I needed that.

Went to church today. Actually, we went to church last week as well, but it was just kind of meh.

I enjoyed myself this week, though. Really felt more as if I was back in the fold. This is in no small part because Tommy & Sharon were there, and they are fixtures of the church.

We had a guest priest today. I don't remember her name (which isn't meant as a dis; I barely remember my own most days)...Karen something-or-other, I think. She's retired. St. Mark's actually has a rotating contingent of retired priests who come through and help us out. We did not replace the Associate Rector when she left; this leaves us with two full-time priests (the Rector, Mike Chalk, & the Assistant Rector, Jonathan Wickham--it's generally Jonathan of whom I speak when I say "my priest") and saves us a little bit of money. It's also really neither here nor there.

At any rate, the lessons were something I needed to hear today. For some strange reason we drop the OT reading during the summer, so we read from James and from Mark.

This, from James, stuck with me:

But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act-they will be blessed in their doing.

I have always held my political beliefs up to my religious ones and done my best to ensure the two mesh. The theory for us Christians is that God's law informs all we do in life, and politics is not exempt from that. (Note, please, that I am not advocating theocracy.) So to see mention of "the perfect law, the law of liberty" in our lesson today stuck with me. I try to live in such a way as to preserve the most amount of liberty possible for others, in the expectation that I will then be free to live my life as I please as well. Not a hard idea to understand, is it?

The Gospel today was from the book of Mark, and one of Jesus's most important teachings as far as the way the Church should conduct itself:

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Granted, I was sitting there listening to the first part of this, where the talk is of the Pharisees observing Jesus's followers eating with defiled hands, because they haven't washed themselves, or their food, or their utensils, and I was thinking "Screw disease control, we've got God on our side!" But the last paragraph, which I've quoted, is much more instructive. Evil comes from the human heart. All of the evil in the world has been wrought by human hands and most conceived of by human hearts. I'm continually bedeviled by self-serving relativists who pretend there is no such thing as evil (my favorite of the week was the chickie who tried to equate wearing flip-flops to church with adultery--I shit you not), generally in an attempt to rationalize their own shortcomings. Now, I'm not wholly innocent in this, but I do try.

I didn't catch the entire sermon, though I did my best. I make it a point to go to the CAYA service in no small part because a little rowdiness from children is tolerated; nevertheless I had to escort the smallest one to the back because she wanted to sit with Emmet, and referee the other two and a whole bunch of other stuff not conducive to actually paying the sermon my whole attention.

She managed--and I thanked her for this after the service--to remind me why I am generally quite glad to be an Episcopalian. She spoke of the three pillars of the Church--Scripture, Reason, and Tradition. She even managed to echo my line about not being expected to turn your brain off when you come inside the church. It was pretty nice.

Rev. Wickham popped up at the end of the service to hold a blessing for a couple of departing members. The girl, who was moving back to DC to be with her family, I am not best familiar with. Tony I've seen around a few times, but never really got to know him. He came in during the sermon and sat in the back row.

Tony, it seems, is about to deploy. He's there in sunglasses, an Army National Guard shirt, with his iPod around his neck. They call him up for the blessing and hand him a little wooden cross and one of the ubiquitous green prayer books. They call up our lone present vet, a civilian contractor, and the visiting priest, who's apparently a retired chaplain, lay on hands, pray over him, and then break out this sucker. Now, I must admit I've never been a particular fan of this "blessing."

Given the circumstances, however, I am unable to keep a straight face. It occurs to me that, where Tony's going, the road rising up to meet him would be a very bad thing, and probably indicative of an explosion. If we're going to be doing this on a regular basis--which, granted, we are not--we need to rewrite it to something more appropriate, perhaps involving the only explosions being ones we generate, reasonble ROE, and ah hell, let's throw in something about the blood of our enemies. Just for fun.

One more song and the service broke up. I told Tony good luck--he was sitting right behind us--and then stepped the hell out of the way.

I hope he stays safe.

Y'all knew I'd get this one, right?

CNN was on at McDonald's this afternoon. It was a harsh reminder of why I hate cable news in general & them in particular. The talk seesawed back and forth between Ted Kennedy and Michael Jackson. We were in there about half an hour, maybe a little more, and there was about a ten-second soundbite wherein the news anchor said another American serviceman had been killed in Afghanistan, making August the bloodiest month so far. (Out of what timespan I am not certain, so let's go with the last year.)

Staff Sergeant Clayton P. Bowen was one of those men. He was killed the day before my birthday, & was my age (well, the age I was then). I did not know him, though the name does sound familiar--he went to Churchill.

His funeral was today.

Army Staff Sgt. Clayton P. Bowen was a soldier who always showed up, a guy you could count on.

There was the time at Fort Jackson, S.C., when Staff Sgt. Phillip Warner had just moved into his house. The guy standing with a friend of Warner's was someone he hadn't seen before, but would soon come to know.

“I hadn't even started working yet and was just happening to do some stuff, and the next thing you know Clay is over there,” he said. “He's coming over helping me do things at the house. He was like gravity.”

I know y'all know where I'm going with this. I probably don't even have to type it out at this point, because if you read this blog regularly not only do you know what I'm about to say, you've probably said it yourself.

