Road trip: cancelled due to inclement weather

You don't have to say crippling lake effect snow twice to get me to stay at home this Thanksgiving! This weather guy's blog seems to concur.  

Crocodile tears

Read this entry with your best southern drawl now, you hear?

There are a million stories to be told in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And in the south, they just love a good story. This one needs no embellishment.

As the floodwaters rose, a family sought refuge on the second floor of their house in Pearlington, Mississippi. From time to time they glanced down the stairs into the detritus of their main floor, and saw that a veritable menagerie of animals had congregated there. There was even a deer.

After night fell, the family awoke to the screams of the deer. In morning light, they saw the cause of the fright - an alligator with a suspiciously large belly.

Yes, an alligator.

In. The. Living. Room.

Poppa shot that gator.

The end.

Now there's a story, y'all.

I want to draw your attention to a story that falls even further outside the realm of plausibility. After this story was posted on an MSNBC blog, with the picture to prove it, a veritable s--tstorm erupted in the blogosphere. The comments section was bombarded with accusations of cruelty to animals. It was said that killing the gator was just unnecessary, that the poor gator was just trying to survive, that the shooter was cowardly and trigger-happy.

Now, I get sad and a little nauseated this time of year when I see all the dead deer being hauled away from hunting camp, strapped on the trunks of cars or crammed into the backs of pickup trucks. I don't consider hunting to be a sport, and I get the heebidijeebies when I see the heads of animals mounted on walls. But I just don't have a problem with shooting a gator if it's in your living room in the middle of a hurricane!

Ten years ago today

This morning, on my daily walk, I was musing that I measure my married life not in years, but in deployments. I remember most events of the past decade in terms of where my husband was at the time.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord which set out to end the civil war in Bosnia. Shortly thereafter, my husband deployed to Bosnia as part of the first Implementation Force (IFOR). It was my first experience with a deployment, and I thought the sky was falling. (Insert rueful laugh here.) We were living in Vicenza, Italy at the time, and thanks to some immigration snafu's and the complexities of being a Canadian citizen living on an American base in Europe, I was unemployed. The fact that I had a valid Louisiana RN license was irrelevant - I couldn't even work at the Burger King. There are worse places to be unemployed than Italy, but let me remind you that the sky was falling! I struggled to find my new niche and felt very sorry for myself as I celebrated Christmas, New Year's, and our first anniversary alone and worried for my husband's safety.

The world is, of course, a very different place now. Bosnia remains peaceful, though poor. While I am moving towards resuscitating my nursing career, my days are so packed with volunteer work and the minutiae of managing the family's activities, that I wonder how I will find time for one of those job thingies. A six month peacekeeping tour in Bosnia would seem like a respite compared to the back-to-back-to-back year-long missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the holidays approach, there will be empty seats at many tables. Two thousand and ninety-six will never be filled again. Please do not forget these families, for whom the sky truly did fall.

Happy 88th Birthday, Senator Byrd!

And thank you for this speech.

Gobbledigook

Please forgive the recent silence. It's not that there hasn't been anything interesting going on (cough cough Dems growing a backbone, GOP pulling childish pranks) but I haven't found much about which to blog. But lo! And behold! I found this story in the Christian Science Monitor. Dover, MA is in the midst of a turkey war, and it has nothing to do with Ottomans. Or chesterfields for that matter.*

Here's the scoop:

As in many suburbs nationwide, where McMansions meet nature, a wild turkey war is simmering here. Some neighbors are not on speaking terms, torn by turkey pros and cons. Backpack-laden kindergartners struggle to catch school buses before territorial gobblers catch them; churchgoers, post-office patrons, and brawny construction workers are routinely held hostage in their cars by scolding toms; unsuspecting joggers are followed by trotting turkey shadows reminiscent of Jurassic Park raptors; rush-hour traffic can be stalled by bumper- pecking broods. More than once here on Centre Street, residents say, the state environmental authorities have deployed camouflaged SWAT teams that act a lot like FBI sting operations: Officers hide behind trees with net guns, hoping to subdue their suspects without igniting an animal rights backlash. (The ubiquitous turkeys never seem to show up on those days.)

When we moved to the Fort Drum area 8 years ago, I was fascinated by the wild turkeys who strutted around the fields. Mostly, I wondered what they tasted like. My curiosity remains unquenched because Gandalf ignores me when I instruct him to bring me a wild tom, and thinks he's fooling me by leaving field mice on the doorstep. But I digress.

In this particular suburb of Boston, wild turkeys have become a menace. Around these parts, I can't even get close enough to snap a decent picture.

*I've been a little scatterbrained of late (shut up James) hence the dearth of blog entries. For example, it took me a full week of listening to "One Little Slip" from the Chicken Little soundtrack to realize that the witty lyrics and perfectly arranged music were courtesy of Barenaked Ladies - which is only my most favourite band ever.

The mystery of Gandalf's genetic makeup deepens ...

