Relative size study: Cotton Candy/Max's Head 

This is what I wrote for the local paper:

I was born a year and a half after Kennedy was shot. My whole life, I heard people describe that they would never forget where they were when they heard the news. My generation has 9/11. I was in the waiting room, waiting for a pre-natal appointment for my youngest. A future dad, waiting with his pregnant wife, started talking on a cell phone. “Do they think it was a terrorist?” he said way too loudly in the quiet room.

The events unfolded for me, over the day, like they did for everyone else. And in the weeks after, the pacifist in me took a back seat to rage and revenge. And my boy was born.

For any other newsworthy tragedy, the years sneak up on me. Waco, Challenger, Oklahoma City, they always surprise me with a five or ten year anniversary. 9/11 was different, because I’ve had a human yardstick to measure the time. It’s been almost five years.

Over time, the solidarity I felt with my enraged countrymen vanished, much like the unity the world showed us just after the towers fell. America, the mighty country had been brutally wounded. And wounded animals are dangerous. Our actions stopped being logical. We fought the wrong country and ignored the guilty ones. We struck first. We took names, and declared, “You’re either with us or against us”, and “Bring it on.”

Sometimes when something powerful is hurting, it loses sense of direction. I think America did. It is impossible to think another country could take away our spirit and way of life with a plane. And yet, somehow, we were enraged and scared enough to do it ourselves. For a sense of security, we’ve traded part of our civil soul. We allow our leaders to chip away at rights we’ve fought and died for, so that we will feel protected from the next attack. We are willing to throw people into a cell, not charge them with a crime, not let them talk to a lawyer, not let them play their role in our justice system, because we’ve been told that the world is different now.

We argue why we need to torture.

We’ve abdicated our solemn role as citizens: to hold our leaders responsible for telling the truth. We are willing let someone else tell us what it takes to be safe, to be called unpatriotic if we disagree, while we send American kids off to fight.

We forfeit privacy in our library records, our bank transactions, our phone calls. Why should a person care if they have nothing to hide?

We make enemies faster than we can kill them. We spend our national treasure, and future financial security, to fight a war we just can’t finish. And my five year old, a son, and my seven year old, his brother, and my nine-year old girl, will they fight in a war? Will they fight this war?

My beloved country didn’t change on 9/11/06, that’s giving those bastards too much credit. But we have changed ourselves since then. We’ve asked to be kept safe and we’ve paid a dear price.

It’s time to ask for something new…truth, leadership, the way out of this night. We need to strengthen the things that make us the mightiest and most feared country in the world--our values and our freedoms. Freedom never made us weak, and people who convince us it endangers us are wrong. We will stop be classified as red or blue states. We will be the United States of America. Ruled by law, not fear

My son will spend his life hearing where people were when 9/11 changed America. I hope he hears that we were lost, but found our way. We were scared,but then got brave. We made mistakes and we fixed them. When he is an old man, I believe he will live in an America I can’t imagine, and it will be a better country because of what we live through today and what we learned during the first five years of his life.

Joey's Fluffy Bootie

Joey and I were walking to school to pick up the big kids. On the way, we saw a little girl with a cast on her arm, and we started talking about how Joey broke his arm a couple of years ago. I asked him if he remembered breaking it. Yes. I asked if he remembered if it hurt. Yes. Then Joey said,

"My bootie is just fluffy. It doesn't have any bones. I should fall on my bootie next time."

yes.

Hot Hot Fun Fun

Yesterday evening, I got a call from a friend who jumped way up the list of people who make me happy... she wanted to give away two tickets to the UT/NTSU game -- for free. Needless to say, the only way to obtain tickets to the game these days is to buy them from a scalper, as every game is a sell out. I even took the kids to the stadium this summer to find out about getting last minute tickets from the visiting team's allotment, should they not use them... odds of that happening, very low.

Anyway, I had two tickets and after asking one other special person and getting turned down, took my biggest UT fan in the family, Mr. Max. We had fun. Spent tons of money on bottles of water because it was HOTTER THAN HELL, in the stands. It was also a blowout, which actually keeps a 7 year old very interested, since everytime we score, the cannon goes off, the cheerleaders do special cheers, the flags run the field, and the Longhorn Band plays the fight song:

Texas Fight, Texas Fight,

And it's goodbye to A&M.^[1]

Texas Fight, Texas Fight,

And we'll put over one more win.

Texas Fight, Texas Fight,

For it's Texas that we love best.

Hail, Hail, The gang's all here,^[2]

And it's good-bye to all the rest!

Yea Orange! Yea White!