But I'm going to say it anyway. Not for my benefit, or that of my regular blog readers. See, one thing SiteMeter has shown me is that I get a fair number of hits from people searching the names of these men that I mention here from time to time. Sharing what Fred wrote about Adam wound up demonstrating that it's most likely family and/or friends who are conducting these searches, looking to see what's been said about their loved ones. So I'll say it even though y'all know the words to this song (sing it with me!):

I don't give a good goddamn about Teddy Kennedy. Scott Stroud called him--accurately--"perhaps the ultimate political Rorschach test." I'm really really Right. I file Teddy Kennedy under Waste of Oxygen.

I don't care about Michael Jackson. I never liked his music. I haven't gained appreciation for it as an adult (the way I've recently done with Nirvana). I don't particularly care that his death was recently ruled a homicide (though, really, lots of folks on teh intarwebz really need to look up what that word actually means, which is not "ZOMG he was MURDAREDED). I don't give a flying fuck who shot him up with what, or why. Srsly.

I give a damn about Clay Bowen. I give a damn about John Hallett, Cory Jenkins, Ronald Sawyer, Dennis Williams, Andrew Lobosco, Matthew Ingram, Justin Pellerin, Brian Wolverton, Paul Dumont Jr, Adam Benjamin, Troy Tom, Jonathan Yanney, Morris Walker, Leopold Damas, William Woods, Jr, Nicholas Roush, Joshua Bernard, William Cahir, John Tinsley, Bruce Ferrell, Patrick Schimmel, Javier Olvera, Tara Smith, Matthew Swanson, Dennis Burrow, Jerry Evans, Matthew Freeman, James Argentine, Travis Babine (I remember being passed by a couple of Patriot Guard riders on their way to his funeral in New Braunfels), Christian Guzman Rivera, Jay Hoskins, Anthony Garcia, Alejandro Granado, Ronald G Luce, Jr, Severin Summers III, Patrick Fitzgibbon, Richard Jones, Jonathan Walls, Alexander Miller, and all the others.

Now, I'm not going to lie and say I cry at night for them. I don't know a one. But I know their like who (thankfully) are still alive. I go to school with veterans. I recognize the backpacks.

They are...people, like everyone else. Some great. Some fairly useless. Most well between those extremes. I am certain the men who died this month ran the exact same gamut. At least two of them were my age. At least one was Fred's age. Far more of them were younger than both of us.

I'm really not sure what I want here, to be honest. I doubt these guys gave a whole lot of thought to their own mortality. Most folks in their twenties don't. As I was recently reminded, they "deal with death mostly in a joking way." They had a job, they did it. They died.

But...Well...I'm a girl. I can't shrug shit like this off. For every single person in that paragraph, there is at least one person huddled in their bed as I write this (at 11 o'clock on a Friday night), curled into the fetal position, wondering why the fuck God hates them. And that's what gets me. I can't be any other way. I didn't know them. I didn't love them. But another woman somewhere did.

I know this truth too: The military conducts 99% of what it does away from the eyes and attention of any sort of media. It's a far better thing, overall. Leave them alone, let them do their job, stay the hell out of the way. I get it. I even get that Ted Kennedy's death is a major news story.

But I'm not going to apologize for finding the media shallow.

(At the risk of this appearing tacked-on: head on over to Texas Ghostrider's blog & read what he's written about someone else who mattered a fuck of a lot more than Michael Jackson. He says pretty much the exact same thing about the media, albeit with a different focus.)

Update: Because I'm not sure who'll see the comments, I'm going to put this one in here:

I knew clay both in, and out of work. I know clays family and friends. Clay was an outstanding soldier and friend. He made a huge impact on training throughout the army. His family and friends gave testament to his impact on them by clogging up San Antonio highways for a four and a half mile long funeral procession in addition to hundreds of calls of support for his family. Clay was the friend you wanted to have and the soldier you you wanted to work with.

SFC Lester Case
USAMU

Thank you for that. Sounds like Clay was a hell of a person, and the world is duller without him.

A clear, nonalcoholic liquid...

Well, then.

In my neck o' the woods (NE side), it's actually rained three days in a week's time. Seriously. Rained last Friday. Rained last night. Rained today.

At least, I think that's what that stuff is called.

Think that's amazing? Check this, y'all:



That's the coming forecast. Now, my Texas readers (who by far outnumber everyone else, not that it's a difficult thing) will get it immediately, but I'll spell it out for the rest of you:

There are only two digits in the high temperature each of those days.

And seriously, y'all check out Monday! I may have to break out the long pants and wear a shirt that actually has sleeves!

Oh no, you didn't...

I was gonna bitch about this yesterday, but then I got pictures in e-mail and so wasted lots of time giggling like a preteen girl instead...

Two things stuck out about the first day of school:

My favorite class is going to be Creative Writing. Of course, I knew this going in. We did the introductions thing, and I think I managed to sell a copy of MHI to my prof (who scribbled down Larry Correia's name when I mentioned him). I mentioned that I blog--thus far, I am the only one willing to admit to this--and am writing a novel.

What we were supposed to be doing was giving our name, major, favorite authors, and experience (if any) with creative writing. It zipped through about half of the class. We have people who love authors as diverse as Phillip K. Dick, Ayn Rand, Stephanie Meyer, Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, and of course Stephen King (whom two of us claimed). One person even gave a nod to James Cameron.

Before we started, the prof told us "This is the only time I will tell you this in this class, but if you don't have a favorite author, lie!"

You know what's coming, right?

The last or penultimate student to do her intro said "I don't have a favorite author, 'cause I don't really like to read." (Shortly after declaring herself an Education major, of course.)

