PTSD Vol. 1: Coming Home

I'm somehow finding it difficult to narrow down my reflections to write this post. I've mentally prepared myself to deal with, or at least, educate myself on PTSD issues since Brian enlisted.

In the past couple of years, I've received anguished letters and email from families of struggling soldiers about what their loved ones are going through. To these families, I've offered my sympathy and prayers, and thanked them for their words, even when they are angry and accusatory. My military Mom tales come off as a little too rosy for some. To these families, I can only declare that others' pain, though I know it exists, and care so deeply that it hurts me also, isn't always mine to share.

Even if it is my son's.


Brian had little access to telephones or internet during his first tour, and his reports home were short and sweet: "Bombs, no one hurt, things are fine." He regaled us with "cat & mouse" stories when he came home on leave. One man, for example, set a bomb in the road in front of his own house every day. Every day, Brian & Co. de-bombed the bomb, or whatever they do to it, but again the next day it would be there. Finally fed up with the bomb du jour, they moved it into the man's yard, and detonated it, blowing out the windows in his car, and killing his chickens. The message: "Don't mess with us, or we'll kill your chickens."

Funny chicken stories. Those are the ones you tell your Mom.

Coming Home

When your soldier comes home from the a war zone, they prepare you with literature containing rules and information about what to expect from them. "Avoid alcohol" is number 1 on the list. Oh, hilarious; when we got those boys back to the barracks after landing, they were 2 steps out of the car before icy bottles of rum were passed around.

At the end of that day, I wrote,

I'll admit to telling Clint that I felt like I'd been tossed into a pool of Testosterone. 12 hours with of 3 soldiers fresh out of a war. 3 soldiers happy to see girls again (there are no women in their company), and making no bones about it! 12 hours of rum and beer, ribald language, hair-raising war stories, and one mere expression of a desire to hit a certain jackass on the sidelines.

Written somewhat in jest, it was also the absolute truth. The barracks were a rowdy place to be, and not entirely what I'd expected. A parent's presence didn't bring about the manners that it did at bootcamp graduation. Beer bottles were tossed from building tops, parking lots covered in glass and garbage and war-whooping was prevalent.

It was a riotous good time to be home.

What I observed over the next 6 months, with my kid and his friends, was that the riots didn't stop. Transition back into a civilized society after being hopped up on adrenaline and fear and anger for 18 months takes more than a 3-week leave with the family. All of the training to react instantly or lose your life doesn't just disappear. Your choices are to check yourself and feel completely leashed up in such a slow environment, or release it and find that adrenaline high. I watched and listened and talked as mine (mine being all those that I knew coming home) wrecked their motorcycles, drank themselves into oblivion, beat the shit out of one another, got arrested, stripped of their ranks, cut their pay, or got kicked out of the Army entirely.

My son was no exception. He was extremely restless, upon returning to routine, seemingly meaningless chores on base. He was home barely 8 weeks before he informed me that he was requesting early redeployment. Good or bad, I advised him to ride out the instinct to get back to the adrenaline rush. Give it a few more months, see if you calm down.

There was more than one conversation in which he tried to convince me why fighting that guy across the bar was absolutely necessary: He needed to be taught a lesson. He'd think twice before heckling a soldier again, wouldn't he? I would exasperatedly try to convince my kid that he was letting worthless people control his emotions, and that you can't beat sense into a dumbass anyway. Knock it off, before someone gets seriously injured or ends up in jail, which is pretty highly likely. In the book Down Range, to Iraq and Back by Bridget Cantrell & Chuck Dean, Dean refers to this behavior as "Driving Fast in the Slow Lane" and being unable to control erratic behaviors.

"I have visited many of America's ex-servicemen who have been incarcerated in state and federal institutions over the years. Most are wonderful people, and it breaks my heart to see these men pay the price for poor judgment. They survived the grueling months of combat only to come home and go straight to jail for the rest of their lives."

The idea of this happening to any of them made me sick. Still, it got to the point where I pictured the Fort Benning barracks more violent with gang warfare than any inner-city.


