The WEek I Died: The WE-Wu for August 17-21, 2026

This one is going to be random.

Technically, I only worked two days this week. I worked Monday, took Tuesday off to go to the state fair, worked Wednesday, and then was officially on vacation Thursday and Friday. Unofficially, I was in the office working on Thursday and out of the office working on Friday.

It never stops.

Monday was full of the usual meetings. The ops meeting was helpful since I was so discombobulated after all of the computer issues. Those are ongoing since the old one works sometimes and the new one still doesn’t have everything I need. I don’t like being in the Wood Between the Worlds. (Granted, it’s better than the World Between Worlds, which was an idiotic concept and took Star Wars from sci-fi to fantasy.)

Anyway. (I may have to change the name of the blog to “anyway.” Or find another transition word.)

We are still working out changes to term 2, which is taking a fair amount of time. Granted, my computer problems haven’t helped things. But it’s also delaying French.

Moreover (nice), the longer it takes to do this, the more my team waits for work to do. And I hate to stand in the way of honest, hard-working people.

Tuesday was fair day. I was determined to make it this year. I didn’t go last year (bad timing), and I just like seeing all the things. Plus, it was $2 Tuesday, and I always like to see what the $2 special food is at each food stall. Spoiler alert, most of them were mini corn dogs. But not all! Obviously, you get smaller portions, but it’s actually just the right amount every couple of hours. Giant turkey legs are fun, but they fill you up too fast. How are you supposed to enjoy cookie butter Biscoff funnel cakes after eating a pound of meat? Anyway, see my Facebook for pictures from the fair.

Wednesday, I was starting a dog sitting job, so I started the day working remotely. But I did end up in the office for the afternoon.

And that’s when I died.

The first time.

Yes, that is how I announced it to my family. Yes, I’m a troll.

Let’s revisit last week. We found out that OMS HQ was going to be the site of three days of active shooter drills. (No, I wasn’t playing the shooter.)

I don’t really talk about it much, but OMS is actually one of the biggest soft targets in Greenwood. There are a few things about us, unfortunately, that some nut case would use to justify mass murder. Namely, we’re a Christian organization that flies the flags of many a country that any number of people could find offensive. So while it was an opportunity for Greenwood police and fire to practice for something that hopefully never happens, it was also an opportunity for us OMSers to think about what we would do in such a situation.

And maybe be a little bit obnoxious to throw some (sanctioned!) monkey wrenches into the works.

So, every 1.5 hours or so, a different group would get called to OMS under some pretense of an active shooter. For us, if your door was open, you were considered in play and had to follow the directions of the guys (and girls) with guns. Fake guns. For my time slot, I was to pretend I hadn’t heard the fire alarm or any shooting. I popped on some headphones and just kept working. And a guy did sweep our area - but I think he assumed I wasn’t ‘in play.’ So I was not evacuated. I’m just assuming my death here, but I reserve the right to be dramatic.

I came back on my day off to give them a chance to redeem themselves. I participated in two drills on Thursday. In the first one, they never actually swept the TAM wing, which tells me a lot about just how many weird side spaces there are in the building and how difficult it would be to clear our building.

Dead again.

In the third, I learned just how intimidating it is to have a burly man with a blue gun spin your chair around and tell you to get out of the building.

The drills were done on Thursday, so I (mostly) honored the vacation day I’d taken on Friday.

I’m going to pivot at this point and truly earn the random appellation. You may want to leave now. I don’t know how controversial I’m going to be, but I’m definitely going to bring up some difficult subjects and write my way to figuring out how I feel about them.

Is anyone else following the Lindsay Clancy case?

If you are, you have opinions. Probably strong ones. If you’re not, and you don’t want to talk about child murder, turn back now. This is your last warning.

Lindsay Clancy lives in Massachusetts. In January 2023, she strangled her three children to death. (This is undisputed, despite what some weirdos on TikTok might think.) After she murdered her children, she threw herself out of a second story window. She paralyzed herself but ultimately survived.

I don’t call myself a true crime junkie because I have self respect and a little bit of self delusion. I just find crime stories fascinating. I find a lot of things fascinating. I like learning about the investigations and the lawyering. I tend to favor historical crimes because they’ve either already been solved or it’s been so long that no one involved is still around. If I’m watching a YouTube documentary, I try to pick ones that emphasize the victims rather than idolize the killers.

The Clancy case is not one I would normally gravitate to. I don’t generally like cases that involve children, and there’s a little too much family drama wrapped up in it. But one of the lawyers I watch has been recapping the trial. He’s normally very level headed and factual, despite being Canadian, but there was something about his coverage of this case that just bothered me. And then the case blew up on social media, and I was able to label a little bit of what that was.

No one is arguing that Lindsay Clancy didn’t kill her kids. The Commonwealth is alleging that she did it knowingly and with premeditation. The defense says it was a postpartum psychotic compulsion - not guilty by reason of insanity.

Firstly, I hate that phrase. “I didn’t know what I was doing, therefore I’m not guilty.” I can accept that someone legitimately had psychotic episode. But the act still happened. And I am well aware that if Lindsay Clancy is acquitted, she doesn’t go free. She just doesn’t go to prison. She will go to a psychiatric facility. Remember Andrea Yates? She’s still in a mental hospital. That’s good. That’s probably where they both belong. I don’t think prison is capable of treating these kinds of cases.

But what really bothered me about the lawyer’s analysis was that he just accepted writ large that this was a case of PPP. He doesn’t normally pick a side, and yes, the prosecution has pulled some nasty stunts, and yes, Massachusetts is a wasteland when it comes to the justice system. But I usually expect a little more neutrality.

I haven’t watched every minute of this trial. Here’s what I know: Lindsay Clancy did seek help; she was given prescriptions for a lot of different SSRIs; her husband worked from home to help her; her mom visited often to help her; she was eight months postpartum; her now ex-husband has been as supportive as he can be.

I don’t know what it serves the Commonwealth to try this case. I think I would have secured some kind of deal to commit her. I don’t know that killing her would change anything - the family doesn’t want that, and if she was suicidal (which clearly she was), you’re just giving her what she wants. Get her into treatment and let her live with what she did. Have an actual conversation about the mental health crisis in America and actually do something about it. Look into why SSRIs seem to be causing a lot of problems.

But instead you have all of these social media moms and ‘experts’ who have every opinion under the sun. They think Patrick Clancy actually killed the kids or that PPD is just being a little sad or that they are helping the situation by doing their hair and makeup and then throwing ice cubes into a bathtub or that (in extreme cases) Lindsay Clancy didn’t do anything wrong.

In all of this noise, there are three children who have become chess pieces. Cora, Dawson, and Callan are dead. The last thing they saw was their mother’s face as she strangled them. That’s really sad.

I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with this case. It’s already making me angry, and I get enough of that elsewhere. But I just wanted to get a little bit of that off my chest.

Sorry to be a downer. I’m going to go cuddle some dogs.

Bye!