CyberScryber's Scrybes
• Feb. 14, 2006 - Valentine's Day Snow! And Other Stuff
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Well, we survived the windstorm with only losing the power for one day. Almost every road to town was blocked by fallen trees. Poor Dusty has influenza, and the day before he realized he was sick and was just feeling generally bad and grouchy was the day of the fallen trees. He had to drive clear over the other mountain and around by his mom and dad's just to get into work. He was such a bear that day! Poor guy, then he spiked a 101 temp and started getting sick that night. He stayed in a horizontal position from Wednesday until Sunday. Yesterday I drove him to work and then to a bunch of job sites to check progress and supervise. He's on the mend though, and is going to try to come home early today. Now there is a freak snow...can't call it a storm, just snow, about an inch on the valley floor in Portland and 2 inches, might make it to 3 or 4 inches up here. It'll warm up this afternoon and change to rain though. All this is highly unusual and quite interesting for this area, I must say. I've been out taking pictures and laughing my butt off at people here. It's a nice, slushy snow and is hardly any slicker than the usual rain, but get this: the school buses and the snow plows, _yes, I said snow plows_ are all chained up. I couldn't help it, I took pictures as I was rolling around in the snow laughing. I tried to get sideways in my truck and couldn't do so easily, so I really can't figure out why they had chains on. Oh well, I guess that's what I get from being from the Rocky Mountain area. Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.  Our phone is totally out for some reason--it makes a horrific, loud, static noise when picked up. So far so good on the power though, until someone takes out another line, or the heavy wet snow does. Hope your Valentine's day is great!
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• Jan. 31, 2006 - As Promised
An
explanation as to what's been going on with older DD (17.5) and why I've not
been posting much. Basically all my spare time and energy have been going into
finding her. She ran off with her boyfriend (Shawn) Nov 2nd and is still gone
and not contacting us (please see www.findamber.com). Shawn denies knowing
where she is to us and to the police. We know he's lying because A) if he
didn't he'd be at our house asking us where she is, B) they were regularly
calling my sister on his cell phone after Nov 2nd and putting her on speaker
phone and talking to her together, telling her about all the partying they were
doing C) Chris (40 something mom of teens who we knew was a bit teched but who
we thought was harmless) admitted to me when I confronted her to having not only
known what was going on but also that Shawn brought Amber to her house and they
all visited numerous times after Nov 2nd, and a couple of those times she took
Amber to Fred Meyers and D) Ted (Amber's uncle) saw Chris and Amber together at
Fred Meyers one of those times. E) The only outgoing phone calls on her cell
phone were to Shawn, and I had the house phone in my room so I would have known
if she had called him on it, and she didn't.
According to my sister,
Cathi, Shawn's uncle is buying them alcohol whenever they want it, which is
quite frequently. They were calling Cathi every couple of days, and almost
every time she spoke with them, they were drunk, getting drunk or hung-over. We
also have a strong suspicion that other drugs are involved, as they thought it
was funny that their "roommate's" cat got "stoned".
My
mom and sister thing that Shawn is abusive and is controlling Amber because A)
abusive people isolate their victims from their family and friends. Of course
the biggy here is that she is no longer in contact with us. Also, Amber never
once called Cathi by herself, and never once was she "allowed" to talk to Cathi
privately, they were always on speaker phone. Everything Amber said, she said
in a gaurded manner. When Cathi tried to convince Amber to call us, Shawn would
claim they had a bad connection and hang up the phone. When Cathi got more
insistent, the calls quit coming. B) Abusers make their victims powerless.
Money is power, a vehicle is power, a job is power. They ran off just when
Amber started working in our office and was making some money, and right as we
were in the process of getting the Jeep we bought for her licensed for her to
drive herself around in. C) Abusers generally are possesive. Right before she
left, one of our employees got interested in Amber and I know she was flattered
by it because she was talking to me about it. I imagine that if Shawn were
possessive, all that could have been too much for him to handle. He would've
probably been afraid he would lose her so figured he'd better get her away as
quick as he could. I never thought of him as abusive, manipulative definitely,
but not sure about abusive. I do know he has a tendency to get verbally
snappish and short with her. When it happened at our house once I was on the
verge of asking him to leave when his best friend told him he was being "harsh"
on Amber. That seemed to stop him for the time being. Another time he got like
that Amber actually wrote to one of her friends about it, so yeah, I don't know
how bad it is.