It's difficult to "advise" without blame. Tread lightly. It's easy to get fed up and pissed off with what seems like juvenile behavior. What we have to remember is that this is all par for the course.

More importantly, what we have to remember is that we have no idea what they've been through. The worst of the tales may take years to come out, if ever. My policy, when listening to my soldier babies, was usually to just give straightforward, common sense reminders. "Take a deep breath, think about yourself; don't jeopardize your future." Admittedly, I've probably, lovingly threatened to slap the shit of them if they keep up the deconstructive behavior. I might also have thrown in a "what in the hell were you thinking?"

More often than not, it's best just to keep your trap shut and your opinions to yourself, and to engage in "Listen. Hug." therapy.

With time, my kid settled down, as did the rest of them, back into people I could recognize. Instead of rising to the challenge, MPs were called at the onset of a probable ambush. Education and training for further endeavors began to take priority over road rage, and unfortunately, structured days turned back to training to redeploy. (boo)

So, that was the coming home, and the year or so after. I reflect now, and worry that in the midst of this, there were times I said the wrong thing. Or I didn't say the right thing. Or I didn't recognize something for what it was. Honestly, I'm not even clear on whether these issues are symptoms of PTSD, or if they fall more under the category of normal acclimating to a peaceful society.

Hey! There's a lot I don't know! And no matter how much I read, or how much I listen to friends, soldiers, their families and spouses, and how much I learn from them, I also know this:

I will never know.

We will never know, and that is the soldier's gift to us. It their service to this country that protects us from ever knowing, ever having to understand.

Don't forget to thank them for that; it never gets old.

 * * * * *

Volume II to come. Reference to my son and others in these posts has been posted with permission by those that shared with me. If you'd like to contribute, vent, or educate me further in understanding, you are hereby granted my attention and my discretion. E-mail me at ljstewart@gmail.com.

Foreseen Subject: My Soldier Babies and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Prologue Post

If you're weary, it may not be from what you're doing. Your weariness could be caused by what you continue to put off doing. Having an uncompleted task hanging over you, day after day, week after week, wears on you constantly. To free yourself from that burden, go ahead and get it finished.

Wise words posted by my friend Lynellen have motivated me to free myself from a burden. Or at least, to start talking about a subject that weighs heavily on me.

You know I knew it was coming. Being a worrying Mother, I've steeled myself to deal with this issue probably since the day Brian enlisted, when I was still selfishly, naively hoping that he'd end up with some pencil-pushing job in a closet-sized office somewhere out in the sticks (on U.S. soil, of course).

Some news reports about these wars are unbearable to me at times, and I'll admit to not being able to handle it and turning the television off for my own sanity. It is always with a deep sense of guilt, as I know that there's a family out there that is living with, or dying with, what I can shut out.

Still, I watch and read the articles, stories, and documentaries on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the issues that our men and women have to deal with when they come home. I think that most of us have probably dealt with some avenue of  post-stress. I think about times in my own life when I've reacted to an event well after the fact.

• I have shaken like a leaf a week after my son was in a life-threatening accident, falling 2 stories to large landscaping rocks beneath the waterslide.
• Amusing now, but two years after my divorce, I got stuck, home alone, in my attic, and dealt with it by having a screaming tantrum directed at my ex-husband. After all, if we'd worked things out, I wouldn't have been stuck in the damned attic hole with a giant piece of plywood lodged between me and the ladder, would I? It was all his fault, and I couldn't have been more surprised to find that out!
• While sis and Mom fell apart at Dad's death, I held it together to take care of all of the business and legal aspects of his life, his death and finances, and rental properties and tenants. 6 months after it was all settled, I crashed, becoming so numb and sleepy that it took walking into a moving car to alert me to the fact that I needed to see a doctor.

I know that these are everyday events, that happen, eventually, to almost everyone. There are accidents, and deaths, and disappointments and crises in everyone's life, as natural order. My reflections on my own minor-serious post-dealings only serve to put into perspective the magnitude of what our soldiers are coming home with.

