tryingtogrok.new.mu.nu

July 31, 2005

HAIR

I've only donated blood once. I was in college and it was quite an ordeal. First, they said I was borderline anemic, so they had to run some tests to see if they even wanted my blood. Turns out it was OK, so they hooked me up to the bag and started draining my arm. I guess they need the bag and also three little vials of blood; on the third vial, somehow the needle popped out of my arm and blood squirted everywhere. After that unique experience, I was leery about giving blood, and then I started hopping back and forth to Europe every year or so, so it was never an issue. So I don't really donate blood.

But I can donate hair.

When I had been dating my husband for a week, I cut my hair short. Like short short. After the look on his face, I didn't cut my hair again for five years. At first it became a Lord of the Rings joke: I was going to look like an elf. After Return of the King was over, I turned to him and said, "Now what?" I guess I had grown so attached to the hair that it scared me to cut it.

I had always intended to donate my hair, but then it became a quest to donate as much as I could. It grew and grew, and the more it grew, the more annoyed my husband and I grew towards it. It was always in our mouths, getting pulled, clogging the drains and the vacuum, and driving us nuts. In May I decided I was ready for a cut, but I told myself to wait a month and see if I was still ready. A month passed and I got cold feet, so I let another month go by. And I knew I was ready.

We chopped 18 inches off, and bagged it to send to Locks of Love. I hope some little girl gets a beautiful wig from it.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm going to start all over again. I don't know; I'm really enjoying the short hair:

1. no more marathon blowdrying
2. no more sitting on the hair
3. no more rolling over in bed and suffocating
4. Charlie was biting and tugging on it when it was long
5. less money spent on Draino

But since my hair grows so fast, maybe I'll get to another wig. We'll see. The husband likes it short, so for now I'm happy.

And now that I've kept you in suspense for long enough...here's the new and improved Sarah. And the getting-too-big-to-cuddle Charlie.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:28 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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July 28, 2005

FISH TALES

Gnat got fish. When I was her age, I had two fish named Bert and Ernie, and I helped out by feeding them one day. Unfortunately, I fed them an entire can of fishfood on the day my father had just cleaned the aquarium. Whoops.

I've always been interested in pet fish; the husband and I registered for an aquarium when we got married and bought three fish (well, five if you count Milhouse I and Milhouse II, may they rest in peace). Then we bought a plecostomus to help keep things clean, and we noticed that when the shopkeeper scooped him up, we ended up with a snail too. Into the tank he went. A few days later, I did a doubletake when I realized there were two snails. Upon closer inspection, I found we had been visited by the snail stork thirteen times. Note to self: snails reproduce asexually.

The fish are still living with my mom, and we may inherit them back if they live another year. I'm anxious to move back to the US so we can get our aquarium back out of the box and get some more fish. The pet department is where I really find myself homesick lately. Here we have but one shelf in the PX for pet supplies; I'd give anything to go to PetSmart these days.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:26 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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July 27, 2005

HAIRCUT

Look what I did today...

Posted by: Sarah at 03:00 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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July 12, 2005

MEETING

Today I was trying to remember when I first read Bunker Mulligan. I was happy, and tearful, to find that I had documented the occasion:

The sphere grows every day. You write a post. Maybe someone notices it. Oh, look, a comment. And they've left a link to their own blog. And then you go there and realize that you now have yet another blog you'd like to read every day and you're running out of time in the day.
Shoot. That just happened to me.
Mike left a comment, so I went to his blog and found an amazing post on intelligence. There's so much there, but one tidbit is

To truly be "smart," you must have knowledge and experience. And those must both be broad and eclectic. Knowledge can come from books, but experience only comes from doing something other than reading and writing. Unfortunately, many people feel they can get by with one or the other. I've known some very intelligent people with loads of knowledge who cannot judge distance, hammer a nail, or relate an allegory to anything in their lives. I've known people with years of experience doing things who cannot understand theoretical concepts well enough to capitalize on that experience. The "intellectual elite" fall into the former category.

I started reading his site again from the beginning, and I found one bit that made me smile:

Like Twain, I shy away from organized churches. I've found a better relationship with God on my own. My cathedral has 18 holes, bunkers, tee boxes, water hazards, and greens. I'm closer to God on the golf course than I am sitting in a pew surrounded by people who believe almost the way I do.

If there's a heaven, Bunker's playing golf there every day.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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PUP-DATE

Charlie celebrated his three month birthday yesterday...

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July 06, 2005

HEH

Our dog is hilarious. He's such a couch potato that when I tried to take him for a walk today, he starting crying and trying to climb up my leg so I would carry him. We barely made it across the street before I gave up on the walk altogether. What a bum!