Blraurgh? Really? Then what, chica, are you doing in a freaking Creative Writing course? Do you think you won't have to read here? The poor thing, she probably crapped herself when she discovered we have three textbooks for the class (one being the 2007 ed. of Best American Short Stories). She probably also cried when the prof discussed the workshop aspect of the course: we will all be expected to turn in two fiction manuscripts for critique by the entire class. This means that each of us will be expected to read 44 short stories/novel excerpts. Due to the length requirements, this translates out to anywhere from 352 to 792 pages. Most of which, frankly, will probably be mediocre--if we're lucky. I look forward to this aspect of the class. I plan to submit this story and part of the novel I'm working on. I should get some good feedback.

I cannot imagine, however, having any interest in such a class if I didn't like to read. You cannot hope to be a good writer if you are not also a reader. It's really that simple. How on Earth can you expect to have the slightest clue about pacing a scene (or even what a scene is) without reading? How can you write believeable dialogue without reading unbelieveable tripe? How can you know where to end a story without finishing books? And why would you pay a couple of hundred dollars to be forced to do this stuff?

Shall I take bets on how fast she drops the course?

Now, the other interesting thing from yesterday:

The charter school my two older daughters attend has a brand-new principal. And he doesn't like the idea of us walking to our kids' classrooms to pick them up.

Here's a clue, as it's obviously needed by some people: Antagonizing the parents who care enough to be involved on your first day of school is an incredibly bad idea.

I would like to think I provided the others with some entertainment. See, they're setting up this spiffy new system wherein they scan your TXDL and up pops a little something saying whether you're a law-abiding citizen or a sex offender. It's for the good of the children, don't you know.

So we all expressed our willingness to be scanned, and then I asked the principal why that wasn't enough of a safeguard for us to be able to pick up our kids. Well, we can't risk someone just waltzing up to a teacher and demanding a random child, don't you know. "So, did we have a crime problem here last year none of us knew about?"

Er, no. But, he asked, have you ever seen a sex offender map?

Of course I have. And I also know that children are far more likely to be abused by a family member or someone they know very well rather than a random person who will apparently be able to wander into my child's school undetected and, even after being found to be a sex-offender when he has his TXDL scanned, will then be able to walk up to a random class, demand a random child, and be given said child, with no questions asked.

Either that, or he's trying to fix a non-existent problem. See, all of us managed to pick our children up last year without blood running down the hallways.

So, then, it changed. We'd be disrupting the learning that's going on right up until 1500. (Yeah, right. Because if my kid misses out on the last 5 minutes of her kindergarten day, she'll never be able to draw a line between the puppy and the dog house.) I said I like to interface with my child's teacher for a couple of minutes at the end of the day. Apparently, I only thought I was doing this last year, because in reality when I and the other parents who picked up their kid from Mrs Dudley's class were speaking with her, she completely lost control of her class. Nevermind that they all performed their end-of-the-day duties as well as can be expected from first graders, and Mrs Dudley would occasionally stop our conversation to correct one of them. Nope, we were disrupting the learning experience and endangering our children.

Either that, or Mr. Cuellar is a barking moonbat. I vote for that option. (And I'm damn tempted to play Dumb White Woman and murder the pronunciation of his name every time I see him. Hey, Mr Cellar!)

At any rate, I think one of the other parents and I are likely to get in trouble. We were discussing the implications of this policy shift as we waited for our daughters to show up outside. (For some reason, the idea of sending the kids who are to be picked up by their parents to the front lobby was rejected. Probably because it makes sense.) See, he never realized how crime-ridden the school was either. Apparently, kids were getting kidnapped left and right last year. We got kind of silly with it.

"Ooh, Johnny, you drew the target shirt. Go to the range now."

"The following children have been randomly selected to be kidnapped tomorrow, so if your child's name is on this list, you might want to keep him or her at home."

"They sent in the Roman legion to kill every tenth child without us noticing."

"If your child has been selected to wear a black shirt, don't bother picking them up today. Here's a list of adoption agencies where you can find a replacement."

I'm doing my part for you old guys

Fair warning: I am in a silly mood at the moment and really ought to be going to sleep, but I'm posting instead. So, consider yourself warned.

The young man with whom I am corresponding is in fact forty-two years old. The way our birthdays are situated, he's slightly more than 12 years my senior. Or, to put it another way, he's been in the military since I was six or seven.

To be honest, I was a teenager the last time I found forty-something old. And I didn't find guys in my age group interesting even when I was in high school (though I did, briefly, have a boyfriend merely 2 years my senior). Still, there's always in the past been that mental block of about a decade, in no small part because middle-aged men have found me attractive ever since I was, oh, 15 or so. I could play coy about why I found this particular man interesting, but the truth is more amusing: in the first photograph I saw of him, he was armed with both an Evil Black Rifle and a 9mm. (Eventually I will force him to explain that pic to me, as he's not in a combat specialty.)

Why I continue to find the man interesting is much more prosaic. He's incredibly attractive, prone to hilarious non sequiturs (the absolute best of which is unprintable in this blog, even given my penchant for curse words), and the smartest man I have met in a good long while. Chances are it will go nowhere (I hope I am wrong about this); nevertheless he has officially ruined me for my own age group.

And yet I am not content to leave things at that...

I correspond online with a group of single mothers, several of whom are actively dating. One mama--two years younger than I--recently ended a whirlwind romance with a man around my ex-husband's age. One of his main problems (again reminding me of my ex) was that he is rather immature and childish--he expected to have a woman to do everything for him short of wiping his butt. And probably even that if he thought he could get away with it.