Three years into starting an organization that rotates around happy little plush toys, I am beginning to talk to and meet more and more soldiers that are sharing stories about their PTSD issues, and about their deployments. I have corresponded with injured soldiers, some briefly and some at-length. I've passed names on to others that want to help, and have lost contact with a few still important to me. I am, for the first time, hearing their stories, stories they are telling, also, for the first time.

It has taken me months to start writing about this, I simply have not been able to find the words, or the mood.

I have, at the recommendation of one, been reading a book that is issued to many soldiers upon coming home, to prepare them for future issues, Down Range: To Iraq and Back, by Bridget Cantrell and Chuck Dean. It's taking me too long to get through the 150-page book, because I can only read a few paragraphs before I hyperventilate.

It's taking me months to write about something that has never happened to me.

I can very well understand how it takes them months or years to deal with, discuss, acknowledge what they've been through. I can also understand why some never do.

And I still know very little, but I'm going to write it. Because it wears on me. It wears on me that I have friends dealing with horrific issues, and it wears on me that my son is in a war zone, and experiencing issues from his first tour. And it wears on me that people are afraid to get help.

Mostly it wears on me that I haven't been one more voice, however small, on one more issue that needs to be screamed from the rooftops.

It's a burden I need to unload. Stay tuned.

Road Trip II: Cripple Creek, Colorado

I have some extra time, and I have a lot of cool photos from our epic 5-day roadtrip, so guess what? It's share time!

These are from Cripple Creek, a gold mining town in Colorado. We started out in Manitou Springs, drove around Pike's Peak and into downtown Cripple Creek. The website for Cripple Creek advertises "Gaming, Heritage, Shopping, Dining, Recreation, Events, Lodging, and Attractions." If you only have a few hours to spend there, however, Cripple Creek offers "Gaming, Gaming, Gaming, Gaming, Gaming, Gaming, aaaaand Gaming." For the most part, it's a beautiful, historical 3-block downtown area full of casinos. We hadn't banked on that, but we still had a nice time walking around, and poking our heads into a few shops.

 An old gold mine:

Shooting from the hip.:

We met a charming lady that bought an old casino and turned it into an antique shop, a tea parlor in which she held formal tea parties, and an art gallery. It was an enormous building, and it was, she said, her "weekend hobby"—she had a "real" job to tend to also. You think I have energy? This woman could run circles around me.

Many of our shots were taken out the window while we were zooming down the highway. This advertisement catches your eye more than a dumb old sign, doesn't it?

$5: Fudge or Quarter Slots? Hm. Either way I'd be out $5, and slot machines don't go straight to my hips.

And yes, I was out $5.

This sign was just on the edge of town when we left. Please be careful, the Visitor Information* lady told us; "there are bovine on the road."

Clint and I are masters of Car Games. We took to calling the cows Free-range Chicken Cows, and then to preceding every animal we saw with the words "Free-range Chicken." We saw free-range chicken deer, and free-range chicken llamas, and free-range chicken chickens.


*Sidenote on the Visitor Information Center. The caretaker lady explained that there was a charge to see the museum and lookout point at this particular stop. Needing only a map and a restroom, we opted out. Still, when Clint went to use the Gents', I noticed the sign behind her desk read "Free beyond this point." Oh! Free? Well, then I'll just go on in. The fee must be for whatever wonders were stored on the second story of the building, yes? I wandered around looking at pick-axes and taking scenic photos with abandon.

When Clint reappeared, we took off. Just as the door was closed behind us, I spotted the sign again, and noted that it read "FEE beyond this point." I stood paralyzed in the parking lot for a minute...and then I just got in the car. I can imagine that woman's take on us: "People are so rude; I told that woman she had to pay for a ticket, and she just went right on in."

Yeah, I did. And I felt so "Bonnie and Clyde" for it.

It's so fun how we never get bored.

Ogallala Livestock Barn: Kathy's Kafe

Clint and I took a road trip around the country last week, mapping out a few interesting—and, admittedly, a few very uninteresting—stops along the way. I've always been more of an "off-the-beaten-path" traveler, and I'm giddy to have found me a man that's on board with that. Give us a narrow road to unknown treasures over a blinking neon arrow to a tourist attraction any day.

