Reflections and such...

It's good to be home. I hadn't realized how much I would miss Texas until I deployed, and now, even when I am gone doing something enjoyable, I realize how much I love this silly state. We have a serious problem with stars and the state sillhouette and the flag and just being crazy about being Texans. I'm one of those wacky people, too. I love being a Texan. It's part of my identity, like being an Orthodox Christian, a wife, a Soldier. It's a mindset, but it's also a bit of a birthright.

So, the two weeks with the inlaws? Fantastic. They're wonderful. They're good people, and I'm proud to call them family. We zipped over to Pittsburg to see the baby baptized, and it still seems weird to be able to end up in three states in five hours. Anyway, it was wonderful.


This is part of what I spent my Memorial Day doing. I'm not sure if you can acutally see how pink the roof is. Just after I took this shot, a huge buzzard just exploded out the right hand window, and went crashing off into the trees. There are some other barns that we looked at and some roads we just wandered about.

We also wandered about Luray Caverns, and I have a bunch of picutres that need to be sorted through, but it was fun fun fun. Three hours of crawling around on the ground, and imagining all sorts of fantastic things in the rocks. There were some rocks that were leeetle tiny bubbles and Mom A said it looked like something that living in the rock, and the bubbles were its breath. We also saw a monk, a turkey, a dragon, and a very buxom woman.

Picked up the truck today. My truck is fixed! No more little black eye. Granted, it was expensive, but the lights are fixed and it looks so much better. So much. I'm so glad John strongarmed me into getting it fixed. I don' look so ghetto, yo!

There are always six million things I think about putting on here, and then...poof!

OHOHOHOH! I got my "new" machine! OMG OMG OMG OMG. Talk about stunning. It weighs about 50 lbs. and it's amazingly awesome. The head is steel and teal-blue, and the case is covered in a dark blue snakeskin/leather patterned paper. I'll be making a set of carrying straps for the case, since the handle broke, but I don't intend to lug that puppy anywhere unless I have to. It's too heavy. Oh I can't wait to make something on it! A ger would be good.

Now, to bed with me, I think. I'll write more tomorrow.

CRAP!

One-I missed a call from my husband. I got to the phone about two seconds too late.

Two-I have too much of it. Stuff breeds when you're on vacation! I didn't have this much stuff when I got here. I didn't. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ladies and gentlemen:

We toast our dead with water.

To absent comrades!

Attention, please! Attention!

These are your hormones speaking.

We'd like some smokin' hot nookie, please.

That is all.

It's raining, it's pouring...

and I'm thinking a nap sounds good.

No pictures just yet.

But if you're interested, you can find more at my flickr page. For anyone interested it's:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiergrrrl/

Was reading through a friend's LJ and he talked a bit about spirituality. It's something that I think about a lot, and enjoy talking about. So, I made a comment, and this is what I said. I'm sure that I'll add to it as I think of it, but...

There are about sixteen reasons I left the whole neo-pagan game (aside from God hitting me upside the head with a clue by four), and you hit on a few of them.

I'll see if I can make this coherent, but I make no promises.

I grew up knowing there was a "God." He wasn't particulary present in my family, beyond going to church with my grandmother when I went to La. and being petted by all the older women. After that, church was where you went on Christmas Eve, and *maybe* Easter.

Since I started Faire when I was 15, I'd had some exposure to neo-pagans, including a *lot* of fluffy-bunny neo-Wiccans. Didn't run into too many lineaged folx, but I met a couple.

After getting into college, for some reason, I checked out Margot Addler's Drawing Down the Moon< and from there headed to Starhawk and Murray, and then...it was a slide into neo-Paganism. Meeting the ex didn't help the whole spiritual thang, since he was a mish-mash of Zen Bhuddism/Taoist and Europagan/Cetlic reconstructionism.

Part of it was that I really wanted to believe that I was somebody, in a past life was fine, since I wasn't anybody here. I wanted to feel strong and not ordinary, and paganism allowed me to do that, even while I maintained something of a "respectable" veneer. In other words, I didn't purposefully try and freak the mundanes. I wore normal clothes, a small silver pentacle, and wasn't freaky for freakishness' sake.

