Look Who's Back

The Plaid Party

Just Cause They're Cute

Sorry... they're mine. You can't have them.

Well. Most of the time. Sometimes I'd rent them out for a bit.

I missed them immensely while they were gone. But I forgot how much noise they really DO make. And how ANNOYING it is when they pick on each other.

But yet. I'll keep them.

I've Finally Found What I'm Looking For

I sometimes felt like I didn't belong in my family growing up.

I knew... somewhere out there were people who were LIKE me.

After searching for years and years, I've finally found them.




(Like this? Check out awkwardfamilyphotos.com)

Dusting off the Soapbox...

Ok... I've not soapboxed for a while. I think it's time.

I follow Mike Huckabee on Facebook. I like him. Not everything about him, but I like him.

Today he posted a link to a story about a cartoon in the Imperial Valley Press in El Centro, California. Here is the cartoon.Well if you aren't from around those parts, this probably makes no sense. Let me help it make sense for you. There is a gentleman who is running for congress in that area. His name is Nick Popaditch. Here's a picture of him:


Nick was a Marine gunnery sergeant who lost the sight in his right eye during the war in Iraq in 2004.

Now... lots of people are up in arms about the completely distasteful cartoon. Here's what Huck said about it:

For The Imperial Valley Press to publish a cartoon that makes light of the war injuries suffered by Nick is flat out offensive and wrong – not to mention what a disregard and disdain it displays for all our veterans. Let me be clear, our veterans past and present deserve our deepest gratitude. They do not deserve to be the subject of mocking, ridicule and disgusting attacks like this one.

I agree with Huck.

However... let's look at some of the responses on Huck's Facebook page:

• Another looser who doesn't understand the sacrifice of soldiers so they can spew their poison.
• Absolutely horrible! Those people are total lunatics! I wish California would break off from the U.S. and float on its own out in the ocean. Let THEM set up their OWN government... when someone attacks them, we can tell them... "you're on your own!"
• I wonder how many of the libs serve in the military????? Maybe it's time to send some of them over, there are waaaaaay too many here with toooooo much time on their hands.
• I'm sure this proud Marine has taken the high rode on this one...This is one of the reason's he served and suffered for..."Freedom of the press." Even though I think the artist should be hung from the highest tree.....
• When does this type of disgrace stop? I think the people that not only draw these cartoons and the publishers should go to war and see what it is like! But then, they are gutless beings!

Here's where I don't get it. I don't get why it's NOT okay for this guy to draw a cartoon, but it's okay for these people to turn around and call him a "gutless wonder" and say he should be "hung from the highest tree."

Really? How is any of that not JUST as bad???

When are we going to stop? Matthew 5:39 says "But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also." It doesn't say to slap back.

When did we all decide to take the low road on everything?

(Just a note - I do NOT think that Huckabee thinks the same thing as the people commenting on his Facebook, it just happened to be where I saw what I did.)

Pick a Little, Talk a Little

As mentioned in yesterday's post, Mr. B and I spent Saturday knocking around his hometown. Knocking around can make one VERY hungry, so we decided to try a local BBQ that's known to have great food.

We were seated, had a cute little waitress with a great attitude, ordered our food, talked, and checked out our surroundings.
Well... sitting kitty corner from us were 4 ladies, laughing and enjoying their food. They weren't dressed up as some in the establishment were (some church convention of some sort), but they were certainly respectable. Something, however, caught my eye. One of the ladies had a pony tail in her hair and stuck in the pony tail was....

no... surely I was seeing wrong.
I nudged Mr. B "See the lady in the blue shirt with the pony tail. Does she have stuck in her hair what I THINK she has stuck in her hair?"

He glanced.... and confirmed... that yes, indeed.. this lady did have one of these stuck in her hair:


(just in case you can't tell, it's one of those floss picks)

Oh yes... in her hair.

Yeah, that creeped me out a bit, but I just chose to ignore and enjoy my time with Mr. B.

At last our food arrived - I ordered BBQ, salad and roasted corn on the cob. It was all SO good. As I gnawed on the corn, Mr. B asked how it was. I laughed and said "It's good, and I'll be able to enjoy it for a long time cause it's totally getting stuck between my teeth. I need that lady's..." then I looked up to the lady with the floss pick in her hair.

It was gone.

I leaned over to Mr. B "Oh Sweet Jesus please tell me that thing isn't where I think it is."

Um... yep.

Apparently she had the corn too.

