Do I tell him I love him?

I've had the best time with him this week – had him over for dinner last weekend, talked on the phone a bit Tuesday (during which he invited me for a ride on his motorbike), dropped in to his place with Don for TV and games Wednesday night, had him over again this weekend for dinner and a movie, and on Sunday he brought his little girl over to play at our house. She and I had some private time which I really enjoyed. This weekend was really nice.

Saturday, we all three (Don, Joe and I) sat in our front room watching World's Fastest Indian, which Joe picked out 'cause he thought I'd like it. I looked at him thinking, I am so hot for you. Afterwards, we went outside to party a little. That's a euphemism for smoke some pot. This was only the fourth time I've ever had it. Neither guy had his pipe so Don very cleverly made one out of a pop can. Joe helped me as I have so little experience. He held the can for me, lit it, and clued me in as to inhaling.

You know what's really weird -- having Joe makes things better with me and Don. Partly because I'm happy; partly because I learn from Joe how to joke and tease, and I bring that into my relationship with Don. I'm hoping for that ride on the motorcycle this week. Do I tell him I love him?

Baby Present

I went shopping at lunch today for a present for Sarah's new baby. He's just a week old. I wasn't sure what to get the little guy. Clothes, toys, baby music, board books -- there are so many choices! And should I get him something he can use now or something he'll grow into? After all, there's lots of cool stuff out there that he can use later. So I got him a pack of cigarettes.

I'm kidding. I got him a bead and wire toy. And boy, is he ever cute. He's probably the most handsome baby I've ever seen.

Dream - House on Fire

I dreamed our house caught on fire. It was over by the dining room window where I have the candles. I first thought that the candles had started the fire, but soon saw that the fire had started inside the wall, not outside. I bashed a hole in the wall with hand-size hammers, Don filled the sink with water, and we used cups and bowls to splash water onto the fire. I got the sledge hammer and smashed a bigger hole, and we used the hose to totally drench it. We put the fire out before the fire department showed up. The fire had started down in the basement. That's where Michaela's room is. I could see the spot where it started. I continued to smash up the house with the sledge hammer, then I woke up.

Joe

I find myself in the unusual state of wanting to be worthy of him. I don't feel nearly pretty enough, or interesting enough, or bold enough, or anything enough.

Besides his bright eyes and 100-watt smile, I really like that we can communicate w/o words. We can use words and gestures sometimes, and that's enough. We understand.

Weird

The weirdest thing just happened -- my 16-year-old called just to talk! And not to ask me for money or a ride or to buy her something! She's upset about her ex-boyfriend and apparently needed to let off some steam about it. I'm totally flattered.

Fallen Hero/Fallen Soldier

On Monday, June 26, 2006, Staff Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar, 30, died of injuries he suffered while conducting combat operations in Iraq’s volatile Anbar province. Thank you, SS Plouhar, for your sacrifice for the ideals of our country. May you rest in peace.

I'm So Ugly

I hate myself because I'm so ugly. My features aren't so bad but my skin quality is just awful. Every now and then I start to think I'm pretty, but then I see a photo of myself and I realize, 'No.' My love for my husband includes a certain amount of gratitude that he thinks I'm attractive; that he even loves me at all. How silly of me to even think someone else might want me! How silly of me to be all mopey about Joe. Like I'd ever stand a chance with him.

Here's What I Should Have Said

When I saw the candy and the coke:

Could I talk to you a minute? (they go outside)

"The complications of diabetes are really severe. I don't want you to go through all that. You're actually pretty important to me, and you have been for several years now. It's one of life's little ironies, I suppose, that you live on my street and my husband gets to be your friend, and all I get is look up at your window when I drive by. The universe mocks me. "

"Be that as it may, I still need to know that you are okay in there. I want you to be doing well. I want you to be around for a while. I don't want you to be killing yourself with this crap that you are eating. "

I didn't spill my guts like that, though I did take away his candy and his coke, and I said, "Candy bars? Coke? What are you thinking?"

My Lai Massacre

On March 16, 1968, a bunch of American soldiers wiped out hundred of villagers of Son My village. Old men, old women, young wives and children -- all killed. There was a huge outcry, of course, when it all came to light.

Do you ever think what would make a bunch of normal young guys snap like that? Most of our guys aren't crazy psychos.

Here's why -- because in Vietnam you couldn't tell who the enemy was. They looked just like civilians. They dressed just like civilians. After a day of shooting at American soldiers, they'd go home to their villages and pretend to be innocent bystanders. Those old men and old women, maybe they weren't carrying guns, but they knew where their rifle-carrying sons were, and as soon as our soldiers' backs were turned, they knew their boys would come out and kill them.

