trying to grok

PAST AND PRESENT

Erin just recounted an interesting story: a girl she went to high school with contacted her via MySpace...and this girl is now a boy. Hmmm.

Leaving completely aside the issue of transgenderism, I started to think how bold it was of this person to contact Erin. Seems to me it might be awful hard to reach out to people you went to high school with and tell them you've changed genders. Not bumping into them in the grocery store and having to explain yourself, but actively reaching out and seeing if people accept you. Wow. Made me feel pretty silly to be scared of letting people in on my blog.

So thanks to Erin's friend for bashing me over the head with perspective. And best of luck to him as he tries to mesh his old life with his new one.

NO WORDS, JUST CLICKING NEEDLES

I haven't had anything to say for a few days. I have not been online much, and even when I have been, I don't ever come up with anything to say. Except knitting stuff, and I'm not sure how many of you are interested in knitting stuff. But I was looking for patterns for chemo caps (found some good ones here at Head Huggers) and somehow stumbled across the cutest baby bib. I love peas, they're probably my favorite veggie, so I thought this was magnificent.

Now if you'll excuse me, my lion needs a mane and my snowman hat needs a carrot nose.

KLEENEX ALERT

This article needs no introduction. Just go read it.
My Cousin Frankie

IT DOESN'T HURT AS MUCH AS YOU'D LIKE

While I'm admittedly over-sensitive, there are some criticisms that are just too laughable to let them bother me. It appears that my "nemesis" has rediscovered all the reasons he fell in hate with me in the first place. Ha. I've never linked to him before because he doesn't really deserve any traffic, but what the heck. Go see how much I get under his skin, for some hilarious reason. You can just feel how much it galls him that I like Walmart.

War Cheerleaders, Laptop Warriors, and Other Everyday Loons

How touching that he hasn't posted since February but took the time today to crank out an entry on me. Gosh, I feel so special.

I guess I'm supposed to feel bad that there's a war on and I'm knitting instead of running to the nearest recruiter's station. Sorry, that's not as unique of a jab as it may seem. Besides, all those squares I crocheted will be assembled into an afghan for wounded servicemembers, so even my yarnwork is doing its part for the war. Plus, saying my husband's service isn't enough and that I need to join too, isn't that the grown-up equivalent of playground logic: "If you love the war so much, why don't you marry it?"

So thanks to No Name Person for coming out of blog retirement to make fun of me again. And thanks a bunch for coming and leaving a comment for me so I would be sure to see the post; it was such a classy move, and otherwise I would never have known that your precious little site was still in operation.

And let me know when you come up with more material for ridiculing me in the future. I can't wait!

IN AWE

Ack, I've totally met my Better when it comes to stuffed animals! Look at Amethyst's turtle. I better get cracking on that lion so I can hold my own.

ME TO A T

Are You Too Sensitive?
I bet you're not the least bit surprised that I clicked on that link.

I have no idea if I was a "fretful toddler" -- I always figured that my oversensitivity stemmed from an overly-controlling former boyfriend -- but I sure nodded at this part:

Cruelty, at least, is a malady that rarely strikes the sensitive. And, in fact, while it's easy to dwell on the downside of being thin-skinned, the pluses are many and varied. "Sensitive people encourage others to feel that their opinions matter, they're usually good listeners and they're naturally empathetic," Dr. Jacobson says. "And because they are so acutely aware of their own imperfections, they tend to be patient with the imperfections of others."
...
But the pendulum can easily swing the other way, too -- where, like the princess and the pea, you feel every tiny bump so intensely that you suffer more than is reasonable. The key, as with so much else in life, is keeping things in perspective.

Been working on that perspective for about four years now. Don't know I've made much progress though.

CUTE AFTER ALL

OK, the octopus is finished. He's not as cute and chubby as this crocheted one, but I'll be darned if he doesn't look like a smiling octopus. Well, maybe more like a squid, but whatever. And nevermind that he's three times the size of the rhinoceros I made. Charlie immediately took a liking to him and decided to curl up like best buds.

Now to finish the lion I started...

RECOMMENDATIONS

I could use some movie and book recommendations. Here are some recent finds of mine, for what it's worth. Movies: Stranger than Fiction and Hot Fuzz. Books: Michael Crichton's Airframe and Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds. What do you have for me?

