I talked to my grandmother up in West Virginia today and she was telling me about the flooding in some parts of the state. My dad, who lives close to DC, was telling me about the winter weather there. As much as I love Florida is December (even though it is raining tonight), I miss being somewhere that is more festive feeling simply by virtue of the chilly weather and the impending snow.

I have a very good friend who always leaves Florida for Christmas, but she and her family all head out to Las Vegas. Seems to me that Vegas isn’t any more festive than Florida, but they love the tradition. They stay in some of the nicer discount hotels Las Vegas has to offer and spend more time and money of lavish meals and shows and little bit of gambling. My pint is that leaving Florida is part of their Christmas traditions and I think it’s a great idea.

I would love to make going north part of my annual tradition, but I only have my daughter every other Christmas, so it would have to be bi-annual, I suppose. Looking forward to days of mittens and seeing your frosty breath in the air would add to our holiday anticipation. We actually did spend last Christmas up at my dad’s. The only snow we saw was on the drive through the Maryland mountains between my dad’s and my grandmother’s in the Ohio Valley. We did get to see snow, though, so I should be grateful. It was very cold, very wet, and perfect for snuggling next to the fire. Too bad Gigi got strep throat while we were there. Maybe we can give it another try in 2008.

Starting in September, all children in New Jersey attending preschool or licensed day care centers will have to get an annual flu shot.

Wow. Flue shots are such a hot button topic, with many people on both sides of the issue. If we lived in NJ, Gigi would have to get a flu shot and that upsets me. I am not sure even yet if I want her to get flu shots Her father was going to take her to get a free flu shot administered at his workplace (he works for a huge hospital conglomerate in the area), but I asked him to take a step back and think about if she really needs it or not. Lots of kids in her school have been sick already this year, but she has been fine to date.

In the past couple of years, I have got the flu once per year and Gigi has missed it altogether. It seems like I am actually the one who would benefit from having a shot before entering a school or other workplace rather than my daughter.

So ti comes down to figuring out if administering flu shots to all preschoolers will substantially cut back on how many children in any given classroom actually suffer flu symptoms each year. I will be curious to watch and see what happens in New Jersey.

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Earlier today I heard a snippet of news on the radio about an active search and rescue going on at the famed Skyway Bridge. The announced said he thought that a van may have gone into the water. I shivered a little and thought of my own van plunging over the side and that tremendously long drop.

There was also news of bodies being found in a Largo apartment after neighbors reported hearing gunshots. At the time I am not sure if anyone was reporting that the two items were related.

Now that more details are available, it seems that a teacher for Pinellas County and USF is at the heart of both situations.

Oliver Bernsdorff (also known as Thomas Bernsdorff) 36, was a suspect in the shooting deaths of his ex-wife, Jennifer Davis, 27, and her lover Andrea Pisanello, 53, who lived at the Monterey Bay apartment on Ulmerton road where the bodies were found. Neighbors reported hearing shots fired at 6:45 a.m. One child, a girl of 4 or 5 years, was found alive in the Largo apartment. This child is assumed to be Pisanello’s daughter.

The neighbor who lives above the Largo apartment says she heard 4-5 shots around 6:45 a.m. and then what sounded like hammering. She then heard a baby crying and yelling “Mommy! Mommy!” Another neighbor heard the two women who live in the apartment yelling before the shots were fired and saw a man wandering out behind the apartments who said he was lost just minutes fore the shootings. Another neighbor reported seeing a white van quickly leave the scene. Yet another neighbor says Davis was heard arguing on the phone yesterday and made a comment that if anything happened to her, people would find something in her car. There was turmoil brewing.

Then at around 10:30 a.m., a man’s body was found shot in the head in an apparent suicide inside a 1992 Toyota van registered to Bernsdorff. This is on the far Manatee County side of the bridge. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper saw the van swerving as it headed south on the Sunshine Skyway signaled for the van to pull over. As the van left the road it kept rolling into a stand of mangroves and when the trooper approached the van he saw the driver was dead. There was a handgun was inside the van.

If that is not enough, the bodies of his two children were found at Bernsdorff’s Clearwater home.

Bernsdorff filed for divorce from his wife back in August and the settlement gave him primary custody of their two children, 4-year-old Olivia and 2-year-old Magnus. Davis was ordered to pay child support and had fallen into arrears.

Records indicate that Bernsdorff was in debt, including $135,000 in student loans, $27,000 owed the IRS, a $33,000 private loan and $50,000 in credit card debt. He taught for the Pinellas County School District, as an adult basic education and GED prep instructor with the Clearwater Adult Education Center as well as taking on classes as an adjunct instructor at USF’s St. Petersburg campus.

The couple got married just a few months before my ex and I got married. I am looking at their wedding pictures online and seeing how much can change over time. I’m incredulous as I look over the webpage built by Bernsdorff. At one time he was obviously amazingly proud of his wife and his family, of the birth of their son at home, of their lives. Apparently, Davis confided to her ministers that her husband had been abusive throughout their marriage. More recently, Davis had begun living with her lesbian lover.

Bernsdorff, Davis and Pisanello had attended Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater for several years. A friend commented that the separation must have driven Bernsdorff to this. Personally, it would be hard enough for me to see my spouse take up with someone we both went to church with – especially if it was a same-sex relationship. I understand his anguish, but I cannot understand his decision to end his life, his wife’s life and the lives of his dear children.

Details continue to come to the surface.

Edited to add:
I got a call from one of my best friends the next night, because she really needed to talk. It turns out that Jenn was one of her friends. They had been in a breastfeeding group together for a couple of years, because their daughters were born 10 days apart at the same hospital. When the Bernsdorffs owned a party business, my friend had a job working for them as a birthday party hostess. She worked every weekend throwing parties for kids. She loved it. Thinking back on it, I can see now why I felt like these people were so familiar to me as I read the news stories. I’d heard about them a lot and received a lot of e-mail forwards from my friend that had originally come from Jenn. May she and her loved ones rest in peace.

Our household is smack dab in the middle of a seasonal crisis. I think I may have written earlier about my own personal dilemma in trying to figure out if I was going to tell my daughter whether or not Santa Claus is real. I went with the whole honesty is the best policy mantra and my own daughter laughed at me, rolled her eyes, and informed me she did not believe me. She had chosen to believe in Santa.

So, last week she told me she knows Santa is not real. Yet, she is not ready to fully give up on the belief. She wavers daily. She goes from sagely telling me that she knows Santa is just a story and Mommy brings all of the gifts, to worrying about whether or not Santa received her letter in time. Hence the crisis – Gigi is right at that time where she is honestly trying to figure out what she believes about Santa.

I am apt to help her believe for at least this one more year. In fact, I am thinking that uses a service that sends Letters From Santa might be a nice touch to tie up loose ends this year. You personalize a letter with your child’s name and other details and they get a real letter in mail from Santa. There are different shipping options, so there is still time. I may as well help prolong Gigi’s precious childhood. Kids are growing up all too fast in our current society.