a change of spot

[dragonlady7]

i've moved my computer to a new spot. I made the box it came in a nightstand for Dave, and took the little dresser that had been his nightstand and moved it to the foot of his bed, next to where I'd moved the aged wingback chair. So now I'm sitting in the wingback chair with my feet up, listening to my iTunes while my boy sleeps mere inches away. He's so cute when he sleeps. Good thing my keyboard is quiet. The fan is on, as well, so that's a little white noise for camoflage.

I got heavily dog-slobbered last night by a not-usually-affectionate english spaniel (?). Dave's cousin Helen came to visit with her boyfriend, who brought his dog Clyde along. Clyde is a pretty dog, and is quite obedient to Michael, but doesn't deal well with certain issues. Food, fear, and possession can all induce him to bite, and indeed he bit Helen so badly she had to go to the hospital to get it taken care of. But on his first meeting with Dave, Clyde greeted him like a long-lost friend, and last night once we were back at this appartment, I carefully introduced myself to Clyde and he decided I was also a good person, and proceeded to lick my hands and arms and roll around on the couch barking in pleasure. Very funny, and it astonished Michael. So, dave and I have something in common that Clyde really likes. *shrug*
Dave is the cutest when he sleeps. He's not sleeping very deeply just now. He keeps tossing and turning. I hope it's not my keyboard bothering him. Occasionally an eye will open and he'll peer at me.

Heard from Jeremy last night via IM. Sharon's gone back to school for her Master's in Social Work. On top of the job she has. Their spare cash is gone- two car payments, mortgage, and now tuition. Their spare time is gone. Jeremy hasn't seen her in three weeks except for an occasional view of her sleeping form on the couch. But at least their lives are busy in the progress kind of way, not in the just staying ahead of disaster kind of way.
Dave says I'm not waking him up, and has retreated into a little ball near the head of the bed. It astonishes me that someone so tall can make himself so small when the mood strikes, but such is the way of skinny boys.

Comments

this is from kat

[(Anonymous)]

It's somehow not as much fun to write comments when you can't write back. Can you write back yet?
Maybe what Clyde likes is Dave's smell on you :P

Re: this is from kat

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I can't tell if I can write back yet. :-( I certainly can't from work, but sometimes i can from home. I think.

this is from kat

[(Anonymous)]

I really have nothing to say but I have to call the friends, teachers and family of an 18 yr old who died when he crashed his motorcycle yesterday, and I'm doing everythign I can think of to postpone the moment. I mean really, there's nothing newsworthy about his death. Why should we make a horrible day worse for everybody who cared abotu him by bothering him with reporters? That's what I don't like about the Saturday editor....I never work Saturdays, but I switched with another reporter so I could have a Sunday off when I take my girl scout troop camping next month. So now I'm stuck working with the nonfeeling editor who only cares about the space he must fill and has no interest in whether the words he fills it with are interesting and newsworthy or not.
arrrggg.
he wants a photo of the kid too. How perverted can you get? The kid died in an auto accident! That happens all the time! It's not newsworthy!!!
When I have to call friends and family of newsworthy deaths (most recently a kid who wasn't allowed into his prom because he didn't have a date, so he and a male friend went camping by a one-foot-high creek and drank a liter of vodka and then he slipped and fell in and drowned and the liquor store employee that sold him the vodka turned out to be looking for kids on prom night and trying to sell them liquor to make himself extra money) I tell them that this is at least a lasting memorial, because they can say all the good stuff and get a really good story rather than the rather bare and tiny obit....but I always preface this with "I'm really sorry to bother you, but..." and explain the newsworthyness, so they feel they're contributing to something greater (like awareness of these sneaky people who are going around trying to profit from kids, as well as a warnign to kids about what could happen if they too decide to get very drunk in the middle of a forest...and also to let people know about the stupid policy of not allowing kids in to the prom if they don't have a date).
But what can I say to these people? Hi, um, it sucks your son is dead in a normal way, wanna talk about him?
argg.
okay, I guess I have to bite the bullet now. Hopefully I can get so much info from teachers and the police that I can leave the family alone.
My editor isn't even here so that I could argue him into dropping the story....he left me a note, the weasel....he won't be here til 2 hours before I leave....I suppose a responsible person wouldn't wait on the story until then in the hopes of talking him out of it

Re: this is from kat

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

"Hi, Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So, I'm from the local newspaper. We heard about your tragic loss. What a terrible thing. We'd like to write it up for tomorrow's paper, just a short note about what happened. Could you tell me these details, so we can get them right? We'd also love a good picture of him."

They wrote up Dave's father's death in the local paper and got every detail wrong except his name.
They had him 2 years older, falling out of the front of the boat when he fell out the back, having his companions jump in after him when they simply pulled him into the boat, etc. It was entirely wrong.
Which didn't do much to comfort Mrs. K. It wasn't awful, it was just annoying.

Re: this is from kat

[(Anonymous)]

I've been granted a reprieve. The police aren't giving out the id's name yet (yay!) so I can't call anybody.
Dave's father dying sounds like it was a non-story too, although I suppose if they didn't know at the time that he died and then fell into the water, rather than drowning, it might have looked like a story.
But seriously, person dies in car crash, person has heart attack, person dies asleep in bed, person dies after years of fighting cancer -- all these are non-events because they are too common to be news. While many of these peopel may be cool people with interesting lives that could become interesting features, that is not enough of a reason to call a grieving family less than 24 hours after the death. And if they'd be that interesting, the news probably did a feature on them while they were still alive.
Everyone has something good about them, everyone has a loving family that will miss them, everyone had plans and hopes and dreasm and isn't it sad that they're dead, but that's why we run obits.
I really oppose this invasive policy in the case of non-events, and I bet most families would too if they were called the day their loved one died.
I'm okay with it when someone committs suicide by tying himself to the train tracks, because that stops the train and had the potential of hurting other people and lots of people see the train stopped and they want to know and should find out what happened. But if someone kills himself quietly in his bathroom, we shouldn't write about it unless it's part of some larger story about suicide. In that case, we should be interviewing families of people long dead.
The US press association agrees with me in its code of ethics, but the saturday editor does not.
grrr.
I'm hoping now that the police don't give me the kid's name. Then I can't do it at all....although I am working tomorrow, but hopefully I could talk the sane Sunday editors out of it if they want to do it.