GRANDPA RAMBO

A man affectionately called "Grandpa Rambo" is deploying to Iraq. He's been trying to get there for two years. His wife's reaction is so cute; it reminds me of that old couple on the airplane:

Horne’s wife Sydney West, also a public defender, said he gave her no advance notice of his decision to re-enlist, and she wasn’t surprised that he opted for a combat job over anything else, including putting his legal background to use.

“I wouldn’t think he’d want to go over there to write wills,” she told the newspaper. “If he gets back alive, I’m going to kill him.”

But here's how this feel-good article ended:

As for those who might call him irresponsible for heading off to combat with two children at home, Horne said: “I can’t think of a better example to set for them.”

Good for Grandpa Rambo for answering that question the only way you can. Irresponsible? About half of people in Iraq and Afghanistan right now have children. Are we really suggesting that everyone in the armed forces is irresponsible for putting their country before their children? We wouldn't have an Army if that were the case.

Can we please stop hiding anti-military sentiment behind nonsense phrases like "As for those who might call him" (blank)? You call him that, weinery reporter, or give a full quote where he addresses the topic. Stop hiding your bias behind phrases like "some people think."

(Thanks to Conservative Grapevine for the link.)

HEH

This experiment was really interesting: Six weeks without a wash: The soapless experiment

I AM JOE'S BREAKING HEART

I didn't even have to make it to the article body to feel a lump in my throat over this one (via LMT): Family Loses Second Son in Iraq War

And what came to mind was this:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

HE FILLS GAPS

Leela: "Fry, this isn't TV. It's real life. Can't you tell the difference?"
Fry: "Sure. I just like TV better.

I'm always fascinated by our modern-day tales and legends, by the fictional characters we hold up as our inspiration for greatness. Sadly when I write about this, I often get insulted by people who think that I can't tell the difference between a TV character and a real person. But apparently a Serbian village is looking for inspiration in our modern-day heroes as well:

A Serbian village is hoping to channel some of Rocky Balboa’s fighting spirit with a 10-foot-tall statue of the fictional boxer portrayed by actor Sylvester Stallone.
...
Zitiste has repeatedly suffered flooding and landslides, gaining a disaster-prone reputation. Fed up, the locals contemplated how to change that image and revive the village — one of the poorest in northern Serbia — and came up with the idea of a statue of the tenacious fictional fighter.

I think that's pretty cool. If we have to be a cultural hegemon, at least we're exporting Rocky.

I LIKED IT

I'm going to do something completely insane here and link to something at Daily Kos. Because I liked it. I suppose I liked it because I thought the telling made the Marine look classy and the lefty look like a drunk pseudo-intellectual, but that's neither here nor there. I too sing daily praises that I was born in Oklahoma instead of...anywhere else in the world. Fat and Happy and No One Trying to Blow Us Up

GO YE AND READ

CaliValleyGirl found a great article on Iraq translated from German. It's quite long, but worth the read. And, as she says, it's even-handed. It starts with

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

and gets both better and worse from there. Please go read it.

WHEN AND HOW?

I know everyone's BS detector is running on high after Scott Beauchamp, so maybe I'm treading heavily. But I'm puzzled by a Newsweek article on MSNBC today. The reporter's cousin just came home from Iraq, so a homecoming article was in order. It seemed like an ordinary tale of happiness and relief until she delineated her family's fears during the previous year. And then this odd paragraph appeared:

I’d read reports of some female soldiers allegedly being raped by Iraqi insurgents—some 50 to 75 rapes, according to The New York Times. Alexia assured us that several male soldiers had volunteered to walk her home after she stood post at night. But that reassurance still couldn’t erase the images of assaults, bombs and corpses.

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary...come again?

A google search of "raped by insurgent" brought nothing but tales from Sierra Leone. A search of "raped by Iraqi" brought horrible tales from Iraqi women, and a hit on Jessica Lynch. But aside from her, do you know of any story of a captured female coalition soldier who was raped? Who are these 50-75 women and how are they getting raped in Iraq? Getting raped by an insurgent means getting caught and captured, and I don't remember hearing about this. Please point me in the direction of the stories if I have missed them, but for now I remain completely puzzled.

