If you're gonna "pleasure" your boyfriend in the parking lot at work, bad puns are the least of your worries.

During a meeting with some friends today (yes, it was really a "meeting." We discussed official business. It was NOT an excuse to get together and chat while we let our kids blow off some steam. Nope, it wasn't that at all), I heard about how one friend's husband told her a co-worker was caught um...er....pleasuring her boyfriend in her car in the parking lot AT WORK.

I used to work outside the home and let me tell you, I never once considered starting my day that way--especially not in the parking lot outside my office. Part of that could be because my last job was for a Catholic organization where the grounds were decorated accordingly. It doesn't matter that we're Jewish. When you've got a giant praying statue of Mary staring at you, no one's getting turned on.

Well, anyway, this just fascinated us today during our meeting. A dear friend of mine (who will remain nameless unless she wants to out herself in comments) came up with some fabulous jokes/puns. Here is what I remember:

Things are coming to a head at work.

He's up for the challenge.

Honey, something came up at work today.

Hey, what's up?

So, they called me at work, and I called back "I'm coming.

There you go. Now we can all cringe and secretly giggle to ourselves at the same time.

What could be better then my fabulous friends?My fabulous friends with alcohol.

Just when I think my friends can't possibly get any cooler, they do just that.

I got a call from one of the aforementioned fabulous friends this evening. She had a favor to ask of me. Her husband bought her a lot of beer and she has asked for my help. I'm not normally a fan of beer at all, but I heard the phrase, "Chocolate undertones," and I'm all about that.

We need to work out the plans (her dh is probably going to drop her off and pick her up), but some time in the near future, I'll just have to take one for the team and help her out. :-)

Parties, gifts, and now alcohol. Do friends get any better than this?

Danger, Will Robinson

Have you all seen these commercials for sleeping pills?

I can't remember if it's Lunesta or Ambien, but one of them has a warning that absolutely baffles me.

Here's the gist of the warning from the t.v. ad:
"Until you know how you will respond, you should not drive or operate machinery after taking (whatever sleeping pill it is)."

Wait just one minute. When is it EVER appropriate to do those things after taking a sleeping pill?

If you take the pill and it makes you drowsy like it's supposed to do, then you sure as hell shouldn't be driving/working a forklift. If you take the pill and it doesn't make you drowsy (aka: do what it's supposed to do), then you stop taking the pill.

So who on earth is that warning for? Does this make sense to anyone? Anyone at all?

Stars shining bright above you. Night breezes seem to whisper, "I love you."

When you're alone as blue as can be,
Dream a little dream of me.

I don't know if I was influenced more by that audio clip than I realized, but I dreamed about dh last night. He was home. It was SO REAL. At one point, I even asked, "Is this a dream?" He assured me it was not. I believed him.

My father tells a story about how he once had a dream that his roommate rearranged the furniture. It was so real. When he woke up, everything was back to the way it had been before he went to sleep. His roommate thought he was nuts when he kept asking, "Why is this back here?" It was exactly where it had always been. The dream seemed so real to him, though.

That doesn't happen often at all with me. My dreams are usually so far fetched that I know they're not real. Either that or during the dream, I have the conscious thought, "This is a dream."

I don't remember much about the dream. I remember being in his arms and I remember the kids bouncing around us. I remember dh's presence was so strong.

When I woke up, it took me a moment to realize it had all been a dream. When I did, I was left thinking, "Sonofabitch!"

Too little too late.

Did anyone else notice the GM commercials yesterday? They're promising to give $100 from every new car sold to the VFW's National Home.

If you missed it, here's the information:
GM Rallies Around Families of Servicemen


Notice this part:

"In honor of Memorial Day, General Motors (GM) is honoring America's heroes by supporting the families at the VFW National Home. Buick, Pontiac and GMC will donate $100 for every car sold to the VFW National Home between May 22 and May 31. GM expects to donate several million dollars. "

Problem is, they didn't start airing the ads until YESTERDAY. Those ads proudly proclaimed, "From now until May 31st." Well, yesterday (aka the "now" referenced in the commercial) was the 29th. So basically, you have 2 days if you want to take them up on that offer.

So GM gets lots of glory without actually having to DO much.

