We have company coming tomorrow. Because of it, the atmosphere in the house has the same feel as the time just before Christmas. The air is saturated with anticipation and excitement.

I'd try to translate all this to words, but my words have a certain effervescent quality to them just now. I try to catch them all shiny and opalescent, but they pop or float away.

This could take awhile.

I think I'll make some brownies.

Zen Traveler wrote a piece that bears looking at, no matter where you stand on the war.

Read it.

Everyone has come or is trying to come to their own conclusions where Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned these days. As of last week we begin our sixth year in Iraq. If you haven't come to your own conclusions or formed an opinion yet, there's no time like the present.


I exhort all who are engaged in this endeavor to look for your information from those who have lived and seen the situation and not from mainstream media types who obviously must astrally project themselves from Baghdad hotels to the front lines and then have massive hallucinations just prior to filing a story.

Go to the mil blogs.

Read what folks with boots on the ground are saying.

Read the blogs on their blog rolls.

Ask them questions.

If you aren't familiar with mil blogs ,Thunder Run makes it a point to gather dispatches. It's a great place to start.

Trust me, these perspectives won't be homogeneous or collective in thought.

Think critically for yourself.

Look at Michael Yon and Michael Totten.
Have a look at folks like Obsidian Wings and Lt. Nixon Rants.

Read Matt Sanchez and news sources like Pajama Media.

Like any source, there will be frames of reference, case in point--the first two are from imbedded INDEPENDENT journalists in Iraq. The last two I mention are more conservative in view. Ob Wings and Nixon are moderate. This is the great thing about cyberspace and a Google button, all you need is a desire to know, your very own search words and you'll find more sources than you could ever read.

Most important is to just do your reading then form an opinion for yourself by yourself.

Don't belly up to the MSM bar and grill and allow yourself to be force fed prepackaged commercial fare from the latest PC menu. It's a disservice to our troops in country and to you.

A while back a video floated around, poignant in picture and word. I am putting it up here because it, coincidentally, re landed in my inbox this morning just after I went to visit Zen Traveler. Given the serendipity, I couldn't NOT post it. It dovetails well with what my own position is. (Isn't it cool how when you blog you get to have one of those?) Heck I guess you don't have to blog have a position, but I like the platform and visiting other blogs and reviewing other writer's positions, helps clarify my own.

This musician named Dustin makes it very clear with his work how our troops there ARE invested in their mission and that we should be equally invested in knowing what is going on ourselves.

After all, these men and women are there by our government's missive and our government is doing what it is doing by ours.

Sakura has been on my mind all day.
Falling away and rebirth.

Incidentally, I am also often equally dismayed at my sense of humor, though nonetheless, have given up trying to remediate it in anyway. Seems this warrior was at checkpoint and obviously someone took the vid and dubbed a whole new converstaion. You do what you need to do to eliminate stress-- especially in a war zone.
I already put this on our milblog, but it HAS to go here, too...it's hilarious.

William Stafford said,
"Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now?"

This is Murphey's on Main.

I went there today-

in my station wagon.

I talked J into going with me.

Me: Hey J, whatcha got going on today?

J: Nothing.

Me: I'm going to a biker bar.

J: You're crazy.

Me:Oh good, then you'll come.

Now, across the street is where I pick up my coupons. As I pass this bar, the oldest biker bar in Galveston County, I always notice the flags they fly-- US, Texas and one to commemorate POW and MIAs. Sometimes they have benefits out on the parking lot. The owner, Wayne, active in the community, raises money for a local food bank and for the Shriners and rides for the troops.

Every time I passed I thought, I really need to go in there and introduce myself. I have a guy in Iraq, several actually, who are bike fanatics. They would love some pictures of these folks and their bikes.

The other day I voiced this to the paper lady as I went in for my papers and she said, "You know I bet they wouldn't mind you taking pictures one bit and you should also talk to them about how to raise shipping money for your guys. They hold benefits all the time." Hmmm. Well maybe I should.

So I did.