Ever irrepressible, I mentioned to her my recent penchant for older gentlemen, telling her pretty much what the good women at Mama Drama told me (back last year when I was briefly being pursued by a 45-year-old engineer). Chief among my arguments was this: by that age, the men and the boys have pretty well separated themselves out.

So yesterday I came to find out she has opened herself up to correspondence with a 4o-year-old gentleman, giving her the exact same age-spread. For bonus points he is even an Air Force veteran. She jokingly asked if I was proud of her for going for an older guy--why yes, yes I am. I am also now wildly amused by myself, and quite tempted to see if I can get other twentysomethings to go for fortysomethings as well. Just because.

(mostly) Wordless Wednesday

So, tomorrow is my birthday.

I'd totally like to claim that I won't be online tomorrow, but we all know what a damn lie that would be. I do have plans, though, that involve going off all by myself, but I'm still waiting on one final part of the plan to fall into place before I know if I will be actually celebrating my birthday or just sitting at home worrying about stuff. I'm actually pretty confident.

Let me say that again: I'm actually pretty confident.

Not about my plans tomorrow, but about life in general. And since I'm about to hit a new decade mark, I get to navel-gaze all the hell I want. (Which y'all know I like to do anyhow.) I'm gonna get it out of the way today, though. I went back and read through my archives yesterday and on the one hand it's kinda depressing but on the other it's actually pretty cool. I got to see again all the support I got when I needed it, and that is a humbling thing.

I probably never said this in so many words, so I'll do that now:

Thanks, guys.

Thanks to Mark and Murphy and MattG and Dave and knitalot3 (I know you've changed your username, but I can't remember what to right now!) especially. Looking back I see how often y'all commented in those darkest days, and I remember MattG rallying the troops when I had my miscarriage. I appreciate that more than I can really put into words.

I am enjoying myself more these days. I'm still working on it. On everything. But it's moving. I don't know if I climbed over the top of the mountain or just stood up and realized it's truly just a hill or what, but suddenly it all seems manageable now.

Considering how hard a time I had letting go (which, for the record, I do think was justified), I'm actually now amused by the fact that I am gone. When I first started going through this I remember talking with a friend from church and saying I was being forced to review my marriage through a totally different lens. He told me it didn't really matter in the end, that I was where I was. But he was wrong. The reevaluation had to happen. The plain truth is that it was rotten for a long time and by the time it ended, I had spent years feeding myself lies to try to blunt an ever-present pain. I am trying not to fall all the way over to the other side, because there were plenty of good times mixed in amongst the bad, but fuck it. It's over now and I am finally realizing I am better off. Far, far better off.

I am done with a year of college and entering into my second year. It will take all of this one and probably another semester besides before I get all the bedamned prerequisites out of the way and can apply to nursing school. I'd rather take it slow and stroke my GPA (currently 3.98) than rush and wind up on the waiting list. All the same I'd rather be in it now, but I know that's not the way it's going to work. I am looking at another math class this semester, plus chemistry, and also Creative Writing and First Aid. I have a 3-credit-hour First Aid course! I should probably not be as excited about that as I am.

What else, what else?

I am very very early into the second draft of a novel I think actually has some potential. I hope to not bother my Creative Writing professor too much by working on it before class. I must confess to abandoning the first draft before it was finished, but it just wasn't working. We will see now if I can finish it; I had planned to have it done by the end of the summer but of course that didn't happen.

I haven't picked up a crochet hook in a little while. Too damn hot. I don't remember the last time I updated my crochet blog. Ah well. This one has finally bypassed the number of posts I had in the other. Sometimes it's odd to remember that this was started because I didn't want to muck up my crochet blog talking about other stuff!

Facebook has turned out to be a real blessing to me. Something I never thought I'd find myself saying. But check this out:



That's me and my daughters and my friend Shantillia and her son day before yesterday. Know the last time I had seen her before then? 1993. She was one of my only friends in elementary and junior high. We found each other via Facebook.

Wanna see something even better?



That's my sister and kids a couple of weeks ago. I found her through Facebook! Let me tell you, it was hard to find her. Lots and lots of people in this city with her name. But I found her. And this hole inside of me healed up. It doesn't come through clearly in this picture, but my kids look like her. Especially Miss Linda, who is sitting in her lap and of course is named for her. She is the one who wasn't named until she was about a day old (Miss Linda), and I remember starting to cry and saying her name was Linda, it just was. I guess now it's because of how much the two Lindas look alike!

And then there is Fred, but there is not much to say about him right now. And very well may never be. And I'm okay with that, which in a way is its own blessing. I like him. I think he's pretty groovy and I hope he will at least be a friend I will always have. I am sometimes kind of thrown by the fact that he seems to like me, but I get the impression that he is sometimes kind of thrown by the fact that I like him, so I guess it works. Which I guess is enough of an explanation for now.

I'm gonna be pissed if I have to wean myself off Air Force jokes though.

I did love the book.

I should let my fellow bloggers dictate what I read a lot more often, I guess.

There was a time when I picked my books solely based on how large they were. MHI is 700+ pages. Took me five days to read it.

Think about that. It means I put my computer down and stopped checking my e-mail pathetically in order to read this book. For a little while, I liked Larry Correia more than I do Fred. OK, not really. But since Mr. Correia found that last post Googling his book, I figure I better suck up.

