September 09, 2008
Over the weekend at SpouseBUZZ Live, Andi asked me if I've had any "deployment gremlins." I couldn't think of any. But I returned home to find that we may have a water leak somewhere on our property and we may have a case of identity fraud. Both are things I'd rather let my husband deal with -- or at least things we could stress out about together -- but he ain't home.
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Kim Jong-Il is gravely ill?
It may be time to buy cake ingredients...
Mmmm, schadenfreude cake. My favorite.
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September 08, 2008
Saturday night after SpouseBUZZ Live, AWTM called me at midnight to check on me. She said she had been thinking about me all day after the panel at SBL and wanted to make sure I was OK. It was so thoughtful of her. But really, I was OK. In fact, I was puzzled at first about why she was checking on me.
I did speak about the miscarriages on our panel, and how frustrating it's been to try to squeeze pregnancy into deployment schedules. And also how depressing it is to miscarry your baby on your wedding anniversary while your husband is deployed. Heh...sigh.
But honestly, pregnancy has been pretty far from my mind lately. I stopped charting -- there was no point with my husband gone -- and I knew there was no chance of getting pregnant, so it became a non-issue for two months. Until I talked about it at SpouseBUZZ, I hadn't thought about it in a long time.
But today I had my first appointment with the fertility doctor. Remember how I said I'm getting back on the horse? Well, I'm hopping on a horse at full gallop. At the end of the month, I will be trying to get pregnant. Sadly, it will be alone in a doctor's office. For all my griping about babymaking, I kinda wish we could do it the old-fashioned way. But that's probably just the four months of deployment talking.
And squeezing it into deployment schedule? We will be lucky if we get pregnant right away, because otherwise there's not much hope for my husband being here for the birth. Funny how I could get pregnant without him and he will still come home and leave again during the pregnancy.
So much for planning out our life, right?
But we're back in the saddle. And I'm off the wagon until I'm not allowed to be anymore.
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Why is it reporters who were willing to pursue Bristol Palin, who isn't on the ballot, somehow think it is unseemly to ask Sen. Obama tough questions about his drug use? Oh, that was a long time ago, they'll argue. But a 1986 arrest for driving while impaired by Gov. Palin's husband -- not the candidate -- is somehow worthy of extensive front-page coverage?
The double standard is shocking -- but perhaps not to Sen. Obama. In his memoir, he gives the most telling explanation of how he has gotten away with avoiding discussions of his drug use. It was the same technique he used on his mother when she confronted him in his senior year of high school: "I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn't do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, another of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves."
But sheÂ’s not a Democrat, which despite her va-va-va-voom appearance, means sheÂ’s not really a woman, which is one of the reasons weÂ’ve spent the past four days since McCain unveiled her trying to tear her limb from limb. Just because sheÂ’s the governor of a state sandwiched between two obscure and unimportant countries, Canada and Russia, and spent more time in her first five minutes visiting American troops in Iraq than Evita Barry did during his entire Rainbow Tour, what could she possibly know about foreign policy? ItÂ’s not like sheÂ’s John Edwards or something.
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September 07, 2008
Charlie and I are hoping for a full recovery.
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I'm just not ready for this conversation;
I do much better on a take-home test...
-- Jude
SpouseBUZZ Live went well this weekend. As usual, I hate everything that comes out of my mouth. But I'm probably just overreacting.
Recaps:
Liveblog of Panel I
Liveblog of Panel II
I had fun, I stayed up way too late both nights, and there wasn't nearly enough time.
Oh, and there was a knitter clicking away in the crowd. I almost broke my neck leaping over chairs and bags to run to her.
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September 05, 2008
Cuz that's what I was doing.
This morning I set out for SpouseBUZZ Live. I also get to stop along the way and spend some time with Sis B...and give Crush his knittery.
I live for meeting up with these friends.
Oh, and I'm wearing my new t-shirt, a gift from AWTM: I heart Nebraska.
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September 04, 2008
However, tonight when McCain's video montage began, I admit that I got a little glistening in my eyes. Not because of the video itself but because I felt something that I didn't expect to be feeling.
McCain deserves to be president.
I don't like to put it that way, but that's how I feel tonight. If our citizens look past the man who has spent his entire adult life serving our country and instead choose the man who's been on the scene for 140 days, I will be very disappointed in my fellow Americans.
I believed every word of McCain's speech. I believe he meant every word of it.
He was not my first choice. I don't agree with him on several things. He asked me to do things I don't want to do; I don't usually want to compromise on things I believe to be true. But he's right that we have to compromise if we're going to get anything accomplished.
So I will fight with him.
And while I absolutely cannot compare my life story to his, and France is not quite as bad as North Vietnam, I too never loved my country as much as when I didn't live in it. I understand this love, though probably never to the depth that he feels it.
I believe that anything and everything he does for our country he does because he honestly thinks it's the right decision. That's what I want in a leader.