The "Giant Coffee Pot" stop on Thursday turned out to be a bust, but the accidental breakfast that we found on Friday morning more than made up for it.

We pulled over in Ogallala, Nebraska. A small ranching town, we had a hard time finding a restaurant of any sort, so pulled into a gas station to ask for advice. We were directed on down to, and I quote, "the sale barn."

Breakfast in a sale barn? Yay! Ok! What's a sale barn? We scooted down to find ourselves at at Kathy's Kafe, at the Ogallala Livestock Sale Barn, and parked in a big dusty lot next to cattle pens. The  aromatherapy and white-noise (mooooo!) made for instant interesting ambiance.

When we walked in looked around, we knew we'd hit the jackpot. "Yes!" ::fist-bump:: We found a booth, and the waitress promptly brought me coffee, "hon." I love it when waitresses call me "hon."

Our orders were placed, and we could see into the small kitchen where ham was promptly sliced, and sausage was pattied. Clint ordered the Ham 'n eggs 'n pancakes:

I never order sweets for breakfast, no pancakes, waffles, sugary cereal. Still, I had to have a bite of Clint's pancakes, and they were to. die. for. They tasted like they were made out of vanilla cake batter. I had another bite, and maybe another, even though I do not like pancakes, I mean it, now. But I would eat these every day if I lived in Ogallala.

And this was my breakfast. Ah, nothing like a stick-to-your-ass ribs breakfast to get you through 10 hours of rasslin' cows riding down the highway in luxury. No, this was not on my diet, but baby, if I'm eating with cowboys, I'm by-God going to eat like one.

Yeah, cowboys, real live cowboys. Hats and chaps and boots.

And the cows to go with them:

The sale pens next to the livestock barn had stairs to an overpass so that you could walk up and check out the wares. A cowboy's jewel case. We wandered up after breakfast, and watched a few cows being herded out of barns and into trucks. They didn't care for us that much. They raced toward us, and came to a screeching halt when they realized we were standing overhead, and refused to go under the "bridge" we were standing on, until a—what—a cowpoke? A cowpoke sauntered up behind them and hit a plastic thingy on the ground to get them going. "Get along, little doggies." (He didn't say that; wouldn't it have been cool if he'd said that?



Oh, I can't get along little doggiee....

Kathy's Kafe at the Ogallala Livestock Barn. It really was our cup o' tea, and you must go there if you're ever meandering through Nebraska.

Hon.

Uh-oh.

A blog is a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies.

—Andrew Sullivan

Yeeks!

I have to get to work.

So What If They're 24? I Can Mommy-Blog If I Want To

Brian's been back in Iraq for a month or so, and I'm still laughing at some of the antics that transpired while he was home. These boys have been hanging with my kid since they were in grade school.

(Just so you know, this sort of thing didn't start
until they were well out of grade school. As far as I know.)

I met Brian and Kyle at The Esquire on one of those windy, blizzardy evenings. Big decision: Country roads blowing shut vs. an evening with my kid & Co. before he goes back. Hmmm. Snow, schmo. I met them out with the stipulation that I was cutting out early.


We spent a couple hours eating and talking and laughing and discovering fascinating things about one another. For instance, Kyle and I can both do this —>:

Who knew?!



And Brian, after a few shots of something strong, enjoys surprising his photo-mates. We'd called our friend Mark out into the bitter weather. No doubt he's regretting his decision to join us now that I've posted this photo.

I was bundling up to leave them to their evening, when Brian started begging me to come out with them to do donuts in the snow. Uhhh...yeah....NO. Noooo thank you. I knew very well that if I had gotten into Kyle's car with those boys, there would have been more than donuts on the menu: I would have found myself airborn while they high-fived one another at how loud they'd just made me scream. Mark was brave enough to join them, though, so I bid them adieu.