We know that Amber is at fault here too, there's no
doubt about that. Bless her little heart, she's never been one of those quiet,
easy going, compliant kids. She's always had a temper, and she's been known to
make false allegations of terrible things that poeple do to her, and we are sure
she has done some of that in order to get what she wants right now. But
without Shawn egging her on, I really don't think she would have gone down this
road.
The bottom line is that Amber and Shawn had to
rationalize her running away, and the only way they could do that was to make us
out to be horrible people/parents. In reality, as well has
having hooked up with an abusive, toxic person Amber just wants to do what she
wants to do, which is basically to run wild, be with her so called friends (who
are really Shawn's friends) have sex, drink alcohol, and not have to do any
chores or be accountable to anyone for her education or anything else for that
matter. She'll be learning the hard way that she will always have to answer to
someone, no matter where she goes or what she does. I'm sure she would have
gone wild as soon as she turned 18 (5 months from now) and/or moved out and I
know some kids go through a really wild phase, and most grow out of it. I was
one of those kids myself. But, it's the fact that she and/or Shawn wanted to
alienate Amber from her family that has us worried.
The "experts" say you
need to get to know all your kid's friends in case something like this happens.
I'm here to tell you from experience that it takes more than just "knowing" and
talking to your kid's friends and finding out where they live.
The
moral of this story is: if your kid brings home a kid and you have a bad or
strange feeling about that kid, listen to that feeling. Don't worry about
being "unChristian" or prejudiced. Don't try to be "nice". This is your kid
you're talking about, and the health of your family comes before their friends
or any kind of political correctness. Check that quesitonable kid out as quick
as possible, before your kid has a chance to bond to them. Be honest and let
your kid know you don't like the kid he brought home for whatever reason, even
if it's just a gut feeling. Don't be afraid to ban certain kids from your home,
or even from your kids, but be sure to do it early, before a bond is made.
Trust your instincts. Don't buy into that "you can't pick your kid's
friends for them" new age parenting line. Sure they're going to gravitate
towards kids that are like them, and no matter how well you raise them, some
kids just have to go down that party road, but don't make it easy for them to do
that. Don't let the enemy in. It's your house, and your life too, and when you
are there, you have a right to be respected and the right to toss someone out
who is disrespectful (unless it's your own kid of course). So what if you make
a mistake and the other kid turns out be okay. No big deal. There are plenty
of good people for your kid to be friends with. If you feel bad for some poor
waif your kid drags home, by all means get that waif the help it needs, but do
not allow your kid to make a bond with anyone of questionable character.
It makes me feel a little better
to scream from the rooftops. I'll be distributing the poster that you see on www.findamber.com to a lot of people and
places. Hopefully we'll get some more leads on our daughter. People can call
me crazy, but it helps to be active and to feel like I'm doing everything
posible to find her.
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• Jan. 8, 2006 - Walking A New Cliff
This is by my 17 y/o daughter;
Amber Jean Fritz
Who would have taken the time to think about where life was going and what could happen? Well for sure I wasn't. I know I wasn't.
I broke up with a my boyfriend about a year ago. He was a good Christain, but by that time I didn't want anything to do with him or God. I started dating a good friend. Everything was going great. Sure, I had my everyday problems, but that never stopped me. I wanted to live and party hard. My boyfriend's not a Christian, nor are most of my friends. I found myself slipping away from God, thinking to myself maybe He's just a cruel person playing with germs and playing the role of God to us. Maybe we made Him up so we wouldn't feel lonely. I asked for a sign to prove He was there. I never knew what lay ahead of me.
On the Fourth of July we came home from camping in Bend, Oregon with my boyfriend, my boyfriend's friend and I, along with my family and family friends. When we got home we wanted to light off some fireworks, but we didn't have any. My boyfriend said he still had some at his house. My parents let me go, but with worry because it was the Fourth.
We made it to my boyfriend's house and started making "bombs," crushing firework powder and duct taping it like crazy. 10PM rolled around and we realized it was getting late so we headed out. We took the back roads to my house, which was all gravel. My boyfriend stopped so his friend could lock the hubs in so the back end of his Ranger wouldn't slide around as much. We turned off the music and started driving. I noticed his friend didn't have his seat belt on. I didn't say anything, because I knew I had no right to tell him to put it on. I didn't have mine on, but I was in the middle. Deep down, I still wanted it on.
After about two minutes of driving we started talking about his truck sliding around in the gravel. We were only going 20 MPH at the most when there were no corners. My boyfriend was saying that if his truck's back end slid out when he was going over 30, he'd lose control.