When we adopted Chocolate the Wundermutt 3 years ago, we tried to crate-train her. All of the books said this was the golden ticket towards optimal canine behaviour. Given her abandonment issues, Chocolate wanted no part of this crate business. After a year and some successful car rides in the crate, Chocolate started to enjoy her little cave. Just as the books promised, Chocolate started sleeping in her crate with the door open.
But .. why does Gandalf, the beast of the NNY moors, like to sleep in there?

 

Oh, the weather outside is frightful ...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! 

Which Monty Python character are you?

: "
You are the Minister of Silly Walks


What Monty Python Sketch Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla"

And now for something completely different - a newly discovered species of lemur has been named after John Cleese.

If you could see the looks on their faces ..

Today's trip to Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse proved to be a little more ~ahem~ educational than I had anticipated.

I'll pause for a moment to allow you to absorb my meaning.

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean.

Dammit

Bill O'Reilly makes my head hurt. Life would be so much easier if he was consistent in his jack-ass routine. If he would just stick to being a blowhard and a bully who encouraged Al Qaeda to blow up San Francisco, he would eventually lose all corporate sponsorship and end up in a van by the river eating government cheese.

But noooooo .. he had to go and say something downright humane:

"(T)he issue this evening is helping the children of military people, who have been killed in the war on terror. So far, about 1,100 American children have lost a parent in Iraq, and hundreds of other kids have had parents killed in Afghanistan.

We believe the U.S. government should pay college education costs for those children. At a time when patriotic Americans are volunteering to protect their country against evil, the government should step up and look out for their kids.

So we're asking congressmen and senators to draft legislation and pass a bill providing college tuition to the children of slain military people. We owe it to those who have died in the struggle to help their kids. And "The Factor" urges our federal leaders to directly contact us if they believe that as well.

Remember, the 9/11 families received government assistance. So this is a fair and logical proposition. We also encourage you to contact your congresspeople and senators and urge them to back this proposed legislation. "

John Cusack for President.

Because he is a witty genius, and because he has the stones to write something like this.

Remembrance Day - Veteran's Day

What is the proper salutation for this day? Yesterday, Shelagh Rogers ended her show on CBC Radio with "Happy Remembrance Day." That doesn't seem quite right, does it?

I struggle with the meaning of this day and the differences in the way it is observed on either side of the border. In Canada, the emphasis is placed on honouring the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who did not return from war. It is a somber day, marked by two minutes of silence at 11 AM, and the placing of wreaths at cenotaphs across the nation.

In the United States, Veteran's Day honours all who have served in the military, and Memorial Day is reserved for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. November 11th does not seem to carry the same gravitas south of the border, at least in the eyes of this wife of a veteran.

I was in Canada this morning, and stood in silent contemplation at 11 AM. Today, with bowed head and closed eyes, the concept of loss was no longer abstract. Now, I actually know someone who has been lost to war.

The tradional Canadian Remembrance Day service includes the reading of these lines:
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Rest in peace, Leon. You are not forgotten.

Doublespeak, anyone?

"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges." - George W. Bush, speaking at Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, Veteran's Day, 2005.

Hmmmm

Garage doors in Ottawa are working again and the mysterious radio signal has disappeared.

No further comment.

Some recognition for Vicki Keith

As you will recall, Vicki Keith did completed a record-breaking 64-hour marathon swim a few months ago.
The accolades continue. She is mentioned in the current issue of Sports Illustrated. Funny, isn't it? A woman who can actually swim, in a swimsuit that will actually see water, is in Sports Illustrated. Will wonders never cease?
Check out Vicki Keith's fundraising efforts at Penguins Can Fly.

Wherein I reveal my paranoid tendencies and love of a good conspiracy theory

So, about six months ago, we bought a Sirius Satellite Radio. We enjoyed it, and all was well until about May or June. My husband was driving in a certain area on a certain military installation, and the radio stopped working. Period. Eventually, the kind folks at Sanyo sent us another radio, and all is back to normal. Chalk it up to strangeness, right?

One of my summer hobbies is to step out on the doorstep in the evening, and watch the bats flitting about. We have lots of trees, and there are usually lots of bats. This past summer, I saw a total of three bats. My contractor, a down-to-earth, organic kinda guy, has also noted the absence of bats this year. Bats, as my son will tell you in great detail, rely upon echolocation - sound waves in the air.

News stories about whales and dolphins usually catch my eye. There has been a preponderance of stories about aquatic mammal beachings, and some evidence of a causal relationship between Naval Sonar exercises and strange behaviour in whales.

See where I'm going with this?

Now, it appears that there is a mystery signal blocking Ottawa door devices. Garage doors, embassy gates, that kind of thing - all within a 25 mile radius - are refusing to operate.

Garage door openers operate on the 390 megaHertz band. So does the U.S. military's new state-of-the-art Land Mobile Radio System. And yes, there have been reports of garage door-opener failures around military bases in the U.S.

On the plus side - autumn usually brings cluster flies to my house. You guessed it. This year, there have been none. Coincidence?

If you'll excuse me, I need to make a new tinfoil hat.

The perch ... 

When's it gonna be my turn to cut the grass? 

Red sky at night 

Red Sky at Morning

Taken at 0628 this morning