Seriously, it's a really, really, really good book. And I say this as a bookworm. As someone who was/is always "the chick with the book." As someone whose preferred genre for the past decade or so has been urban fantasy.

Before buying this, I had just finished reading a book called Stray, which was so mediocre I'm not even going to bother looking up the author's name. Hey, it was half price, and I really like the author who did the cover blurb, I was desperate at the time and it didn't sound totally bad. Last Wednesday, though, I needed a book to read while I waited for The Hurt Locker to start (see my post about being manly), and in Borders I remembered that everyone was talking about Monster Hunters International and since I was already going to go see a movie based on a blog's recommendation, why not pick up a book based on the same thing.

I am so glad I did.

Know what one of my greatest pet peeves is in books? Plot points based on the stupidity of the main characters. In Stray, the main character got kidnapped by the bad guys because she went wandering around in the dead of the night alone, even knowing that she was in danger.

Know what the best part of this book was? There was none of that shit. The main character had a prophetic dream, saw portions of it coming true, and told his fucking boss about his dream. He continued to do this throughout the book. So there were setbacks, but no setbacks due to stupidity. I mean, come on. You know you've watched a movie and said to yourself "You know, if they'd just opened their mouths and told someone, none of this shit would have happened." Owen Pitt opens his mouth and tells someone. Shit still happens, but the people in the book are better prepared because of what he's said, and the whole thing is like a zillion times more real because of it.

Now, it's a stretch to call anything 700 pages long tightly written, but there was very little padding here. Yeah, the battle scenes were more detailed than I really care about and honestly my eyes glazed over a little with all the gun talk, but that's not a problem with the book, it's just a matter of taste. The book was fairly obviously written by a man for men, so I expect things like that. If I had more knowledge of guns, I doubt I'd have even noticed all the gun talk. I think it's significant, though, that at no point did it seem like more shit was being shoveled on just to make the book longer. Never once did I wonder if he was getting paid by the word. (If you've ever read Robert Jordan, you know exactly what I mean.)

Also, another really good point: The characterizations were nice. Mr Correia took a lot of characters that could have been utter stereotypes and put just enough of a spin on them. I mean, yeah, I'd like to take exception to the ex-SEAL Sam, but dammit I'm from Texas and I was married to a sailor for seven years. I can't argue that shit. His take on the monsters was similarly just enough of a change to make it interesting, and the MHI guys in general struck me as pretty real. (Oh, and a government bounty on monsters? Genius. And funny.)

The only quibbles I have:

The whole withering/writhing thing. Some stuff, spell check will not help. When something is withering, it's turning brown, shrinking, and dying back. When it's writhing, it's moving sinuously. It was obvious what he meant, but in something so well-written (and here I speak of mechanics--there were no stupid misspellings, and only a comma splice or two) it really stuck in my craw.

The romance thing was just a wee bit too pat. Julie's switch didn't make much sense, given the circumstances, and even her explanation of it later on didn't really work. But hats off for the fade-to-black thing, dude, because almost no one does that anymore.

Overall, great book. I'm glad I grabbed it, and I'm probably going to start hunting his website to see when the next one will be on the shelves.

Just finished Monster Hunter International

More on it over the next day or two. One thing for now:

For the love of all that's holy, Mr Correia, please learn the difference between writhing and withering!



Thank you; I feel better now.

One for the moms: It's the little things.

In the background of one of the pictures Fred sent me you can see his door. And in that door is a key.

I envy him that key. A key means a lock. A lock means you can keep people out.

I just got out of the shower. Before I got in the shower, I made sure the children had food and drinks. Even candy. God knows they have toys. They also have my mother to take care of things they might not be able to take care of themselves.

You'd think I could take a shower without being bothered. The mothers who read this are now laughing. Schadenfreude is a beautiful thing, jawohl? 'S okay, I took one for the team.

Three children. Five interruptions. Not counting the indirect, yelling ones.

"Mommy, open my Lun-a-ble for me! Sissy say she won't open my Lun-a-ble."

"Mommy, I ate my nachos, can I eat my candy?"

"Mommy, look at my thumb and tell me if there's an ouchie on it. It hurts." (Mind you, I am very very very nearsighted, and no I do not wear my glasses in the shower.)

"Mommy, can I have candy?"

"Mommy, look at my hands! My hand need washing. Can I wash my hands?" While shoving them into the shower with me...

"Mommy, I'm thirsty and I don't wanna drink water!"



Anyone want to guess how often I've had to pause in writing this post in order to handle the munchkins?

Yet another problem with Cash for Clunkers

JayG nicely laid out the biggest issues with this program a little while ago over at his blog. Today I'm sharing an e-mail from my friend Marie in Virginia (yes! I have friends in Virginia! I know that blows your mind, but she's not in Hampton Roads), who ran afoul of rule #2, sorta:

(2) have been continuously insured, in accordance with State law, and registered in the same owner’s name for the one-year period immediately prior to the trade-in

See, Marie was trying to trade in her 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee on an 09 Subaru Forester, and was really counting on the $4500 credit to be able to afford to do this. But she can't. Because...Well, I'll share her e-mail, as she's asked me to help get the word out:

Dear,

I am writing to you in the hope that you might be able to help me. I am a current military spouse being denied a $4,500 Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) credit for a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The reason for this is a nuance in the CARS legislation- that my name did not appear on the registration of the car for the entire year. The specific clause that is barring me from utilizing the credit is "Changes in ownership during this period to delete a co-owner due to death or divorce do not interrupt the continuity of the registration, so long as the purchaser has been shown as an owner on the registration for the entire period."

