Thought that this would make a good link for today. My heart goes out to the family of this young man as they struggle with their loss- and my deep appreciation goes to them as well, for sharing his words with the world, so that maybe just a few more folks will understand the reality of what being in the military entails.

H/T Milblogging.com… That reminds me, I really should update my info there, as it points to What Panda? still.

Today, my adorable monster of a son decided to take a whiz on the couch. And I can’t clean it up properly, because… wait for it… the water’s out! I’m 10 seconds from meltdown.

For about four months now we have been subjected to frequent, long-lasting water outages. Since they are not planned for (evidently, as we were not given notice except for one time, back in June or July I think), the jackasses running the show are apparently not obligated to provide water to the people living here. They’ve dug up the roads, the yards, the sidewalks, made “mud pies (I guess washing this foul dirt around some with a firehose must be their idea of “cleanup”, thanks assholes) and generally annoyed the crap out of people up and down the street. I walk my kid to and from the bus stop through a construction zone. No choice. The bus stop itself has had a most unpleasant aroma of SHIT for the last 2 weeks, because they are working on a sewer line about 25 feet away.

Nice way to provide for soldiers and their loved ones, yeah? Thanks for nothing, I say. This is disgraceful.

It’s no secret to anyone who has been suffering through my blog for a while that I adore the Halloween season. Lazy and I were married on Halloween, and I have a deep and passionate love for costumes, scary stuff, pumpkins and CANDY! I’ve already mentioned that we pre-ordered our costumes, and I am now eagerly awaiting the first time I get to wear mine- at a party on the 17th. Some of the other things I love about this season are the fresh, cool air, the dormancy of the lawn (or the “weed gallery” as I prefer to call it), the long nights, spiced cider and hot cocoa, warm blankets and buying presents!

Oh yes, presents! Lazybones’ anniversary gift shipped just yesterday, after some struggling- I purchased him a set of red Doc Martens, since I learned that they have returned to manufacturing selected styles in the UK recently. When they moved production to Asia they no longer held the same appeal for me. I have a similar feeling about American cars. However, since there are certain “vintage” Dr. Martens styles now made in England once more, I thought it was high time that Lazy had his very own (all mine are pretty old, pre-dating the 2003 change).

Speaking of Lazybones, On the first of October he was finally promoted. He made me do the ripping and re-velcroing of his rank, and I could not be more proud of him. In honor of this long overdue occasion, he shall henceforth be known in these pages as “Sergeant Bones”. Next on the agenda is the re-enlistment, around the end of the year, followed by us getting the fuck out of Italy. Thank goodness.

Did I remember to mention the kids’ costumes? Ringo will be a skeleton (I found him some cute glow in the dark skelly jammies) and George will be a beautiful little orange and black butterfly. There will be pictures, provided I have a functional camera by Halloween.

That’s about it for now. Just updating so everyone knows I am still here. Ciao.

People are writing to the Army Times in force lately over the new Army dress uniform.

Me and Lazybones, we have a good laugh about the complaints. Not the stuff that has some basis (such as certain comfort issues with the badges, etc.) but the rampant griping over the loss of the “traditional” green dress uniform.

Ahem? Hello? These are E-7s, retired E-8s and many other folks who have obviously spent more than five minutes in the Army- so what the hell are they thinking?? The blues are traditional! The Continental Army wore… what? Blue uniforms you say? And the Union Army? Does the Civil War ring a bell for any of these folks? References made to “The Blue and the Grey” must confuse these poor souls- maybe they assume the Army sat that one out, and the fighting was all done by the Navy and Marines, as blue makes sense for them, being water-creatures. And the lighter blue trousers of the dress blues are because cavalry soldiers on the frontiers didn’t wear their coats all the time, but did wear their pants- therefore their pants faded from sun and wear long before their jackets.

A brief history is here. No official Army uniform was olive drab prior to 1902. The blue came first, it came from George Washington, and it came when the Army was just 4 years old.

That’s some tradition for ya, numbskulls.

I guess the outrage poured out in the Army Times only goes to show that just because you have been in the Army for-fuckin-ever doesn’t mean you understand a damn thing about it.

By the way, Lazybones knew the tradition, and could not be more pleased that the blues are becoming the new standard. Same for me. He looks pretty hot in his greens now, but once he gets into those blues, he’ll have a hard time staying clothed, if I have anything to say about it.

