why can't you feel me calling your name?

Just wanted to chuck this up here before I go and yell at David and Avery and possibly the Pats, because I keep meaning to do it and keep forgetting.

This is Sophie. She is the niece of one of K's coworkers. She was born with a rare intestinal disease that left her with five spleens and a non-functioning liver. She's survived a few surgeries already, but desperately needs a liver transplant. Her dad's a cop and Mom's a real estate agent, so their funds are quickly running out. They also have a two-year-old at home, Savana. They've established the Sophie Grace Fund for assistance in procuring the necessary medical care to help Sophie make it. As of this posting, it's not looking very good.

As we enter the holdiay season, if any of you are so inclined, please consider making a donation to Sophie and her family. It is tax-deductible, but more importantly, I think it'd do a lot more good than buying an iPod or something. Every little bit helps. (You can also make a tax-deductible donation to my other favorite group o' peeps, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.)

I'll get off the soapbox now. :)

( Look After You by the Fray just came on my iTunes. Appropriate, Y/Y? )

And that, my friends, is the end of the running commentary. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. I know I did.

( Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee yay, my oh my what a way to waste my day. )

Sorry for the delay, peeps. Here's the blow-by-blow of Part One. It's my least favorite part of the series, so this is probably lacking in the Effie!Snark, but I hope it amuses all you suckers currently at work. :)

As a note of interest, I think Bud Selig was just slightly drunk last night at his “I suspended the World Series and all I got were these stupid negative articles” press conference. (Seriously, watch ESPN/ESPN News at some point today and tell me that man wasn’t sloshin’ ‘em back.)

At any rate, I bring you to Part One of the Effie Has No Life And Is Blogging About A Miniseries We’ve All Seen A Hundred Times! Yay!

I still find it ironic that I watched this the first time (almost a year ago, can you believe it?) completely on mute, because we’d taped it on the TiVO in the bedroom and K lasted about 5 minutes before saying, “This is stupid. I’m going to sleep.”

And away we go!

( There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby...and it's called Fenway Park. )

I'm totally stealing this idea from erinm_4600 , for she is made of genius and it taxes my pretty little head too much to come up with these things on my own.

I know I'm late, but the bandwagon got lost on the way to the 'Burg. I'm terrible at giving directions.

penny_hill came up with the idea to proclaim this week is Tin Man Author Appreciation Week. So I'm going to shout out to all you fabulous authors out there and say THANK YOU for all your hard work and engaging storytelling. I've laughed with you, I've cried with you, I've nearly dropped the computer in shock a few times, I've stayed up until all hours of the day and night greedily reading every little thing I can get my hands on. I've been honored enough to call a lot of you friends (and have picked up a few stalkers on the way, alamo_girl80 ), but first and foremost, I will always be your fan.

So I decided to hand out the first annual Effie Would Make You A Certificate If the Cats Didn't Chase the Damn Paper Awards. 

In no particular order (and begging eternal forgiveness for forgetting a crapload of people, because I don't remember what I did ten minutes ago):

She Who Makes Me Crack Up A Lot, and Often: erinm_4600 

She Who Makes Me Wish I Could Be That Damn Cool and Look That Damn Good Doing It: moony_blues 

She Who Can Do Just About Anything (including, but not limited to, making me do the ugly cry with Atonement; keeeeeeling Jeb; showing me the light and the love associated with next-gen fic and casting): queenof1000days 

She Whose Bad Guys Scare the CRAP Out of Me. For Serious: alamo_girl80 
--Special Party Hat for being the freaking funniest beta EVAR, for not killing me for my overuse of the word 'brunette' and for making me generally squee like there is no tomorrow.

