Saints

As I watch the Saints and Falcons play, I've gotta shout out to New Orleans. Y'all deserve to thoroughly enjoy kicking the crap out of Atlanta tonight. (Y'all deserved to have the Coast Guard and National Guard pulling you out of trouble last August before you had to bitch on CNN, too, but that's another post.) This Vikings fan is a Saints fan tonight!

Independence Day is Coming...

When I was growing up and would wait for the Junior High/Middle School bus, there were a couple of guys that looked a bit strange and were outsiders. The two guys wore long trenchcoats (this was waaaaay before Columbine) and had the whole 'I don't fit in so I'll try to intimidate you by looking scary' vibe. Little did I know that my sister would marry one of those guys about ten years later.

Less than 18 months after I got married, my sister (six years younger than me) called me to let me know that she was getting married. (I got 12 days notice and off I flew to Rapid on scary-expensive plane tickets that I couldn't afford.) Once she got married, it was like she dropped off the face of the earth. I rarely saw her and felt really disconnected from her. It was a painful time and I felt like she and I were on different planets. She smoked (as in her clothes always smelled, smoked), lived with her husband and some of their friends in the same house (my sister said when the movie You, Me, and Dupree came out that she didn't need to see it because she already lived it), she worked while her husband remained unemployed for years, and it seemed like we only talked around the holidays, if at all.

Once my husband and I saw Mark's heartbeat on the sonogram, I called my sister to let her know that she was going to be an aunt. She seemed very excited and genuinely very happy. Just a few weeks later, I got a telephone call from her husband. (Very weird-- I never talked to him. Ever.) He said that he had searched their computer, found that my sister had been conversing with an old boyfriend and was planning to leave him. I was blindsided-- I thought it couldn't be true because she'd call me and tell me personally.

Well, my sister did leave trenchcoat-guy, who, as I didn't know, was incredibly manipulative and controlling and as I did know, was happy to just let my sister finance his life. She has now let me know that once she heard that she was going to be an aunt, she decided that she couldn't let her nephew think that she was the strange aunt and she decided that her life needed to change. She did reconnect with the old boyfriend. Even though I wasn't personally happy that she went straight from a failed marriage to an old boyfriend, she has gotten her life together and we are not only sisters, but once again friends. Her independence day is next week. She'll officially be divorced and that chapter of her life will be over.

Happy Independence Day, M.

Religion and Peace, Part II

Found an article that encapsulates a few more of my thoughts on the Pope's comments and the response from the Islamic world. Look here.

I don't understand Fundamentalists, of any religion. Period. (Unfortunately, our Commander-in-Chief is a Fundamentalist as are the terrorists hell-bent on disrupting the lives of Westerners.) Peace, people!

Milestone

Mark reached the milestone of being able to pull himself up to standing-- which means that babyproofing must commence in earnest. Unfortunately, being married to an engineer means that looking at the nice baby gates in a catalog does not work-- we must see the gate, feel the gate, and try to use the gate several times before looking at the next gate. (I work from the looks good, works good, and I'll buy it philosophy. That's not how the engineer rolls.) Go to Wal-Mart, you say? Not only no, but hell no! I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because I think that they are bad for America in many ways. So, I'm caught in a baby gate-less loop. We'll see how this goes!

Religion and peace

I'm Catholic and I'm American. The leader of my religion, in a speech, pulled quotes from an obscure 13th century philosopher that were anti-Muslim. Now I'm seeing massive protests in the Muslim world. I'm not thrilled with the pope-- he's way too conservative. He's also a 'my-way-or-the-highway' pope in Prada shoes. (Yes, he loves designer shoes. He can't denounce and root out pedophiles, but he can wear Prada.) I think that the Muslim world is going over the top in their persuit of the pope. Don't call him Satan-- just ignore him!

I wish that the Dalai Lama or someone of that caliber would begin a dialogue of the religions. Seriously. Isn't it time to talk about peace rather than focusing on this religion is violent, that religion is violent, yadda yadda? I'm seriously thinking about becoming one of those moms that marches for peace in D.C. We're totally messed up-- our troops should be in Darfur making sure that the refugee mothers don't get raped every time they go to gather wood with which they prepare meals for their families. I just don't get it. Can we please get rid of the Republican administration already?

Teeth!

My son has teeth. Last week, we ALL got colds-- runny noses, achy, etc. My son was incredibly mucus-y and was a bit whiny, but for cutting two teeth at a time, I think he actually did quite well. (And his dad-- well... not quite so pleasant. And he was not cutting teeth.)

We live in Redskins territory. And our Vikings beat them. Happy, happy!

I had election day off yesterday and really needed to catch up on school stuff. So what did I do? I made birthday cards. Weird, huh? I was volunteered to be on social committee at school (Why did I not say, "no,"? Why?) and they decided that since I'm a busy new mom that they would have me make cards. This was not helpful, but I am done thanks to a terrific friend who helped me yesterday.

I'm in the room as my husband watches highlights of the Hulk Hogan wrestling match. First of all, I cannot believe that Hogan is wrestling in his 50s. Second of all, I saw Hulk Hogan in Deadwood, S.D., and he is a very freakish-looking individual. 'Nuff said.

To close, I will quote my son. "DADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADA!!!!!"
If you would like to hear this for hours upon end, I can hook you up!

P.S. Karen at the Naked Ovary has Maya pictures. Seeing her go through the adoption process takes me right back to when my aunt and uncle adopted my cousin. Welcome to Mommy-hood, Karen!!!

Boobie update

My mom has an appointment in about six weeks at the Breast Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I had to light several fires under her butt to get her to be her own advocate, and I'm thrilled that she'll be out of the sticks to get her second opinion.

In Wyoming, the doctor and radiologist have been comparing her current mammogram (mid-August 2006) with a mammogram from December 2000 to give her a benign/malignant diagnosis. When she made her Mayo appointment, the person that set up the appointment told her to not even bring the 2000 mammogram-- it was too old and they didn't want to look at it.

I hope that this truly is effort spent to hear that she's cancer-free. It's nice to know that she's going to be examined thoroughly and according to current medical protocols.

Ernesto

Ernesto was much kinder to us than was Isabel. When TS Isabel came through, we lost ~70 trees on our two acres-- 12 of which decided to rest themselves upon our house.

When I got home from school yesterday (after our early dismissal), I discovered that our tulip poplar that shaded the backyard had plopped down across our backyard. Immediately, I remembered the sleepless night spent waiting for the 'pop-whoosh-bang' sound. Pop was the tree roots breaking loose, whoosh was the sound of the 50 ft. tree falling, and bang was the impact-- which we occasionally felt as a shudder in our 18 month old house. My a** didn't endure years of waiting for a baby just to get crushed like a grape with my sweetness in my arms. No way.

So, I ran like a madwoman through the house, literally throwing jars of baby food, shampoo and conditioner, and other needs in bags and off I went to my friend's house. (You know who you are, thanks again for letting the three of us crash...) We watched The Producers (what a strange movie) and ate wonderful Chinese that my DH picked up after the delivery person was in a car accident.

We snuck out early this morning and made our way home (after visiting Starbucks, of course-- I felt a bit more courageous with a Mocha in my hand). As we came through the neighborhood, we saw many trees down, and one damaged house. We had multiple trees down and many leaning trees. We had a leaning maple (as in leaning towards our master bedroom) that we quickly cut down-- and I was really disappointed to discover my crepe myrtle was broken and now at a diagonal angle.

This isn't what we wanted to be doing on the first day of the labor day weekend (I wanted to engage in retail goodness at the Williamsburg outlets)-- but it's all worked out okay.