There is a very good reason why my name was never on the registration for the car until March 09. The guidelines by the military for those military members who are residents of a state other than VA is that cars should only be registered in the service member's name (spouse's name absent - even though it is joint property).

The only reason why this car is now in my name is because we are in the process of a divorce. Prior to March, the car was registered only to my husband- my name was not on the registration. We have a marital settlement agreement which states that all the cars we owned were considered joint property. In fact, when I transferred title to my name in March, the state of Virginia recognizes divorce/separation title changes and no state tax was required to transfer title. The state recognized that this was joint property by not requiring tax at that point, so I'm befuddled as to why the Federal Government doesn't categorize it as joint as well.

The 2 main goals of the CARS (aka cash for clunkers) program are to: a) get gas guzzling (and unsafe) autos off the road that are there now and b) to stimulate the ailing auto industry. Both of which, I have accomplished by purchasing a new vehicle and trading in the "clunker"

The Government has some pretty stringent rules as to what and who qualifies. Most of these are justifiably necessary. They all pertain to whether the "clunker" has been owned and driven legally for at least the past year by the person turning it in. I strongly feel that the spirit of the legislation was not to bar persons such as myself for taking advantage of the program. Especially since this particular "clunker" has been my main source of transportation for 6 years.

I'm now a single mother, working for the Navy, trying to get a safer vehicle to shuttle kids around- and it seems that I'm being penalized by a technicality- brought about by the suggestion of the military. To add insult to injury, by the definition- even my husband doesn't qualify to turn the car in under this program. By the strictest interpretation of the rule- even military spouses who lost their spouse to death and transfer registration into their names (if they weren't on there before) aren't eligible either.

It seems to me that a clarification or modification to what exactly constitutes ownership could be in order. If the vehicle was joint property of a married couple, for instance - and one can prove that their spouse and registration had the same address as the current registration.

I hope you can help in this matter. I look forward to hearing from you.

Very Respectfully

Marie B.

So. This is a prime example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Or a corollary to the law of dumbass Congressmen. One or the other. In spite of the vehicle being registered in accordance with State Law, in spite of Marie being owner of the vehicle by virtue of it being joint marital property, in spite of Marie being the one to pay for all costs associated with that car (including the registration), because the registration was only recently amended to have her name on it, she's out. Now, I'm not a fan of the program for a whole bunch o' reasons. But this is a prime example of how even trying to do what the gov't wants you to blows up in your face.

I feel so manly.

Alternate title: my entertainment choices are now entirely dictated by the blogosphere.

Bought my copy of Monster Hunter International at Borders this afternoon. Haven't even gotten to the part where the main character throws his boss out the window (which I'm assuming happens within the first few pages), but I've already snickered at it so it's all good. Larry Correia just made, what seventy cents off me? That's almost enough for a cheeseburger at McDonald's. (Hell, I'm just proud I remembered how to spell his name. I thought Sabra was bad.)

Went and saw The Hurt Locker, because Alex told me it was good and shit if you can't take the word of a blogger you've never met or even e-mailed, who can you trust?

Don't answer that.

And...the movie was good. I went into it knowing it was gonna be shit technically, because of the review, but good other than that. And there were a couple of things that pegged even my civilian bullshit meter.

I won't pretend to review it here, 'cause his telling does a better job than mine. And I cannot come up with a better ratings system than burning cars.

But I can add that there was one scene, when the main character calls his wife, that got me, because I remember flat-out running for the phone every time it rang during a deployment. Can't take the chance of missing his call!

So, good movie. Even with the stretching of credibility. There was one little interchange in the midst of an improbable episode (after the magic fire extinguisher puts out the burning car) that--while utterly predictable--was still funny and effective. I like a movie that can do that. And I liked the ending, which totally made up for some eyerolling a few minutes before. It was also kind of predictable and kind of pat, and still managed to rise above itself.

Imma go scratch myself all man-like now.

Sounds fishy.

So, remember last week's brouhaha about e-mailing any "fishy" conversations about healthcare reform to the White House?

My friend Nikki got this e-mail today, and all that we can figure out happened is someone done flagged her:

Of course, you can't read that. I'm clueless as to how to capture something that takes up more than one screen in my e-mail, so I had to shrink it to fit. I'll reproduce it here for you in all its glory:


----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "David Axelrod, The White House" <info@messages.whitehouse.gov>
To:
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 11:49:28 AM
Subject: It's time for a reality check

Dear Friend,

Anyone that's watched the news in the past few days knows that health insurance reform is a hot topic — and that rumors and scare tactics have only increased as more people engage with the issue. Given a lot of the outrageous claims floating around, it’s time to make sure everyone knows the facts about the security and stability you get with health insurance reform.

That’s why we’ve launched a new online resource — WhiteHouse.gov/RealityCheck — to help you separate fact from fiction and share the truth about health insurance reform. Here's a few of the reality check videos you can find on the site:

• CEA Chair Christina Romer details how health insurance reform will impact small businesses.
• Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes tackles a nasty rumor about euthanasia and clearly describes how reform helps families.
• Matt Flavin, the White House's Director of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy, clears the air about Veteran's benefits.
• Kavita Patel, M.D., a doctor serving in the White House's Office of Public Engagement, explains that health care rationing is happening right now and how reform gives control back to patients and doctors.
• Bob Kocher, M.D., a doctor serving on the National Economic Council, debunks the myth that health insurance reform will be financed by cutting Medicare benefits.