She Who Is the Master of Description and Characterization and Makes Me Flail Right Off the Couch:  chichuri 

She Who is the Master of the Flangst: bee_1103 

She Who Is the Master of the Big Fics of Doom: countesscole 

She Who I Will Dutifully Follow Down the Old Road: lattelady6 

And, just because I can, here is the Wholly Incomplete But Still Flail Worthy OMG YOU MUST READ NAO List (mostly from the Pit, but also some LJ love):

(again with the no particular order)

Unstable Atmospherethecricket 
Coronation by Alexandra 3
Tells by chibi_kaz 
Terms of Endearment and Beautiful Disaster by Moony
Lilies to Tread by koslorollo 
Paper Flowers and Relativity by Bee
Atonement by Becks
Stimulant and The Great Divide by Mel
Blood Price and The More Things Change by Chichuri
The Good Witch by countesscole
Chemical Reactions and Say It With Flowers by Lattelady
And No Birds Sing by kseda 
 
GROUP HUG!

The Really Big Fic of Doom won three awards over at

tmfictionawards .

Holy crap.

No, really. Holy CRAP. I;ve never won anything, nor do I influence others winning anything. Seriously. I'm banned from about ten sports complexes because I'm bad luck personified.

I'm very proud of my f-list, too, because alamo_girl80 , moony_blues , allronix1 , chichuri and golden_goddess also won.  Way to go kids!  ::passes out the congrats brownies K-Unit made today::

Other than that, nothing much going on here, just watching a lot of Identification Discovery because I am a grade-A DORK, and K-Unit had the big TV for the SVU marathon that's going on despite the fact she has all of them on DVD...

 

I know this weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and while we tend to view it as the unofficial start to summer--along with the necessary remembrance of our servicemen and women--this weekend also marks another important day.

Sunday, May 25, is National Missing Children's Day. Each year, over 790,000 children are reported missing. The majority of them are runaways under the age of 18, or children taken by a non-custodial family member. Fewer numbers include children categorized as "Lost, Injured or Otherwise Missing", where the circumstances regarding the child's disappearance is unknown, and "Non-Family Abductions", where a non-family member (ie a stranger or a non-blood relative such as a babysitter) takes the child.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has made it its mission, since its inception under President Reagan and at the behest of John and Reve Walsh after the disappearance and murder of their son Adam, to intake, prepare flyers, and ultimately solve these cases. Since 2005, they are also tasked with intaking missing adult cases when the request is made by law enforcement. The Center is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There is no overtime.

The Center is comprised of several units: the Call Center (where cases are intaked), the Missing Children's Division (where domestic cases are worked), the Exploited Child Unit (where online and child pornography cases are worked), the International Division (where international cases are worked), the Case Analysis Unit (where national databases are used to find further information on children or abductors). The Center also has a NetSmartz Unit, dedicated to teaching children and parents about online safety. There is also a Cold Case Unit with two forensic scientists, who take on long-term missing cases and get DNA entered into CODIS, searching for potential matches. There is also the Forensic Imaging Unit, whose job it is to create and diseminate age progressions of children and abductors. The Center also works closely with state, local and federal agencies, including the FBI, ICE and the IRS.

For all they do, the Center's staff is only numbered at approximately 250. I was honored to be one of those staff members for four years. Believe me when I tell you that it's not an easy job, and it's definitely one that you take home with you. For every case you close, there's three more waiting to be opened. But when you get the call that something you did resulted in a child's recovery--that's the impetus to keep you going.

For fear of sounding boastful, this is one case I had a significant hand in locating. She was 3,000 miles away from home and with a 45 year old man.  We got a tip at 10:00 PM, and she was in custody less than an hour later.

If you go to the Center's website, you can sign up for email alerts to find out if a child is missing from, or believed to be, in your area. Also make sure to check out your local Wal-Mart, as many of their entrances have bulletin boards with NCMEC flyers. I can't tell you how many recoveries have resulted from these alerts.

I'll step off my soapbox now, but I wanted to alert you all to tomorrow's significance. 

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Okay, kids, teh Effie wants YOU.

I seriously need some new music, and since y'all are significantly cooler than I am, I'm turning to you for assistance.

I like pretty much anything, from current country to hardish rock.  I'm not such a fan of R&B or rap, but I'll at least take a listen and see what I think.

