Monday

Church WAS cancelled,so we laid around like slugs yesterday, watched movies("Waiting' was cute)and Tony made French Toast and sausage for breakfast. (brunch)Here's a pic from the local paper.

Prior to the snow, I went to Food Lion and got....milk and bread! LOL. No,really, we NEEDED milk and bread anyway....but why is it that people always rush to the store and buy milk and bread prior to a snowstorm?I remember the blizzard of '96 partly because of bread, I had been out of bread right before the blizzard. So our family was introduced to 'Hawaiian Toaster Bread' because when I finally made it to the store that was all that was left. Due to the obligatory run on milk and bread prior to a snow.

Further reviewing the DVD's we picked up prior to the snow....finally saw War of the Worlds.....ok. Legend of Zorro sucked, another movie that got ejected before the end....In Good Company was April's pick, and also a pretty cute movie. And some weird horror movie that I picked, which turned out to be a FRENCH horror movie, with English voice overs and subtitles (why has no one learned by this point NOT to let ME pick out movies?)It was fun in that it was sort of like watching old Godzilla movies....you get hung up on watching their mouths and listening to the dialog and they don't match. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of this movie, but once you got past the dialog thing, there was actually a plot twist and oh yeah, it was pretty gory.

Kyle bought a paintball gun and went out to shoot with Morgan's brother. April went sledding(or 'sleigh riding' as they call it here in Virginia...almost 30 years here and some of their colloquialisms still flip me out....like they call snow hats 'toboggans' and growing up in MI we always RODE toboggans)

Had a nice surprise this morning....got a thank you email for one of the Christmas care packages that we sent to a Virginia unit in Iraq. :) That was a nice way to start the morning.

Did another 'photostory' yesterday....only because April has been playing the 'move it' song from Madagascar OVER and OVER and it was stuck in my head. I always have fun putting together the pics for those.:)

And once again, life in the 'watching paint dry' zone....have a great week!

Feb.11,2006

Yay! It's snowing,it's snowing!I've missed snow this winter! You can tell I don't have anywhere to go today, can't you.....lol.....and poor Kyle is out at the 'Wal-Mark'(as some of the locals say) pushin' those carts!Am sure he is not quite as happy as I am about the snow.

April went to a birthday party last night. She got her hair cut yesterday, will have to get Kyle to get a pic,but she got it shoulder length and parted on the side and it looks fantastic. She also said she got invited to another birthday party next weekend.

My day yesterday was .....different. Had gotten a call Thursday from an online application froma place over in Charlottesville(hour and a half from here) the woman said she knew it was last minute, but was leaving town next week....could I come over Friday for an interview?

So, when I show up for the interview.....she's NOT THERE. I heard she 'forgot' . Well, I wasn't too thrilled about  that! Didn't leave me with a very good impression of the place anyway...if you're too disorganized to remember on Friday an interview you scheduled on Thursday, I have serious doubts about whether I want to work for you. They did ask me to 'wait an hour' till she came in....sorry, not happening, I went home via a way where I could stop at several other places along the way to put in applications.

I did run into someone I went to nursing school with there. Boy, THAT sent me back!This girl and two others made my life and that of several other people in nursing school a hell while we were in school. One woman's son tried to commit suicide while we were in school...we had folders where our papers were returned, and I left her a note in her folder saying"Keeping you in my prayers"...that's how we found out those 3 girls were going thru the folders during lunchtime, to look at others grades. Because the openly MOCKED the note, they'd look at each other with sickly sweet smiles and say"I'm praying for you" and smirkand snort and laugh. They also openly mocked one of our instructors,during class....a person who I think is one of the most likely candidates for sainthood I've ever met.

All in all, they were the least compassionate and most ugly-spirited people I'd ever met. It still horrifies me to this day that any of the 3 of them wanted to be nurses!I would not have let them take care of my DOG.

I particularly remembered this girl because we had a vote before graduation on whether we would do a choral reading of "A Nurse's Prayer' poem, and she was extremely ANGRY that we voted 'yes'....was quite irate that it was not a written anonymous vote,said she was 'intimidated' by the fact that it was a show of hands vote and so didn't feel she could vote 'no' ,but the lasting impression I have of her is that she was highly OFFENDED that we were going to read anything with the word PRAYER in it.

So, it was somewhat surrealistic to run into her at that job interview yesterday, and have her seem so 'excited' to run into me...she was tellling everyone"I know she's a good nurse, cause we went to school together'(Tony was falling down laughing when I told him, he asked 'how does that necessarily follow?)Let's just say that if God wanted to send me a message that this was NOT a place for me to work, He couldn't have chosen a better way than for me to run into this person:)

Well, that's life in a nutshell right now. Have a good weekend!

