Jarhead
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If you have no interest in seeing the movie "Jarhead"; or if you plan on seeing it, and don't want spoilers -skip this post.

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The hubby-man and I just watched it. Even though I had friends participating in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and I watched and worried day after day; this movie covers something I never thought of.
We spent 6 months gearing up for The Mother Of All Battles (At least according to Saddam Hussein) And less than 2 months taking back Kuwait.
We sent soldiers trained for combat. Their heads stuffed full of propaganda and ready for "the worst" that War could throw at them... And with superior air power, we (and by "we" I mean the armies of 34 individual countries) we cut off their supply lines, took out their air defenses, bombed their transportation, and gave them some time to get thirsty. All our primed and ready to kill ground troops had to do was hand out water. There's something twisted about that.

Money
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My mom called last week with a one-time lawn mowing job for L. The house next to hers is going up for sale soon, and they needed to mow the lawn. The offer was $25 to mow 150 square feet of level lawn. No hills, no patio furniture or toys to move; just grass. My son declined. He said, "I already have $150, grandma. I don't need more."

So I took the job. Mom and I went through the yard pulling chickweed, because chickweed doesn't mow, it just lays down or gums up the mower. I trimmed the low-hanging branches on the one tree in the yard. Then I mowed with an electric mower and edged the lawn with a weed whacker. Total time invested was about 2 hours. I earned $12.50 an hour! Wooo!
L has lunch money for a week! I don't have to tap into the change jar!

I also learned how to run over the power cord, how to electrocute myself a little, and that I can get a sunburn in April.

Although I believe I could have done a better job with better equipment; the lawn owner was so pleased that he'll pay me to cut the grass until the house sells!

Easter Fun
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The family Easter gathering is usually on Palm Sunday; and it's usually at my sister's house. She was out of town all last week, so the Easter gathering was on Easter and at my Aunt's house.

She has the prettiest back yard. It starts with a covered back patio. Beyond that is a flagstone circular courtyard with a 3 tier fountain. There's also a large swath of weed-free grass. Then there's a retaining wall with 3 pathways leading up a hill into a forested area. She has stepping stones going up the hill, and the rest of the path is dirt. Ivy covers the ground to either side to the paths.

This is where we hid 800+ plastic eggs. We put eggs under leaves, eggs in the trees, eggs lining the top of the shed, eggs balanced along the fountain (which held toy fish for the day), and eggs in the ivy.

The kids had a blast finding eggs.

There was plenty of food, too. My aunt (and her husband and son) provided a honey baked ham and a honey baked turkey, cheese and crackers, a tray of organic veggies, tortillia chips and cheese with salsa, fresh fruit, bottled water, sun tea, iced coffee, fruit juice, a basket of truffles, and 3 kinds of wine.
She also offered a two liter of Coke and a two liter of diet Coke.

Certain family members insisted that she needed to go out and buy Pepsi too. (sigh)

After the food was eaten and the eggs were found, everyone moved to the front yard where there was a case of silly string. Much fun was had spraying colorful ropes of "non-toxic" sludge at each other. Other entertainments included bubble-blowing, ring tossing, disk throwing, and some sort of tennis played with a nerf ball and giant paddles.

I had originally planned to blog about the unpleasant aspects of the day. (i.e. getting up early, silly string in the eye, and children being afraid of me because of my cane) But I like how nice the first part sounds; so I'll leave it there.

I hope your day was as fun-filled as mine.
:)

The Common Cold
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L has a cold. He went to school yesterday, coughing and sneezing. Today he stayed home. Now here's the cool thing: L had a test today on Romeo and Juliette. He e-mailed his teacher to schedule a retest, and found out the test is available through the class servers! So he can (and did) take the test at home, surrounded by drifts of white kleenex and empty Pepsi bottles.

He doesn't want me to get sick too, so he asked me to let him take care of his own mess. Wow! Because usually, I make an extra effort to remove the empty bottles and keep several trash cans available for his tissues. I know how miserable a little cold can be, and how nice it is to have help. But this time he wants to take care of it himself.

My boy has grown up a lot this year. :)

Addendum
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As you read the post below, (or above, if you're in my archives) remember that the storm I wrote about spawned 67 tornadoes.

Sixty Seven.

Lessons Learned
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So, if you're going out to buy coffee creamer before the big storm hits; and you turn on the radio to hear that there is a TORNADO WARNING; and the DJ keeps repeating there is a TORNADO WARNING, not a tornado watch; and there are multiple tornadoes on Doppler radar... Do not blithely continue toward your shopping destination. And above all, do not call your husband on your cell phone to say, "This is so cool! The sky is green! Really green, like bluegrass!

I'm just sayin'.

Because I did that. And when I got to the QT at the corner of Loughborough and Gravois, their registers were down.
This happens. Usually the register comes back online in a minute or two, so I grab my creamer and 2 different kinds of Pepsi and get in line.

Then the tornado sirens went off.

A third of the customers set down their stuff and ran out of the store. "Good," I thought, "less waiting for me." I stood in line while the manager on duty and a co-worker had a quiet conversation about the unworking registers. I glanced casually around, picking the best place in the store to hunker down if debris started flying around outside.
The door would open as if people were pushing their way in, but no one was there. It was the wind.

I wondered if I was about to live through something interesting.

I pulled out my cell phone to tell my hubby that I was safe, that I had chosen a shelter, and that I would be home after the worst had passed. The phone was fully charged, and I had a great signal. But I couldn't get through. All lines were busy.
I tried again. And a third time. Then I gave up.

The sirens wound down and I had a pair of thoughts run through my head. The sodas in my arms would get warm if I had to wait out a tornado, and it would be easier to herd the crowd at the register if my arms were empty.

