Not Again!

Okay. This is getting really old. This is the second storm to threaten us in 2 months. Stoicdad was right. We should have left the boards up.

Well, time to get to work.

Frettin' Over Other Peoples Chilren'

Cyber-space makes for strange relationships. Two nights ago I went to bed fretting over a soldier in Iraq who I've never met and never plan to meet and who I only know of by reading his mom's public diary online. His mother had posted that she had been notified by the Army that he had been injured in a bomb blast and had a serious spinal injury...nothing more. For several months now, I have been following this guy through the war in Iraq...through his mother's words...and I've been so affected by them that I had trouble sleeping that night and woke up in the middle of the night and prayed for him. What a strange place cyber-space is. When total strangers form a bond through typed words and the very shy are able to express themselves anonymously without fear of others knowing their deepest...things...that's strange.
And now we have this amazing network to ask for instant prayer and we get it from people who don't know us from Adam.
I'm a private person and don't care to meet most people I run across online, but I do enjoy knowing that compassion is just a key-stroke away. My own young soldier is safe for now but I 'm glad to know that when the time comes that I too must ask for the prayers of the faithful, there will be plenty of people out there ready and willing to come to my aid.

There Ain't A God

Woke up this morning to my IMing son far from home. I haven't heard from him in a week and was beginning to get antsy, so a nice long IM was just what I needed.

I guess God is laughing at me about my last post because Sprout says he is moving next week. That means the "no drinking order" is moot. Phooey! I always put my mouth on things and have to go back and eat my words. I suspect my God is a little ticked that he hasn't heard enough from me lately, so he's having me become a woman of faith. Yuck!

Oh well. Sprout is a responsible lad and like he says, he'll make the sergeants take him out for his birthday celebration and then he will be THEIR responsibility. How clever. If he were home, he'd be going out with his low-life cousins and shiftless big brother (jes' kidding) so I guess he'll be in good hands...I hope.

How's that Irish prayer go?

Lord, please soften the heart of my enemies,
or if you can't soften their hearts,
bend their knees inwards,
so I will know them by their walk.

There Is A God

I don't believe it. Sprout's entire post has been put on a "no drinking order" until AFTER his 21st birthday. And most of the nightspots are off limits too. Not that he was planning on drinking or anything, mind you. Not my boy. He would never do anything like that. I just have to wander what General he pissed off?

Well, at least I can sleep peacefully that night.

I gotta quit grinning.

Cindy! Hush!

Okay. I can't help it. I've got to throw in my two-cents worth on this Sheehan lady who's set up housekeeping in a ditch across from the Crawford White House. Christopher Hitchens has a great article in Slate about her. I particularly like this part:

"Finally, I think one must deny to anyone the right to ventriloquize the dead. Casey Sheehan joined up as a responsible adult volunteer. Are we so sure that he would have wanted to see his mother acquiring "a knack for P.R." and announcing that he was killed in a war for a Jewish cabal? This is just as objectionable, on logical as well as moral grounds, as the old pro-war argument that the dead "must not have died in vain." I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen, and I distrust even more the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them."

The right to ventriloquize the dead. My mother used to put it another way, though not nearly as colorful. Whenever she would hear someone spouting off about what some dead person thought or how they had felt about something, she would say "how convenient he's not here to defend himself." But perhaps I should refrain from ventriloquizing the dead. My dead mother might not like it.

So here are my thoughts.

I hate that this lady has lost a son. I even wonder if she is making such a scene as a way to grieve. I know how shocking it is to lose a loved one (though not my child...that may be quite different) and realize that the rest of the world is not grieving too. It's just awful how people go on living their lives as if nothing had happened. How dare they laugh and shop and buy Mother's Day cards when I no longer have a mother. I know the feeling of wanting to scream "Stop it. Don't you know how much I hurt?"

But reasonable people can agree that Mrs. Sheehan is doing more damage than good. There are soldiers still fighting her son's war. They are in danger daily and they don't need for the enemy to have any more ammo than it already has. The terrorists have televisions too. They eat this stuff up and use it to convince each other that even Americans hate Americans. Here Hadji, go blow something up.

Please Cindy Sheehan, for the sake of my soldier son, who someday soon may follow your son's noble foot steps, and for those already there, keep your grief private. Give those of us still fearing this fight a fighting chance. Maybe your ventriloquized son would want it that way.

Another Stolen Sister Poem

For lack of anything better, here's another war poem from my sister's collection. August really is the slowest news month of the year.

Advice to Friends Who Don't Know What to Say

Don't speak of the future

as long as there's a bullet

in the chamber,

the safety off,

and a black cloud of desert sand

swirling through my dreams.

Don't speak of the past

as if we're rehearsing

a eulogy in rough draft,

waiting for a knock at my door

complete with flag draped box

and medals in a frame.

Don't argue the present,

debate the issues

as if you're helping me

make sense of the fact

that my kid wears a flak jacket,

and I pray daily

that someone else's son

dies instead.

Stolen Sister Poem

My sister is a poet...and a darn good one. I'm gonna steal some of the poems she wrote while waiting for her son to make it back from Iraq. She's younger than me so if she finds out I did this and complains, I'll just smack her once.
But hey, why does she write if not for others to read?

WAR FOOTAGE

Was that you I saw
last night on the news,
layered in Kevlar
covered with sand?
I search every inch
of footage for signs
of your saunter,
your gestures,
hidden beneath
desert fatigues
and face mask
expecting
a mother's instinct
to recognize
the slightest twitch
the same way I paused
at the first flutter
felt in the womb.

What to Send?

I miss seeing Sprout. So, to hopefully combat that problem, I am sending him a digital camera for his birthday with instructions to send back pictures of himself. I hope this works. What else does a mother send a soon-to-be-twenty-one-year-old in a foreign land? I want to send him something that says live it up, enjoy, have fun...but on the other hand I don't want to encourage him to go wild. The only age specific gifts I have found are beer mugs and drinking games...not appropiate to get from your mother. I could make him a birthday cake, but I doubt it would get there in one piece. Anybody have any good ideas? I guess I could send him underwear. That's safe. I'm sending DVD's bi-weekly so that's nothing new. Maybe I'll send him a lava lamp. Hmmmmm.

DSL In The Loo

Well, I missed Sprout's IM this morning. I was in the bathroom getting ready for work and came out to find he had IM'd and logged off when he got no response. That just shucks! I'm gonna call my cable company and have DSL run to the bathroom. I might install a computer arm on the wall, just above the toilet paper holder.

Okay...you know you surf too much when you seriously entertain the idea of DSL in the john.

I gotta get back to quilting or something.

In other news, we had a big fish haul near here yesterday. Locally, we call this phenomenon a jubilee. It's one of the nicer reasons for living here. Jubilees are so much fun. You fisherman-types will love one of these. Personally, I like to call it manna from Heaven.