Posted by: Sarah at 07:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.
--The Count of Monte Cristo--

While our troops go out to defend our country, it is incumbent upon us to make the country worth defending.
--Deskmerc--

ABOUT SARAH

In a Nutshell
100 Things
Sarah's knittery
knitting pics on Flickr
What the heck is Grok?
I also contribute at SpouseBUZZ
tryingtogrok -at- hotmail

READING

The Spy's Wife

My Imaginary Friends

USS Clueless
Instapundit
Amaravati Abode of Amritas
The Bleat
The Corner

Deskmerc
Eject! Eject! Eject!
Ambient Irony
Parkway Rest Stop
Cavalier's Guardian WatchBlog
Bunker Mulligan
Right Wing News
Conservative Grapevine
Joanne Jacobs

Hud's Blog-O-Rama
Power Line
Beth's Contradictory Brain
Varifrank
Cold Fury
Bear Creek Ledger
Photon Courier
Anwyn's Notes in the Margin
Fiberlicious
Wis Faest Wordum
The Cobwebs Of My Mind
Rachel Lucas
Dear Darla
Learning To Live
Unliberaled Woman
Daily Koan
Kannie's Cogitations
Rockport Conservatives

Blackfive
Mudville Gazette
Shield of Achilles
Chuck Z
Senseless Drive By Thoughts
ArmyWifeToddlerMom
Most Certainly Not
A Work In Progress
Sis B
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Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, WWII, and the Star Wars Trilogy.
--Bart Simpson--

If you want to be a peacemaker, you've gotta learn to kick ass.
--Sheriff of East Houston, Superman II--

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.
--Jed Babbin--

Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
--President John F. Kennedy--

War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours.
--General Patton--

We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
--Full Metal Jacket--

Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed.
--Dick Cheney--

The Flag has to come first if freedom is to survive.
--Col Steven Arrington--

The purpose of diplomacy isn't to make us feel good about Eurocentric diplomatic skills, and having countries from the axis of chocolate tie our shoelaces together does nothing to advance our infantry.
--Sir George--

I just don't care about the criticism I receive every day, because I know the cause I defend is right.
--Oriol--

It's days like this when we're reminded that freedom isn't free.
--Chaplain Jacob--

Bumper stickers aren't going to accomplish some of the missions this country is going to face.
--David Smith--

The success of multilateralism is measured not merely by following a process, but by achieving results.
--President Bush--

Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
--John Galt--

First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down. Then, watch Ace Ventura. And after that, buy a Hard Rock Cafe shirt and come talk to me. You really need to lighten up, man.
--Sminklemeyer--

You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting
--General Curtis Lemay--

If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight!
--Patrick Henry--

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
--President George W. Bush--

are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with.
--Bill Whittle

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill--

We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.
--General George Marshall--

We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.
--Buzz Aldrin--

America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
--Dinesh D'Souza--

Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: the most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side.
--James Lileks--

As a wise man once said: we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Unless the price is too high, the burden too great, the hardship too hard, the friend acts disproportionately, and the foe fights back. In which case, we need a timetable.
--James Lileks--

I am not willing to kill a man so that he will agree with my faith, but I am prepared to kill a man so that he cannot force my compatriots to submit to his.
--Froggy--

You can say what you want about President Bush; but the truth is that he can take a punch. The man has taken a swift kick in the crotch for breakfast every day for 6 years and he keeps getting up with a smile in his heart and a sense of swift determination to see the job through to the best of his abilties.
--Varifrank--

In a perfect world, We'd live in peace and love and harmony with each oither and the world, but then, in a perfect world, Yoko would have taken the bullet.
--SarahBellum--

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
--Ronald Reagan--

America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.
--E.M. Forster--

Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.
--Mark Twain--

The Enlightenment was followed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which touched every European state, sparked vicious guerrilla conflicts across the Continent and killed millions. Then, things really turned ugly after the invention of soccer.
--Iowahawk--

Every time I meet an Iraqi Army Soldier or Policeman that I haven't met before, I shake his hand and thank him for his service. Many times I am thanked for being here and helping his country. I always tell them that free people help each other and that those that truly value freedom help those seeking it no matter the cost.
--Jack Army--

Right, left - the terms are useless nowadays anyway. There are statists, and there are individualists. There are pessimists, and optimists. There are people who look backwards and trust in the West, and those who look forward and trust in The World. Those are the continuums that seem to matter the most right now.
--Lileks--

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston Churchill--

A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it.
--Arthur Conan Doyle--

A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill--

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference."
--Dave Grossman--

At heart Iâ€™m a cowboy; my attitude is if theyâ€™re not going to stand up and fight for what they believe in then they can go pound sand.
--Bill Whittle--

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
--Alexander Tyler--

By that time a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice.
--Atlas Shrugged--

I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say, "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too."
--Alabama Worley--

So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists donâ€™t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we havenâ€™t yet held talks without preconditions with.
--Mark Steyn--

"I had started alone in this journey called life, people started gathering up on the way, and the caravan got bigger everyday."
--Urdu couplet

The book and the sword are the two things that control the world. We either gonna control them through knowledge and influence their minds, or we gonna bring the sword and take their heads off.
--RZA--

It's a daily game of public Frogger, hopping frantically to avoid being crushed under the weight of your own narcissism, banality, and plain old stupidity.
--Mary Katharine Ham--

There are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
--James Madison--

It is in the heat of emotion that good people must remember to stand on principle.
--Larry Elder--

Please show this to the president and ask him to remember the wishes of the forgotten man, that is, the one who dared to vote against him. We expect to be tramped on but we do wish the stepping would be a little less hard.
--from a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt--

The world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced.
--VDH--

Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.
--Marcelene Cox--