Whily the ex was stationed at DLI, we did run a teaching coven, and one of the classes I taught was..."Psychic Attack, or Just Low Blood-Sugar?" The subtitle was "Try eating more than Twinkies and Coke for breakfast." I had very little patience with the fluffy-bunny crap, and had since grown out of the need to "be someone."

So...I get divorced, and slowly drift away from paganism. I disliked the kneejerk reaction of "We can't write it down! It will become...DOGMA!" when discussing trying to actuallly get folx to agree on some things. The coven I circled with in Tenn. had left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, due to what I perceived as serious lapses in judgement, to include breaking the "no alcohol" rule at a state park, as well as allowing minors to get drunk at said park. I am a random person, but I really need boundaries. I need to know what the rules are, where the lines are, and where I am in context to those boundaries and rules.

I was content to drift for a while, just calling myself agnostic, but not really searching for answers, just kinda hoping I'd get hit with the spiritual equivalent of a Greyhound bus.

When we were told we were deploying, my lackadaisical searching days were over. I didn't have this whacky feeling I was going to die, but I did want to have it sorted out before I headed over to Iraq. I wanted to have some sort of answer. I'd thought about returning to church with my mom and dad, but they were still kind of random about attending and such, and so...it wasn't exactly a methodical way to figure it all out.

Then, I met John. I joke that he and God introduced me to each other. After our first date, I went to church with John, and from then on out, I've fallen more and more in love with the Orthodox Church. Hmmm. Perhaps I'll have to finish this my blog, since I'm sure I'm up against the comment limit, if not over it.

There's a whole lot more backstory, but I'll have to sit down and see if I can actually get it down in an organized fashion. I'm tired of not having things read well. I'm not writing for public consumption, but it's nice to be able to follow my own thoughts.

BTW, the smell of drying laundry is one of my all-time favorite smells. It's just comforting in a way that few things are. It smells like home and like all is right with the world.

Yeah, I know...

Not a fantastic shot, but it's pretty easy to see the heavy beading detail on this skirt.
And this is the front of that dress. If you look at the lower right-hand-corner, you can see the detail featured in the first picture. It's not really clear here, but the cross-hatched beaded section at the throat looks like a detachable piece, and it's on a very light net/chiffon backing.
This is another shot of the custom brocade/damask/jaquard, whatever the heck it is. Please note that I was taking these photos in low light, with glass between me and the gowns. I wish they were better, but I'm just not that good without an adjustable aperture and a tripod.

Holy digital cameras, Batman! That's a lot of photos!

Gah. (Corrected information)

Thanks be to God for angels in my life. After paying for school and textbooks, I'm incredibly grateful to those folx in my life who have, through nothing I've done, love me enough to make my life a bit easier. You know who you are. I cannot thank you enough, and I pray that I can pass on the love that I'm being shown.

On another note, I'm uploading pictures like mad, although I might want to warn everyone that I do post pictures, and if you're on a slow connection, it's going to be hard to wade through them. From what I can tell here, I can't make filters or anything, so you'll have to take your chances I guess.

So, on to fabric porn:
I'm not sure if you can tell, the not only are there pleats around the bottom of the hem, there is a pleated trim around the pleats. I would have gone blind. I may still.

This is a detail of a gown belonging to Anna Tuthill Symes Harrison.

From www.whitehouse.gov:

A clandestine marriage on November 25, 1795, united Anna Symmes and Lt. William Henry Harrison, an experienced soldier at 22. Though the young man came from one of the best families of Virginia, Judge Symmes did not want his daughter to face the hard life of frontier forts; but eventualy, seeing her happiness, he accepted her choice.

It's very hard to see in this picture, and I will post another one, but the brocade was woven with a custom pattern, the leaves of a particular oak that grew along the banks of the Tippecanoe River, a battle in which her husband, President William Henry Harrison, fought in.

