A Note from Kuwait

hey mom. your probably wondering where your son is. i am in kuwait. its 7/30, and my flight to the states should leave on 7/31, in the PM. dont go taking off for chicago yet. i dont know when ill arrive. love you, and talk to you soon. brian

It is just this minute, 12:42 p.m., that I know where my dang kid is. People, I have spent the last 3 days cleaning carpets and mowing the yard and dusting in places you will never even bother to look anyway, when you come over to see me and The Kid, in the next 18 days.

I even bought a beverage refrigerator. I need a beverage refrigerator like I need another hole in my head, I know. I shouldn't have. But I had to, I just had to. I had to have a beverage cooler in my home before Brian and his friends, and all of the masses came to my house. Or I'd die.

I'm not the only Military Mom Gone Mad. One new friend I've made through TFT, Jeremy, is a soldier stationed in Turkey. When I expressed concern to him about my irrational desire for a beverage cooler, he told me that HIS mother, after a lifetime of minimal Christmas decorating, put up THREE fully decorated Christmas trees in their home last time he came home.

And he loved it.

Did you hear me? He loved that his Mother had gone Mad.

Clearly, I had to buy that beverage frig.

Anyhoot, I had the entire house cleaned up yesterday morning. Everything except the garage. 4 bags of yard waste in the garage. Boxes of beanies everywhere. Full garbage bags, tape, yard supplies, old shoes and rugs kicked around, and leaves all over the place.

And the local TV News team called me.

They would, they said, like to talk to me about TFT again, and about my waiting for Brian to come home.

They'd like to film the beanies some more.

The beanies that were in the garage.

The garage that was a big ol' giant mess.

So The Boy I Told You About Earlier (heh-heh, Pobble) and I dashed about like crazies, sweeping stuff under the rug and hanging a beanie banner on the wall. Like I really hang beanie banners around my house. Hey. It's PR.

So, Jenny Gastwirth from WCIA came over, and I was much more at ease this time around, in front of the camera. I learned from my first awkward interview: Don't look into the camara. I'm getting used to the questions, and have answers for them. Jenny was warm and comfortable, and I just talked to her. Oh, and a 1/2-piece of hard candy tucked into your cheek helps alleviate cotton mouth from nerves.

We were on at 5:30, 10:00, and I hear today, on the noon news. We're listed on Illinois Home Page as one of todays "Top Stories."

Emails are rolling in, and we all wait.

Hey, if you get thirsty while you're waiting...c'mon over.

I have a beverage refrigerator, y'know.

On Public Speaking

I had my first public speaking appearance, for Toys for Troops, this week. There were 15,000 people in attendance.

I've discovered that, when there are 15,000 people before me:

• I get emotional and cry when I "practice." I have a very hard time saying "My son is a soldier in the U.S. Army," without crying.
• But I can say it okay, in front of 15,000 people. I didn't cry. Yay for me.
  
• I get cotton mouth. My tongue is like a nice warm terry cloth towel, and I have to fight back an urge to make gagging-up-hairball sounds.
• My voice wavers, and I insert words in places they should not be, and I laugh nervously, like this: "heh heh."
• I develop a Palsy. My hands shake like leaves.
• I cannot, with the palsy, hold my own microphone with one hand. When the microphone begins spinning like a baton, I have to grab my right hand with my left, to keep it steady.
• I cannot judge if I'm talking into the microphone, or not. When my voice gets loud, I jump.
• When my audience of 15,000 gasps at the idea of 7000 beanies, I like it.
• When my audience of 15,000 applauds, which I totally do not expect, I nearly drop the microphone, and I get all breathless and forget what I was going to say.

Oh, and one more thing:

• I lose any ability to make an accurate head-count of my audience: Photographic evidence later reveals that 15,000 stern, scrutinizing adults were really about 50 happy little kids in a vacation bible school.

I have no idea what I said to them.