Memorial Day: pools, barbecues, sales and dead soldiers

Remember, Memorial Day is a day dedicated to honoring those who have died in war.

It has come to be a day of sales at the mall, backyard barbecues and the day the local pool officially opens. That is NOT, however, what it's all about.

I hope you all got to go out and enjoy your family in whatever way you like. I hope you got to swim. I hope you enjoyed a burger from the grill. I hope you took time to remember those who have died. I hope you said a prayer for the families they left behind.

This is the first time I've had dh deployed during Memorial Day. So I found this particularly difficult, but very necessary:

CNN: Coming Home

Scroll down. Look on the left. Under Military Families, look for Audio slide show: Wife to Widow with Knock at Door

Even listening to it again, I'm a mess. She just got to the part about seeing him in her dreams and I'm in tears.

Times like this, I doubt the existence of a higher power.

I believe in G-d, really, I do. I just think He hates me.

I drove around for nearly an hour to get the kids to sleep. We met a friend at the park. The girls proved how tired they were by being very obnoxious. The boy fell asleep on our way to the car. So I figured I'd get myself a drink and then drive around for a little while until they fell asleep. Girl1 went out fairly quickly. Girl2, however, just wouldn't give up. Finally, I figured, "Screw it. I'm going home."

Girl2 toyed with my emotions by starting to fall asleep just blocks from home, but she thought better of it. When we pulled in, she pretended to be asleep. It was obvious she was awake, though, so I told her, "Get down. Get your shoes. Go in and go to bed."

She freaked out big time. Much screaming ensued. This wasn't just whining. These were screams of torture (in the sense that she sounded as though she was being tortured and in the sense that I was tortured by the sound). So I got Girl1 out quickly while her sister screamed. She did eventually get down and walk to the door, though, screaming the whole time.

I got them in bed (Girl2 still screaming) and went back to get the boy. I found him staring up at me wide awake. It was at that point that I put my head down on his car seat and cried.

G-d hates me!

Must bite tongue. Must not rant. Must not refer to Bush as a "douche bag."

As a liberal military wife, I'm an oddity. I'm not quite as odd now as I was 5 years ago, though. As we get more wives, especially the younger wives of enlisted men, we tend to get more liberal folks. I almost fell over when the new group of moms (You get folks in waves. A group of your old friends will leave and then another group of new ones appears. It's a cycle) at playgroup passed around something Michael Moore had written. And they weren't doing it in an attempt to paint him as the anti-christ. They actually agreed with him.

Anyway, I have a number of friends who are neither military members/spouses nor liberals. We tend to stick to not discussing politics. Religion is an open topic, but politics is just a glaring blinking beeping hot button of disaster.

When people find out my husband is deployed, though, they're more likely to make political comments. In those cases, I have to try so hard to bite my tongue. Dh and I have VERY strong feelings on politics. For us, political debates are about a life or death situation. We're not just discussing lofty ideals like most people. This is our life. This is about the lives of our friends. We make no attempt to hide the fact that we believe Bush is a douche bag. My kids will tell you, "Bush sucks." At the same time, though, there's a time and a place for everything. I will never lie about my beliefs, but I'm not going to beat anyone over the head with them either.

And so I must refine the art of tongue biting and remind myself that while I find "asshat" and "douche bag" to be acceptable and accurate, they're probably words best left unsaid when in the presence of conservatives (and children because you know full-well they'll pick up those words in an instant and use them repeatedly and LOUDLY).

Slumber party

I'm regressing.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to a slumber party. A group of which I'm a part is having an adult slumber party (No, I don't mean "adult" in THAT way. There will be no funny stuff. Well, I'm sure they'll be funny stuff, but there won't be any sex). It's a bunch of grown women, leaving the kids at home (in my case, they're all coming with me since dh is away), bringing some wine, and taking over a hotel.

It promises to be lots of fun and I can't wait! I so need this right now.

Sexually Deprived For Your Freedom

Oh my word! This is far too perfect!
I MUST have this shirt.

Found at Cafe Press








I also adore these shirts:

Do not confuse your rank with my authority.

Out of uniform (are you sensing a theme?)

Hug a military wife or buy her liquor.