I got Tagged

I got 'tagged' by sister Tracy

http://emanoff-china.blogspot.com/2006/02/tag-tracys-it.html     oh golly, my first time! Hope I'm dressed right,lol. Anyway, here goes:   Four jobs I've had: 1. 6 months in a poultry plant cutting off chicken wings, did not eat chicken for 2 years afterwards! 2. LPN in numerous nursing homes over the last 12 years 3. LPN in a psychiatric state hospital for a year. 4. Desk clerk at the Holiday Inn   Four movies I can watch over and over: 1. The Replacements 2.Drop Dead Gorgeous 3.Princess Bride 4. The first Matrix movie   Four Places I've lived: 1. Clearwater,FL (first 3 years of my life, do you have to REMEMBER living there?:) 2. Ft.Eustis,VA (I DO remember that, Dad was in the Army) 3. Middletown,OH 4.Parchment,MI   Four TV shows I love: 1. LOST 2.Invasion 3.Law and Order(the original) 4.CSI(the original)   Four Places I've vacationed: 1.Oahu!!!Best vacation ever,for my brother's wedding in 2003. 2. Evergreen,CO    went tubing in the South Platte River 3. Homosassa Springs,FL(Grandma lived there) 4. Upper Peninsula,MI and Mackinaw Island   Four of My Favorite Dishes: 1. "Chili,Cheese, and spaghetti"--Mom's old dish to use upleftovers is our family favorite. 2. Taco salad 3. Sweet and sour pork 4. Meatloaf(only because growing up, we only ever had it for my birthday, because everyone else hated it)   Four sites I visit daily: 1.Mudville Gazette 2. Blackfive 3. Soldiers Angels message boards 4. US Dept of Defense official website   Four places I would rather be right now: 1.Oahu 2. Lake Superior(Minnesota's North Shore) 3. Hong Kong(to see my brother's daughter that I've never met yet!) 4. At WORK,since that would mean I had a JOB again!!!!   Four bloggers I am tagging: 1.Mom, so maybe she'll do her 360 page 2.Ben,so he can ignore it. 3.Kyle,so he'll START a blog 4.Trish,since she just started hers

Injured at Church! and other adventures in life

In another steller example of why I am a 'dork'.....I injured myself at church yesterday!!!

It was the end of the service , and I was sitting next to my aunt. April is now singing in the choir, and the choir had been sitting in the front of the church. I was attempting to see her, and also trying to stand up at the same time, and also talking to my aunt,Lynn. (Clearly,one sees something awful about to happen just from the information that I was trying to do 3 things at once.lol!:)

Well, I spied April, and quickly leaned over to give Lynn a kiss good bye on her cheek....and managed to somehow bump my backside against the corner of the pew,Man!those things are sharp!!!!and they hurt!!! Who knew church could be so dangerous!!!

Driving home, I said to April "I hurt my backside at church'. When I related the story to her,she asked"how are you going to tell Dad this story without him laughing at you?"  I replied"Honey, I don't see how to tell anyone this story and NOT have them laugh at me!"

I am now the proud owner of a huge and vicious bruise, and it sort of hurts to walk or sit.

We went in the afternoon to visit Tony's brother,Chris, at his new place, and while relating the story to him, Tony commented "Really not surprising, considering that she almost fell down the other day just trying to get up off the couch!" I said "Hey! My foot got caught in the bottom of my robe!"

Continuing with the theme, Tony was deep frying shrimp before the Super Bowl last night. For some reason, the breading did not 'stick' to the shrimp. After he took the first batch out, he said'the only thing I can think to do is wash all this off and start over.' I said,'Hey, let me do it !I have experience at that!" (See Dec. 16 entry about chicken nugget washing)

I wonder what normal people's lives are like?

Mis-Adventures in Computerland

Arghhhh! OK, here's a tip....DON'T download AOL instant messenger's Triton Beta! I did that yesterday, since Kyle uses AIM a lot.....and somehow managed to wipe out a bunch of stuff for Kyle, and most of my AOL address book!!!!

Fortuantely, I had most of the same addresses in my Yahoo address book, so I was able to rebuild it. So, that is what I have been doing this morning....UNinstalling the Aim Triton, and REinstalling the previous version of AIM. "Dorks R Us' meets Geekland,lol.

Other than that....the job hunt continues. Went to a friends' daughters' basketball game last night(they were playing Dustin's high school) and couldn't find the friend! I stayed about an hour and watched the JV game, and then left. Kyle went to Morgan's game, and they lost,sigh.

Tony and I came home and played poker with Little Miss Las Vegas card shark(April:)She had gotten a poker set for her birthday that she hadn't used yet,so we broke that in with Texas Hold 'Em. Tony, of course,won.

Today, Tony is doing a job for his landlord at someone's trailer, Kyle is off so of course going to hang out with Morgan, and April is going to a friend's house to play video games this afternoon.