From www.whitehouse.gov:

While Tecumseh was away seeking more allies, Harrison led about a thousand men toward the Prophet's town. Suddenly, before dawn on November 7, the Indians attacked his camp on Tippecanoe River. After heavy fighting, Harrison repulsed them, but suffered 190 dead and wounded.

The Battle of Tippecanoe, upon which Harrison's fame was to rest, disrupted Tecumseh's confederacy but failed to diminish Indian raids. By the spring of 1812, they were again terrorizing the frontier.

In the War of 1812 Harrison won more military laurels when he was given the command of the Army in the Northwest with the rank of brigadier general. At the Battle of the Thames, north of Lake Erie, on October 5, 1813, he defeated the combined British and Indian forces, and killed Tecumseh. The Indians scattered, never again to offer serious resistance in what was then called the Northwest.

Thereafter Harrison returned to civilian life; the Whigs, in need of a national hero, nominated him for President in 1840. He won by a majority of less than 150,000, but swept the Electoral College, 234 to 60.

I really will get around to finding out which lady these dresses (meaning all the pictures, not just this post) belonged to. I should have brought a notebook to record the information in, but I'm not so good at the documenting fabric schtick.

Warning...rant ahead.

There are going to be more photos soon, but I have a minor rant. While we were in Washington, Dad A and I cruised by the Museum of Native American History and Culture. It's a pretty building, but I have some huge issues with the exhibits inside.

Maybe I'm just a racist, but I noticed that the exhibits didn't seem to actually have much to do with the nastier side of NA cultures. Granted, we weren't exactly the white knights of the world, but there were quite a few atrocities commited by NA peoples against...other NA peoples. Why isn't that mentioned?

There were quite a few mentions of how spiritual the cultures were, but there wasn't any mention of the lovely religious practices of the Aztecs and the Mayans. I mean, I'm sure that it's easier and more "right" to blame white people, since no native culture ever did anything that wasn't in the best interest of the land, and "people."

Lots of exhibits on thee horrible things the white man, such as the Spaniards, did in order to subjugate the poor little natives, including stripping them of gold, and making slaves out of them. Yeah, we did it and it was wrong, but we certainly weren't the first to run roughshod over other cultures.

But hey, who cares about presenting a balanced view? Let's just blame every single white person for anything bad that's ever happened in the past million years. It's easier. And God knows this society is all about what's easy.

A quilt from the 1930s.

It's a bit hard to see, but each of the ladies on the quilt has a gathered skirt, and they have a black blanket-stitch around the edge of thes skirts. The women surrounding the central frame are "working" on an Ohio Star pattern, one of the more popular designs of the 1800s. I think. I'll have to check. That may be a LeMoyne Star, but I'm not as up on my quilt patterns as I should be.
There's a heavy feather pattern, surrounding a cross-hatched middle. There are harps quilted in between the ladies.

Although I didn't record the information as well as I should have, since I'm falling down on the documentation side of the house, this is a "commemoration" quilt from the 1930s. What you see here is all hand-quilted. This lady had WAY more patience than I do.

Oooh! Lookie!

Went to the Museum of American History today. My father-in-law found information on a textile exhibit, including quilts, and he wanted to show me. Sadly, most of the exhibit was under renovation, but you can see a couple of the looms that were still in the exhibit hall.

The jaquard loom used punch cards, one of the first examples of "computer" technology. It was amazing, and the fact that technology was used to make decorative fabrics says a lot about the society that developed the tech.
The pale brown material that looks rather like rattan, is the punch card set. They were used to manipulate the design in the material.

This is a closer look at the punch cards. The holes determined what warp and weft threads were up or down, and the final design.

I do have to laugh...

I've realized that I fit into this family almost perfectly. Well, maybe not perfectly, but geez. If I'd custom-ordered a "family-in-law," this is who'd they'd be. My dragon-in-law is really a cool guy, and I enjoyed going to Mount Vernon with him.