(In hindsight, I have no idea why I thought it was my responsibility to keep these strangers safe. Nor do I know why I thought I had the power to do so. But at the time, my concern was getting rid of the drinks and being ready to take over and direct these people to safety.)

So I walked to the dairy cooler, wondering casually if I had enough time. There was an employee stocking the beer cooler as if tornado sirens hadn't been screaming at the sky mere seconds before. Weird.

I put away my creamer, then returned the sodas to their respective coolers, and headed back toward the register. Nothing to do now but wait...

Or not.

The manager on duty decided that the registers were not coming back online, and I think the crowd frightened her a bit because she declared, "Ok! I need everyone out of my store!"

As if it were the signal they were waiting for, everyone placed their items on the counter and left the store. I stood there with my mouth hanging open as people obediently went out into the storm and possible tornado. I couldn't believe she was sending her customers into potential danger.

I was outraged. I couldn't help myself. I declared in utter disbelief:
"I can't believe there's nowhere in this store to take shelter."
I clamped my mouth shut over the second part: "What is wrong with you?"

I tried the cell phone again in the truck. No dice.
So I drove to Hollywood Video and bought some soda for my family, then went home.

I opened the back door, declared "I'm safe!" and went straight into the basement where I found my family watching the weather. Lo and behold, there on the radar was a rotating tornadic cell. Just east of our home. It was one of 7 or 8 cells on the screen.
When those sirens were going off, there really was a tornado rotation over my head. It just never touched down.

Now, I have to throw in an interesting thing about my city news people. When tornadoes hit, the weather guys rush out to be right at the scene of disaster. And after the storm began to fall apart, reports of the destruction started coming in.

According to one meteorologist, some neighborhood had put their trash out before the storm hit. It wasn't a trailer park, but Mother Nature couldn't resist. Yes, a little baby tornado touched down and ripped open bags of trash all down the street. *giggle*

Of Historical Note
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George W. Bush likes to talk about how Americans thought the Atlantic and Pacific oceans kept us "safe" from the rest of the world; and how September 11th was the first time the main body of America had been attacked.
Or, to use his wording:

"And, yet, here you are graduating from high school, the first high school class to ever have seen the 48 contiguous states attacked by an enemy."
-Eden Prairie High School, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Mar. 4, 2002

He has consistently stated that the continental United States had never been attacked prior to September 11th.

I guess he learned all of American history from Schoolhouse Rock; although I think he forgot about the Three Ring Government.

I learned American history from teachers, encyclopedias, and historical novels, and even this song. Because when you're a little kid, listening to the Oldies station with your mom; you can't help but remember a verse like this:
"Well, we fired our cannon til the barrel melted down,
so we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind,
and when they tetched the powder off, the gator lost his mind."

Which segue's nicely into The War Of 1812, since that's what the song is about.

On June 18th, 1812; the U.S. declared war on the British-held Canadian provinces. Britain was busy dealing with Napoleon, and the U.S. figured this was a good time to get rid of any and all British presence in North America.
We failed miserably.

But here are some things that the President of the United States ought to know:
*Our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner; was inspired by a battle during the War of 1812.
*The British conquered Maine. All of Maine. Took the whole province away from us.
*The British strolled into Washington, D.C. and burned down the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Library of Congress, the United States Treasury, the Washington Naval Yard, the U.S. Patent Office, and... Oh yeah, THE WHITE HOUSE.

I would say that constitutes an attack on the contiguous 48 states. George Bush lives in the White House, but he can't remember that invading forces looted the place, burned the contents in a pile on the street, and burned the building itself?
I'm sure there's a historical plaque somewhere.

If he would bother to read it, he could improve his speeches by a significant amount. He could (1) appear educated, (2) look like he cares, and (3) show some genuine patriotism.
He could talk about how Dolly Madison (the First Lady, not the bakery) stood her ground in a burning city, saving as many historical items as she could. How (like those brave firefighters on September 11th, blah,blah,blah) she stayed and did what she could after even her bodyguards had taken off. He could talk about how former President Thomas Jefferson gave his personal library to restock the Library of Congress after the war had ended. How brave citizens rallied around the city and defended it from further incursions. And how, after that significant event; Americans repelled every incursion...

But no. He prefers to forget that there was ever an attack on "Uh-mare-can" soil prior to 2001.

Apology
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I owe someone an apology, but I don't know who. So here it is:

To the person in the expensive navy blue car on the 55/270 interchange at 7:15 am this morning; I'm sorry.

You couldn't possibly have known that my turn signal meant that I wanted to move over a lane, even though the lane I was in ended in a quarter of a mile. You couldn't possibly have understood how mass + speed = velocity; otherwise you wouldn't have jumped into the car-lengths I was leaving for the 18 wheeled tractor trailer in the lane I was signalling for.

But really, I don't know why you then sped up enough to sit in my blind spot. That was just dumb. If you had been driving an economy car, I wouldn't have seen you at all. Fortunately for you, I could see 25% of your mid-sized sedan grill in my mirror.

As for why you cut across 3 lanes of traffic without using your turn signal, causing the cars you were cutting off to slam on their brakes ... I assume you were trying to get away from me.

Which leads to my apology. I'm sorry I was an ass. I'm sorry for planting my driver's side wheels directly on the yellow lane stripes and putting less than a foot between our respective vehicles. It was wrong of me to use my truck as an intimidation tool. Just because I *have* power, doesn't mean I should use it.

Wow
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Thank you for the replies! I just re-red my post, and it sure sounds self-pitying. That wasn't my intent. :) I was sad and frustrated; and I *was* crying -but not out of self pity.

No Work For You!
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Sigh. I did not get the job. The other applicants were more qualified, typed faster, had better resume's, etc. And I'm crying at my computer because I really need a job and it's so hard to even get consideration because I've been a stay-home mom for 15 years.

I'm sad.