The sign says Come Home Safe and the owner is in the sunglasses and black ball cap. J gets to sit on the '38 Harley. Cool eh?



This mama can play some pool, man.












(below) Sandy here with her friend Billy standing still so J can get a picture. It's payback since I made her sit on the Harley earlier...Which was equally hilarious considering she confides when we are inside, that she had never been in a biker bar before. Before yesterday, neither had I.


This is Wayne, the owner of Murphey's with some of the other mamas - I need names for them, yet. Angel is in the fringe coat and Rita is in the striped top.There were a lot to learn this afternoon! I'll edit when I get them. Nonetheless, they were all really kind and welcoming.

The thing I learned about bikers today was their strong sense of family and their willingness to share their time. You hear about the tight knit community that they are and yet as tight as they were, they made room for us. For instance, I went in with J and asked about pictures and whether they had time to send some messages to the troops and within 10 minutes we were outside. Multiple folks, before I had even a chance to ask about how they fund raise, were walking up to me and saying, "You know, you should talk to Wayne about a benefit for your guys. I bet he would do that for you."

It's funny how the universe works things out. Seems Wayne has a drive he does for the food pantry here in town and so that would be something our milproject could do for him. Most of our grocery and toiletry supplies for our troops are raised through couponing. There are some serious couponers in my midst. I am not the only one...lol. There are about a dozen mamas who support by shopping, baking and sewing and more who help with postage so that our guys get what they need in Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti, Africa. The other privilege was to talk to bikers who themselves were veterans of other wars in Vietnam and Korea.

There are more pictures of these folks on the Words from Warriors blog. The messages were for the troops so it seemed fitting that it go there.


Another cool thing to watch happen was two bikers who came in to the icehouse, victorious in a field of 30 other bikes at the Macho Eliminator, a 1/8 mile race at a local Houston racetrack. Dave (l) was met with a hero's welcome and he and his brother Gary (r)used some of their winnings to do something Dave said he had always wanted to do, which was to buy the house a round!

My weekend is full of organzing type issues or at least that is what I am filling it with.
Order.
Gotta love it.
Speaking of LOVE, when I was cleaning out some digital files I found a picture I had never seen of my son, Matthew. He's 3 now and here with my sis, he is about 6 months. I love the expression on his face.

Awwww...It' his first 'WTF?'

As in: Duuuude....WTF did Aunt Amy just put on my feet?!

Heather over at Wishful Writer I identify with on so many different levels...well 'cept I like boys, er I mean Tony. He's hot. Oh and Heather is Pee Thyself funny. If you do go read her blog and you have any kind of bladder problems whatsoever you may want to look into Depends. I bet I even have coupons for them. Email me and I'll send you some.

This post is indicative of the stuff that 'happens' to her though purely on speculation I suspect more often indicative of what she 'happens' on others...taking into account the way she uses her talents, methinks the situation/Emily payback she is relating may be from Emily perchance?

No matter.
Emily, that was genius!
It will be costly, but I gotta respect the genius!
By the way, what did Heather do?
You can tell me.

I love a good payback.
Especially when
it's creative,
well thought out,
well executed,
and
of course,
not aimed at me though again even if it is aimed at me --the good ones are still enjoyed on some unplumbed masochistic level.

You'll have to keep checking back at Wishful Writer to see how Heather gets hers...

because

ohhhhhhhhhh she will.

She's Heather and
there is one thing for certain:
it's gonna be gooooooooooood.

Emily, be ready.
Oh and Heather, for God's sake, don't forget pictures!

Words from Warriors

I haven't made mention much of this milblog that we--Kat, CI Roller Dude, Phillipine Phil and Sgt. Grumpy have put together, so I thought I would. The intent of the blog is to provide different perspectives from those involved with or in our country's military community. Some of the posts are poignant, some are hilarious (check out one called 'Can I See Some ID?') and all these milfolk who write on it offer strong insight into the lives of vets and active duty military when they post. Make sure you also visit their blogs, too.

