Welcome Home, Sprout

THIS is a good video to welcome home a soldier. Thanks to my fellow blogger and all-round good gal ArmyWifeToddlerMom for leading me to Mike the Marine who created this clip.

All I can say is "Welcome Home, Son". You're my 'RaqStar.

One Giddy Girlie

Sproutette is on her way to meet my son as he arrives back in the US of A for some much needed R & R. She is so excited it's funny. She is like a little girl preparing a tea party for all of her teddy bears. The only other thing she needs now is a pink boa and some high heel shoes 5 sizes too big.

She is absolutely giddy and it does my heart good to know that my son has someone standing there anxiously waiting for him and only him. There will be no doubt in his mind when he arrives that he has been sorely missed. I just hope she doesn't knock him down while trying to get to him. And hopefully she won't run through any metal detectors either. I would hate for Sprout's first order of business after arriving to be having to bail his wife out of jail.

As for us, the second fiddles, we will sit patiently and wait for them to get reacquainted. I don't mind. I do believe Sproutette loves Sprout as much as I do and that's all that I want for him, to have someone who loves him dearly.

Soon I will breath a little easier for a little while.

Sand Storms and Cigarette Lighters

Sprout will be getting his leave soon, although not as soon as he had hoped. It seems a bunch of sand flying around the air over there has grounded helicopters and pushed everybody's leave back a few days. Bummer...but it does mean a few less days to endure once he returns to the sand. He is asking for a fan...ya think? He said sleeping during the day in the desert heat, even with air conditioning, is not cool. I doubt very much in Iraq is "cool" these days. I told him I was sending more cigarettes also and he says "send lighters...nobody has a lighter over here." His big brother, Sir Duke, just cannot comprehend that NOBODY in Iraq has a lighter or any access to fire. It just does not compute. Heck, just go outside and hold your cigarette up in the air for a minute. Between the wind and the heat I would think that would do it, no? It's just strange the things they can and cannot get. Who would've thought there would be a shortage of cigarette lighters? I guess kicking the habit is out of the question over there.

Anyway, a box of stuff to beat the heat will soon be on the way. I wonder how much it would cost to ship an in-ground swimming pool?

More Funny Soldiers

This guy is a show all by himself. The more I watch this one, the more I laugh.

When IS Easter?

In the past six months, I have heard my soldier son's voice three times, including a call from him this morning. He sounds very tired...weary...just wrung out. He said the work is picking up and the weather is getting hot and he is not getting much sleep. So goes the hard life of a soldier. I asked him if he had gotten the Easter basket I had sent and he said "no...when is Easter?" I think he was surprised when I told him it was tomorrow. Sometimes I feel so guilty sitting here in my comfortable, monotonous life-style while there are people in other lands enduring hardships on my behalf...especially when one of them is my child. Oh, what I would give to be able to bring him home today.

But, aside from his sounding tired, he also sounds adjusted. He sounds normal, not mad or angry or depressed, just normal. The war has become his normal. He has lots of plans for when he gets home, lots of plans for after the army. I suppose that is how they keep themselves sane, by thinking about the future. While we sit by and welcome spring and pretty flowers and Easter bunnies, they keep pushing on, on our behalf.

God bless them all.

What is That Thing

I need some help here. This is a picture of my great-great-grandfather's store back in the late 1800's. Can anybody tell me what that undressed-teepee looking thing is in the middle of the picture? Is it a water well maybe? Anybody got a clue?

As for other news, the war drags on. Sprout is doing as well as someone in a war zone should be doing, I guess. Maybe better than most but who knows? I am tired of the waiting and worrying. Just tired...and he's not even to the half-way mark yet. I am so ready for this year to be over.

I want my boy home.

Sniffle!

Why Don't You Get A Haircut? You Look Like A Chrysanthemum

Sprout is doing good and the war goes on. Politics is heating up and keeping me occupied but still this month is just dragging on. I hope the time is moving fast for Sprout cause it sure is sitting still for me.

In the mean time, my sister sent me a list of some great insults from witty people who didn't need four-letter words to get their points across. Some of these are really good. Oh, that I were so witty.

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top." ~English professor, Ohio University

"You couldn't get a clue during the clue mating season in a field full of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance." ~Edward Flaherty

"Her face was her chaperone." ~Rupert Hughes

Nancy Astor: "If you were my husband, Winston, I should flavour your coffee with poison."
Winston Churchill: "If I were your husband, madam, I should drink it."

"Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it." ~Mark Twain

"Beauty is a curse. You don't know how lucky you are" ~Anonymous

"He hasn't an enemy in the world - but all his friends hate him."
~Eddie Cantor

"I could never learn to like her, except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight."
~Mark Twain

"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech."
~George Bernard Shaw

"He's so snobbish he has an unlisted zip-code."
~Earl Wilson

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
~Winston Churchill

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
~Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
~Paul Keating

"I see her as one great stampede of lips directed at the nearest derriere."
~Noël Coward

"It's like cuddling with a Butterball turkey."
~Jeff Foxworthy

"She was so ugly she could make a mule back away from an oat bin."
~Will Rogers

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
~Mark Twain

"Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum."
~P. G. Wodehouse

"Women are like elephants to me: nice to look at, but I wouldn't want to own one."
~W. C. Fields

"Doesn't know much, but leads the league in nostril hair."
~Josh Billing

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
~Abraham Lincoln (I doubt Lincoln really said this)

"He knows so little and knows it so fluently."
~Ellen Glasgow

"Useless as a pulled tooth."
~Mary Roberts Rinehart

"In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club - the 'hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
~Spiro T. Agnew (about the press, 1970)

"This is not a book that should be tossed lightly aside. It should be hurled with great force."
~Dorothy Parker