The Dixie Chicks and half-wits

A local radio station played the new Dixie Chicks single today. I can't stand Country music. I'm not really a fan of the Dixie Chicks. I am, however, a fan of free speech. For that reason, I'm going to buy their newest album.

Apparently the radio station (not a Country station) has been getting hate mail telling them not to play the new Dixie Chicks. Today, the lovely DJs played the single (they are not owned by Clear Channel which, in a Bill O'Reilly type fit of intolerance has announced it will not play the Dixie Chicks at all) and asked for responses. The vast majority were positive (luckily). There were a few that were insanely bigoted, though.

One military man who refused to give his real name, but gave only his rank (which actually speaks volumes), went off on a tirade about how the Dixie Chicks were Nazis. Um...not at all. One could argue that there are those within our government who fit the definition (real or implied) of "Nazi" more so than any of the Dixie Chicks. This man went on to insist the Dixie Chicks had attacked the soldiers and that they need to take it up with the president because the decision was his, not the soldiers.

Um...what? With his obvious lack of information and insistence on attacks (and complete lack of a grasp on reality), I really have to wonder if this guy IS Bill O'Reilly. The Dixie Chicks NEVER attacked the soldiers. They said they were ashamed they were from the same state as Bush.

I tried desperately to call into the station to tell them that a military wife (whose husband is actually over there right now) completely disagreed with that guy as does my husband. I couldn't get through, though. I am planning to send them an e-mail.

Another caller insisted that claiming this is about free speech is "asinine." Yet again, we have a WTF moment. That's EXACTLY what this is about. He ranted and raved a bit and really sounded like an idiot. At one point, the DJs asked him if he even knew what the Dixie Chicks said that started the boycott. He had no idea. They had to tell him. He insisted we shouldn't support any artists who don't support the president. So the DJs listed a few other artists and asked him if he owned their albums. He answered, "Yes," for a few. They pointed out that those artists actively campaigned AGAINST Bush. He had no real answer.

I could rant forever here, but I'll resist that urge. I'm all for free speech from either side of the aisle. If someone doesn't agree with me, I want an open forum to discuss with them. I want to understand their side. I want to help them understand mine. Recently, there have been so many issues where I was firmly on one side, but I've really come to grasp the view of the other side. In most cases, my views haven't changed, but I'm more understanding. It's difficult to vilify people once you get to know them.

I want there to be an open discourse on all issues. The fact that we can have that is one of the reasons I love this country. Yet when we have people getting up in arms and even boycotting when they don't even fully understand why, then that discourse cannot occur. That is simply un-American.

In your arms

Last night, for the first time, I let myself miss dh--really miss him. I miss his presence every day, but it hasn't been as blatant and painful as in years past. Part of it is that I just don't have time to dwell.

Late last night, though, for no known reason (well, I guess the reason is because we just found out my soon-to-be former brother-in-law is an asshole which makes me appreciate how very much my husband is NOT), I let myself think about dh and miss him.

Yeah, I would love a co-parent around the house to help out with the kids (and give me a few more hours of sleep), but what I really miss about dh are his arms. My favorite place in the world to be is in his arms. I miss that.

Breakdown

15 days

That's how long I lasted before my first breakdown.

The boy is teething something awful, so he hardly slept over the past few days. That, of course, means I get even less sleep than him.

It's been annoying, but not that bad. Then last night, he actually slept a decent span, so I did as well. I got about 5 consecutive hours of sleep which has been unheard of around here with the erupting of the teeth. That combined with the fact that those consecutive hours were the ONLY sleep I got left me feeling completely exhausted.

The boy woke up earlier than usual and refused to go back to sleep.

Then I changed a diaper and broke down.

The boy cried. I picked him up and he stopped. I put him back down to change him and he screamed again. I started changing his diaper and as part of Screamapalooza 2006, he slammed his feet into his dirty diaper.

Breakdown ensued. I finished changing him, grabbed him, and headed to the bedroom where I screamed and cried for a few minutes.

All I want is a few more hours of sleep, but no one will help me. I went through the mental list of friends praying I could find SOMEONE who would be willing/able to pop over to just watch my kids so I could go back to bed for a few more hours. This one is too busy. That one is too far away. Another one is too far away AND too busy. That one won't come.