Yea Longhorns! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Texas Fight! Texas Fight,

Yea Texas Fight!

Texas Fight! Texas Fight,

Yea Texas Fight!

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,

All the livelong day.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,

You cannot get away.

Texas Fight, Texas Fight,

For it's Texas that we love best.

Hail, Hail, The gang's all here,

And it good-bye to all the rest!

[edit]

Notes

1. ↑ A&M refers to UT's in-state rival, Texas A&M University.
2. ↑ "Hail, Hail, the gang's all here" is almost always replaced with "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! Go, Horns, go!" Students generally replace the line with the more vulgar "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! Make 'em eat shit!" or "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! OU sucks!" whenever Texas plays Oklahoma. They also replace the line with "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! A&M sucks!" whenever Texas plays Texas A&M or sometimes "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! [Name of university] sucks!" against other high profile opponents. Sometimes, the chant is used against other universities that are upcoming on the schedule, vs the school actually being played at that moment. For example, during the 2005 Big 12 Championship blowout of Colorado, some fans began looking ahead to the Rose Bowl by changing these last words to "USC sucks!"

Pay special attention to note number 2. When I was in school, "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! Make 'em eat shit!" was all the rage. So I said that softly and when Max heard others around me say that, or the OU version, he became the cussing police.

We stuck it out for the whole game, even though about half the fans left by the third quarter. When David, Emma and Joey picked us up, Max told the story about the song's words. I told David about the crowd leaving early, and Emma said, "Mom, it was probably because of your cussing."

It's kind of sad when....

.... you can sort your laundry by color: reds, blues, pinks, blacks, whites, and have a complete load of each individual color.

.... on day 5 of the preschool year, the teacher looks at you over your child's head at pick up and says, "I'll call you at home..."

Missy's Birthday

What a wonderful time, celebrating Missy Kay's birthday at Mary Kay's parent's house. I only missed getting a photo of one kiddo, Maddie! Sorry little friend. Also missed documenting all the daddies.

We had swimming, eating, drinking, caking, presents and lots of visiting. For some reason the kids have gotten older, but we haven't.

David and the swimmers 

Garrett and Hannah 

Phoebe and Garrett 

In the garden 

Garry and Missy 

My best girlfriends, Mary, Missy and Julie 

Hannah and Max-- two of the three 2nd graders at the party 

Pretty cake 

birthday girl 

The kids like Mary-sized portions 

cake 

Fun 48 Hours...

I've had the most fun these last 48 hours. And I've become very aware how lucky I am to have such cool, funny friends...

Thursday, I took off with the Art Chicks, for an art field trip to Houston. I'm grateful for the funny friends, and for the (also funny) friends who took my kids home with them after school so that I COULD go to Houston. It was a boost to my mood to be on the road with a crazy, but very courteous and safe driver, Queen Verde, chocolate cravin', funny, Robbin, and our buddy from Marshall, TX, Gretchen. We are now talking about a road trip to Ft. Worth to the Kimball and the Modern.

Friday, I toured the house I loved with Mary V. She is another funny chick and we laughed our way through the house... I've worked past total infatuation and am now trying to address the realistic concerns involved in buying a house that should properly be condemed. Read the caption below for a good laugh.

After touring the house, I met my Par-tay Girls at the new Hyde Park Cafe location. My friend Erika and her husband are opening the restaurant, and they are giving it a dry run. For two days, all the friends and family have been invited to eat free as guinea pigs while the kitchen gets up to speed. Mary, Julie and I had a wonderful lunch... crab cakes are heavenly...(Go eat at Hyde Park!!!!) and I got to see lots of friends from Bryker Woods and Good Shepherd eating at all the tables around us... FUN!

Then, if that wasn't enough... today is Saturday, I got to be a guinea pig again for Erika.. pizza, chicken fried steak and fries....yum! (Go Eat at Hyde Park!!!!!) and tonight the fourth Par-tay girl Missy Kay is having her birthday party at Mary K's mom and dad's house. Swimming and Bar-B-Que, my oldest funny girlfriends.

I am getting a big dose of happy these days.

The very, very bad smell. Brave Mary and I actually laughed so hard shortly after this photo was taken. We had walked outside and were looking at a porch, when we saw a rat (!) run into the house right in front of us. We both grossed out, then we went around to the side walk to see if we could look past the porch, into the room, and see the rat. While we were looking, and grossing out, my cell phone (with vibrate) went off in my front pocket and I screamed and jumped, she screamed and jumped, and then we died laughing. This visit to the house, my fourth in a week, made me fall out of love with the house a bit.... 

The good atrium.... again