The Winter Just Got Tougher

I know it’s technically spring but that hasn’t happened yet.  The winter delivered the cruelest blow of all yesterday as the incredible winds generated by a Nor’easter far enough off shore to spare us snow still created conditions that fueled a devastating fire in the back bay of Boston that cost us the lives of two firefighters.

I say “cost us” because they sacrificed themselves for us and we are all poorer for the exchange.  It’s too easy to forget the peerless courage of these guys who daily charge into burning buildings when any sensible person is heading the other way.  We only seem to recognize that courage on days like this when that courage is so evident but they are doing this each and every day in every community around the world. 

R.I.P. to a Couple of Real Heroes

I didn’t know these guys but I miss them. I thank their families for allowing them to serve us and keep us safe.  I was a little startled when I saw the news coverage as the fire was not too far from where my own daughter lived during her time at Boston University.  She hasn’t been there in nearly a decade but I still felt a connection to the area which made it even tougher. 

Most of all I thank the firefighters around the world for doing what they do each day.  You are the bravest people I know.

It’s probably a little bit appropriate that I finished up my latest foray into the twisted mind of Chuck Palahniuk yesterday.  I really like Damned and I honestly think it’s his funniest effort.  The heroine of the story is a 13-year old daughter of a celebrity couple (think Jolie/Pitt) named Maddy who dies in a tragic accident and finds herself in hell, literally.

She takes to damnation fairly well blaming her parents for their unbelief:  “It’s one thing for my parents to behave all secular humanist and gamble with their own eternal souls; however, it’s altogether not all right that they also gambled with mine:  They placed their bets with such self-righteous bravado, but I’m the one who lost.”

Palahniuk is his normal merciless self as he skewers the self-importance of celebrities and pop culture myths.  Palahniuk writing in the first person as a 13-year girl is just too much fun to pass up.  Maddy forms a Breakfast Club like group of friends and proceeds to pretty much take over hell beating up villains ranging from Caligula to Adolph Hitler.  She also explores the vanity and feigned selflessness of her movie star parents (one of Chuck’s favorite targets).  “To my parents, death existed as merely the logical, albeit extreme, result of not adequately exfoliating your skin.”  Palahniuk is at his cringe worthy, satirical best in this – well worth the read.