once upon a time,

in a land far far away, there was a small group of women. They were tired of being told what they were allowed to post and what they were allowed to talk about on the internet. The got together and decided what they wanted was a general mom’s group, where everyone was allowed to be themselves, believe what they believe and not be censored, where nothing was locked, or deleted, and only very basic rules were in place. They found a free message board server, and got to work, created the layout, and what they wanted it to feel like.

Once things were all set up, they started inviting people to join, both online friends and people they knew in real life. And slowly their message board began to grow. There were fights, and disagreements, plenty of drama, cause of course, where ever women gather in groups larger than two, there is drama. But Drama dies and life goes on. Within just a few months the small board outgrew the free host they were on, and had to buy software and find a server. Where the board lived, and grew, very happily for several more months. There were improvements and things added to make the board a more pleasant place, not saying there wasn’t problems, but the problems were pretty insignificant. Along the way the board morphs some, it stops being a mom’s group and becomes a women’s group, all women ae welcome, any race, religion, stage of life.

Then one day, shortly after the board’s one year anniversary, members get up and try to log onto the board, and it is gone. Just disappeared. The Admin start looking into things and the server they are using has crashed. And come to find out, the host is not doing the backups he has been paid to do. So the original group of women scramble to get things back up so that their members have a home again. Just over a month after the great crash, one of the founders decides she wants nothing to do with the board ever again, and drops everything in another founders lap and leaves, breaking several policies as she goes. The remaining founders, and other admin continue to build and improve the board. Within a month the board starts out growing the host again. Time to look for something bigger and better. Along the way they pick up a male techie (gasp) which causes some stir among the members, but he is too much of a help to women who had no clue what they were doing to let him go. The board ends up moving to a dedicated host, where things are much nicer for the members. And the board continues to grow. So fast infact that it is shocking.

The odd things we remember…

This has kinda been weighing on my mind recently, and I don’t want to talk about it with my family, for several reasons, but mostly I don’t want to drag up all that trauma again.

In August 1987, my father was a police officer, working on a temporary basis for our small hometown. One day, he went to work, and was filling his patrol car with gas, when the city garage blew up with him inside. He survived, though severely burned, and 20 years later is fine. Though he still has some skin sensitivity, but as far as I know, no other major issues from his injuries.

I can still remember seeing the explosion, though I didn’t know what it was at that moment. And I remember the call coming in to my grandparents house, where we were, that Dad had been hurt, along with a lot of small bits and pieces of what happened in the hours and weeks afterward.

My sister and I stayed with an Aunt while my parents were 3 hrs away, first at the hospital, then out, but still going to the hospital daily for treatment.  The first time I saw my dad after the was burned, which, can be pretty scary for a 9 year old, even if it is not a parent. When he finally got to come home. The constant, never ending battle with Workman’s Compensation to get them to cover all the medical bills.

The strange differences in the perceptions of a 9 year old, and the way I see things now, 20 years later.

Ahhh… Memories…

my sister will murder me, I mean, dead, if she ever finds this, but oh, well, it is too good to hold in any longer… 15 years has been enough.

Ok, first you have to understand that I grew up very rural, our closest neighbor was 1/2 a mile away as the crow flies, and a mile by the road. We raised birds, chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, turkeys, and  pug dogs.

One day one of our dogs brought an egg up from somewhere, and left it sitting in the yard. My sister, then 13, saw it, and went to my mother… “Mom, there is this weird egg in the yard”

Mom…”Bring it to me and let me see it.” as she was in the back of the house, doing her hair getting ready to go somewhere.  Jess brings in the egg, carrying it very carefully, My mother then looks at it and tells her “Jess, that is quite a find, that is a rabbit egg, they are really hard to find and you almost never see them, you need to go show your dad.” Now, Dad was in the shop, about a hundred yards from the other end of the house… so my sister RUNS down the hall, and out the door and is about half way to the shop before she stops… marches back into the house. She was all embarrassed. “MOM!” she said “Rabbit’s don’t lay eggs!” by this time my mother and I were laughing so hard we couldn’t see. I had collapsed onto my parents bed cause I couldn’t breathe for laughing so hard. She was right, rabbits don’t lay eggs, but it took her long enough to realize it..

The egg was actually a guinea egg that our hen had laid somewhere out in the desert, before she disappeared, and now the dog had found and thought she needed to show us her treasure. We called my sister Rabbit Eggs for years, she still hates to be reminded of it. I still laugh till the tears run when I think about it.