And the protestors who interrupted him, they showed themselves to be the classless trash that they are. McCain's right: they're static.
It's laser beam time.
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September 03, 2008
Man, she was on fire.
(She reminds me of a cross between Guard Wife and AWTM. I'm surprised she never called Obama a douchebag.)
My favorite line came from Giuliani: "Change is not a destination just as hope is not a strategy."
Rivaled by Palin's "There are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those like John McCain who use their careers to promote change."
I'm grinnin' here folks.
I was scared in 2004, but I feel pretty good tonight.
And I have this hilarious scene running on a loop through my head from O Brother Where Art Thou:
Junior O'Daniel: Well, he's the reform candidate, Daddy.
Pappy O"Daniel: Yeah.
Junior O'Daniel: A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.
Pappy O"Daniel: I'll reform you, you soft-headed sombitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin' Jesus on the cross. That's it! You may as well start drafting my concession speech right now.
John McCain is the incumbent party, running on reform. And doing a mighty fine job of it.
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I'm delighted to host this guest post from AirForceWife.
*********
The news of Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter didn't surprise me - it was me.
Or, rather, it was me about 17 years ago last month. Seventeen years ago, in August 1991, I discovered that I was pregnant before my senior year in high school ever started. I was an honors student, I was active in multiple clubs and organizations on campus, I volunteered at the local American Legion, I babysat, I even showed horses. I was also the daughter of a City Manager, which is pretty small potatoes compared to the position Bristol Palin finds her family in. But it is enough of a connection that I feel what she is going through as if it is happening to me.
The coverage of Bristol Palin enrages me, and it hurts my heart. There are legitimate issues to discuss about teen pregnancy - the thing is, those issues are only the excuse to uncover sordid and often untrue family rumors and cast aspersions on someone - and their family - who are going through a very difficult time in their lives. I had all of those same charges leveled at me when my seventeen year old self had to go to the grocery store with my enormous belly (I've always had large children) parting the crowds before me like Moses and the Red Sea.
People that I thought were my friends, parents of friends that I respected, suddenly started treating me like a leper. Not because I was sexually active, but because I "got caught". Even though many didn't want to admit it, what I did was no different than what many of their own children did. I was just blessed (or cursed) with fertility to rival anything modern medical science can discover. And I chose to keep my baby.
The injustice of it all still hurts me today. Even now, married for a gazillion years to my soul mate (who, by the way, never stinted to tell people that he never wanted children until push came to shove and children were no longer just a possibility but a reality) it hurts me to think back and remember the people who would see me at the store and pretend they weren't seeing me because they didn't want to talk about it. I heard the whispers behind my back, about how I "should have used protection", about how "that's what she gets for sleeping around." Not a one of them were true - as a Peer Educator, I put more condoms on bananas to demonstrate to giggling sophmores correct birth control usage than I could keep track of. I knew, and I practiced what I preached. But there's a statistic on a condom for a reason - because sometimes they just don't work. And anyone who has ever seen me with my husband can't think that either of us are worried about sowing wild oats, or that he is now one of the most devoted fathers on the planet.
And even more - my family was avowedly liberal. There was no "conservative hypocrisy" going on with us. Many members of my family encouraged me to have an abortion, and were quite upset when I refused. I was ruining my life, you see. It could be "fixed", I was being stubborn.
What happened to me in a smaller town (although bigger than Wasilla!) in California, I see happening to Bristol Palin on a national scale. And in the same vein, I see the very people turning on her who claim that we need to help others. Not a one of my Peer Educator compatriots had anything to do with me after I got pregnant with my first daughter. In fact, I ended up transferring to a continuation school to get my high school diploma. It was strongly encouraged; for my "state of mind", of course.
That is the reality of teen pregnancy that doesn't end in abortion when your family is in politics. People are gleeful, and people are mean. And the very people who accuse others of being hypocrites are often the biggest hypocrites themselves.
There were people who were wonderful. They didn't approve of my situation, but it was there. It had to be dealt with. A wonderful City Council member who was an Evangelical Christian scoured the yard sales at the local base for months to find me a high chair, a car seat, baby clothes, cloth diapers. She would bring these things to me a couple times a month. When my daughter was born, she was known to us as "Grandma Joan."
The Mayor Pro-Tem and his wife, devout Catholics, bought me a beautiful bassinet with a lace covering.
My Godparents - extremely devout Catholics - called every night for two weeks before I delivered and two weeks after to check on me and make sure that I had someone to talk to. They ran a crisis pregnancy center, they weren't about to let me fall apart.
The American Legion, where I volunteered and where my mother was the Commander, pooled together to provide other items a teen mother needs and can't afford.
And my family, my family pulled together to make sure I had a place to live, breastfeeding help, someone to drive me to the hospital. And they endured the rumors, too. It was their fault, of course, according to the conventional wisdom. It was something they had done wrong. I guess it always has to be someone's fault.