Granted, when I looked over and saw him climbing into a bush, I was a bit startled, but he simply backed up a bit, and pronounced "spider mites." He works with plants while pursuing his master's degree, and so, it was interesting to wander the gardens with him. They have a hedge-garden that's symmentrical on the horizontal and vertical axis, and they're pretty. The hedges are a bit lower than you'd normally think of, and so it's much easier to see the design. There are a couple of scroll-ish designs and two fluer-de-lys.

Anyway, I should sign out and get some shut-eye. We drove by the old D.C. prison complex today, and I would love to just be able to wander around and get some shots there, but somehow I don't think they'd be thrilled with that. The concertina wire is gone, but you can still see the double fences. Evidently, most of the prison was built by the prisoners, back when there was still some sort of shame attached to actually going to prison.

You know, what ever happened to that? What ever happened to the idea of someone being ashamed of their actions? What ever happened to prison being someplace you wouldn't want to go, some place hard and cold and lonely and shameful? I realize that I probably have some media-fueled notions of what prison is, but I'm really convinced that prison should suck. You should have zero priviledges. No cable, no tv. Maybe a lending library, but no access to computers, and they should have to work, and work hard.

Maybe they should have to grow their own food, and break their own big rocks into little rocks, for no other reason than to have to do it. To make sure that they don't just sit around. Oh yeah, and bring back the old style black and white prison uniforms. I don't care if it makes inmates stand out. They're not good upstanding members of society, and that needs to be made clear. They should stand out. They should stand out as something you never want to become.

Okay, how the heck did I get there?

Right, pictures of the old prison. Don't think it'll happen, but it would be cool.

I'm off to write a bit of something racy to my husband, and then, to sleep.

Potomac canals and more Great Falls State Park

What you see above is the all that remains of the canal supervisor's house. It took so long to construct that only one canal supervisor lived in it, and it fell into ruin after the canals were closed.

This is a section of the canal walls. All told, the locks along the Potomac raised or lowered vessels a grand total of 77 feet to bypass the most dangerous falls along the river. I would have loved to see that. George Washington dreamed of the Potomac opening up a new channel of commercial oportunities, allowing the settlers on the frontier to develop a closer relationship with the original colonies.

Watching Babylon 5 at the in-laws. It seems that I've committed a bit of a sci-fi faux pax in not seeing the series. It's been interesting and I'm enjoying it so far. From what I can tell, the producer must have been a gamer, since it seems to be a great role-playing campaign. Lots of intrigue, lots of plots, and no acting. ;-)

If you know who Jinny Beyer is, you'll know why I took this picture. If you don't know who she is, it's going to look like a storefront. I got some fabric there, some of which will go into a gift quilt.

Great Falls State Park

Just adding some more photos. Hope y'all want to see them!

I have serveral photos to post, so I'll be taking up fair amounts of your bandwidth.

Just to let you know.

This is from Great Falls State Part, and it was lovely today. The sky was clear, and bright blue, and the water level was nice and high. It's been unseasonably cool and breezy the past few days, and I thanked the in-laws for ordering up the nice weather. Dad A would like to know if I can reciprocate when they come to San Antonio.

Consider this your two-minute-warning...

I've decided on something. I don't know who reads this thing, really, since Blogger doesn't have a "friends list." That's probably a good thing, although I would love to have the ability to have all the stuff I like to read on one page here.

So, this is your warning.

I'm tired of writing for public consumption, at least right now. I'm tired of censoring myself, pruning out the tired, snarky, pissy comments, and tired of making sure that my posts don't offend anyone. No, I won't go out of my way to be nasty, but I'm just going to let me...be me! I'm not always nice, I'm not always sweet, and I'm not always understanding.

I fall short of the ideals of Christian love, I sin, I am so human that it hurts most days. I have horribly ugly parts of me, just as many as I have lovely and sweet parts. I'm not hiding them any more.

I have hormones, and they're sorely active right now, seeing as my husband and I have been separated for almost two years at this point, and I need the nookie, baby. If you don't want to read about them, you might want to scan the subject line for something "SEX!!!" or some other way I'll tag them.

