February 25, 2005

• FRIDAY FIVE

  Appetizer – Name something that makes you scream.
  I never scream if I can help it because my vocal cords just won’t take it. I forget when this started to happen. Also, because I’ve had this premonition for years (even before my mother died of it) that I’ll eventually die of stroke, apoplexy, the ultimate flipping out. Plus screaming is about rage and at my age I just can’t afford to nurture anger in any of its levels or forms. I do kvetch fairly regularly in my head though about minor annoyances like people getting on the up elevator I’m riding and pushing the down button or one of my cats backing up to something in that way that says “I’m going to spray here and just try and stop me.”
  Soup – Who is a musician you enjoy listening to when you want to relax?
  I don’t listen to music to relax much because it tends to make me feel sad and lonely if I’m alone. I go through phases in the car of listening to my favorite music I’ve burned on CDs or National Public Radio, depending on my mood. I guess if I had to pick something that epitomized serenity to me it would be Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major.
  Salad – What was the last book you purchased?
  I don’t buy books much cuz I’m a library person, but I got a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble for Xmas and bought Dylan’s Chronicles – Volume I with it. Sunday I’m going to head back over there and spend the last $8 I have left on the card on something or other.
  Main Course – If you could live one day as any historical figure, who would it be, and what would you do?
  It would be George W. Bush and I would resign and get the hell ouf of Dodge and back to my ranch where I would start drawing the Social Security I didn’t manage to destroy in time and never be heard from again.
  Dessert – Tell about a time when you were lost. Where did you end up? How long did it take you to get back to where you were going?
  In grade school I was sent to camp twice. The first time it was a church camp and on the first night a kid put a dead crawdad in the bottom of my sleeping bag. I went home early from that one after lots of begging. The second time it was 4-H. We slept in 3-sided cabins with upper and lower bunks made out of logs. During the night, in my upper bunk, I dreamed I was at the end of a dock climbing over the edge and trying to reach the water with my toes. I woke up in the middle of the woods in the pitch dark. I could hear the river that ran in front of our cabins and headed towards it, finally seeing the sparks from the campfire in front of my cabin. It took me about a half hour, I guess, to get back. I never went to camp again.
  

  ---

  Deep Thought: “Love is not something that you can put chains on and throw into a lake. That’s called Houdini. Love is liking someone a lot.”
  Today I am grateful for: A close-by vet I can call to take one of my cats in to that I think something is wrong with
  Guess the Movie: “How long was it we had, honey?” “I didn’t count the days.” “Well, I did. Every one of them. Mostly, I remember the last one, the wild finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain, with a comical look on his face, because his insides have been kicked out.” Answer: Casablanca, 1942. Winner: Kdcakes.
  Peace Movement Gears Up for Global Protests on War Anniversary
  by Katherine Stapp
  NEW YORK – At Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. army installation in the world and home to the famed 82nd Airborne Division, the mood is not exactly buoyant.
  ”There are people here who are being deployed for the third time,” said Lou Plummer, a veteran with a son on active duty. ”At least 50 people from the base have been killed in Iraq.”
  The total U.S. death toll since the start of the war is now 1,480, according to Pentagon officials. As for the number of civilians killed, the British group Iraq Body Count estimates a figure between 16,000 and 18,000.
  In a sign of mounting discontent, the military also concedes that about 5,500 servicemen have deserted, although Plummer believes the real number is probably much higher.
  This picture is somewhat bleaker than the one painted a year ago by Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack, Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne — also known as ”America’s Guard of Honor” — who brightly told reporters in Baghdad that ”we’re on a glide-path toward success.”
  ”We have turned the corner, and now we can accelerate down the straight-away,” he said in a Jan. 6, 2004 briefing. ”There’s still a long way to go before the finish line, but the final outcome is known.”
  Not so fast, say anti-war activists like Plummer, who is helping to organize a mass protest rally near the base in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Mar. 19 to coincide with the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion. (Rest of article here.)
  End of Day: 9:06 pm
  + = Got whole house cleaned.
  - = Had to take kitty to vet to tune of $250+.

  • 10:42 am
  • 15 Comments