My husband also pointed out that an escort on the way home from the guard tower wouldn't exactly prevent insurgent rape. Soldier-on-soldier crime, perhaps, but surely these insurgents are not scaling the walls and raping American females on duty. Something is just not right here.

I also find it hard to believe there are heat-of-the-battle rapes going on in Iraq, where females are getting raped while their male counterparts are too busy firing at the bad guys. We certainly would've heard of this, right? It's the anti-war left's dream story.

If you can find this Times article or any leads on such rape stories, please let me know. Until then, I'm having a hard time believing insurgents are raping our female soldiers and getting away with it.

CRAFTING AMBIDEXTERITY

I've been tempted by the Dark Side.

Craft-minded readers will notice that this stack of squares is not knitting but...gulp...crochet.

A friend of mine is compiling afghans for a charity. She asked for 6x6 squares, and she goaded me into trying my hand at crocheting them. At first I hated it with a passion, starting and ripping and starting and ripping. I did more un-crocheting than crocheting. But eventually I got the hang of it and figured out how to read the patterns. I got a lot of practice in on these squares, and boy howdy does crochet use up a lot of yarn. Stash depletion for a good cause = awesome.

I picked up my knitting again last night, and it sure felt good. But I think I will venture into crochet again sometime in the future. Especially to make the Exchange Bag from the Happy Hooker book.

And this girl's octopus is turning out waaay cuter than mine. Mine, I fear, is going to look more like a real octopus than a cartoon one (i.e. ugly and scary). I have images of my infant wrapped up in it à la 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Maybe once I put a smile on him, he will seem like a friendly overbearing monster...

NOT GOOD WITH THE CHANGES

I'm a woman who likes her routine. I've pretty much done the same thing every day since we moved into this house. In fact, on days that I have a dentist appointment or a knitting class, I often feel really thrown off and have to start mentally preparing myself a few days prior for the change in routine.

Yeah, my mom can't wait to see me saddled with kids. She'll laugh herself silly.

Anyway, I'm all thrown off right now because my husband's Farsi course is running on second shift. For some unknown and odd reason, they're meeting from 2:00-9:00PM every day. That throws us way for a loop, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around my new schedule. We're eating dinner for lunch and sandwiches for dinner, and last night felt more like he was in the field than at work. This morning we kept looking at each other wondering what we're supposed to do with each other at 11AM. Every day feels like Saturday.

It also throws our computer time way out of whack, so I haven't quite figured out how to arrange my blog reading and writing into this new schedule. Normally it's the first thing I do after he leaves in the morning, but now he doesn't leave until after lunch. Er, dinner. Bear with me as we adjust to this. I haven't read a blog or article in days.

But the husband's already thriving in his class. It's only the second day and he's already memorized all his flashcards for the free-standing alphabet (the initial and medial forms are another story.) And we've been singing our Alef Be Pe's all morning!

MAKES THE HEART SWELL

I loved this airforcewife post over at SpouseBUZZ...

FARSI BEGINS

My husband starts his Farsi training today. Things should get interesting around here. It's hard for me to imagine learning a whole language in six months, but I guess if you're at it for eight hours a day, it's a little different than the three hours per week deal I did all through college. And apparently the Army is wising up to how badly they need competent speakers, so they've changed the final test from all multiple choice (sheesh) to reading and aural comprehension. My husband is determined to clobber this puppy and get the highest score ever.

It's funny the reactions you get when you tell civilians that you're going to start learning Farsi. There are two main choices: "What's Farsi?" and "Are we invading Iran?"

Our old neighbors from when we first got married are Iranian, and we got to meet up with them last week. They were just tickled pink hearing what my husband has already managed to learn on his own via the Rosetta Stone program. They about fell over when their daughter toddled into the living room and my husband said, "The girl has on a shirt but no pants." And he just floors them with his knowledge of the region, such as when he found out what city the wife is from and said, "Oh, so you're Azeri and not Persian?" Most of the people they meet in the US can't tell Iraq from Iran, but my husband knows the different Iranian ethnic groups and their corresponding geography.

Can you tell how much this man amazes me too?

