevance.

If he is actually asking what the term means then he has no business marking that down, because it's not exactly an unknown term in general academia. Ask him.

@ jinx: honey, that right royally sucks.

Jinx, that is so quel dommage. It's a good thing that Jim knows the sun rises and sets on you otherwise that "some dude in a flatbed" remark would be grounds for a serious eye-rolling missy.

There is almost nothing that sucks more than car issues. <--hyperbole

I think I broke another goddamn toe. I'll post a picture to the bruises thread if I can be bothered to get around to it.



Oh, and while I'm bitching: I've got the flu, a blocked duct in my boob, and my kid is off his damn rocker today. Goddammit.

I just found out something that broke my heart and made me want to kill someone.

Two years ago, my Dad was driving back from his nightly visit to his regular pub. He used to go in every evening, and nurse a single whiskey and water, sitting at the bar chatting to the regulars. He was very ill even by then, a year and a half into his disease. When he visited the pub, he'd have to park up and wait for about half an hour to get his breath back from the drive before going in. At his side on the passenger seat would be a portable oxygen cylinder and breathing apparatus.

He kept that routine going pretty much up until he was bed-ridden.

On this particular occasion (according to the pub landlady whom my brother met this afternoon) he left the pub, sat in his van to get his breath back after the walk from the pub, then drove off. He got stopped by police who, presumably because they could smell the one whiskey on his breath and because by now Dad looked like he wasn't taking care of himself, they said they needed to breathalyse him.

Dad said he couldn't. he could barely breath. He was by now, very fucking obviously sick. Very fucking obviously struggling for every goddamned breath. The bastard fucking, shit of a policeman, took him back to the station and because he 'refused' to give a breath test, they kept him in a cell overnight and wouldnt give him his fucking oxygen. I am so angry right now I could smash something. I want to scream.

That is fucking bullshit, Dana. Jesus, wtf is wrong with people? Your anger is justified. Knowing you, you will channel this into some meaningful way to make a difference. But it just really sucks.

Right now I want to channel it into a train journey to Bolton and fucking big showdown with the Police...but I am sure by morning my rage will have subsided enough to be rational again.

It will...but it's a tough thing to wait for morning. I think it helps that you're writing about it.

It does help actually. I think it's an eminently sensible part of myself that draws me to post on stuff like this. By the time I've talked it through on here I usually feel much better/clearer/calmer. Like now for instance.

Aw man, that's just brutal Dana. :(

Good Lord, that is awful. Too little human decency in law enforcement.

Ugh - Sorry to hear that Dana. Sometimes....

: Bites tongue :

That is awful Dana. I'm sorry.

Write something for the paper. Things like that need to be exposed.

That's horrible, Dana! Isn't access to medications a basic human right, even in jail?

Do you have the names of the officers involved? A very public shaming might be just the ticket.

Unfortunately i have absolutely no details. Dad never said anything about it. This was the landlady at his local pub. All I know is what I posted. That it happened about two years ago, and that he apparently was held overnight without his oxygen.

Mum wants me to drop it. I haven't talked to Mart yet. I am considering paying a visit to Bolton police station at some point in the next few weeks. I want to see if they have a record of him being held. If he was never charged, I don't know if they'd keep the record.

Lil Lookout has had some issues become more of a concern over the last six months that we just wrote off as attitude and motivation issues. He is very intelligent so his growing aversion to reading we simply chalked up to being lazy. He can run through his math tables verbally but completely panics if he has to write them. There are quite a few other things that taken separately mean nothing and that is exactly what we saw - nothing.

The kid has always been truly happy with a ball at his feet and that is what stopped me in my tracks. I always said soccer is his deal and when he's bored or burned out he's done no questions asked. He's a phenomenal player and over the last few months he has continued the great performances but you could see the joy was gone. Then the meltdowns started.

During a recent penalty shoot out the keeper blocked one of his shots. He came apart at the seams as soon as he got to the touchline. He was sobbing and shaking and just laid down and covered up with a blanket. WTF? The keeper made a nice save, no problem. It took me the rest of the day to actually get him to open up - something that has been impossible to get him to do recently. Long story short(er) is he heard people laughing at him for missing and he actually heard one of the dads (a true dick) tell him he sucks. The only real problem is that it didn't happen. Everyone cheered and told him good try. He still didn't believe it when I replayed the video for him. Strange. A definite cause for concern for me.