Kyle's car is an old Toyota with about 40 million miles on it. It has the funniest horn sound *meep meep* that makes you laugh your head off. Earlier in the week, Brian had talked Kyle into doing a burnout with the Toy. Listen carefully to hear the horn once he burns that baby to the end of the street.

Hearing my kid laugh really makes me laugh.

So, that was The Donut Machine for the night that I bowed out, and from here on, this is probably going to be a "you had to be there" story, or at least, "it was funnier when Brian told it" post.

They headed out to a big parking lot, and began screaming around the light poles and medians, donuting as much as the little car could donut. Here's my graphic representation of the story as I heard it:

After spinning and screaming all over the parking lot, Brian noticed that there were 2 guys standing on the sidewalk, watching them the entire time. When he pointed it out to Kyle, he *meep-meeped* at them, and then sped on over to say hello. Brian rolled down his window on the approach, and asked "How do we look?!!"

Ok, you have to say this just right for it to be as funny as it as. Read it outloud, real cool and slow, like. Ready? [start reading outloud]

"Dat shit look goooood. Just like da fast and da furious."

Kyle screamed "Cool, Thanks!" *meep-meep*

And they sped off.

Are you laughing? Because we did; we repeated that line over and over about 700 times in the next week Brian was home. Brian even admitted to repeating it outloud to himself when he was home alone, and cracking himself up every time.

Ok, well, if I told it wrong, here's something that will REALLY make you laugh:

I present to you: Mr. Anthony Dobbins, doing his Christopher Walken imitation.

C'mon, I know that one got to you. God, these boys still make me laugh.

Soldier Baby Meets The Prez

3 years or so ago, when I was just establishing Toys for Troops, I received this e-mail from a young lady in the area:

My name is Jerrica Kuebler, and I have quite a few Beanie Babies I would like to give to you, if you're still collecting them. I'm actually in the process of joining the army, and will be leaving for basic training at the end of September. So if I could meet with you to give you the Beanie Babies before then, that would be great. 

I met her shortly thereafter. A petite, beautiful girl, I'll admit to being stunned at the idea that this one was going to bootcamp. She was the first young woman I'd met that had enlisted, and in the 5 minutes or so that I spoke to her before I bid her Good Luck and encouraged her to keep in touch, I developed a weird maternal ache. I know what it's like to send a son off to bootcamp. To send a daughter? This little thing, a soldier?

I lost track of her when she took off, and then got another e-mail from her a year later:

I met you along time ago when you were collecting Beanie Babies. I am now in the Army. [...] me and my roommate would each like to get a soldier's name and address to send them a care package. If you could please get back with me at your earliest convenience.

First she gives me beanies, then she's sending care packages...and then she herself was deployed, to Afghanistan. She was kind enough to send me the names of several of her colleagues, and they made up the majority of our female soldier babies on this year's care package mailing list.


She's nearing the end of her tour, counting down the days. It sounds like she's ready to come home, and yet, had one hell of a last hurrah this week:

You know, when my family, my friends, my soldier-babies do something amazing, or when they are something amazing, I just can't help being so darned proud and happy.

This was an exciting day for an amazing lady, and I hope Mr. President realizes, someday, who he just shook hands with.

Shrewd Receptionist, That's Me.

In the last year or so, my workspace has moved from a cubicle in the back to the lobby in the front of the building, where in addition to my normal job, I answer phones and sign for incoming packages.

We're located in an industrial area of the community, so we get a lot of lost stragglers. When you enter our workplace, you will initially encounter no one. Make a left-hand turn towards the room with the light, (you know, where someone might be sitting) and you'll find me.

I usually hear delivery trucks pull up, or recognize the boss's signature slam, and have a general idea of who is coming or going. If an unexpected slam occurs, I'm out of my chair to see who's here. There's sort of a loop through the building, and I can end up following someone in circles if they buzz out of my sight before I get to the door. Right or left, which way did they go, George, which way did they go?

What amazes me is the number of people that have absolutely no qualms about entering the building and, instead of peeking their head through a doorway to look for a body, they just commence to yelling. "HELLO! HELLO IS ANYONE IN HERE? YOO HOOOOOOO!!! I'll be busy trying to track them down in circles, while alarmed folks from our second building come running to see what the commotion's about.