This is out of Canada, by a guy named Terry Kelly. More to post today, but later.

When I met Tony it was in Galveston at a bar of all places. Yeah. Think about how that went over when Tony and I were sitting there with our priest for marriage counseling before the wedding. “So how did you two meet?” LOL. “Ummm we met at a bar, Father…”

Anyway, my sister needed a chaperone to go out as she wasn’t 21 yet and my parents were a bit on the strict side so she kept bugging me about it one week when I was particularly disinterested in the club scene. I finally caved in and took her.

At the time we both lived in League City with my parents. I had recently returned from being away at school to have found Melodi quite the social butterfly. Well, should I say even more the social butterfly than she was when I left.

When I took her into Galveston that night, I wasn’t dressed for a night out or anything…I was tired from work and a bit on the irritated side. But, I had kept putting her off and was either going to go out or put up with pouting from the baby sister. Oy vey.

So I weighed the pout against the three or four hours which would buy me a week or two's peace and off we went.

I am not even sure I had any money on me at the time. I was strictly there to babysit. It was a Friday and the bars on the Strand in DT Galveston were full. There were tons of flyboys in from Pensacola and Mel, my sis, was having a field day—well night I mean. There is nothing worse than being sober around a bunch of drunk people much less underdressed around a gorgeous brunette surrounded by a bunch of pilots…blech. LOL…

Anyway I was standing near the bar waiting for my sister to get tired of the BS so we could go home when Tony’s friend, David walked by and struck up a conversation. He introduced me to Tony, I picked my mouth up off the floor and figured if David wanted to keep talking he could do that all he wanted as long as I could stand there and catch glances at this tall, dark, quiet, handsome guy.

A little later I looked at his tie bar (they were dressed for a rehearsal dinner that they had come from) saw the globe, anchor and eagle and all I could think of was ‘ohhhhhhhhh’. It made sense all of a sudden. His bearing, how he carried himself, all of it.

Anyway after a while I noticed that my sister was not around those squids anymore and then it struck me that particular group of Navy boys weren’t there either. I was concerned and had to excuse myself to go look for her. I wasn’t too worried until after checking the club top to bottom and having no luck.

I passed David and Tony on the way out and Tony caught the snap and wound up outside of the bar where I had gone to look, but at the time I wasn’t aware being too upset and pissed off at the same time.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the club, I noticed the guys in a Jeep across the street and asked them about Melodi. They kept putting their hand to their ear and laughing and saying “what? Huh?”

My stomach sank when I realized that I wasn’t going to be given a straight answer. Then I heard Tony’s voice behind me. He told me to hold on a second as he strode past me and across the street to the Jeep.

I never heard exactly what he said, but the tone was all business--even the way he stood. A few minutes later he came back and told me she had left with one of them to go to a restaurant and she would be back. If I hadn’t have been so entirely torqued at my sister’s idiocy du jour I would have melted on the spot from this whole knight in shining armor thing he had going. And actually I am glad I had other things to deal with at the time or I would have made an ass out of myself. Being mad was just the ticket to coming off relatively cool about the whole matter…hehehe.

In a few more minutes my stupid sister showed up, Tony walked us to our car, we exchanged numbers and he shook my hand goodnight.

That was it.

I dumped the guy I was dating, this doc from Plano,TX and forwent a third year of Reserve Officer Training and knew he was the one. That was all she wrote. (Hell no I didn’t tell him that) Melodi to this day takes credit for our meeting and getting together…heh.

My father was always a little bummed that I didn’t go on to OCS and an Army career. Family tradition and all that. Truscotts make it a habit of offering at least one to the Army altar each generation. Then there was the whole I was hung up on a jarhead and not at least an Army fella.

Lol…in retrospect Pop must have had a small stroke over it…first his other West Point bound daughter blows off her appointment and enlists in the Air Force and then a couple of years later his oldest falls for a Marine.

Three years and eight days, two attempts at dumping his ass and a degree later, we were married. We are total opposites, but it works.