I know I'm bad about asking for help, but at the same time, I know full-well that I'm not the only one in the world with problems. So I don't want to go asking people who I know are busy thereby making them feel guilty. It's not their fault they have their own lives/families/issues/etc. And no, for once, I'm NOT being sarcastic.

And now the baby's crying again. I'm SO FREAKING EXHAUSTED.

What NOT to do.

• Rule #1. If your brother and sister-in-law are expecting and they find out the sex of the baby, don't guess. You will probably be wrong.

Everyone else has a 50/50 chance. I have 100% chance OF BEING WRONG. I have never once been right, not even with my own kids.

• Rule #2. When they do find out, tell them not to tell you. It may seem like a good idea, but then you have free reign to buy every single item you come across for that particular sex.

• Rule #3. Stay away from craft stores. This is particularly important if you have ignored rule #2. It's even more important if you ignored rule #2 AND you have 3 kids and a deployed husband therefore giving you no free time at all to make the things you had planned when you bought all those supplies.

• Rule #4: Even if you managed to escape the Babies-R-Us-You-Must-Buy-This-Crap-Or-You're-A-Bad-Parent monster when you had your own kids, you will still get the urge to buy EVERY SINGLE THING YOU SEE for the impending niece/nephew (nephew in my case). There's much less gender-neutral stuff out there than there is specific boy/girl stuff.
  

Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead

The title is also the title of a one-act play I saw many moons ago when I was in college. I thought it was appropriate.

Dh has been gone for 10 days and today is the first "One of those days." I was doing so well, too. Then my kid ate the DVD box.

Girl2 drives me insane. She constantly has her fingers/toys/anything she can get her hands on in her mouth. As a baby, she ate THROUGH her board books. I kid you not. Those thick board books are missing pages and/or chunks of pages because she literally ate through them. I just figured that's what babies do, they put things in their mouths. Well, she's a big kid now and today, I found she ATE the box for a brand new DVD we just bought. There is a hole in the front from where she ate through the plastic. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Then I go to make dinner and find the chicken is bad. That was all I had planned for dinner. And I really wanted it too. AHHHHHHHHHHH

Then I get 4 letters from our insurance company telling me we've all been assigned to new doctors (aside from dh). After jumping through all the insurance company's hoops, I find our doctor is no longer an approved PCM (and hasn't been since March, but I just got the notice now). The rep from the insurance tells me to call them because maybe they just haven't updated their paperwork. So I do that and yep, it's something like that. I'm told it should be straightened out in about 2 weeks.

In the meantime, our doctors have been changed. I've been assigned to a military doctor. I busted my butt to get to a civilian one in the first place. Now that I've been assigned a military one again, I may not be able to get back to a civilian. The kids shouldn't be a problem, but in order to switch them, I'm gonna have to haul them all in to the office and fill out a ton of paperwork. Yeah, that's an easy feat for the one whose husband is deployed. And JSYK, I will never go back to another military doctor. Long story, but they're awful.

I try calling my mom to bitch to her about this. No answer. I try calling my sister, no answer. I get fed up and decide we're going out to eat. Then I realize that's not an easy task with the boy. He'll want to be held. Usually not a problem when dh is home. We can pass him back and forth. Now, though, it makes eating out nearly impossible if he's awake and trust me, he's going to be awake for a while.

So I think maybe I can have my sister bring my niece over and we'll all order Chinese. So I try calling again and again. No answer.

Then I figure I'll go out on a limb and try another friend. She lives pretty far away and I figured she'd have other plans, but hey, I've gotta do something. So I tried her and got her voicemail too.

I'm assuming everyone else is busy at home with their husbands.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

This is the part where I slam my head into the wall. Excuse me. I'll go do that now.

Heigh Ho. Heigh Ho. It's off to work we go.

Today is dh's first day of work at his new home in the sand box. He got there a few days ago (after finding out they had waited all that time for a plane to the WRONG PLACE). We shall see what it's like.

I can't say I envy him. I rather enjoy not sweltering in heavy gear as the temperature tops 120 degrees.

Although I can say I'm very curious to hear how the day went.