So HIT ME with your suggestions.  Please.  Fred the iPod is afraid of my crap and is threatening to go on strike if I make him play the same songs over and over again. 

After thirty-five days, one hundred and thirty pages and a bunch of flangst, I proudly bring you the Really Short Epilogue of Not As Much Doom, the last part of the Really Big Fic of Doom.   Charlie and I are off to the Caribbean for a long, long nap and a bunch of really strong drinks.

Last full chapter, kids.  The Really Short Epilogue of Not as Much Doom will be up later.

Dan the Disclaimer is hanging out in Chapter One, drowning his sorrows because the Sox lost in a freaking four hitter to the Blue Jays last night..  Sigh.

We're winding down, folks.  Chapter Twelve and the Really Short Epilogue of Not As Much Doom will be up during the day tomorrow.

This is for queenof1000days, because she ROCKS.  Like, whoa.  You are the angsty Statler to my "I'm way too mean to these characters" Waldorf.

Disclaimer in Chapter One.  

New router:  $49.99
Glass of wine Beebo drank while trying to hook up the router:  $7.99
Me going "Hey, maybe we should reset the modem while we're at it" and the two of us reestablishing the Internet connection after two days of no service:  Priceless.

Here's Chapter Ten.  A little bit more physical character injury, because it's war and I'm just evil that way, but nothing approaching the levels in previous chapters.  And Bob the Angst monster is still with us.

This chapter is for

countesscole , because The Good Witch is the best freaking post-Eclipse fic EVER.  I can only hope I achieve one/one thousandth of what you have in that story so far.  Dayum, but that is the best kind of good.

 

 

I am so, so, SO sorry for not getting this up sooner.  Damn Internet's been out all day, so I'm using my five minutes of connectivity wisely.  :)

Angst warning still applies.  Because, honestly, what good is this story without it?  

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

An earlier update for y'all today, because it's Monday, and you need a little angst with your morning coffee.  And if you're really, really good, perhaps you'll get Chapter Nine later on.

All right, children, gather 'round, for Auntie Effie has some warnings for you regarding this chapter:
One:  Red Sox shoutout.  (What?  They got SWEPT by the RAYS this weekend.  That's a MAJOR warning of impending apocalypse--like, I mean, get The Doctor in here, stat--in EffieLand.)
Two:  Angst.  Like it's going out of style, baby.
Three:  I hate to say it, but there's a character death.   ::ducks into the TARDIS::

Yeah, there's a Doctor Who marathon going on on SciFi right now.  I'm watching because I'm avoiding my honey-do list and I've only seen eps with Barty Crouch, Junior David Tennant (10th Doctor).  Christopher Eccleston (9th Doctor) is FUNNY.  I still don't like Rose.  And, OMG, Gwen and Tosh from Torchwood!  Before they were Gwen and Tosh on Torchwood!  And Naked!John Barrowman.  Suh-WEET.

Getting to the angst fic now.  Promise.

Disclaimer in Chapter One.



So, do you guys completely hate me now?  Probably.  Uhoh.

Okay, so the angst monster has come to play with us for the rest of the story, starting in this section.  This part is also monstrously long. I apologize to your retinas in advance.

This one goes out to nadeshiko1, because I was mean to her last night and made her wait all day for this section.  :)

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

Here we go again, kiddies.

Slightly squicky medical stuff again, as we finally get around to resetting Doc's dislocated shoulder. All the medical stuff in here is factual--everything she uses as Medic!Girl (tm alamo_girl80) was used on the battlefields of World War I.

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

 

Disclaimer, et al., in Chapter One: Begin Again. 
More squicky character assault in here.  Sorry.

( You want me, come find me. Make up your mind. )

To Chapter Five: Reclamation

Glad to hear so many of you enjoyed Chapter One! Here's the second chapter...and I'll probably post Three by the end of the day, seeing as these two are the shortest chapters of the bunch.

Thanks as always to M, B and E--my favorite letters of the alphabet. :) 

Story particulars, including disclaimer, is in Chapter One.

Chapter One: Begin Again