Bristol Palin will succeed. What happened to her is not ideal, but she has the support and, quite frankly, the genetics, to tough it out. I did - my husband enlisted in the Army at 17 and we both paid our own way through college. We're doing well now, we're happy and I believe that we've been successful in life. And there's really nothing special or unique about us.
It was hard, but nothing worth having is easy and sometimes life throws curveballs. Bristol Palin can do it, and I'm sure she will. But I'm also sure she will always remember how people treated her when they found out that she was a statistic. She'll remember what it was like to be the topic of an entire nation as though no politician's daughter has ever had premarital sex in the history of the United States.
My first thought this morning was this, "I think I should knit Bristol Palin a baby blanket." Because, as I did, I'm sure she'll remember all the nasty things people said and did. But I'm also sure she'll remember those who treated her with humanity and kindness and tried to help. I'd like to be one of those.
Just don't call me "Grandma AFW."
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September 02, 2008
Fred tore it up.
I am happy tonight.
There was no doom and gloom at my convention.
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“Ideally, the government would leave me alone completely and I’d return the favour. Since that’s not practical..”
Well, thereÂ’s the rub right there.
The fact is, there is a strong streak of libertarianism in Americans on the left and the right side of the political divide. ItÂ’s part of our heritage, our history. Many of the most radical feminists and leftists I know want above all to be left alone. Americans prize freedom from interference, freedom to live as we choose. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Where we on the left and the right differ is when we come back to real world, where no one is an island. We canÂ’t be left alone, by the government or anyone else. We live in communities, in towns, in cities. WeÂ’re a nation of 300 million, not a bunch of isolated Davy Crockets out there in the wilderness.
And when human beings live together in social groups, questions arise that donÂ’t obtain out in the wilderness. Poverty, pollution, interference between the needs of the many and the needs of the few. Your rights end at the tip of my nose, and all that.
The chief difference between liberty-loving leftists and liberty-loving rightists is that the leftists recognize that people who live in communities must be good neighbors. No one is an island. Rightists like to continue to pretend that weÂ’re all Davy Crockets, that weÂ’re all islands, and that no one owes even the slightest thought to anyone else.
The rich white Republican man likes to pretend that everything fortunate in his life is his own doing, that he has created his own reality all by himself, that he is not the beneficiary of being born into the right family and race and class and country.
And he likes to pretend that everything unfortunate in the life of the immigrant slave who sewed his shirt is because of her own doing, not because she was born into poverty or discrimination or urban blight. Why should it matter to him that she works for a dollar a day and is beaten by her employer?
The rich white Republican man thinks he has the right to pollute the river that flows by his factory because, in his mind, heÂ’s not responsible for anybody downstream. He doesnÂ’t even know or care that they exist.
This what the Republican idea of “individual rights” really is: the “right” not to be responsible. The “right” to do as you please no matter how much your actions harm others, and no matter how much you are dependent on others.
The most striking thing about the libertarian right is selfishness. It is the defining characteristic, really, a “f*ck you” to everyone else, an “I got mine” attitude.
So...I just found that interesting. I don't really agree with the underlying assumptions behind it, but I felt like it was at least a reasonable articulation of why she's not a Republican, like I tried to do when I wrote why I'm not a Democrat.
Plus, I thought it was hilarious that she said an instalanche is "like being inside an Ayn Rand novel."
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September 01, 2008
Just try to talk abortion with a woman who was offered the opportunity to kill her DownÂ’s Syndrome baby and passed it up, choosing instead to give the baby life. Just try to talk about health care, the price of groceries and the price of gas with a woman who raised five kids in the wilderness. Just try to talk about unions and labor jobs with a woman married to a union steelworker who does Deadliest Catch style crab fishing. On these issues sheÂ’s Rock. Solid.
(Also, go read the whole thing and see why she brilliantly said, "The man who wanted “change,” adopted the Bush mentality on dual Presidency.")
The second link comes from Heather MacDonald, who does not support the Palin pick because it panders to identity politics.
Of course, Democrats have been playing the identity-politics game to the hilt this election cycle; it’s what they do. And it will be amusing to watch them twist themselves into knots to avoid criticizing the Palin pick for what it is: a diversity ploy. As short-term political strategy, the Palin selection has diabolical appeal. Prevented from stating the obvious—Palin was chosen because she was a woman—the Democrats will instead have to seize on her lack of experience. They are right to do so, but then they have to explain why Barack Obama is so much more qualified for the top of the ticket, let alone the number two spot.
It's hard not to be overjoyed that this will work to our advantange, though I understand MacDonald's feeling that "Your enthusiasm for her is driven in large measure by the fact that the McCain camp has beaten the Democrats at their own game, and in so doing, driven ObamaÂ’s moment of glory off the wires."
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