under the wire

well, that's a way to start strong, eh, a one-paragraph post at 11:25?

Here are some things that happened to me in the last few days:

Thing the first:
I watched someone hit a deer (more like, get hit by a deer) in their SUV. It was extremely dramatic, involving, as it did, a smashed windshield, and a deer flying - absolutely not kidding - like 15 feet through the air.

And then getting up and walking away.

It would have been me (and the deer would have done significantly more damage to my Prius than it did to their Expedition) had I not been paying attention to the deer leaping dementedly through the field beside the road.

Thing the second:
I worked a funeral for the niece of a friend today. She was in her mid-20s, mom to 3-year-old twins. She was murdered. I spent the whole day yearning to go home and hug my kid.

When I (FINALLY) got home, and hugged my kid, he yelled "NO!" and writhed as if my hug was torture. It was NOT a scene from the Waltons.

Thing the third:
We've been singing to Ian - camp songs mostly, Raffi's Baby Beluga - and he has been requesting "Jesus Loves Me". Which, of course, chokes me up.

Well, Ian enjoys listening to music - recorded music, as opposed to his parents' well-intentioned caterwauling - and so Eric downloaded "Jesus Loves Me." He ended up, through the magic of the 30-second sample, with some weird Music for Airports ambient version: kids singing far away, drum track, various electronic bleeps and bloops. Plus a British kid chanting scriptures extolling Jesus' DEATH: "this is how we know what love is, that a man would DIE for his friends, DIE for his friends." I am totally not kidding.

Ian immediately became obsessed and wanted to hear this over and over and over.

Happy Halloween.