Everyone asks if I am going to try to learn Farsi alongside him, and I haven't really decided yet. I can count to ten and nearly recite the alphabet, but maybe I will try to glean more than that.

And when our friends asked, "So are you going to invade Iran?", you could tell they were half-joking, but you could also hear some wistfulness in their words.

HEH

This Craft the Vote! thing had me laughing. Make sure to look at the photo slideshow.

GET OVER IT

Are we still worrying about females blogging? Sheesh. Teresa knocks this one out of the park. Oh, and those Dennis Hopper commercials rankle my husband to no end.

UM, IT'S ON

Folks, something I feel passionate about has come up, and a major fisking is in order. And someone named Monica needs a pimp slap.

In the swampy soup of hopefuls for the 2008 presidential election, there is a man with a funny name. (No, not that one.)

We're thinking of the one named Fred (Thompson).

Say it out loud. Do it. Fred. Fred. In the South, Fray-ud.

Fur-red-duh.

It has the tonal quality of something being dropped on the floor, something heavy and damp-ish.

Waterlogged paper towel.

Fred.

Ahem. Some of you may remember that I have a megacrush on every man on the planet named Fred. Yes, including this one. And the idea that we could have a Fred for president has indeed happily crossed my mind. So this Monica hooch better realize that she's walkin' on the flightin' side of me with this crappy-ass article.

London's Sunday Times last month interviewed a bevy of his ex-girlfriends, all of whom have drunk the Fred-Aid: "He's majestic," said country singer/Fredophile Lorrie Morgan. "Women love a soft place to lay and a strong pair of hands to hold us."

Fred?

Why? Is there something about the craggy actor we're not getting? Maybe he's ugly-sexy, like Mick Jagger?

Or maybe the name Fred is etymologically close to obviously sexy names like Dirk, Clint, James?

Grant Smith is an onomastician at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, who studies the branch of linguistics dedicated to proper names. He specializes in dissecting the monikers of political candidates and says he has a 65 percent success rate of predicting elections, based solely on name analysis. Not entirely convincing, but those odds would play in Vegas. "The name Fred is basic and homey," says Smith. "It should give people a reassuring image."

But is it, Dr. Smith, a sexy name?

Silence.

"I would not say that. The name Fred does not suggest blatant sexuality at all."

Speak for yourself, dude.

At the Fredquarters of the Fred Society in Palm Springs, Calif., "Head Fred" Fred Daniel has been defending his good name against charges of boringness and dolt-itude for 23 years. Daniel, 52, founded the society in 1984 by combing the Los Angeles phone book for Freds and sending out a 500-person mailing. There are 5,000 Freds in the organization now, but Daniel must fight for every member. "Unfortunately, Fred has fast fallen out of favor," he laments. From 1885 to 1896, it was the 15th-most-popular boy's baby name. But the last time Fred appeared in the top 1,000 was 2002.

Be still, my heart, there's a Fredquarters.

Fred.

We are trying to understand.

We are willing to admit that that some people find Fred Thompson, yes, sexy.

But we still cannot understand what that means.

What does it signify that we, as a country, are choosing to deem yummy a guy named Fred?

It signifies that you are a huge bitch for writing a 1000-word article making fun of a man for his name. His delicious, perfect name.

Seriously, this is journalism? This sounds like something my brother's basketball team would've come up with to rip on someone while playing X-box. How on earth did this ever get published? Maybe Monica's next article can be about how Giuliani will never be taken seriously because he has the same name as the little football player who could. Or how Mitt is something you use to take cakes out of the oven.

Good lord, journalists are lame. Lamer than any Fred I've ever met.

A NOVEL IDEA: TAKING A DEEP BREATH BEFORE I BLOG

Normally, I blog the minute my temper flares. I don't draft, I don't proofread, I just bang out my emotional diatribe and shove it onto the internet. Sometimes I later wish I'd said something differently, or taken a different angle, or avoided blogging on the topic altogether. But I hardly ever learn and continue to blog without mulling things over. I'm glad that being on vacation prevented me from doing that this week.

On Wednesday, I found out that a very good friend from high school, one I hadn't seen or heard from in ten years, was right under my nose. I walked into his office thinking I'd knock his pants off and was a tad puzzled that he didn't seem to be as surprised to see me as he should have been. The first words out of his mouth: "Hey, Sarah! Good to see you! I read your blog, and I'm one of those dirty liberals you hate." Gulp.