The same thing is going on in Iraq just now. Sometimes our guys snap and kill innocent civilians. But are they really that innocent? They know where the roadside bombs are planted. They know where the insurgents are. By not saying anything, they become complicent in the things that happen.

What if they tortured us like we torture them?

So, they found the bodies of our two soldiers, Pfc. Thomas Tucker and Pfc Kristian Menchaca. They had been tortured to death, mutilated so badly that it was impossible to visually ID them (probably while alive), and beheaded. I figured it would end this way. Probably the whole world did. But where's the global protest? Where's the outrage?

The things that our soldiers did to detainees at Abu Ghraib don't even come close to what the terrorists did to our guys. Yet THAT was all over the news for months. Thomas and Kristian experienced real torture. Real torture is the death of a thousand cuts. It's having your eyes gouged out, your tongue cut out, the bones of your fingers and hands broken one by one.

Wouldn't it be great if we'd found Thomas and Kristian alive, and they told us 'horror stories' of being made to crawl around naked on all fours, and being forced to stand on a box with a hood over their heads, and not having been allowed to attend church service or have spiritual reading material? Oh, the terrible atrocity of the insurgency, we'd say.

Those bastards. I want those guys taken down. I want us to pour our whole hearts into defeating them. Let the hammer strike, and let it strike hard.

A teenage snake

Yesterday Kendall rescued a snake from the little kitty. I hate the little kitty. She kills the wildlife in our garden. I'd rather have a snake than her. It's a small snake, but not as small as the baby one Little Kitty killed last year. It's like a teenage snake. I didn't let it go right away because it would just become a cat toy again. I built a lovely terrarium for it in the back yard from that large glass case out there. Lotsa dirt and plants. I bought live crickets for it, too. Today I went to Petco and bought a set of plastic nail caps. If I can get them glued on Little Kitty tonight, I'll let the snake go free.

It's Over Now

What do you do when what you love has gone? You had something once, something beautiful and wonderful, but it's gone now and will never return.

It must have been love, but its over now
It must have been good, but I lost it somehow
It must have been love but its over now
from the moment we touched till the time had run out

Like gray-haired Charles remembering Roxaboxen. Like me and Joe on the sailboat. Like my childhood, and my children's chidhood.

It must have been love, but it's over now
It was all that I wanted, now I'm living without
It must have been love, but it's over now
It's where the water flows, it's where the wind blows

Rhiannon has gone to Minnesota to be a camp counselor. In October she'll go to bootcamp, and sometime after that, to active duty. What if she never comes back? How can I live without her?

Here's some good news from Iraq

Reported by Scientific American:

"In the 1990s the Garden of Eden was destroyed. The fertile wetlands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were diked and drained, turning most of 15,000 square kilometers of marsh to desert. By the year 2000, less than 10 percent of that swampland--nearly twice as big as Florida's Everglades--remained. But reflooding of some areas since 2003 has produced what some scientists are calling the "miracle of the Mesopotamian marshes"--a return of plants, aquatic life and even rare birds to their ancestral home."

You can't tell from reading the piece who diked and drained the fertile wetlands, or what might have happened in 2003 that made their restoration possible. Weird. You'd think that would be important in understanding the whys and wherefores of land management and restoration in the area. Or is even Scientific American driven by political ideology, such that they can't even bring themselves to say the words?

Media is Naive and Gullible

Here's letter the OpinionJournal received from a U.S. military officer stationed in Iraq. He asked that his name be withheld.

*** QUOTE ***

I am currently stationed here in Iraq and have been here for the past 11 months; I am an adviser to the Iraqis and meet them on a daily basis. I have been in many locations in the country and am involved on a daily basis together with the Iraqis fighting the insurgency.

The media manipulation by the insurgents is brilliant and extremely effective. The press has become a puppet for the insurgents; the insurgents know exactly what they are doing with these "massacres" (quoted here because the investigation has not been completed, nor have any charges been filed) and the political nightmare they will cause the current administration. Bodies are produced for film, and there is zero fact-checking by the media--the media eat up this "news" like there is no tomorrow. A couple of hundred bucks paid by the insurgents to a few guys/ladies in the town where this "massacre" occurred to make up some bad news and pine for the BBC's or CBS's or whoever's cameras is a nice month's salary for many and money well spent by the insurgency.

All the Arabs (Sunni and Shia), Kurds and Chaldeans I have come to know well here will tell you that Arabs are emotional people who tend to exaggerate. A lot. Experience has shown that "50 insurgents hiding out in XX location" is five, at most 10. "Three hundred dead" at the morgue is at most 40. "A huge cache with WMD" is 45-50 weapons. It is a cultural norm and is accepted over here as a norm. It is reported in the West as fact. With no fact-checking.

When we convoy, all in the town/village know when and where there is a bomb/IED/VBIED that is targeting coalition forces. This is not so true in Baghdad, but in the outlying towns all know. What is the culpability for those people in the village/town? Would the Marines be guilty in the U.S. under the same circumstances?

