I’ve often told my daughter that we’re made of stardust. She doesn’t believe me. I thought of her (and the fact that she’ll go on after me) when I read this:

“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
—

Aaron Freeman “You Want A Physicist To Speak at your Funeral” (source: npr)

To appease the old gods and earn their favor, I have rendered unto them a non-blood sacrifice. Or, really, I went down to check the mail in my BRAND NEW HOUSE, and promptly stepped into a hole in the yard. Hole: 1 Saundra: 0 (TWSS.)

So now I’m on crutches. My agent says that it’s method writing. Julian in the third and final Vespertine book had polio when he was a baby and has one functional leg. Crutches galore in THE ELEMENTALS!

As handsome as this cast is, I won’t have it long. I hope. I tore ligaments instead of breaking bones, so I’m using that to justify my belief in previously unknown to me mutant-healing powers.

Seriously though, you guys. I have to think up a good lie about how I did this. The real story is just too pathetic to tell. Maybe the made up version will include ninjas…?

In Indiana, we often joke that God hates trailer parks because they get hit by tornadoes so often.

(This joke is both grim and should be informed by the fact that most of the time it comes up when I’m standing on the porch of my dad’s trailer, while we’re listening to the tornado sirens in the distance.)

Just so you know, God also hates glass patio furniture.

The umbrella was up. Obviously, the first mistake. Why would you want shade from an umbrella? Ridiculous! To fix that, a wind gust lifted the umbrella straight into the air. Then it dropped its spike tip right back on the table. Which, as you can see, shattered the table into a million little pieces of safety glass. The crash was so loud, my husband heard it while running the lawn mower.

Another abomination cured by Mother Nature’s wrath!