There's more information and a number of online tools you can use to spread the truth among your family, friends and other social networks. Take a look:

We knew going into this effort that accomplishing comprehensive health insurance reform wasn't going to be easy. Achieving real change never is. The entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo always use their influence in Washington to try and keep things just as they are.

But don't be misled. We know the status quo is unsustainable. If we do nothing, millions more Americans will be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or see their coverage suddenly dropped if they become seriously ill. Out-of-pocket expenses will continue to soar, and more and more families and businesses will be forced to deal with health insurance costs they can’t afford.

That's the reality.

Americans deserve better. You deserve a health care system that works as well for you as it does for the status quo; one you can depend on — that won't deny you coverage when you need it most or charge you crippling out-of-pocket co-pays. Health insurance reform means guaranteeing the health care security and stability you deserve.

President Barack Obama promised he'd bring change to Washington and fix our broken, unsustainable health insurance system. You can help deliver that change. Visit WhiteHouse.gov/RealityCheck, get the facts and spread the truth. The stakes are just too high to do nothing.

Thank you,
David

David Axelrod
Senior Advisor to the President

This email was sent to
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House

The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

So, yeah, Nikki's not too happy about this. She's actually a little scared, and I can't say as I blame her. No one she has talked to has gotten a similar e-mail. Not even liberal supporters of nationalized healthcare. She has never e-mailed the White House, the President, or David Axelrod. What she has done is utilize her First Amendment rights to speak out against a policy she considers unwise.

And for this, the White House considers her out of touch with reality.

That should worry us all. We have a fairly apolitical woman, a self-professed moderate (no one's moderate who disagrees!) who bitched about some of the things the Bush administration came up with, and never got White House e-mails then. Why is this OK now? Why is it acceptable to harass and frighten (it became harassment at the point she got scared, just in case you need it spelled out) a wife and mother? Nikki's not a political activist. She's as average Jane as you can get. Except for now being good buddies with David Axelrod, apparently.

(And don't you just love the "Please do not reply to this e-mail" thing at the bottom?)

Late to the party as always

In a variety of ways...

Week before last, all three girls came home from Daddy's sick. It's a fucking evil little virus that has lingered, and has brought with it a lot of laundry as the kids were running out of both ends there for a while. (And they're all potty trained, so it's not like I could just throw diapers in the trash. I potty trained them pretty early for kids these days mainly because I hate dealing with shit, but some things you never get out of as a parent.) I think the last time anyone threw up was around Tuesday or Wednesday, but I'm not confident we're out of the woods yet.

Yesterday I woke up feeling a little woozy and it didn't take long to figure out I caught the bug late. Comes from telling Rob on Thursday that I seemed to have bypassed it. I don't get sick often. I hate being sick. I can usually power through it, so if I'm not laid out flat I don't count it. I'm laid out. I've been able to eat twice in as many days, and today was only three crackers with cheese, two plain crackers, and one bite of steak. I don't yark like the girls do; I deal with shooting stomach pains instead.

Anyhow. That wasn't meant to be the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is supposed to be people everyone's been reading a hell of a lot longer than I have.

I'll link, even though I think these guys are on the blogrolls of my few regular readers anway.

First, I'll put my new favorite. The Pistolero at Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast. I think he was actually at the blogshoot that I missed out on. I really love other Texas bloggers, and his taste in music is much like my own. So I check in on his blog several times a day, since not only does he post that often, he always responds to comments.

Second one here is Army of Dude. Alex is yet another Texas blogger. We rock. I should totally put up a second blogroll just of Texas dudes. He's a great photographer; his pictures from Iraq are just amazing. He's also the only guy on my blogroll I know for sure is a lefty like I am. I picked him up over at Murphy's place (my, that sounds a lot naughtier than it is!) & actually started reading him right around the time Murphy got me hooked on the now-defunct The War on Big Tobacco (one of those true guily pleasure blogs, by the way). I took too long to bookmark him, though, which embarrasses the hell out of me.

I'm stopping at three for tonight, with If you got stopped...you deserved it. Cops have the best damn blog names. One of very few new-to-me blogs that I've actually gone back and read the archives of. Motorcop is hilarious and loves his wife and his job and that almost makes up for him being in California. (I've also started looking out for our own motorcops locally & have noticed you don't see them much outside of funeral processions. On that note, my prayers are with the local motorcycle cop who got hit escorting a funeral procession.)

And on that note, I think I'm going to go reorganize my blogroll.

Well played, Mr. Clinton.

I will let others, who are much more qualified than I, handle the snark.

I will admit to being very curious as to how Clinton got Ling & Lee released so quickly. Did he threaten? Apologize, as North Korean media is claiming? Slip Kim Jong Il a roofie?

I don't know. I don't much care. He got it done and the women are home. Good on him.

If he comes in, I'm going out.

The photo accompanying a column titled "Why Obama's church choice matters" in today's USA Today shows the President shaking the hand of an Episcopal priest.

Thankfully, there's no indication other than that that the President might be considering becoming a part of the Episcopal church. But if he does, I'm gone.

I am a cradle Episcopalian. My mother was raised in the church, and I was raised in, baptized, confirmed, and married in the church. Two of my three kids so far have been baptized Episcopalian (just haven't gotten around to it for the third). I am nearly as passionate about my Episcopalianism as I am about being a San Antonian, and if you've paid any attention to this blog, you know that's a LOT. When my ex-husband left me, I first ran to my mom and then went looking for a priest. It is in my heart; my faith in God is bound inextricably with my love of my church.