I do not know whether or not the Marines are guilty. A Marine's job is to "close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver," and I can guarantee its effectiveness. But the insurgents have the ear of the press. Hopefully the politics will be put aside for the investigation and the facts will be told, whatever they may be.

*** END QUOTE ***

Piriformis Syndrome - Oh the pain!

My piriformis syndrome / hip bursitis is getting better. Every week the distance I'm able to walk increases. Last weekend I worked in the yard for a couple hours! I feel so encouraged. Maybe sometime in the future I will actually be pain free.

Here's the story on this: Nine months ago I was doing calisthenics in front of the TV when something in my hip went 'pop'. Ever since then I've hurt. As the months went by the pain slowly increased and I became less and less able to get around. Finally my family insisted I see a doctor. The orthopedic surgeon I went to diagnosed piriformis syndrome and said physical therapy should give me 60 to 70% relief of symptoms so off I went. Twelve P/T sessions and over a thousand dollars later there was no improvement. The pain was as bad as ever. People told me that acupuncture often improved pain symptoms -- gets the body's chi in harmony and all that, so I gave that a try. I did four sessions and each one freaked me out. I can't stand the thought of all those needles stuck in me. It didn't hurt but it was really hard to just lie there like a sick porcupine unable to move. I maybe could have 'stuck it out' (hee hee) if it helped, but it didn't, so back to the orthopedic surgeon I went for a cortisone injection. No perceivable result from that either. I tried a Rolfing session. That felt wonderful while it was going on, but afterwards the pain was there just as bad as before. NSAIDs (like ibuprofen and acetominophen) worked just fine to control the pain and let me get some sleep, but I don't want to take those things long term. They are killers in the long term.

While doing research on this problem on the internet, I bumped into a reference to a book, 3 Minutes to a Pain Free Life. The commentator had had good results from the exercises prescribed within. I bought a used copy for five bucks on Amazon. Lo and behold, the exercises are working for me, too. Two exercises specifically are reliving my pain: 1) squatting with toes turned out and 2) the yoga position called The Cobra. I do these several times a day. The author suggests holding them for 30 seconds each, but I hold them for a minute or two. I can feel the muscles and tendons relaxing, stretching, and letting go.

Today's Adventures

Aren't much to write about. I popped in to Whole Foods at lunchtime for a few essentials, came away with a chocolate parfait -- creamy chocolate mouse layered with chocolate cake and berries. Not essential, and not at all conducive to maintaining my girlish figure, but oh so yummy.

I saw a disturbing video on Google Video today. It was of a freshly born baby girl lying naked in her hospital bassinette. She lay there uncovered, shivering, and all alone, while someone filmed her and voices echoed about her. She cried occasionally, and moved convulsively the way babies do, but no one picked her up or comforted her in any way. And all the while someone filmed her. I yelled at the screen, "She needs to be swaddled, you idiots! She needs to be held!" I felt sorry for the poor little thing. The description reads, "The firstborn child of Chris and Isabelle Burkholder demonstrates her newborn skillz as she clutches her blanket, cries out, gets quiet, and actually clasps her tiny hands as if to pray." She's probably praying to be delivered from such a cold, heartless and ignorant family!

Baby Driver

My daughter Michaela has finally got her permit. She drives to school almost every day, with me in the passenger seat yelling, "Oh my God! OH MY GOD!", clutching the hand rest, saying "Take turns at ten miles an hour -- TEN MILES AN HOUR FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!!" and stomping stomping stomping the imaginary brake pedal. It's quite a good way to wake up in the morning -- gets the old adrenaline rushing.

The fewer, the prouder, the female Marines

Rhiannon did it. She signed with the Marines yesterday.

She's got a deferred deployment, as she was already committed to her summer job as a camp counselor at Camp Courage, a camp for disabled and terminally ill kids. She worked there last year, too.

So, her schedule from here on is:

1) next couple weeks: finish semester (mostly A's, I'm happy to report)
2) end of May: visit friends in Texas
3) summer: Camp Courage, Minnesota
4) September: New York with Mom for a send-off vacation
5) October: Marine Corp Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina!!!

Rice Krispie Treat

I had to dig something out of my very full trash can, so I borrowed my co-worker's so I'd have someplace to put my trash as I dug. He didn't have much in there, just a few napkins and a nice thick Rice Krispie treat, wrapped in Saran Wrap. I took it out and ate it.

No Miscarriage After All

Good news: Baby and mother fine so far. Placenta is blocking uterus, which in the long term is not good (can't go through labor with it like that) but there's a good chance the thing will migrate in the course of the pregnancy so all will be well. Mother reports that baby is now the size of a jumbo shrimp.