However we both have some pretty intense dislike for the ACU (Awfully Crappy Uniform) that was foisted upon soldiers just before I separated from active duty (in ‘05- they were issuing em in the weeks before I cleared, thank GOODNESS I was authorized my maternity BDUs still). Those things are just a nightmare.

Wyatt Earp said,

on August 1st, 2008 at 544

Well? How did he do???

Oh, he did just fine, of course, but it’ll still be some time before the actual promotion comes down the pipe. He’s adding more points here and there so next time they aren’t maxed out (which they generally are these days in the MP corps) he should be getting… well not pinned, but velcroed (bah- what a joke. It’s just not as fun if you can’t pound four sharp pins into the collarbones of the newly promoted. If I had to get the hell beat outta me by my platoon a week after I got to Iraq, everyone else should, too).

In semi-related news, my exemption from being recalled has been approved. That means I will not be forced to leave my kids with a pack of wolves while I get dragged back to active duty. I am a little sad though, to be completely out of the Army. I expect I will get over it though.

I figure a little personal update is in order. Mostly because I am sitting home, waiting to hear from my beloved lazy sack of bones. He squeezed (yes, he has put on almost 15 lbs of squidge since we wed) into his Class A pickle-suit this morning and sauntered off to the promotion board- only three years late! It’s a long and bitter story, and I think I have touched on it previously. Let’s just say that the Army has plenty of jerks who are more interested in chasing their own personal gain than in helping their soldiers. My lazybones is quiet, but he’s a damn fine troop and the most decent guy I’ve EVER known. He doesn’t tend to fuss even when someone does him wrong, which is a shame. I get more fired up over this stuff than he does, by far! But anyway, I am waiting here for him to text or call and tell me how it went. Since I know he’s prepared and squared away, I am sure things went great.

I’m a little under the weather. The actual weather has been excellent all week. I feel like shit, however. The kids caught colds at daycare when I was in Toronto in the middle of the month, and I have been wiping snot noses for going on two weeks now- I was bound to get it. So three days of head goo came and (mostly) went, and now the crud has settled into my chest. The kids are coughing too, and I can do NOTHING for them but hug them, pat their backs and kiss their snotty faces. Stupid pharmaceutical companies and their lousy child-endangering cough remedies! My mother pumped me full of Vicks Formula 44, Actifed, and anything else she could convince me to ingest as a kid- and I turned out just fine.

Oh, stop laughing, I am really quite healthy when I am not the leading producer of lung butter in the European Union. And any mental problems I’ve got are the result of other weird childhood crap, a string of shitty relationships and a deployment to Iraq.

So anyway, we have been unable to take advantage of the lovely weather due to our nasty phlegm making party, and I fully expect the thunderstorms to come back just as soon as the gunk clears our bronchial tubes and such.

We’ve been struggling through random power and water outages here as well. They apparently decided that letting us know about the outages would be giving us an unfair advantage, allowing us to stock up on bottled water and all. Jackasses.

Also, a whole bunch of troops just got home. Good for them, yeah. But it means that most of them are acting like fucking morons, and the MPs are busy as hell, and that every store and/or office on post is clogged with a bunch of hooah-hooah motherfuckers, who all think that they’re hot shit. Yeah, okay, good job and all that but I was downrange when some of these clowns were just getting their driver’s licenses, or skateboarding to middle school. I feel old.

I gotta go hack up some goo now.

Something about the recent comments over at Wyatt’s has gotten my gears grinding a bit today, and sometimes when my gears grind, I produce more commentary.

Of course I find the story about hecklers attempting to hijack a citizenship ceremony to make it a political protest to be despicable. But it was the comment about over 4,000 people losing their lives that tweaked my brain.

Those people didn’t die for George W. Bush. No matter what insanity people spew forth. Despite the fascism claims. We are not talking “Dubya’s Army”, “The Bush Marines” (heh, heh, bush), “The Crawford Ranch Air Force” or “George’s Navy”. (Though I hear that those are actually the names of Lego sets that George W. Keeps in the Lincoln bedroom.)

People do not join the military to show how much they love the guy in charge, see? Many of those killed joined several administrations ago- there are still folks who are on active duty today that joined back when that bonehead Jimmy Carter was in office! Hell, if I’d done according to plan after high school, I would have joined while Clinton was still in, and my desire to serve my country had absolutely zero to do with that jackass. And don’t take issue with the jackass part, kids. He’s a Democrat, that’s their symbol. I didn’t come up with it. I also am not responsible for his behaving like a jackass- braying loudly and trying to mount anything that moves. Hah!