I'll catch up to said strangers to have them ask me: Is this "Acme Dynamite Company at 123 Main Street?" There's a giant mailbox in the driveway that reads Zenith Anvil Company, 456 Main Street. There is also a large sign on the door that you just waltzed into, that informs you that this is the Zenith Anvil Company. Does this freakin' look like a dynamite company to you? And stop that screaming right now.*

I direct them down the street to the dynamite company, whereupon many will ask me where they should park and which door they should go in. How the hell should I know? Seriously, if you can't figure that much out on your own, chances are your application is going to end up in a circular file, and you might as well head back home.

Ok, I'm really not that rude, I just practice keeping my guard up to deal with the telesales folks. I was pretty lousy at weeding them out when I first started phones. I don't like grilling people.

Turns out I don't like the evil eye from my boss even more, so I've developed a few personal rules of thumb:

1. If you cannot pronounce my boss's name, "BZZZZZzzt!"  you're not getting through. It's a "foreign" name, but it's an easy foreign name. If you can't sound out 2 little syllables without completely butchering them, my telephone starts sizzling and popping, and sirens go off, which, I'm sorry, means I have to hang up on you now.

2. Asking "Can I talk to the person in charge of ________?" will get you nowhere. If you don't know who you want to talk to, then you don't get to talk to them. I have thus far resisted asking, "and who might that be?"

3. If you do manage to get someone's name right, you have to pass another test: The "Can I Tell Him/Her Who's Calling?" Test. If you respond "daaauhhh, this is Bob."

     3.A. We're still not done, Bob. I didn't catch your last name? "Smith."

     3.B. And which company are you with, Bob Smith? "Coyote, Inc."

     3.C. Ok, Bob, one minute please.

          3.c.i. Place Bob on Hold.

           3.c.ii Go get a glass of water.

          3.c.iii. Return to phone, and choose Bob's line. "Bob, I'm sorry, but Jane isn't in her office right now; can I take your number and have her call you back?" Click. Bob hung up on me. How rude.

4. There are times when I'm not quite sure; I'll answer the phone oh-so-politely, "Zenith Anvil Company," and a friendly voice will rise up: "Hey, is [Boss's name, spot-on] around?" Hm. Sounds casual; this could be legit. Or is he too casual? It could be a trap! What do I do?

I lie like a rug. "Oh, he just stepped out; can I have him call you back in a few minutes?" A "no thank you, I'll call back another time" means I just thwarted a sneaky saleperson, and thus did not irritate any bosses or coworkers. Yay me.

If the callers hands over their first and last name, along with phone number, a Christmas miracle occurs: "Oh, you're in luck; he just walked in! I'll let him know you're on the line." Yay me again.

I don't always win. I don't catch a last name and slink into boss' office asking "Do you want to talk to John Flibberdy-Flabberdy of JingleHeimerSchmidt? He sounds like he knows you." I've hung up on a Rabbi, asked one woman, "Oh, is this Jane's Mother?" [it was not], and gotten snapped at by irritated callers that don't want to have to put up with me.

Only once has a salesperson ever called me back and called me to the carpet for hanging up on him. I put him through and the boss hung up on him. No yay me.

See, tele-sales people, don't get your panties in a wad. I know you're doing your job, but I am also doing mine. Here's how you have to look at it. Remember the Warner Bros. cartoon with Ralph and Sam? Ralph is the coyote, and Sam is the sheepdog, and they're both punching in to work in the morning? And then Ralph commences to trying to steal the sheep, while Sam spends the day thwarting him, until it's quittin' time. They cordially clock out and bid one another adieu at the end of the night.

It's just like that, see? I'm Sam, and you're Ralph.

See ya tomorrow, Ralph.


*The names of all companies have been changed to protect the innocent, and, generally, CMA for blogging about the workplace. If anyone asks, this particular blog was written by a guest blogger. That's the ticket.

