Thursday 11th April

The weather has been devastating in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, which are to the north and east of here.  Tornadoes devastated 24 homes in one state, and about the same number in another. 1 person died in Mississippi.  The Governors have declared states of emergency (which entitles them to Federal aid) so I think we were lucky in Oklahoma to get away with just heavy rain - which everyone wants anyway.

 

This is what a tornado looks like when it touches down.

Here in Shawnee it was very cold this morning, I went to get the donuts for Kiwanis and had to run the heater in the car for 20 minutes to de-ice the windows, then went out in 2 thick jumpers and a fur jacket.  But it warmed up during the day and I got down to a short sleeved tee shirt.

The Kiwanis speaker wasn't terribly interesting, he was an attorney talking about grandparents rights in custody battles.

I had a change of routine afterwards, instead of going to Emmanuel and out to lunch I had a meeting at the hospital with all the chaplains.   There are very big changes going on, departments and offices being moved around.  We were asked to be mindful of the stress all the staff are feeling at the moment and to minister to them as well as the patients.   And extend our areas of operations, going to the emergency room, stopping and talking to relatives in the surgical waiting room, and out to the rehab facilities on the other side of town.

It has been very sunny today, and the sunshine floods into the front room which has a double aspect, so I  take advantage of it, doing some needlework, as my eyes aren't too good in artificial light.  In fact they are not good, full stop.  I used to be able to cross stitch on fabric with 21 stitches to the inch, then it went to 18, then 14. Now I am down to 11 stitches to the inch.

I was also watching live the murder trial.  The domestic abuse witness for the defence is still on the stand, she started taking questions from the jury today.   While the court was adjourned for a while we saw a video of the defendant's father's interrogation interview, in which he said she had been lying since she was 14 years old.  So not even her parents have got her back.

The defence are trying to prolong the trial as much as possible, in the hope that the more time the jury spends in the room with the defendant the less likely they are to pass the death sentence.

The defendant herself is tweeting from prison on her Facebook page, just how much more bizarre can this case get. She telephones her friend, who then posts the tweets, and in them she is mocking the Prosecutor, which doesn't seem a very smart thing to do. Like I say it just gets more and more bizarre.