It’s truly about wanting to serve the country, the friends, neighbors, families and strangers that we see each day. Wanting to be there when the shit hits the fan (heaven forbid) and stepping up to do that duty regardless of who you voted for in the last election. People don’t get that. I don’t think there will be a huge influx of new military recruits if Obama gets elected, folks- nor will there be a bunch of troops getting out if he does. The people who are willing to put their lives on the line are not doing it for one man… but all of the men, women, children and old farts of our land. While that vast number may include the politicians of this nation, it is not solely for their benefit. I doubt they could say the same for their so-called “service”. It’s all about money and power for them.

And people wonder why I dislike politics so much.

Okay, I will try to keep it as rage-free as I can.

Kate recently asked about how things are going here in Italy.

My reply:

Let’s just say it’s not remotely as fun or interesting as it looked on paper.

The idea was pretty neat: Lazy B. gets stationed in Italy, and our little family comes here, we travel on the weekends and see the sights, we get to take trains through the rest of Europe, and basically have a great time, experience some European culture, eat great food, blah blah blah.

How it worked out so far:
Stationed here… Lazy gets the shaft from new unit.
Little family gains another member, which is good, but house stays the same size, which is crowded.
Weekend travel? Gas prices skyrocket- if gas was costing you eight bucks a gallon, would you go for a Sunday drive?
See Europe? We still are waiting on the baby’s passport. Paperwork involved with having a baby outside the U.S. is horrendous.
Culture? The damn Italians protest us. Never mind that we can’t do anything about being here, and that their own elected government is who they should complain to if they don’t like the U.S. base. They make it uncomfortable for the families of folks who are only here doing their damn jobs. Thanks, jerks.
Food? Italian restaurants don’t have a lot of space for big strollers, and I have yet to see a high chair anywhere. With all our babies and so forth, it’s a huge production just getting in the door.

So yeah, I am really disappointed with the whole experience so far. We weren’t accurately informed of what to expect here, for sure…

…yet I sometimes think to myself that if Lazy were to get stationed in Japan, I would love to go. Meh. Probably not though.

Propagandist/professional douchebag Michael Moore is at it again.

He illegally used Michael Yon’s photo (we know the photo, now, don’t we?) on his “let’s all give Obama a handjob and the Oval Office” website. I won’t link to it. But here is the story at Michael Yon’s site. I mean, we know that Moore has no shame, but he apparently has no regard for the law, either.

This is my outrage for the week.

House to boost GI Bill.

Meh, did I ever tell you about why I don’t even GET my GI Bill?

Maybe I shouldn’t, though, it just angries up my blood- and I have enough stuff causing that lately. To be totally honest with you, I have had even less control over my temper ever since I got home from Iraq, and I realized this just recently. I was not such a raging bitch before. Promise.

Oh and a couple of items I forgot about in the last post-

Second Life: my creative outlet (visual not verbal) is now just a reminder that I really and truly am untalented. Fuck the fact that my blog sucks- I can cope with that. The fact that I make pretty things and no one appreciates it is really what upsets me, because it’s a genuine effort to not be a goddamn angry fire-monster all the time. I am feeling overlooked and bitter about stuff. People photoshop their work (digital images from virtual reality, like photographs but NOT) and get rewarded for their portrayals of Second Life? Not that the images aren’t nice, it’s just that if you photoshop the hell out of it, it’s not a picture from that virtual space anymore, it’s just a pretty picture. I added no effects whatsoever to the two images I submitted to a recent “contest” for displaying the lovely new atmospheric rendering in SL (”windlight”- it makes the virtual world that much more real and SURreal all at once) and was totally overlooked. I take the guidelines seriously and get shrugged off. It’s gotta be a total lack of talent.

Then there’s the worst thing of all.

I can’t figure out how I can possibly afford to fly out and get my oldest daughter when her summer vacation starts. I sit here searching fares, desperately attempting to wrangle dates and destinations so that I can make it to her dance recital and not spend thousands of dollars that I just DO NOT have- and all I get for the effort is a headache and a horrible, heartbroken feeling that I will have to tell her that I just can’t make it there to see her dance. I’ve never seen her dance or play piano at a recital. I’ve seen one video of her performing in a school christmas pageant. I feel like a real shitbag mommy right now.

So now that I’ve unloaded almost all of my angry here, I will apply myself to finishing the dishes so that I can make that food I mentioned before. Already have put a list in lazy’s hands- he came home at lunch, took out that garbage, and looked generally terrible- his face may be purple by the end of the day. Poor lazy fucker.