"Mommy, I made a friend today"

N's first day of school... ever. A breakfast of specially-requested Frosted Flakes and blueberry muffins, french braids neatly tied off, and off the Z Clan walked to see her to Kindergarten.

I didn't cry. A almost did. She peered after her through the chain-linked fence with a red nose and very pouty lips. She's the Big Sister at home, now, for two-and-a half hours five days a week, barring Chicken Pox or pinkeye.

The morning was filled with introductions, coloring, recess, snack, and comforting a friend who was crying for Mommy.

I held her hand on the way home. Remembering her little tiny hand in mine as a newborn, it seemed so big. How did she become this amazing little girl, who cared enough to comfort a friend during her own first day away from Family?

Pride doesn't describe it.

Summer's end

This, the last day before my little N heads off to the big wide world of kindergarten, we played.

There is a playa down the slope from our town. Usually it is dry, dustdevils strafing the surface stirring up the air and tumbling the tumbleweeds. But this summer has been wonderfully wet, filling up the playa with about a foot of water. What a glorious mud puddle!

The girls, a friend, his dad and I went down this morning and felt the squish of Summer between our toes. Curlews feasting on fairy shrimp had the same idea. It was fun, it was wet, it was deliciously dirty.

Kids are a blessing in that they let you do things your Mom never would.

Viva Chavez!

I just can't say enough kind things about Pat Robertson. Actually, I can't say anything kind about him at all. I don't even have to say anything bad about him - he does it for me.

Tuesday he called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez on his 700 Club television show:

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop....

....We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Then this morning he said the Associated Press misinterpreted his "if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it" quote, because what he really meant was that we should kidnap him, not assassinate him.

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out....'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."

Later in the day, God must have spoken to him and told him he's an idiot, so he apologized:

"Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."

Pat Robertson is a plague on mankind.

Now, I spent a month in Venezuela in 1987 during a neotropical biology class. I saw the cities and the slums. I saw poor goldminers in shantytowns drinking river water laced with the mercury they used to precipitate out the gold, while the Big Boss Man in his compound by the goldmine drank imported bottled water. I saw the slums of Caracas while driving to a posh penthouse apartment. Malnourished kids tried to sell us necklaces of stag beetle horns, as the insects wandered around headless for days on the cracked cement of the hotel porch. Venezuela is an OPEC country. It is a major producer of gold. It has resources that most of its people are not benefiting from. This country needed a man like Chavez to help the folks that capitalism was exploiting.

So he thinks Bush is an idiot. So do I. So he believes in helping his people. So do I. So he thinks the U.S. may be trying to get rid of him. He has an attempted coup against him to help convince him, along with us invading a country for no valid reason. He has oil, Iraq has oil. He's not talking pretty with Bush. Even if we aren't trying to "take him out," I can sure see why he'd think we are.

Viva Chavez! Hey, send Pat some of that "special" water from Christina Quatro, will you?

Nocturnal emmissions

N said, as she was drifting off to sleep tonight,"Mom,it's weird. I think that sometimes when you're asleep you have butt belches (her term for farts) and belly belches, but you don't say excuse me."

Yeah, I guess that's true.

I have to ask - what's with the interest in Lonnie Hammergren?

I posted back in July about Nevada's ex-Lt. Governor's float in the 4th of July Parade in my small town. Ever since then, I've been getting all sorts of people coming to my blog searching for stuff on Lonnie. I wish I had spent more time on the post, making it a lot better than it came out as I babbled away, distracted by five different things at the time.

Why are people from Michigan to Spain interested in this man? If you're one of these searchers interested in the Great Non-conformist, please tell me what it's all about.

Big doin's

n yellow belt
Originally uploaded by kzturtlegirl.

It's a momentous two weeks for N. This past Friday, she earned her Cheetah patch for her yellow belt in Karate. She really kicked butt in testing. This is not a very good picture of her, but it's the only digital I have uploaded in her karate uniform (now quite different with a different V patch and belt). She usually wears a very happy face in class, nothing like this serious pose. Oh, well, it's better than her friend who's wielding a bloody sword in his photo!

Then, she starts kindergarten in just one week. I have one week to fit in all the pre-school, no-schedule fun that befits a kid of her age. But, alas, that's not gonna happen because *I'm* on a schedule. Darn how that happens, eh? We did get a few supplies, I may even iron a dress of hers. I don't iron for just anyone. Aside from that, I'm just trying to reign in my antidisestablishment tendencies and let her go to school with as little Mom-baggage as possible.

I understand Eric's oldest starts K tomorrow! Good luck! I hope he loves it!

