The Bouncy Castle in Space

heza

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Oh, Spiral. *hugs*

I'm so sorry hun. When my house flooded, it was a nightmare. I can only imagine this is a billion times worse. As a fur mom, I can't even imagine how it would feel to lose your pets.

I'm so thankful the humans are okay, but I'm hugging you from way down south for everything else.
 

MsJudy

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Spiral, that's so awful. My mother-in-law lost her condo to a fire about 20 years ago. I know that the loss of her pets was definitely the hardest part of the whole painful experience. I'll be thinking of you and your family.
 

MJWare

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Spiral,
Let me add my condolences; that's so disheartening--I can't imagine how hard it must be on you and your loved ones. I'm so sorry.
 

Spiral

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Thank you for all your kind thoughts. It really means a lot. Yesterday we watched them start to tear down the house, which was really weird. But the Ontario Fire Marshall decided the whole thing was just waiting to collapse, and he needs to get into the basement to do his investigation. We have been overwhelmed by the support of our community. People have been dropping of clothing donations for the kids, and the schools are doing a loonie and twoonie drive fundraiser for us. They also brought in a trauma councillor for the kids. One small bit if good news is that the fire Marshall was able to recover my external hard drive, so I have pictures of all my fur babies. Thank goodness for being a writer (though I don't know how much of that I'll be doing in the next little while!) and knowing that hard drive was backed up not long ago.
 

starbeam

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Oh Spiral, I'm so glad they recovered your hard drive. Keep us posted on how you're doing, and let us know if there's anything we can help with. Sending more hugs your way. :Hug2:
 

ColoradoKate

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Oh, Spiral... I am heartsick for you. I'm very glad your human family wasn't hurt, of course, and that the hard drive was salvaged, but, still... oh, dear. I know I'm not here often, but if virtual hugs from a stranger will be of any comfort: {{{hugs}}}
 

Quentin Nokov

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Awe, Spiral. I'm so sorry. I lost a cat recently and I was devastated. I know this is one of my first posts in this thread, but I'm really saddened to hear that. Where are you staying in the meantime? I wish I could lend some support somehow. :( But deep condolences and virtual hugs are about all I can do.
 

Quentin Nokov

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"By wit or whisker jowl" XD That was awesome. I never heard of him before. I'm always wary of stand-up comedians because I haven't come across any skits that are 'clean', but this was highly enjoyable. I'm posting it on FB for all my little cousins. ROFL. I wish I could speak like that all the time without thinking about it.
 

starbeam

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By jove, was not that a sight to mine eyes! :D I wish more people would do fun skits like this. Thanks for the link, Sissy. Smiles are definitely good right now. :)
 

sissybaby

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Quentin - that was probably my favorite line in the whole thing!

Starbeam - ah, yes, I wish there were more witty people with broad vocabularies willing to entertain us in such fashion. Shakespeare obviously knew what he was doing, say what?
 

Spiral

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That was great sissybaby, the smiles were much appreciated.

I had a really amazing thing happen to me yesterday, the kind of thing that really drives home the inherent goodness in humanity. I was at work, trying to be "normal" but at one point I started shaking and I spilled a tea, thankfully not all over a customer, but all over myself. So I started crying and apologizing to her and I (embarrassingly) had a little breakdown and told her what happened. I made her a new tea and she left. A few minutes later, she returned and I said hi, but she didn't answer, she just put a card on the counter and turned and left. I opened it to find a some really thoughtful words about how she would pray for my family and that in time, things would get better, and she'd put one hundred dollars in the envelope. I was blown away by the kindness of this complete stranger.
 

SheilaJG

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Wow, that's a great story Spiral, thank you so much for sharing. It made my day just to read it. What a lovely person.
 

Quentin Nokov

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That awesome, Spiral. This Christmas, around my area, we had a 'Lay Away Angel'; this person was going around to Wal*Marts and paid for twenty lay-aways here and twenty over there. It was really something. I read something on my Facebook wall about how someone went to pay, this woman cut in line, and said she'd pay for it. I'm sort of wondering if a Church organized it???
 

sissybaby

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Spiral - that's wonderful! The fact that you were able to go to work is amazing! I love to hear about people who reach out to others.

Last night we had horrible storms, and a huge tornado hit a little north of us. Took out over half the town, but only one critically hurt. The wind sounded stranger than I've ever heard it. Like howling down one of those wind tunnels.

I couldn't help but think of you at the time, although I know it was a different situation.
 

starbeam

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Sissy, I'm so glad you're all right! The Midwest is often a scary place to me, considering I used to live in earthquake alley, not tornado alley (both are frightening, though one rarely happens).

Spiral, this is a wonderful story! It's so good to see there are still kind people in this world. Been thinking of you a lot and keeping you in my prayers. More virtual hugs! :Hug2:
 

playground

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I don't know if anyone watches American Idol, but this year they have a really special contestant called Phillip Phillips. Youtube him, absolutely fantastic.


*EDIT*

Make sure you hear him with his acoustic guitar, he's special with it. The two to listen to are Thriller and In the Night.
 
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Quentin Nokov

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I've never actually been to into American Idol, but he sounds like he has a nice voice. I've actually been searching for new music to listen to. I came across a few new songs from Spotify. Gabrielle Angelique and Wendy Rule -- interesting artists.
 

Smish

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Thank you for all your kind thoughts. It really means a lot. Yesterday we watched them start to tear down the house, which was really weird. But the Ontario Fire Marshall decided the whole thing was just waiting to collapse, and he needs to get into the basement to do his investigation. We have been overwhelmed by the support of our community. People have been dropping of clothing donations for the kids, and the schools are doing a loonie and twoonie drive fundraiser for us. They also brought in a trauma councillor for the kids. One small bit if good news is that the fire Marshall was able to recover my external hard drive, so I have pictures of all my fur babies. Thank goodness for being a writer (though I don't know how much of that I'll be doing in the next little while!) and knowing that hard drive was backed up not long ago.

I'm so glad people are being kind and supportive, Spiral. You're holding up very well, by the way. I admire you. :)
 

MsJudy

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I think one of the silver linings of going through hard times is you find out how kind and generous people can be. Surprising little gestures can make such a difference.
 

Spiral

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Maybe you guys can help me with something. I know several of you are teachers, or just have lots of experience with kids in general. My son is really, really broken up by the loss of the pets. He's eleven, so, you know, he's on that cusp between childhood and becoming a teenager. I'm really worried about his emotional state, because it seems like he's trying so hard to be strong, like he'll start to cry, but then he'll try to suck it up and it worries me that he's keeping his emotions bottled up...I don't know if I'm even making sense. I guess what I'm asking is if anyone has any thoughts or advice in helping a kid deal with a trauma like this.
 

Ferret

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Oh, Spiral, my heart breaks for your son. I don't know if I really have any good advice to offer, but maybe you could set aside some time to talk about the pets and remember the good times you had and what made them special. Maybe spending some time at an animal shelter volunteering with other animals might help, although his age might be a problem. For me, at least, doing something active to help out has helped me deal with the loss of pets.
 

heza

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I grew up in the country, and whenever we lost a pet, we had a burial and a little ceremony kind of thing for us kids to remember them and sort of say goodbye.

After my mom died, we took the grandkids to her graveside and they each wrote her name on a ballon, said something they rememberd about her, then released the balloon...

I'm just guessing that you probably don't have remains, but maybe any kind of ceremony to properly mark the event might help provide some closure.

I don't know. I'm not really good at this kind of thing.

*hugs* though, for sure.