(Holy Shit) Whaaaat A Ruuuush....

Holy shit this has been a rough time. I haven't posted in what, two weeks? Fuck me, has it been crazy. I cannot cover everything in one post. That's the bad news. The good news, is I have a shit-tonne of stories. Some are going to be hilarious, some are not. You can bet your sexy-ass that they will have profanity though. And how do I know you got a sexy ass? Because fuck you, have some pride in your goddamn self. Find a mirror, look at your tushy, and say, "Goddamn I look good!"

Did you do it? You dirty liar.

See there? That left ambiguity to set everyone on edge. But I digress....

I have a lot to rant and rave about, but it is going to take multiple posts to share everything. As a result, I want to share just a brief bit about why there was a delay. First and foremost, I have been busy as shit. Again, I work multiple jobs. One of those jobs happens to relate to reviewing papers and essays. Between applications and research papers, I have completed over 200 reviews. That is in the past two weeks. What does that mean? One, I'm getting paid. Two, I have very little time. Fortunately the bulk of the reviews needed to be done by the end of November. That means I finally have time to get back to my writing.

Last week was also a busy week, in that we had my birthday and Thanksgiving. And spoiler alert, I may put this into a different story, for a different post.

Finally, this past week was a rough week. For those that do not know, there have been fires throughout the the southeast region of the country. On Monday, the shit got real. My folks happen to live in an area that was hit hard by the fires. They had stayed up late, watching the devastation unfold, waiting to see if they had to evacuate. Most of the neighboring areas had, but those areas were still five miles away. When it seemed like everything was fine, my folks started to get ready for bed. This was at approximately 23:45. As they got ready to go to sleep, they saw fires across the street. Because they live in a mountain community, which also happens to be going through a drought, the entire neighborhood is forested. They immediately grabbed the dog and an emergency bag, and fled their house. I got a call at approximately 00:15, Tuesday morning, from my folks. Turns out a tree had fallen in the road, and they were trapped on the mountain (still burning). If their neighbor had not already evacuated and grabbed a chainsaw, my folks and four other cars would have been trapped.

Before I continue, I will say that everything is fine (for realsies, this time). My folks were able to move back into their house on Wednesday night. Fortunately, there was just enough rain on Tuesday morning to stop the fire from spreading. A large rain on Wednesday extinguished 90% of what remained on their mountain. Except for a big-ass, fallen tree, their mountain is completely put-out.

Now I would like to say that this was a fairly intense event. I woke up to a phone call at 12AM Tuesday morning, with my mom yelling that they were trapped on the mountain, there was fire all around, and that I needed to call 9-1-1. And then she hung up. As I said before, calls were made and they got out. When they got to our house, my wife and I gave my folks and their dog a hug. You could smell the smoke from outside their car.

Click Here to Learn How to Help Victims of the Gatlinburg Fires

My mother has since apologized for what she figures would have been a terrifying call to receive. I told her that we were even. In 2011, I was on the unfortunate end of a stabbing. When I finally was able to call my folks, I said, "Hello, I've been stabbed. I'm bleeding, but it will be okay. There's an ambulance, I need to go." And then I hung up. In a fucked up game, we are now even with two fucked up phone calls. I mentioned that to them, and my dad calmly stated that we did not need this game to continue any longer.

And so that is what has happened over the past two weeks. I've worked my ass off, had a good break, and then dealt with an emergency event. In the coming days (hopefully today), I will start sharing more of the stories. Fortunately, this is the most fucked up of the stories. The rest should have much more levity. And with that, I leave you with the video that this post title was based on. It fairly well describes how November has felt.