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So after almost 24 hours of not sleeping at all due to a rotting wisdom tooth in the back of his head, the Puddin' is snoozing away next to me with an ice pack on his face. Even copious amounts of Vicodin didn't seem to keep the drum line from pounding in the left side of his face all day and night. But it did make him very sluggish and silly. Ah, good times. My day at work involved working on various emails and web pages while babysitting the Puddin'. Everyone in my office has gotten some sot of plague or another over the last two weeks so each morning it's a head count to see who's still among the upright. It's like a bizarre episode of Survivor where each employee gets sick and voted off the company's island for a day or two.

I've changed the hold music at work to spooooky organ music in honor of the holiday. It's the little things at my job that bring me such joy. Most of the week has been spent herding cats for one thing or another. I'm just happy all the cats have gone home for the weekend and I can get some rest for a day or two.

Apparently I also have my own Count Dracula. I looked over about an hour ago and the Puddin' had blood running out of the corner of his mouth where his gauze was supposed to be. He'd also managed to wipe his face at some point and covered all of his face and hands with it, miraculously missing his clothes and the pillows. He didn't even wake up while I cleaned him up. :)

Ah, it looks like the Count is waking up and might want some dinner soon. Have a good weekend everyone!

No Voice and Yet So Much to Say

It's been a very productive weekend for me. Friday night I went over and checked in with my brother and father at My Brother's New House (MBNH). They were finishing up the drywall in the ceiling of the garage and all I really did was offer some moral support. But it was fun all the same. I got my hair colored and cut on Friday as well as went to see Gary. Talking to ZeeZee and Gary for 2 hours straight was just enough to do in my voice. So by the time I went to bed on Friday, I was fearful I would wake up to no voice at all. Saturday I got up early and it was just as I had feared ... I was Squeaky McSqueak, with little to no voice. But I headed of MBNH to help out brother and father on some yard work. There was talk of taking trash to the transfer station and I was excited. In all of my years in my family, I'd never actually been to the transfer station or the dump. So the thought of seeing this magical place intrigued me. Both Dad and Perry talked about various rules that existed at the whim of the transfer station staff, such as what they would take or charge for dumping. So we attempted to hide any questionable material at the bottom of the truck.

Perry and I headed to the transfer station with a pickup truck loaded with limbs and brush and junk. And no one batted an eyelash at us. We unloaded at the station and watched the lady there drive a front loader type vehicle thing that was something out of Mad Max. I swear you could have charged big bucks for 15 minutes on this thing. We also found out that they didn't limit our number of trips and they were open until 4pm. The day was looking up!

So we loaded up the truck with yet more brush and limbs and junk two more times and headed back. All told that took us until 3:30pm or so. I had just enough time to get home and meet the Puddin'. We napped and had a snack and then it was off to my high school reunion.

This weekend was my ten year high school reunion. I went with a bit of trepidation, but ended up having a grand time. The dress on the invitation said "casual" but apparently that means "casual,while still impressing everyone you meet" because I only saw two pairs of jeans in the whole room. There was the usual "drunk girl" who I think showed up that way. But mostly I was there to see my old friends. There were many who couldn't make it, and I'm sad I missed them. But I did get to see Kristophe and Becca and they both are doing very well. It is reassuring that when so much in all of our lives has happened, that we are still very much the same at our roots and we still get along very well. I drank enough to have fun and still not be "drunk girl" and look forward to the 15 or 20 year reunions in the future.

The rest of the weekend was more cleaning at MBNH and some puttering about at the house. The Puddin' cleaned my bedroom for me while I sewed curtains because he is just that sweet to me. I think the rest of our evening involves watching the History channel and snoozing. But I must go now because the kitten has brought me a mouse on the front porch and keeps crying for me to come see. She is the world's most thoughtful cat.

The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

My father sent an e-mail to me and several other family members this morning. The older we both get, the more I learn about him and his life. I've reformatted and quoted his note below.

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PBS' Frontline usually tries to balance both sides of an issue, in part I assume to avoid jeopardizing government funding. After about 15 minutes, Frontline started to show other views of Kerry.

But during the first 15 minutes they gave some perspective (archive footage) regarding talk of war atrocities. The footage was not so much Kerry making the claims at the rallies, but many veterans telling their own stories of witnessed atrocities.

The stories sounded very much as though our guys were doing back then similar things to what the enemy now does in Iraq, parading dead bodies through the streets for one thing.

All the testimony from people saying that THEY didn't happen to see any atrocities doesn't prove that none happened, anymore than they attest to what Lt. Wm. Cally did or didn't do in My Lai village or anymore than it attests to what I, [GenieAlisa's father] witnessed in our combat unit.

Our unit came accross an old, old man. After a while, one of our sergeants "wasted" him, just because he was an "inconvenience." They didn't know what to do with him, couldn't leave him be. He was in the wrong place at wrong time -- not an enemy -- just old and left drifting a couple of clicks outside Kontum, in all the ' 68 Tet confusion.

It has always perplexed me as to what my reaction should have been. I was fairly new in the unit, new in country and being baptized in combat. I couldn't undo what happened. I just heard the shot and found out what happened after the fact. Someone said the body was thrown in the well (polluting it and its drinking water). If such a thing had happened again -- and after I had gotten my bearings in country -- I probably would have been as outspoken on the spot as Kerry was upon returning stateside.

The "smear quotes" on Kerry before Congress -- actually were not directly Kerry's words -- they were other veterans' accounts that Kerry was relaying to Congress.

People who are so anxious to trash Kerry about Vietnam just don't know what they don't know. They demean themselves out of ignorance more than they attest to Kerry's character.

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If you would like to view the Frontline episode Daddy references, you can tune into your local public television station on Thursday 10.14.2004, or online at Frontline: The Choice 2004 starting October 15th.