The windows were rolled down and we were enjoying a nice breeze. I started thinking about my seat belt again as we talked about losing control. Then we turned the corner and just like that, we lost control of the back end. I think my boyfriend was trying not to hit the bank, so he turned the wheel. We shot straight to the cliff on the side of the road. He turned to the right just to catch the back tire on the edge. I felt the brakes lock up and we slid a good 5 feet. I felt us stop, but it was to late. The back end slid off. Then I was being tossed around in the cab like a helpless bug in a jar.
I threw my hands up so I wouldn't crush my head on the roof of the cab. I felt my body being crushed, and my ribs slowly caving in. I couldn't breathe, and all I could think was "Oh God please forgive me!" I thought I was dying and it would never end. I felt helpless, and I was. It felt like a dream, a horrible painful, loud, long nightmare. We hit a tree and it stopped us. I sat there shaking, seeing nothing but dust and the glare from the headlights on the broken window.
My boyfriend started screaming and that's when I realized we had flipped. I was so shaken up, and he scared me so much, because he was screaming so loud and I thought he was hurt. I looked over at his friend and he was jumping out of the window. I got out, afraid that if I moved a muscle it would start rolling again. My boyfriend was the last to get out. I kept asking if he was ok and if his friend was ok, and they were. I did a body check on myself. I knew I was in shock because I couldn't feel a thing. I fell to the ground, wanting to cry, asking God why He would do this to us.
As we we climbed up the steep drop-off, I was talking to God, still asking why. When we got to the top and on the road, the lights on his truck were still on. My boyfriend fell to the ground on his back in the middle of the road, screaming. (It wasn't really his truck, it was his dad's truck.) I knew he was in shock, so I dropped to my knees and hugged him and told him we were all ok and it was going to be ok.
I got him out of the road and we started walking, trying to get a signal from his cell phone. About three minutes later, a truck drove up and we waved them down. They were the nicest people. They gave us a blanket and flash light and let us use their cell phone. My boyfriend's friend called my boyfriend's parents who made the call to my parents and so on. He was the calmest one and he kept me calm. I knew I had to be calm for my boyfriend. I couldn't freak out because I was his girlfriend and I'd make him feel even worse.
My dad came and picked me up and had us sit in his truck. I was so glad to be alive. My boyfriend's dad came and picked him and his friend up. On the way home I realized that it was a hard warning from God. It was the sign I had asked for. He had everything set just right so that if there was any little different move I might have made I wouldn't be here.
We rolled twice. We flipped in the air landing on all fours but we were going down hill sideways and that's what caused us to roll again. I could have sworn we rolled three times but it was only twice. It felt like it was never going to end. My boyfriend's friend said I was starting to go out the window and he caught me. My boyfriend watched us roll helplessly praying we would stop rolling. I still remember the sounds of everything being crushed, my boyfriend screaming and the trees hitting us on the way down, along with the flash of lights from the headlights.
We rolled between two trees, and if the back end or the front had hit either one of those trees it would have turned us around and we would have kept rolling, and me and his friend would have been thrown out of the truck. If it hadn't flipped in the air the first time, we wouldn't have flipped over two boulders which would have hit the cab and crushed us all. The air bag didn't go off. It comes out the steering wheel and all the way across to the passenger side. If that had gone off, it would have crushed me and pushed me out the back window.
There was a hole in the cab right above my head. Both sides of the truck were trashed. The window was broken on both sides but not the middle. The middle of the cab was perfect. Untouched. I was cut on both my knees from the shifter, and probably had whiplash, and a few cuts on my finger from getting up the hill. I also have a few scratches right under my eye and a little one over my eyebrow. My clothes were also untouched. My boyfriend had a little glass in his teeth and that was it. As for his friend, he didn't even get a scratch.
The next day we pulled the truck out and it still ran, but it was destroyed. My boyfriend's dad and mine could not believe we had on no seat belts, the windows rolled down, flipped it twice, was caught by a tree, didn't get thrown out, no one had broken anything in their body, we lived, and walked away 30 seconds after it was all said and done.
My dad says I saved those boys by crying God's name. I feel saved again. I'm looking at this as a new walk up the cliff. From now on, I'm going to trust God and hopefully become closer again and trust my feelings. I wanted my seat belt on, I should have asked my boyfriend to pull over and let me find it and I pray that this turns my boyfriend's and friend's relationship with God around and they start believing in him. I can only pray for now.
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