Vision Decision

After wearing a pair of contacts meant to be disposed after a months' wear since last September, I finally went to see a new eye doctor yesterday. Man, those guys do NOT like to hear that you've been putting things 7-months expired into your eyes.

Also, speaking from experience, mums the word that you periodically put your contact lens case in the dishwasher. That little detail almost gave my last eye doctor a full-body seizure. What is the big deal—if I can eat out of it, why can't I put it in my eye?

Never mind that. Here's my situation: I wear contact lenses, coupled with generic reading glasses for (duh) reading. Without corrective lenses, my vision is almost nonexistent. For instance, while you might see this:

Without glasses or contacts, this is my view:

I'll drive! Hey! Want me to drive?
You guys can drink all night, I'll be the driver!

Throw in this wonderful thing we call aging, and correcting my vision is a challenge for every doctor. I had a great experience yesterday, but I still had to walk away with these contact lens options:

1) Distance vision will be great, but reading glasses absolutely imperative.

2) Distance good, but a little fuzzy, some reading possible without further correction, but reading glasses necessary for flat-out reading, a book, computer use, etc.

My eyes were previously corrected to the #2 choice. 

I chose, however, a trial run on Option #1. When I look out the window or down the road, it's as if I have binoculars for eyes! I am the bionic woman, scanning street signs and tree buds. I can read the rolling credits! I can see a bird's toenails when it flies overhead! It's amazing!

However. What I thought I could live without seeing yesterday afternoon has become apparent immediately. Needed to call the doctor back. Cannot read his business card. Order dinner. Cannot see menu. Phone is ringing. Cannot read caller ID. Need to make phone call. Cannot see numbers. Read magazine while drying hair? Fuhgeddabout it. Blog? Can't see monitor.

It looks like I will be carrying reading glasses with me everywhere now, and wearing them a lot more often. I've got a couple of weeks to figure out which is the lesser of my 2 evil choices.*

What would you do?

*I do also have a pair of "real" glasses for wearing all the time, but that's definitely not my full-time choice right now. Fogging up in cold or humid weather, switching to Rx sun glasses and back, I've done it before, and I'll do it again someday. When I have to.

A Minute in the Life, again

I've been working on a few other posts, but just hit a wall when I went to upload video to Blogger. Does anyone know what happened to the little "filmstrip" button? Or, at least, what happened to mine? It's gone, no matter how much the Help menu tells me it's right there. It's not! That means uploading to YouTube first, and my carriage will be turning into a pumpkin soon, so I'll have to finish that up later.

In the meantime, Saturday's photos from around the world are really shaping up at A Minute in the Life. We had so much fun, once again, waiting for that one minute to roll around. I e-mailed Brian when I woke up reminding him to grab a 9:00 photo if he could. I was at lunch with Mom and Tim, and Clint was at work. We were buzzing all morning with reminder texts.

Here's a sneak peek at my photos. I was standing in a doorway between the restaurant and the kitchen.

You'll have to go to the website to see everyone else's; I don't want to give them all away! It's been really fun to watch the photos go up. I know so many people that participated; I'm loving finding out who played, where they were, and what they submitted. I love pouring over any photos, and I think all of the submissions are fascinating. I imagine each photo, and each turn, determining the exact spots of each photographer.

Go check it out!

If you participated but haven't sent your photos in, there's still plenty of time. Mr. Locraft is uploading each days' submissions as they roll in, and hasn't closed up shop yet! 

A Minute In The Life: Take 2

3 years ago Clint and I and several other friends participated in a project called A Minute In The Life, a project dreamed up by one Mr. Martin Locraft. He could tell it better, I'm sure, but he had this ingenius idea to see how many people he could get to submit a photo taken in the very same minute across the world. 2:00 Eastern Time, U.S.A.

One idea, lots of "spread the word," and he pulled it off, baby. The 2007 photos were compiled on a website, and eventually, with permission of anyone that submitted a photo, into a book. I ordered a copy for one of Clint's Christmas presents.

A MINUTE IN THE LIFE: TAKE TWO

Play along with us for Volume II, won't you?

