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?

(1) Line in the Sand (2) Let the Yappin begin

I seem to be in a bit of a blogging funk lately. As is always, it's never for lack of fodder; I wander around composing blogs in my head all day long. I think what stops me in my tracks is that I feel a need to really "say" something when I sit down. Funny, I peek at posts from 4-5 years ago. They are full of carefree rambling and chicken suits, and I rarely felt compelled to make a point. What happened?

Life has just become seriouser and seriouser in the last couple of years. I think that sometimes when we steel ourselves to weather hard times, we become worriers, grievers, carriers of burden. When the light begins to shine again we are timid about shaking that yoke off of our shoulders. If we're lucky, it hits us sooner rather than later that we can set that fucker down, and skip down the road for awhile, with our piggytails flying.

There I go again.

Ok, I'm drawing a line in the sand:

___________________________

I'm over here now, and I'm returning to my blogging roots: I'm going to get back to yappin at'cha, as if you'd pulled up a chair at my sidewalk cafe table.

I'm behind on my kid yappin! We had a great time when Brian was home on leave. It's always great when he's here, but I think it was extra good for all of us to have him home at this time. There have been some tough times for this one lately. There's been some petty internet mudslinging at him and this family that he can't defend from Iraq, and it was very very good for him to come home and see firsthand that everyone he cares about still supports and believes in him.

I was happy to have him home just so that he would know firsthand what I've been assuring him: Anyone that knows him and knows us, knows better.  Rise above it, end of story.

So, I'm proud of that kid. In his 15 days home, he made a lot of time for a lot of family when a lot of friends were tugging at his shirt to see him also.

This photo was taken at dinner the night before we took him back to O'Hare. It captures their relationship so honestly that it takes my breath away. In this one, she is showing him his baby picture—for approximately the 4th time, starting the story anew each time: "This is YOU!"

I've sat through plenty of young people rolling their eyes at Mom, and I'm always stupid-proud that Brian treats her with the respect that he does. He looks her in the eye and talks with her each time about the photo as if it's the first time he's seen it. He would never hurt her feelings. I guess it doesn't matter how old they get: when you witness them heeding values that you hoped to bring up in them, it always feels good.

Diane joined me to take him back to O'Hare. We were startled when we walked in to the airport and  a security guard whisked him to check his bag, opening up the line, while we stood in place. I am sure we had forlorn "this is it" looks on our faces, but the guard turned to us then, and said "are you with him? Get over there and get security passes."

They took our drivers' licenses and gave us VIP passes all the way to the gate!

There was one more line with about 100 people serpentining through it, before going through security. We followed Brian to the end, when we heard "SIR? Over here, sir." She held up the line and checked us through. It took a couple of minutes, and I stood behind him watching the responses of the people he was move in front of. I made eye contact with one lady almost to the front, and she smiled so knowingly to me that a tear rolled down my cheek before I had time to stop it.

Moving back to the boarding area, this gentlemen rushed his 2 sons over, and thanked Brian for his service. His 2 boys stepped up then and shook his hand and thanked him also. It's another hold-your-breath moment, from a parent's viewpoint. Whew.

We were blessed with a couple of extra hours with Brian before he flew off to Atlanta for the night. Putting your kid on a plane back to school or back to, say, his job at an army base in the United States is just different than putting your kid back on a plane to Iraq. It suuuuuucks.



Di and I took off and drowned our sorrows in the streets of Chicago before going home, and Brian...well...Brian went to Atlanta for one night, and took off traveling around the world the next day, landing in Kuwait, trying to get a flight out of Baghdad. He checked his bags and waited...for 7 DAYS for a plane. Sand storms in Kuwait, then in Baghdad kept them grounded, while more soldiers managed to arrive and fill the place up, and somehow grab seats on the next plane while he sat. Apparently they call your name...or not. And there's no complaining to the management.

He filled his time by moving from tent to tent sleeping where he knew people would stir and wake him up so as not to miss the next roll call, and by renting internet time at $5/hr, and hoping there would be someone online to chat with. I talked to him almost as much during his Kuwait time as I did while he was home.

This concludes today's yapping, but there will be plenty more. I have photos, videos, and stories aplenty to tell you.

Rest assured, it will all be pointless.