I don't intend to change the rating of this blog to NC-17, but I'm going to assume that you're all over the age of consent and have some idea of sex. Hell, I'm sure that some of you have kids, so you've obviously got the hang of the whole deal.

I don't plan on being offensive for offense's sake, so I'll try and keep in clean, language-wise. However, do be aware that I am a soldier, and sometimes, profanities express a whole different level of frustration or excitement. (Plan on lots of celebratory expletives when I get my darling husband's leave date.)

You've been warned.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe!

Look! More photos!

More photos!

Look! It's more of Mt. Vernon! (The pictures suck, okay?)

AGH!

I do not need to see scenes that even might be sexually charged. I just don't. I'm so hormonal as it is that I'm having horribly naughty thoughts. John flirting like mad doesn't help. I enjoy it a great deal, but it doesn't help! Need my husband home and naked, preferably. (Um. Yeah. Hi 'rents!)

Went to Mount Vernon today, and enjoyed it. Going to an historic monument with my Dragon-In-Law was a great deal of fun. It was nice to have someone to natter about history and whatnot about.

I had a great time, although I'm terribly disppointed with the textile and domestic art part of the home. Granted, it was lovely to know that they reproduced the textiles, such as the bed-hangings, and the carpets, and the like, but it would have been nice to have more examples of the domestic textiles. I would have liked to see more on the quilting, and the sewing and such, but that's just my quirk. I would love to see more on the patchwork, and the like, but as I said, that's my quirk.

From what I can tell, the extant stuff isn't that important, or perhaps it just wasn't as well preserved. Granted, I could just be talking out my butt, too. I don't know enough about the program. Anyway, I did take a few pictures, although they're not that good. I'll put some more up in a little bit.

Picked up several postcards to mail to my darling Decurion and as it stands right now, I'll be mailing out postcards for a while. I would love to be able to take some good pictures, but unless you're really good, or have good equipment, it's not worth it. It's just easier to buy the postcards.

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow
words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James D. Nicoll

I love this quote. It's so true and so typical of English, and Americans in general.

I guess...

There are times when I don't know where I am, or what I'm doing. I feel lost. I feel like I've been stuck in a time warp, or a freeze-framed photograph, and that I'm the only one who's confused.

It's getting better, but there are times when I wish that I'd done more, and taken better pictures and just been a better soldier while in Iraq. We went to the National Aquarium, and from there to the Maritime Museum in the Baltimore Harbor. The USS Constellation is there, as well as the USS Torsk, and Coast Guard Lightship #116 (Chesapeake).

The USCG cutter Taney is also permanently berthed there. The Taney was one of the only ships to actually be in fighting condition just after the attack at Pearl Harbor, and she served from the start of WWII to the middle of the Cold War, undergoing several refits and modifications to reflect her different missions.

I guess that's probably incidental, since the Taney isn't really what sparked my introspection, and to some degree, self-loathing. The photographs in the WWII/Okinawa memorial were, though. Those photographs are...amazing. They're raw and painful and horrible, and I wish I'd taken them.

It's hard to put into words what that desire is. It might be considered ghoulish, since I want to be there to take pictures of horrific things. It might be considered psychopathic, since I'd willingly put myself in harm's way to document that harm, and the aftermath, but I don't really think of it as either.

The old cliche is "a picture is worth a thousand words" and that's true. Good photographs can convey so much without a single written character. They can convey slices of life that can never be duplicated, or recreated and I want to be there to see that, I want to be good enough to convery the horror or the joy, or the pride, or the anger, to someone who can't be there, or who doesn't have the courage the men and women I serve alongside.

I can't begin to explain it any better than that. I can't begin to explain the need to show the world what it is that I've seen. What it is that I saw when I walked along with patrols and young men from every corner of America. I want to be able to show the sadness, the joy, the pain, the rewards, above all the absolutely amazing face of our soldiers and Marines, sailors and airmen.