It kills me to not be able to just pick up the phone, call and ask. I'll e-mail him, but there's no telling when he'll be able to check his e-mail again. When you're as talkative as I am, this whole situation is nerve-wrecking.

Does this make me a bad mom?

On the way home from the aforementioned picnic, the girls were exhausted, but refused to JUST FALL THE HELL ASLEEP ALREADY. When we were nearly home, we passed some trucks working on the side of the road. They had those blinking yellow lights. These caught the girls' eyes.

Girl2 asked, "What are they doing?"

I replied in a rather harsh tone, "They're waiting for you to fall asleep."

Was that evil of me?

How did I exist all these years without these things?

Today, for the first time in my life, I had smores. And it was only today that I really started living. :-)

We went to a picnic for Lag B'Omar. While there, they had a fire and all the supplies for smores. I made one (with much difficulty since the boy was in the sling) and ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Why has no one ever told me that marshmellows taste SO MUCH BETTER when heated?

I was never a camping type person (I've actually never been camping and never had any desire to do so). That left me with no opportunity to try these lovely little morsels.

And I have been in a smores drunk stupor ever since.

Did you say "30," or "13?"

I just found out a huge number of our old friends have accounts on Myspace.com. Um...What?

Now I can kinda see it for those who are single and/or artists. I understand it can be a good networking tool (and apparently was created for bands to use to promote themselves). What I don't get are those who are married or committed and have these elaborate accounts on there.

Didn't you leave that teen angst stuff behind long ago?

Dh's friends drink, like you may expect of someone 10 years younger than they actually are. At his high school reunion, they had to close the bar early because their tab had run up OVER the maximum allowed amount. There were maybe 30 of them there. This was NOT a huge affair.

And what did they do after the reunion? They hit the bars. Even the folks with kids did. We didn't. We walked walked away baffled by how much people can NOT change.

Last time we went to visit, I asked dh if he wanted to call up some of the old. He said he didn't because all they ever want to do is hit the bars and that's just not him anymore. Mind you, he still drinks. We both do. But I was never into the bar scene and he's been over it for a long time. It's what they do, though--all the time.

Maybe I'm out of it, but that's so foreign to me. For us, that's something you do when you're much younger. If you're in your 30s and still hitting the bars, it just looks awfully desperate.

And now we stumble across these Myspace accounts. I just wrote to dh and asked, "Are they 30 or 13?"

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you That I almost believe that they're real I've been living so long with my pictures of you

That I almost believe that the pictures are
All I can feel

Title from "Pictures of You," G-d bless the Cure! If that looks familiar and you're not a Cure fan, that's probably because Hewlet Packard used the song in a commercial a few years ago.

I've been thinking a lot about photographs. I LOVE photography. I grew up with a dark room in the basement. It had been my grandfather's back in the day. My dad never used it, but I was always fascinated by it. I got my first camera when I was 6 and I never looked back.

I don't know if some of my personality traits are why I love photography or if they didn't exist before I discovered photography. Did they lead me to the camera or did the camera lead me to them?

I was listening to Vienna Teng today and this bit from "Say Uncle" really caught my attention:

"I retrieve the memories quickly as I can
add them to the portrait
we all draw in our minds
your body gone, we shall keep the man."

Some people paint portraits in their mind. They piece together fragments of different memories in order to form a whole. Me? I've always taken photographs long before I first held a camera. To this day, I can still see exactly what I was wearing on my third birthday. The picture of my aunt's face as she walked through the front door is frozen in time. She passed away when I was 2, so I must have been very young when that happened. Still, her face at that moment is forever frozen in my memory. I've photographed these moments in time all my life.

My only knowledge of most of my relatives is through their pictures. There are the distant cousins who died long ago, but at the same time, there are my grandfather's pictures. I knew him briefly, but through the photographs he left behind, I learned so much more about him. He had such a wicked sense of humor. I love it. The man who never made it past the sixth grade was able to do such amazing things with his pictures. Through lighting, posing and techniques done while he printed the photos, I can see his brilliance. My grandmother died long before I was born, but through his pictures of her (that range from their courtship through the year she passed away), I got to know her and how much he loved her.

Sometimes I wonder what fuels me. Am I drawn to the camera or is the camera drawn to me?