That night I was in bed thinking it over and things kind of slipped into place hard enough to make my eyeballs click. The reason he gave for his meltdown over reading the week before was because he knew I'd laugh at him. The problem with math was because his teacher laughed at him. The reason he's been clamming up on the field is he'd rather do nothing than make a mistake and have everyone laugh or yell. Apparently he hasn't been playing at recess for fear of making a mistake.

WTF have I done to my kid? He's absolutely cracking under the pressure to be successful. But then I thought about it more and it just didn't explain it. The kid really has no pressure. Failure or success has always been praised in the same way in our house - it's the effort and the behavior that is praised, not the result.

I made an appointment with a psychologist we're very comfortable with having used him ourselves for marriage counselling. He specializes in children but we liked him well enough to use him for ourselves. Initial work and testing came back with the result that Lil Lookout was off the charts, serious problem, do something right now in the areas of anxiety and depression. WTF? He's 7. The doc showed us his initial workups and pointed out they were consistent with ADHD. His concern was that while anxiety and depression are usually biproducts of ADHD, they can also be the source of ADHD like results in children who are not truly ADHD. The chicken and the egg story. Through extensive observation and testing and numerous surveys filled out by parents, grandparents, teachers, and family friends the diagnosis is back and absolutely everything consistently points to ADHD.

We've heard plenty of horror stories about kids thrown on maintenance drugs for ADHD and the like so we don't really want to go down that road. The doctor has been really good and has helped us create a non-drug plan for Lil Lookout. Therapy, behavioral stuff, and blahblahblah. It all sounds really good and we said let's do it. The doc said ok, but then came back to the meds issue. He said he'll go along with the no meds plan right now and he believes Lil Lookout will see some positive results BUT he has absolutely ZERO doubt that Lil Lookout will end up on meds within the next year or two. Because of our previous experiences with this guy we know he isn't a "drugs are the answer" kind of guy otherwise I'd just write it off as the normal infatuation with chemical fixes for everything.

The doc then pulled out another file and started showing us the notes. He explained that it was his son's file (he uses another doc for him). His kid is ADHD and his charts are nearly identical to Lil Lookout's. You really could switch them and not really notice much. His first displayed problems at age 6 but not liking the meds route he tried everything else. Finally at age 13 the family caved and tried the meds. within a semester the kid had a complete turnaround. The kid later on questioned why they didn't do it sooner because he said for the first time in his life he was happy. He could actually function and focus with the rest of the world around him. His kid is now 21 and went off the meds 3 years ago. Everything was fine for about a year and then the kid came back begging to be put back on meds because he could feel the difference and everything was starting to spiral out of control for him at college. He went back on and has been fine ever since.

I've talked to a psychologist friend of mine, my aunt who is also a child psychologist, and another friend who deals with behavioral and learning disabilities in a local school. They've all said the same thing: Do it. These are all people who know Lil Lookout and care for him. They are all professionals in the field. None of them is a big fan of thowing pills down everyone's throat.

For a week my wife and I have talked about it and we see a lot of great reasons to try the meds but we're still afraid to do it and we have no rational reason other than we are afraid to start our kid on meds he'll need for years and possibly forever.

Where is the magic 8 ball when you need it?

I'm really sorry you're going through this, Lookout. As someone who developed asthma as a child, I simply ask you - would you be so divided in your mind if you were talking about asthma meds? Also for the rest of a life - but making such a difference to quality of life?

:idea: Um, wow. I had not even thought of it in that manner. The fact is that LL does have asthma and allergy medication that he's taken to varying degrees since he was 3. After the umpteenth time we took him in for breathing issues the doctor said, "the kid needs XYZ medication" and we did it. While it bothers me that he has been dependent on medication that is simply because I wish he wasn't. But it helps him to breathe which is a good thing, so we keep the meds going. End of story.

It is entirely possible that my issue here is not entirely the pill but the idea of why the pill may be necessary. I need to ponder that for a bit.

Lookout - Took me months to agree to put my son on meds. He was on them for about 6 to 9 months. He stopped taking them and has been pretty much ok since. that was a few years ago.