I had a nice surprise from Yahoo 360 last night. Logged on and had a message from a girl who used to live in Harrisonburg, now lives in Alaska and is married to a deployed service member. She had come across my page, and sent me this message:

I just came across your yahoo 360 page and wanted to thank you for supporting our troops. I am a miltary spouse with a deployed husband and I know that soldiers really appreciate all that people like you do for them. Thanks again!

What a nice message to get!!!!

The Post Responds

Well, the Post printed the Joint Chiefs' letter...and then this article below, which I certainly don't view as an apology!

Joint Chiefs Fire At Toles Cartoon On Strained Army

By Howard KurtzWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 2, 2006; Page C01

In a protest with an unusual number of high-level signatures, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of its five members have fired off a letter assailing a Washington Post cartoon as "beyond tasteless."

The Tom Toles cartoon, published Sunday, depicts a heavily bandaged soldier in a hospital bed as having lost his arms and legs, while Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in the guise of a doctor, says: "I'm listing your condition as 'battle hardened.' " Toles said he meant no offense toward American soldiers.

The letter to The Post, signed by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the vice chairman and the service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, said: "We believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds . . .

"While you or some of your readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, we believe you owe the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices." The letter, which a reporter obtained from the Pentagon, is being published today.

The cartoon is based on remarks that Rumsfeld made last week. In rejecting warnings by a Pentagon-sponsored study that the Iraq war risks "breaking" the Army, he said the U.S. military is "battle hardened" and an "enormously capable force." At the bottom of the cartoon, in smaller type, Rumsfeld says: "I'm prescribing that you be stretched thin. We don't define that as torture."

In an interview, Toles called the letter "an understandable response" but said he did not regret what he drew. In thinking about Rumsfeld's remarks, he said, "what came soon to mind was the catastrophic level of injuries the Army and members of the armed services have sustained . . . I thought my portrayal of it was a fair depiction of the reality of the situation.

"I certainly never intended it to be in any way a personal attack on, or a derogatory comment on, the service or sacrifice of American soldiers."

As for the Joint Chiefs' letter, he said: "I think it's a little bit unfair in their reading of the cartoon to imply that is what it's about."

Fred Hiatt, The Post's editorial page editor, said he doesn't "censor Tom" and that "a cartoonist works best if he or she doesn't feel there's someone breathing over their shoulder. He's an independent actor, like our columnists." Hiatt said he makes comments on drafts of cartoons but that Toles is free to ignore them.

Asked about Sunday's cartoon, Hiatt said, "While I certainly can understand the strong feelings, I took it to be a cartoon about the state of the Army and not one intended to demean wounded soldiers."

Dave Autry, deputy communications director for Disabled American Veterans, said he was "certainly not" offended by the cartoon.

"It was graphic, no doubt about it," he said. "But it drove home a point, that there are critically ill patients that certainly need to be attended to."

Toles, who won a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for the Buffalo News and joined The Post in 2002, said he expected criticism for drawing the quadruple amputee, as he does for about two-thirds of his efforts.

"It is the nature of cartooning that someone can read an analogy a cartoon uses to mean things other than what was intended," Toles said. "The only way to avoid that problem is to draw cartoons that have no impact."

An Offensive Cartoon

The above is a completely tasteless, and highly offensive, cartoon that was in this past Sunday's Washington Post.

The cartoon led the Joint Chiefs of Staff to write the letter below to the Post:

The following virtually unprecedented letter was sent yesterday by all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the managing editor of the Washington Post:

We were extremely disappointed to see the editorial cartoon by Tom Toles on page B6 in the January 29th edition. Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon is beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues -- and your paper is obviously free to discuss any topic, including the state of readiness of today's Armed Forces. However, we believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds.

Those who visit with wounded veterans in local hospitals have found lives profoundly changed by pain and loss. They have also found brave men and women with a sense of purpose and selfless commitment that causes truly battle-hardened warriors to pause. Where do we get such men and women? From the cities and farmlands of this great Nation - they serve to be a part of something bigger than themselves. While you or some of your readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, we believe you owe the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices.

As the Joint Chiefs, it is rare that we all put our hand to one letter, but we cannot let this reprehensible cartoon go unanswered.

Sincerely,

PETER PACE, General U.S. Marine Corps, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

EDMUND B. GIAMBASTIANI, JR., Admirial, U.S. Navy, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

MICHAEL W. HAGEE, General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commandant of the Marine Corps

PETER J. SCHOOMAKER, General, U.S. Army Chief of Staff

MICHAEL G. MULLEN, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations

T. MICHAEL MOSELEY, General, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff

If you'd like to send your own opinion of this 'cartoon' to the Post, the email address is:  letters@washpost.com  

and the snail mail address is:Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20071

I have sent a letter of my own today, suggesting that an apology by the Post would be the only decent and honorable course of action for the paper to take regarding this cartoon. And I will no longer continue my practice of buying a Washington Post every Sunday.