I wish that I had the skill to capture some of the things I saw, and I wish, every day that I'd had more opportunity to go out and document the struggles and heartache and the brotherhood that I was priviledged enough to be a part of, even if only for a few minutes and even with the distance of the lens.

Lah dee dah...

Watching an Aimal Planet special on dragons, and it's interesting. :-) Not sure that I happen to agree with the whole idea of making a "documentary" on totally mythical creatures. I'm hoping that my dragon-in-law and I can get out at some point to grab a cup of coffee or something, at some point. He's really cool, and I'd really like to get to know him better.

Waiting...

To head to church with my Mom-In-Law. Evidently she was told she wasn't old enough to have a daughter-in-law, so we must prove otherwise. :-) I'm amused and willing to sit through a service if it makes her happy, so I'm made up and ready to go.

Went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore yesterday. It was great, but I wish that they had a better selection of postcards, especially of the more interesting animals, or ones that are hard to take pictures of underwater, like puffins and sharks. Oh, I do love me some sharks, though. Gorgeous, graceful, perfectly designed predators. Yeah, somehow I'm not sure I buy that biology managed that one without some help, but that's just me. YMMV, as always.

Watched the dolphin show, and while amusing, I like Sea World's shows better, at least from what I remember. They seem like so much fun, but like any intelligent animal, I would hesitate to just think that it's all fun and games when dealing with such incredibly smart creatures. We did get to see some footage of why it's a good idea NOT to feed Flipper when you're out on the ocean. Mainly because Flipper might end up deciding you look tasty. Not my idea of a good time, because it seems like those teeth would HURT.

Took a bit of a break to go to church with the In-Laws, and it was nice. Everyone was very sweet to me, and I was pleased to meet everyone. Although it's been a very, very long time since I've heard preaching like that, the pastor's message was good. It was a message about problems and the way God uses them to shape us, perfect us, and otherwise make us better.

I have to admit that's a unique way to look at life. Other religions, problems are because of something you do, because you're too attached, or because the gods are capricious. God may not make my life smooth, but I can always use my problems to be a better Christian, or to figure out a way to grow in faith. Yeah, I know, it may suck to have to weather these storms, but God never promised us smooth sailing, ever.

Mother Teresa once said that she knew God wouldn't give her anything she couldn't handle. Sometimes, she just wished He didn't trust her so much. I understand that feeling, lemme tell you!

I may not understand why God's allowing my husband and I to spend two-and-a-half years apart, but I do know that we've used this to deepen our relationship outside of the bedroom. After my Decurion gets home, we're SO working on the relationship in bed, but I digress.

Gah. I swear I ramble all over the map around here and have zero idea about what direction I'm going to go in until the wind blows. To quote Mal: "I got no rudder. Wind blows northerly, I go north. It's who I am." That's not always true, but in the whole journaling thing, it's the truth. I've enjoyed journaling online, and I have to admit that the feedback is part of what's kept me going many times, when I thought about just chucking the whole gig. I doubt that I'll actually dump the LJ, especially since it's paid for, but I may just lay low. The feedback is nice, but it's also a bit of a curse, since people, and lots of them, are happy to tell me exactly how fucked up I am, or what a bigot or whatever.

Okay, after a very late night, and a fairly early morning, I'm going to go take a nap. I'm hoping to head out for a drink or something with the Dragon-In-Law (brother-in-law). The DIL is a pretty awesome man, and I'd like to get to know him a bit better.

The end of an era?

My LJ is, for now, running silent. I'm just tired of not being able to post without making sure that my posts are vetted for public release.

So, we'll have to see if I even keep this up. I might just let the blogs die down.

Yeargh.

What is it? Why is it, when I need to get to sleep early, I'm up and ready to write?

I'm sitting here typing a bit of backstory for mine and John's characters in the world he's creating. I should be sleeping, since we're getting up early to go to the aquarium, I think. I know we're going somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with fish, but I could be wrong.

Agh! I need to sleep, but I have words in my head.