When A Few Good Men are In Charge of Fireworks

Saturday Mr. B and I spent the day bumming around his hometown - showing me the house he grew up in, schools he went to, the swimming pool he went swimming in. It was fun learning about his history and where he comes from.

We finished off the day with a trek to Fort Benning where the base was having a big 4th of July celebration (on the 3rd) and promised a LARGE fireworks display. I'm a big fireworks fan, so we headed to the base and found an area that, judging by cars with open trunks and lawn chairs spread around, seemed to be a promising fireworks viewing area. Being the geeks that we are, we got out our Google sky maps and started identifying stars while we waited for the big show.

It wasn't too long before we were treated to our first big bang! A beautiful green burst - perfect height, perfect shape! And then another - green burst! And another... green... burst... and... another..... green..... burst.... about 12 in all. Then... a red burst! Oh, something new! And then... a red burst... and then.... another..........red...................................burst. About 12 of them.

Then purple... 12

White with ends that flared...12

Smiley faces....12

Hearts......12

Red with white shoots in the middle....12

At that point I realized what was going on. Clearly there are soldiers stationed here who are trained to handle munitions so rather than pay a company to come in and set off the fireworks, they bought them from a supplier and had their guys set them off. But... let's think about your standard Army soldier. Average age... probably about 21 or 22. Trained to follow orders. The orders were "take these fireworks and set them off, about 10 seconds apart." So... they took the boxes of fireworks - the green box, the red box, the blue box, the red with white box, etc... and they set them off. They weren't going to be bothered with aesthetics. The guy in charge didn't say make it pretty, he said "set them off". So they did. One box at a time.

I was laughing SO hard at this point. Because there was something so endearing about it. And the best was the finale. Clearly you buy a finale "kit" and with one fuse you set off a WHOLE bunch of stuff. And I would guess they bought 4 "kits" and again, just following orders, they lit all 4 fuses... at once. OH holy crap. The ground was shaking, you could have read fine print by the constant light from the display... car alarms were going off all over. It was AWESOME!!! The shock & awe of fireworks!!

So... thank you, Soldiers of Fort Benning, for a fireworks display that I will not EVER forget!

I AM NOT TIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Big Gulp headed out to San Diego on Tuesday morning. Their flight left at 5:30 so I got them up around 3 to head to the airport. They were troopers (and of course excited) and woke up quite nicely.

Their original itinerary was to go from Atlanta to Charlotte and then Charlotte to San Diego. Lovely. A little east to go west but whatever. Getting into San Diego at 9:30 in the morning was nice - left them the whole day to get settled.

About the time their flight should depart from Charlotte, I checked my favorite flight tracking site - (Kid you not - COOLEST flight tracking site - you can see all historical information about a flight for the last 30 days... and a billion other things.. .SO cool)... I digress.... so I put in their flight number and nothing comes up. I try again, nothing. I go to US Airways site and it says... flight canceled. ACK!!!!

To make a long story short, they ended up flying from Charlotte to Vegas, Vegas to Phoenix, Phoenix to San Diego. They got into San Diego about 6 pm. Thankfully Grandma was with them!!!

I had talked to them throughout the day, and Grandma said that Gert napped several different times, but Essie didn't. Not surprising. Gert could sleep on a roller coaster under an active tornado siren.

They arrived at Grandma & Grandpa's about 9 pm pacific time, which is midnight here. They wanted to talk to me on the webcam, so we did for a little bit, then I said I needed to go to bed. Turned off the computer, got ready for bed, and climbed in.

The phone rang.

It was Gert... she wanted to say goodnight one more time. Goodnight Gert.

Then Essie got on. Crying. (Mind you she's now been up about 19 hours)

"Mooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyy... you *sob* didn't pack *sniffle* any pajama pants *sob sniffle sob*"

"Sweetie.... I asked you what you wanted to have for jammies out there and you said 'Oh it's California I'll just wear a t-shirt' so I just packed t-shirts."

"Buuuuuut I *sob* can't do Just *hiccup* Dance *sob* in just a t *sob* shirt."

"Sweetie, I'm sorry. I just did what you said."

*sob*

"WHY DID YOU LISTEN TO ME???????????????"

"Sweetie, cause you're 11."

*SOB SOB SOB*

"SOMETIMES I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!"

You gotta give her points for honesty. I get extra mommy points for not laughing out loud.

I gently told her someone would take her to Target the next day and get her some pants. It took a few minutes to finally get her calmed down, but she eventually did. We said goodnight, and I went to sleep. She called the next morning, and barely remembered the conversation at all.

I do.

If only I could have recorded it.