PSA: Don't Be a Thunder-Lover-Shamer

I am not a Thunder Over Louisville fan. I "get" Thunder-lovers. Occasionally, the sight of expertly-flown fighter jets dancing in the skies over the city makes me go all Lee Greenwood inside. How can it not? It's an art. It's a talent. It's dangerous and beautiful. And how can you not admire the brave patriots who fly those planes?

But the air show makes me squidgy. So much money goes into all that. And fuel and other resources. And the celebration of instruments of war and destruction?... I'm not really cool with that. And certainly, I can't help but ache for those Louisvillagers who have at one point in their lives lived somewhere where the sound of a fighter jet overhead was not the sound of celebration or martial artistry but the sound of immanent peril.

Lord knows, as someone who was one of the first groups of people to return to New Orleans after the mandatory evacuation, post-Katrina, I was-- for years-- wigged out by the sound of low-flying helicopters. I still kind of am.

And fireworks at close range have always made me edgy.

I'm not a Thunder-hater, but I'm not a Thunder Over Louisville fan, either. I could absolutely do without it.

But you know what I like LEAST about Thunder? All the Thunder-Lover-Shamers.

It's the day before Thunder Over Louisville, and this is about the time when the Thunder-Lover-Shamers start rearing their ugly heads. They pop up on Twitter or Facebook. They emerge among your co-workers. They start troll-posting on the CJ website.

Their primary goal: to make people who genuinely enjoy Thunder feel terrible about their love for this event.

Listen, it's totally fine with me if you hate Thunder. As I said, I'm mostly in your camp. But it's not okay to, once a year, express your hatred of Thunder by deriding and shaming those people who truly love it. If you have serious moral objections to Thunder Over Louisville, then you should be working ALL YEAR LONG to somehow ban and/or improve what happens during this Derby season opener.

I don't know if it's the same people, but Thunder-Lover-Shamers are the same beasts as Awards-Show-Lover-Shamers or Football-Lover-Shamers. The people who tweet during the Emmys: "I don't know who Julie Bowen is or what she is wearing... Thank God! Curled up with the latest Jonathan Safran Foer and my cat."

Love what you want to love, and let other people get their giggles from whatever it is that tickles their toes. Thunder-Lover-Shaming makes you sound like a jerk.

In the immortal words of Bill & Ted, "Be Excellent To Each Other."

Party on, dudes.

And want to watch the finale of Thunder 2009 from my back yard? Check this out (bonus, for those of you who don't know me, you get to hear the dulcet tone of my voice). Thunder from my back yard

PSA: Code Red

As someone who has lived through a number of major natural disasters and has always bemoaned how difficult it was to get information, I thought I would pass along this press release from the mayor's office in its entirety: 

Louisville has a new system — Code Red — to keep citizens updated during emergencies. The system uses a variety of methods — text alerts, emails and phone calls — to warn citizens about potentially life-threatening events, including severe weather. The new service is free – but you must sign up to receive the alerts.   To sign up for Code Red alerts, visit www.louisvilleky.gov and fill out the form. Citizens may choose which types of alerts and which delivery methods they wish to receive. Citizens who do not have access to computers or the Internet may visit public libraries to sign up for Code Red. Citizens who cannot visit the library can call MetroCall 311 and have a city employee enter their information into the system. MetroCall will be helping citizens sign up for Code Red every weekday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Do yourself a favor and sign up now-- before you wish you had. You can always unsubscribe if the city gets too pesky or nosy.  But the next time we have a hurricane or an ice storm or a wind storm or a flood, I'm betting you'll be glad you signed up. 

A Lou PSA: Mamas (& Daddys) Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Useless

Mamas (and Daddies), don't let your babies grow up to be useless...

Apologies to Uncle Willie, of course.

On any given day, I feel like a very capable, strong woman (hear me roar!).  But whenever I'm confronted by anything resembling a "maintenance" issue-- be it with my jalopy or my house, or in this case someone else's house-- I am reduced to a manic pile of quivering stressmeat.

I don't blame being brought up by a single mother; Big Mama Lou has become much more capable than I am over the years.  I blame being brought up being surrounded by so many exceptionally capable men.  My grandfather, Chip, was a plumbing and heating guy, but he was a jack of all trades.  He could woodwork with the best of them, perform car repairs, and fix nigh anything if given the time.  And he raised his four sons (five, if you count my dad, who died when I was a babe) to be equally handy.  I doubt that side of my family has called more than a half dozen repairfolk over the course of the past five decades.

But me, I never learned to change a tire or how to figure out what's wrong with my water heater or how to fix a leaky faucet.  It's all beyond me.  And this lack of basic maintenance skills has (a) caused me grief and (b) cost me a considerable bit of money in my adult life.

So yeah, this tangent is apropos of nothing, really.  I'm just offering a PSA to my readers with kiddos:

If you're not handy, if your partner-- if you have one-- is not handy, and y'all have kids:  apprentice said kids to a handy relative or friend.  Force your babes to learn how to paint a room, how to jump a dead battery, and how to shut off the main waterline to the house.  Find someone who can teach them financial management and how to say "no" to those t-shirt-offering credit card companies on their college campuses.  


And heck, if you're not handy, and you find someone to teach your KIDS to be handy, well maybe then you'll also save yourself a boatload of money on plumbers and painters and mechanics and electricians along the way.


I'm just sayin'...