ROFLMAO!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP0I3ylUkA0

I'm sure that most everyone except me has seen every "numa numa" parody out there, but this is too funny not to see.

Right now....

It's terribly late, and I should be asleep, but I'm not. I'm sitting on a bed, wondering about the boy who used to live in this room, and wondering about my husband. Not bad wonderings, at all, just wishing that I could pick up a crystal ball and see my beloved as he was before the responsibilities of adulthood and the rigors of war.

We all change, I know that. We all have things that we give up as we approach adulthood, from childish games to imaginary friends, to the idea of riding across the plains on a rocking horse, to the beanbag mouse we handed over to a sibling and then cried over. (No, I won't tell you who did what in that list.)

There are times when I would love to see who and what we were before we gave those things up, though. I would love to see my husband's smile on a child's face, his eyes sparkling, or his face set in mutiny. I am willing to show him my face, turned up in a sunny smile, or my eyes wide open in amazement and laughter.

I'm at my in-laws, and my brother-in-law has loyally attempted to distract us all when the conversation turns to the myriad cute deeds my husband is remembered for. He *hates* being reminded that he was a cute kid for some reason, although I like the stories because they give me some idea of what I can expect from our kids. Granted, I was such an angel that it will hopefully negate some of the devilish tendencies of my other half. (Gah. I can't even type that with a straight face!)

I'm thinking of letting the other blog kind of go to sleep. I'm tired of pretending that I'm such a sweetheart and the like and for some God-unknown reason, I'm tired of not feeling like I can say what I want to say without running it through some sort of content filter. Agh.

So I'm easy to amuse...

Your results:
You are Han Solo

Han Solo 69% Darth Maul 66% Mace Windu 65% Qui-Gon Jinn 65% Emperor Palpatine 56% Princess Leia 56% R2-D2 56% Darth Vader 55% Padme 54% Obi-Wan Kenobi 54%

Even though you've been described as reckless, selfish and cocky, you're the type of person others love to be around. People like you because you're a scoundrel.

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)


Click here to take the "Which Star Wars character am I?" quiz...

Tired.

I'm seriously considering shutting my other blog down.

I'm tired and for some unknown reason, I seem to have some weird persona on there that makes it impossible for me to have any negative emotions, like anger or annoyance, especially if it's related to the deployment.

On the upside, the Spurs are up six.

I miss my husband.

It's funny, but someone asked me why I'm never really in a hurry to get my sidework done and get out of work.

Why? Honestly, what the hell do I have to go home to? I don't party, I don't drink, and I don't have some lover on the side. So, what is there for me to do besides sit around and roll silver?

Gah.

Tonight was a pretty good night. We weren't terribly busy, but I make about $80 so I'm happy with that. There's so little going on in my life right now that it's scary. I work. I'm going to school in about two weeks. *thud* I miss John.

*sigh* This is rambling and I need to get my nightly chocolate shake and get to bed. I must wash my face, and brush my hair, and then I'll slip off to dreamland where I don' t have to wait to hear my sweetest husband's voice or to feel his touch.

BTW, I'm moody and PMSing tonight. Be warned. I'm liable to start bawling at the silliest stuff. Gah. There are days I hate being a chick. Hormones suck.

Oh my oh my oh my...

I saw the epitome of redneck chic last night. I swear. The person who came up with the idea of a RealTree (tm) vest and bowtie set should be shot. The first idiot who decided it would be a good idea to wear it to his senior prom should be beaten briskly about the head and shoulders with a branch of whatever trees are in that pattern. I'm not sure that, were I your date, I would appreciate the symbolism of you wearing a hunting pattern to our prom. YMMV, of course.

There are several high schools in the area, and so, the proms have been spread over the last several weekends, to avoid some horrible rush on tuxedo shops and hairdressers I suppose, and so, we've been seeing lots and lots of prom kids at the restaurant.

Let me set a few things straight.

One- I was never that young. Ever. Even if I was ever that young, I certainly wasn't that sophisticated looking at 17.