Discount Reduced Christian T-shirts

I've been spammed on my own blogsite. Hey, if they're talking about selling advertising on fruit, why not spam blogs? In response to my last post, there were anonymous notes from sites for cartoon animals, Sam Freedom the coolest guy on the planet, and a "discount reduced Christian t-shirt" place. Fearing spyware or whatnot, I was afraid to even click on the links to explore further just how cool Sam (from what looks like may be Singapore)is, if the cartoon animals resembled Arthur or more in the genre of Fritz the Cat, and just how tiny and cheap those Christians and their t-shirts can be.

Really, do you think you'd find me wearing a Christian t-shirt, no matter how discounted it is? And my bust just can't handle reduced shirts - the more fundamentalist of you would publically not approve, although privately would be keeping secret stashes of photos. Were the shirts cheap and depicting Christians reduced to some lower stature (although I can't think of anything lower than some Christians I know of), that would just be bad form. No way are you going to get me to wear a shirt with Pat Robertson on it. Or maybe it's a shirt discounting Pat Robertson? Or, maybe by reduced Christian they meant a diagram of devolution from Christian to ape to prokaryote? But something tells me that's not what they're selling.

Besides, I'd never fit into it.

P.S. Sam, if I'm wrong about you, my apologies. I guess I'm just not cool enough.

There's a whole wide world out there

beach
Originally uploaded by kzturtlegirl.

My folks live very close to the Pacific Ocean. Here you see N and A looking somewhere off towards Sydney, I believe, during our last trip to visit the grandparents.

There's something about this picture that I think will make me always remember it. Two little kids, sisters in heart and blood, facing the vast unknown together.

Or, maybe, they just liked talking about the feel of wet sand between their toes.

Sisters can be nice for small talk, too.

What do you think?

idaho_farmer
Originally uploaded by kzturtlegirl.

Should I move to where this sheet metal sculpture is considered fine art and is featured in the local newspaper? There's a slight chance I may, and believe it or not, I'm working hard to make it a reality. This moniker of cheesiness is the by-product of better schools than where my kids will be going. It's all about the kids... and the housing prices. Can my blueness survive in a haven for white supremecists? I hear the locals have been chasing them out... maybe there is hope.

August 9th, 1945

nagasaki_bomb
Originally uploaded by kzturtlegirl.

Sixty years ago today, three days after Little Boy flattened Hiroshima, on August 9th, 1945, the city of Nagasaki, Japan was bombed with the plutonium bomb Fat Man.

I really cannot describe how that bombing wrenches my heart.

Kurt Vonnegut, one of my all-time favorite authors, pretty much sums up my feelings with this quote: “... while the Hiroshima bomb may have saved the lives of ... friends in the U.S. armed forces, Nagasaki still proved that the United States was capable of senseless cruelty.”

Nursing mom and baby with radiation burns
Originally uploaded by kzturtlegirl.

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December 7th, 1941. Nagasaki. September 11th, 2001. Abu Ghraib.

Do the first really justify the second? Is revenge a worthy reason?

There are many reasons people cite for bombing this city only three days after annihilating another. The only one I really believe is propaganda. Make Tokyo believe what we are capable of. Make the Russians fear us more. Secure a role of Superpower in the world.

I see us doing the same thing in Iraq, only little bombs at a time so as not to bring attention to what we are really doing there.

May we listen to History’s lessons one day.

Goin' camping!

The girls and I are headed out to Utah for a bit of rustic R&R this weekend. Well, as rustic as car camping can be. I hear there are actual flush toilets at the camp ground. There go my plans to teach the girls how to pee in the woods. Hubby's staying home as he has a class to teach, and I think some reporters to talk to. I've been out on trips with the three of them by myself several times, so I'm not worried about being a single parent, I'll just miss him.

This is the first time the girls have been camping. I think the last time I've been in a tent was seven years ago when I lived in one (that's a fun story for the kids that I may relate some time later). We'll be with some friends of ours, who are also bringing their four-year-old daughter. Should be lots of fun, and hopefully not much rain. Thunderstorms are wonderful when you have a nice warm, dry house to watch them from. Not necessarily enjoyable while in a tent, IMHO.

N was jabbering about s'mores all morning. I didn't tell them we were going camping until breakfast today. I knew she'd be wanting s'mores... I don't think I wanted to hear about them for a couple of weeks while we waited, LOL.

Thunderstorm

Rain in the desert is a rare and beautiful event. Yesterday, as night fell, lightning rimmed the valley, and even crackled directly overhead. Thunder scared the kids. Rain fell so heavily that roads filled with dirt and rocks from the overflow.

Up went the garage door and my bedroom window flew open. Hubby and N watched the storm from the garage,while A, S, and I watched while cuddling on the bed, as rainspray got my pillows wet. A half-hour of silence where there was no need to talk, no need to entertain, no need to do anything but appreciate a thunderstorm and feel safe in each other's arms. A simple night with no radio, no television, no frantic chores. Just listening to Nature grumble, feeling the cool rain, and smelling the ozone and wet creosote.

Simple, but memorable.