It is hard to explain the ECUSA to people who think it exists merely because Henry VIII wanted a divorce (even some Episcopalians believe that over-simplified version). My church has existed throughout history as a haven for critical thinking, both about Christ Himself and human existence in general. We were there with other churches in fighting for an end to slavery and for the advancement of civil rights, and even now we as a church are strong advocates for the equality of people, for justice as well as peace, and for trying to live Jesus's teachings of love for one another. At the same time, we still believe in using our brains and questioning and (in spite of popular opinion) we are on the whole a dynamic church rather than a stagnant one.

And yet...

And yet, I periodically fall away from my church with great sadness and pain in my heart.

No church is perfect. The foremost failing of the Episcopal church (to me) is that it has become, of late, a predominantly liberal church. Now, liberal theology I appreciate. I am grateful that we have female priests. I am grateful that we accept homosexuals as chilren of God rather than viewing them as inherent sinners. I will eventually be grateful that we allow divorced parishioners to remarry within the church with zero hassle. That's the good side of liberalism.

But I have no use for political liberalism. I have no use for any politics within my church, quite frankly, but it seems as if the ECUSA preaches only liberalism when it sticks its toe in. The anti-war, pro-anthropogenic global warming, pro-public schools, pro-Democratic party line on every fucking issue shit sucks. And when it gets overwhelming, I fall away from my church.

In early 2003, my then-husband deployed on the USS Boise in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The boat participated in the initial bombardment of Baghdad before returning and being hailed (briefly) as the first combat ship to return from the war. But when they left on 13th February, I was a young woman with a very young child whose husband was gone for an undetermined length of time, with no local support, and deeply in need of her church. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, was quite vocal at this time in speaking out against a war I knew intuitively I would support. I drove to Resurrection, the church near my apartment that I went to whenever I could (not easy with a nursling who will. not. take. a. bottle. or consent to be away from Mommy at all)...and there was a big sign on the door about praying for peace.

I drove away.

I haven't been to church since Easter. Maybe the Sunday after, I'm not sure, but I think it was Easter Sunday. It has all gotten to be too much for me. I am a member of the Come As You Are worship service, which is much smaller and more relaxed than the services in the main church. I truly like several of the people who go to the service, I like the happier atmosphere, I like the music. I do not like the politics. I've talked about some of it before on this blog. The chick who, without the slightest hint of irony, compared Barack Obama to Jesus. The sermon wherein Rev. Wickham quoted will.i.am as saying "When I hear Obama speak, it's like I hear the voice of God," and did not go on to preach of the folly of comparing a politician to God. There was also this photo (sans caption) inserted into the images we saw during Prayers of the People shortly before the election, and a whole butt-ton of other things that were smaller needles. And that's leaving out all the church politics where on multiple occasions I was told one thing to my face and then something else entirely actually happened. (It's actually the latter rather than the former that broke me.)

I'm just sick of it. Sick and fucking tired of it. My soul hurts. I want to go back to church, but at the same time there's a guy in Baghdad I care about a little more every day (no, I don't love him, and I probably never will, but I like him a whole lot & I want him to stay safe) and I just don't know if I can deal with the anti-war stance of my Church and most of my fellow parishioners right now.

Now Obama...if he joins up, I'm gone. Probably for good, but at least until he's out of office. If Barack Obama decides to play Episcopalian while in office, it is going to be a purely political move. He grew up on O'ahu, which I happen to know is pretty damned Episcopalian, and wasn't a member of the church there. If he becomes a member of the church now, it cannot be anything other than a thanks for the help my church gave his ambitions. (Or, quite possibly, a cynical commentary on what he thinks a Christian America is. Look, robes! And wine! And snobs!) And I know I can't take that.

At the risk of becoming "all dead people all the time"

This fucking rocks.

Eighteen years, people. Essentially two decades of uncertainty.

I remember LtCdr Speicher's story from when I was a child, of course. I know he was first listed as KIA, but there were still some questions.

I vaguely remember hearing about his status being changed to missing and thinking what a hellish thing that must be for his widow and her new husband (who, if I recall correctly, was a buddy of Speicher's). This is to say nothing of the emotional toll it had to have taken on his children.

It made me very happy to find this story this morning. We all know how it works. No one gets left behind if we can help it. I'm glad he'll be going home. Finally.

Stupid tourists

Fred, who understands that the way to a girl's heart is through a savvy grasp of international politics, pointed me toward this story this morning:

American Tourists in Iraq Arrested by Iranian Troops on Border

Didja know Kurdistan has a resort city? Hmm, learn something new every day.

Actually, thanks to USAToday, I did know that "the Kurdish area of Iraq" is a somewhat popular tourist destination. It's been a relatively calm area for some time now, attempted genocide notwithstanding.

Still, wouldn't you think folks would be knowledgeable of the current political situation with Iran and super careful about getting anywhere near that country's border? Granted, there's a pretty good chance that the incursion was on the Iranians' part and not the tourists', but it takes a special sort of dumbass to risk detention like that.

Unlike some folks in the Democratic Underground, though, I don't think they were "hiking on the CIA payroll." That's a bit nutty even for those folks, don't you think? I mean, nothing says covert operation quite like sparking an international incident.

That said, how do you think they'll manage to blame this one on George Bush?