We had a pleasant talk about other stuff for a short while, but on the drive home I was fighting back tears. I figured I may as well have shown up to his office naked. Because of this stupid blog, he already knew everything there was to know about me and had pigeonholed me into nutjobland before I even opened my mouth. And what is with this telephone-tag group of my high school friends reading my blog? Here's a tip for incognito bloggers: when someone from your high school gets murdered, don't blog about it. People googling the story will find you. I hadn't talked to this friend in ten years, but he heard from Billy Bob who heard from Betsy Sue that Sarah has a blog. He's been reading it for lord knows how long but has never commented, emailed or left any hint of his presence.

I tried to imagine if other bloggers ever get that naked feeling when they meet someone new. Surely Glenn Reynolds is surrounded by liberal profs who know more about his blog than they do about him as a person. But my husband unhelpfully pointed out that Reynolds is a lawyer and far better equipped than I to handle shock and exposure.

So anyway, on Wednesday I was done as a blogger. I was ready to shut down this site so I could avoid the horrible feeling of being outed, which seems to happen more and more frequently these days. I don't even know if I have any strangers left reading my blog; it's all my uncle, my parents' next door neighbor, my entire high school physics class, and my neighborhood from Germany. And if I hadn't been on vacation and having to go home and prepare for my husband's birthday party, I would've headed straight to the computer and announced that I was shutting down this infernal blog.

Luckily, I actually had to calm myself down and think as I cooked the creamed corn. I reminded myself of all the wonderful things that have come from blogging. That my blog friends were calling and emailing me during my vacation. That people online took up the slack when my husband was deployed, and people like Toni sent me postcards of encouragement while people from my real life were ignoring me. That I wouldn't be heading to Hawaii next month for a blogger's wedding. Would I fly to Hawaii to see anyone else in my life? Doubtful...

And as I went through all the things blogging has brought into my life, I began to feel much better. I decided it doesn't really matter deep down if people from my high school are reading this thing, because I only talk to them once a decade. I talk to my blog buddies every day. Last week, CaliValleyGirl asked, "At what point does someone from one's blogging life, become someone from one's Real Life?" I think I'm making that shift, or at least realizing that my blogging life matters to me a whole lot more than my real life does. I don't even have any friends in my real life anymore.

And as I stirred that creamed corn, I also realized that I was right to start this blog. I had less like-minded friends around me than I even thought. Four years ago, I wrote:

I care about my friends and I don't want to lose all of them. But I wish I had friends that I could talk to about how I feel about the world. I have my husband and my mother, and that is basically it...and my mother lives an ocean away and my husband will be gone for a year. We're new to our post here in Germany so I don't have any strong relationships yet, and despite my efforts, I don't hear from my old friends that often. When my grandmother died, I called my mom's best friend to talk about it, and I realized how pathetic I am that I don't have anyone I can count on anymore. And the few relationships I've been trying to hang on to really disappointed me this past week.

I'm at a crossroads in my life where I am realizing that people don't stay friends forever (remember, I'm only 26) and that it's OK to grow apart and move on. I'd like to maintain a casual friendship with some of these people, but I'd really like to find someone who understands me and shares some common ground. I'm at a point where I more look forward to an email from Tim or Marc than from any friends back home, and that bothers me. It makes me feel lonely, but not lonely enough that I think I should keep pretending to be something I'm not so that someone will stay my friend.

I started this blog because I thought that all my friends were too liberal for me and I wanted an outlet for my true beliefs. It bothered me when all those friends found this blog and learned the shocking truth about Sarah. And in reading this old blog post, I see I haven't come as far in the past four years as I wish I had. I still worry that people won't like the real me, when in fact I should just focus on the fact that I have made friends like Tim and Marc who do like me for who I am today, not for who I was in physics lab a decade ago.

And again, if I had banged this out in typical blogging fashion, I wouldn't have been able to include a postscript: I got an email from this friend I chatted with in my hometown, an email in which he mused that it must be really hard to have a blog where everyone assumes they know everything about you, and that there's nothing I could write that would stop the two of us from being friends. And he signed it from "your pinko commie friend." And in the end, I feel better that he knows the real me than if I'd gone into his shop and chitchatted about inanities for half an hour.

