bazaar bizarre

It goes against all that is right to spend a Saturday at school, but we make an exception for the annual school bazaar. I read there would be pancakes, unicycles, face painting, live music, a vintage market and a gnome forrest. Really, they had me at 'pancakes'.

In Lara's classroom some of the parents donated handmade items to be sold to financially aid the school. Naturally I donated some of my knitting/crocheting. Not exactly sure how much of it was sold because we had to leave a bit early, but I just found out we made nearly 120 Euro's. I know that's not a lot in the scheme of things, but I'm still a little bit proud. I donated the two little purses on the bottom, the two grey knit baby hats, and the white shawl.

That was the bazaar part of this post. Things started getting bizarre when we got in the car to go home and heard a news anchor on the radio talk about a shooting at a mall in Alphen a/d Rijn. A 25-year-old man with an automatic weapon killed 6 people, wounded many, many more, and then shot himself. Alphen a/d Rijn is a mere 10km away from here, and I remember staying in one of the appartments that overlooks that mall. This man had permits for all of the weapons he owned. I just don't know what to say. My heart aches for everyone who has suffered loss because of this useless act of violence. As I am typing this I hear an ambulance driving past somewhere closeby. The sound of the siren fades and Sander tells me that a Dutch person has tweeted that he is going to one-up today's shooter's number of kills. 

I won't be watching the news for a while, I fear the bizarre.