Wherever you are in the world

at 2:00 P.M.  Eastern time

Saturday, March 20, 2010

(1) Take a photo of where you are, what you're doing, what you see.
Don't set it up, just set your alarm and snap the shot.

(2) Turn completely around and take another photo of what's behind you.

(3) Send your photos to aminuteinthelife@gmail.com

Then check out the website, to see what the rest of the world was doing the very minute that you took yours.

I have a lot of friends placed around this country and around this world, and I'm already fascinated, wondering about the possible submissions: Hollywood, New York City, England, India, Iraq, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Australia. Bring it, friends!

Keep in mind that this is the same MINUTE for everyone in the world, so 2:00 p.m. Eastern time, will be 1:00 for us midwesterners, and 11:00 a.m. for California folk. Brian & Co. in Iraq will have to take theirs at 9:00 p.m. There's a time zone converter here and at the AMITL website.

I hope you play along.

_____________________________________

A sidenote on the last project: I didn't realize at the time how sentimental this one would turn out to be for me. It was a bit of fun, that's all.

Looking back, though...I'd just started communicating with Clint, and we were friends, but by no means yet an "item." I was, on that particular day, driving my Mom to St. Louis, to visit my sister at Barnes Hospital, after surgery. She had just found out that her cancer had returned, and this was the first surgical attempt to remove it.

I met Tim and the kids at their hotel, with a cooler full of lunch-type foods and snacks to hold them over during down-time. The photo of this hotel maid (right) was the one I ended up submitting:

While I ran outside for my shot, niece Brandi grabbed this one, on the left:

She's in the mirror; there's the cooler full of deli meats and salad we brought along.

And Clint, at home, on duty, and sending me text messages to look for a blond in a black car that might be his daughter that I had not yet met, played along also:

These photos, they are not spectacular. They are not creative, or poised. They are one minute in our lives, and one I most certainly wouldn't have remembered, if not for this project.

Game on, people. Who's with me?

Sephora-moric Ramblings

Diane and I made a couple trips to the Chicago area last month, and had to make a Sephora pitstop during one of them. Acres and acres of makeup, a girly-girl's dream!

While I browsed, she approached a gorgeous employee and asked her about her eye-shadow technique. (I've named said employee "Jasmine," because I think she could play her in Disney's Aladdin.) Jasmine began explaining the technique, and Diane finally decided she needed a demonstration to fully understand. She dragged me over and put me in the chair. Of course! If her own eyes were closed for the demonstration, how could she see how to do it?

For Diane, I let Jasmine have her way with my eyelids. Here's Jasmine, and the effect we were after:

And here are my eyes, all done up, just like hers:

Uncanny, huh?  It's like we're twins.

Diane took her turn in the chair then, and I snuck off to find makeup remover; the near-black was a little too intense for a pasty-skinned midwestern girl like myself.

The eyeshadow was a bust, but she did help me pick out a good foundation. It's called Make Up Forever, and it's High Definition! Jasmine explained to me that this makeup would make my skin appear so flawless that any photos or videos that I should happen to appear in would not have to be professionally touched up. As if that would be of major concern to me. My personal "touch-up" system, when faced with a lousy photo of myself or anyone else is to delete that sucker off of the camera and pretend it never happened. Duh. That's just good manners

While the sales pitch didn't do much for me, the makeup itself did, and I bought it for one-hundred-million dollars. I do love it. I also bought an expensive foundation brush just because Diane bought one, and I had to copy. This after I've lectured for years that most "makeup" brushes can be purchased for a fraction of the price at any art store. Sephora is the devil, and Sephora made me do it.

Also, Sephora is coming to Champaign! After years of hitting up Chicago or St. Louis or resorting to online shopping, we'll finally have a great skin-care/cosmetic place in this burg!

Lord, I'm going to end up in the poorhouse.

Upside: Any photos take of me while I'm in said poorhouse will not have to be touched up.

On the tail of the last post...

Click to enlarge.

Diane took this picture of us while Brian was home. I love it not only because it's so lovey...but look at the TV in the left corner.

Isn't that funny?