For those of you who missed me while I was on vacation, be thankful you didn't hear from me on Wednesday; I would've quit. It's amazing what a few deep breaths can do.

And for those of you from my physics class, this is the real Sarah. I hope you like it, or at least tolerate it. And that it doesn't detract at all from your memories of the girl who nearly set both her partners on fire during the experiment on angular momentum.

UPDATE:

I'm afraid after rereading my post -- dang, and I drafted this one too! -- maybe my friend came off sounding mean or rude, which was not the case. He has been nothing but nice over the past week; this post was about my reaction to feeling exposed, not anything he did or said that bothered me. Please don't think I was mad at him. But if there are others out there from ol' RHS, I'd love to hear from you before I walk into your place of business and feel like a jackass.

Oh, and this is the friend who handed me The Fountainhead. I have him to thank for that, no matter how dirty and pinko he is. And the physics experiment: that falling pendulum making sparks on the paper around the pulley fell a little too fast and made a nice fire instead of a little hole in the paper. And Sarah stood there stuttering while her friend got singed fingers and the teacher barked at her to stop being a moron and put the fire out.

THEY TAKE IT SO LITERALLY

The people of Seattle are on the edge of their seats:

Construction delays will force journalism history buffs to wait a few more months to visit the Newseum, a museum dedicated to news reporting and the First Amendment being built near the Capitol.

Lenin's Tomb quips, "I hope it includes a special clinic for journalists whose arms dislocate from the spontaneous back-patting."

A museum dedicated to the First Amendment. Incidentally, we caught some crap on the news last week in the motel, where a talking head made a remark about "Second Amendment literalists." Nice. I'd love to hear someone sneer about First Amendment literalists and see how that goes over.

FEEDING THE ADDICTION

It's been more than three years since I made that eight-hour day trip to meet my first blogger in person. And now I think I'm addicted to meeting bloggers. I get as excited (if not more) about meeting them as I do seeing people from my Real Life.

Thus it happens that, on one of our many car trips circling the Midwest this month, we ate breakfast with Butterfly Wife. And Butterfly Wife is one of the few bloggers who's yet to meet my husband, so there's a milestone. She was gracious enough to meet us at the crack of dawn for a coffee before we headed out of town. I'm so glad she squeezed us into her schedule.

So who's next?

DRIVING WOES

I'm back! Well, sort of. We're still on vacation, but at least now we have computer access. And you don't know how wonderful it feels to hear my internet friends miss me. ArmyWifeToddlerMom called me on my second day gone and asked, "Is your vacation over yet?" It's good to be loved.

We're having fun, but if I never get in the car again I will be thrilled. We'll need another oil change the minute we get home. 9 hours the first day, 9 hours the second, 8 hours yesterday, 4 today, 4 tomorrow, and then another 15 on the way back home at the end of the week.

And it's not quite barfing all the way to Georgia, but we've had a heck of a time in all these car rides too. The first morning we had to go to three separate gas stations before we could find a working air pump for our tires. Then we decided to take the long-cut around Winston-Salem. We were nearly divorced or a double homicide by 9 AM. The second day, as we were chugging along making great time at 5 AM, we hit a crow. Seriously. All I could think about was Lomborg's stat that 250,000 birds die hitting windows every day. Well, we popped one in Louisville. Took out our driver's side mirror. Personally, I wanted my husband to back up and run over that crow a couple more times just to make sure it understood how ticked I was. Not easy to drive without that mirror. Also not cheap to get it fixed.

So then yesterday we start out with no problems. At the first rest stop, we get Charlie out of the car and notice he's covered in poop. Apparently he must've rolled in a nice pile before we left. We manage to give him a cursory cleaning and then let him roll around in the grass to dry off. He comes back covered in sticker burrs. Mind you, we're on our way to stop for lunch at a friend's house, a buddy from high school. I haven't spent any time with him in ten years, and I'm supposed to show up at his home with a dog covered in burrs and poop. Not cool.

Oh, and when we get there, Charlie lifts his leg on their sofa.

Please let us make it through the rest of the trip without any stories to tell.