Two- Guys, you'll impress your date more if you leave the servers more than $6 on a $60 bill. I promise. If you leave a shitty tip, you look like a cheap bastard who probably bought the corsage at Wally World and got it off the day-old rack.

If you have the money to take your date out to Saltgrass, and blow a wad of Daddy's money on a t-bone, you have enough on Daddy's credit card to leave your server a decent fucking tip. There's a reason we all cringe when you walk in the door. Figure it out, and when you end up slinging trays during college, I hope to God you get a dose of what you handed out.

Oh yeah, and wipe that snotty look off your face. You are not better than I am, actually. You just happen to be stuck in that obnoxious phase known as the teenage years, and you will, eventually, end up doing a job you hate to make ends meet. In fact, I might see you in here in a few years.

Three- I don't care if it's the most important day of your young life. There are other people in the restaurant, and they're paying to eat here, too. I don't get to spend all my time fawning over you and your date, and I wouldn't want to, even if I had the spare time. Get over yourselves. None of us are really longing for the "good old days" since most of them weren't that good, and you couldn't pay me enough to go back to high school.

Evidently, I'm doing something wrong. I didn't even break a bill last night, and that hasn't happened on a weekend in what seems like forever. My sales were $780 and I only made $96. Gah.

I had some good tips, but one table, who was evidently pissed off because I control the beer cooler and I wanted their beers to not be ice-fucking-cold, left me $7 and change on an $82 bill. Thank you very much. Kindly fuck off and eat worms. And take your obnoxious son with you. Oh, and feed your daughter, man. Give the skinny waif a fucking cheeseburger with fries and a milkshake. She's boney and icky.

I don't mind working the bar patio since it's not smoking any more, but the wooden floors are a pain the butt to clean! Agh. And I almost landed on my can when I slipped on a ice cube. Don't even get me started about the idiot I was working with. He's known as "the guy I'd rather poke my eyes out with glass skewers than talk to" and he's almost indescribably condescending and bossy. I didn't feel like arguing with him over a table, since I just didn't have that much antacid, but I should have. By not putting my foot down over the system, I let him win. Drat.

So...today is going to be hellish, since it's Mother's Day. I love the idea of honoring our moms, I really do. However, everyone needs to realize that everyone else also wants to take Mom out to eat, and that every single restaurant in San Antonio is going to be slammed. Be patient. Don't be a dork. Your server does not control anything with regards to seating, how fast things come out of the kitchen, or anything else that isn't on your table. Got it? Thank you. Oh, and tip. We're not getting to spend the day with Mom, so be nice, please.

Woke up this morning, and almost just rolled back over and crashed out again, but the urge to get up and go to church won out. Drat, huh? Woke up too late to take a shower before work, and the hair looked rather like something out of a black-and-white Frankenstein movie, so I threw a headscarf on and went to church. Modesty born of lack of time, I suppose. I actually like having my hair covered and a minimum of makeup, but I swear, I've gotten more funny looks. I suppose I look like a cancer patient or Jewish. Ah well. I still like it.

Now, on to getting home phone service hooked up and then...internet! Woooo hoooo! I'm leaving to see the in-laws on Thursday, and taking the truck in to the shop, too. That way, I don't have to pay for a rental car, and my poor truck will be nice and shiny when I get home. Yay. The best part will be that my headlights will point in the correct direction, and I'll actually be able to see when I drive at night. Wheeeeee!

The Marching Camp

The Marching Camp

A blog by any other name...is still my sweetheart.

*grump grump grump*

I hate not knowing what's going on. I'm enough of a control freak that I like to know. That's all.

It's one of the things that most frustrating about being here, instead of over there.

Right now, though, I'm on the phone with my darling decurion, and I think I'd rather chat with him that bitch about feeling disconnected from the sandbox. Or, maybe I'll just go wander the bookstore with him in tow.

Just a camp follower

Yeah, I know how that sounds, but since my other half is The Marching Camp, it works.

This is mostly so I can repost things for my darling husband to read.