Marines, Thin Mints and Country Music

Well, I did it. I got myself a swarthy Marine from Illinois. He wears size 12 boots and likes Girl Scout cookies. I ordered him from www.operationac.com. You simply fill in the blanks and the soldier of your choice is all yours. You can even choose one from a particular branch, deployment, and/or state. I kinda felt like I was man shopping. Of course, you can choose females too.


I've been doing some thinking about Memorial Day and the upcoming presidential elections and immigration and the cost of gas and Keira Knightly's lips. When I think about our servicemen and women, I think, when?

When will someone stand up and tell the wax faced politicians to quit treating our soldiers like minimum wage workers at Jiffy Lube who aren't fulfilling their 20 minute promise?

Who will defend our defenders? We all want a safer world for our children or so the political mantra goes. Here are someone else's children stepping in harm's way for the sake of OUR children. That kind of uncommon courage deserves a rousing ovation. When will the real America please stand up?

I like the chorus of this Rascal Flatts song, Stand:

Cause when push comes to shove
You taste what you're made of
You might bend, till you break
Cause its all you can take
On your knees you look up
Decide you've had enough
You get mad you get strong
Wipe your hands shake it off
Then you Stand, Then you stand.

Our country can't be content to sit back and watch our soldiers go to war without knowing that somebody here has their back. Has our government made mistakes? Hell, yes. Heinous ones. That doesn't mean we sit down and shut up. It's not over. I for one, would like to play some part in this war on terror. By George, if I have to buy Samoas and Thin Mints, I'll do it.

Stand up.
Defend their honor.
Defend this country.
Pray. Again.

And go buy some Girl Scout cookies.

OK. Enough depressing talk. Next post topic: reproduction.

Thank You.

Thanks everyone for your comments and e-mail about the last post. One of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis said, "We read to know we're not alone." It's reaffirming to find out that we're not alone in our thoughts and we're more together than we realize. I appreciate your feedback.

I almost feel like I need another day to recover from Memorial Day. What a dichotomous holiday. On the one hand, it's an anguishing, grieving type of day. On the other, it's a "Buy one get One Free" day at Macy's.

A great Memorial Day story broke Monday about 42 Iraqis who were freed by US soldiers just outside of Baghdad. Some had been tortured for months while hanging from the ceiling. According to the article, the Iraqi's were taken prisoner because they were beginning to trust and listen to the American soldiers.

Wow. Hollywood couldn't come up with a better story line.

The Guardians

I have a picture of my grandpa standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. The date is November, 1944. He's dressed handsomely in an Army uniform, a cigarette between his fingers and the sly grin of a 19 year old on his face.

He's never revealed what he did during World War II. When anyone asks what he saw, where he fought or what he did, he turns the answer into some kind of joke. The usual response is, "I delivered candy to the guys on the front line."

No one probes because within the sarcastic response is the unspoken answer, "Don't ask me to explain. Don't ask me to live that again." So no one asks, we only wonder.

This is the unspoken part of Memorial Day. We celebrate our heroes, our soldiers, their service, their sacrifice and their death. We gladly proclaim gratitude for the past, present and future freedom.

What we don't thank them for is what we don't see. The silence they resume upon return from war is the silent protection of our innocence. They live with memories, sights and sounds that would cripple most of us. And they live it. And live it again.

They unassumingly slip back into the life they left, before they bore the nightmare for us. We sense they are not the same people they were before they left. But we both pretend they are.

Even in the face of opposition and protest, few talk. Few give details. There seems to be an unspoken rule that not only are they supposed to do the fighting on our behalf, they also keep the fight to themselves. As if the fight itself is too much, which it is.

On Memorial Day we celebrate and commemorate lives lost. Entwined in the celebration are the soldiers still living who have spiritually and emotionally died a thousand deaths. Yet, they still guard us from the horrors that haunt them day and night. Their selflessness is not restricted to a time period or geographical border.

While we thank those who have bravely fought for us and now rest in peace, we need to remember those who have fought for us and just need to rest. Sometimes I sense an attitude that says, tomorrow, when you are buried, we will thank you properly for your sacrifice.

Today is the day.


To all the present day heroes-

Thank you-for allowing my family to celebrate Memorial Day, as if it's just another day off work and school.

Your bravery, sacrifice and silence have not gone unnoticed.



To adopt a soldier, check out www.operationac.com

Survival of the Wettest

I survived the party. The house is finally quiet. The party went relatively well even though I feel like I aged 20 years.

The day was a blur of squirt guns, barefooted boys running through the house leaving a trail of water behind them, tissue paper being flung from gift bags, birthday cake and ice cream melting on abandoned plates and lots and lots of squealing.

The next milestone birthday isn't for another 18 months. I intend to spend everyday until then in rehab.

*Note to self: Rethink the squirt gun/ water balloon idea.

Although, a friend of mine let us borrow her life size sling shot, you know, the kind that takes three people to use and is made with surgical tubing. In a moment of brilliance, I came up with this killer game idea. I told the kids that if they could catch a water balloon as it was being launched 20 feet in the air at warp speed, they would win a prize. From the second story window, the "adults" in the house launched water balloons directly at the little devils for a good three minutes.

Is it my fault they don't grasp the concept of physics? That was good for a few laughs until the smart ones wandered off. Sissies.

Party like it's $19.99

Birthday Parties. They sure aren't what they used to be. What happened to cake and ice cream and red punch in paper cups? What happened to cheering wildly while some poor kid is forced to blindly stick something on a donkey's butt? What happened to opening a few presents and going home?

I don't think my mom ever spent more than $19.99 on any of my birthday parties. And that was the combined total for my entire childhood.

Today I will attempt a birthday for Dylan who is turning the big 1-0. Double digits. We told our kids that we would have one big party for them when they hit double digits and then another big one when they hit triple digits. We try to keep expectations low, that way they're surprised when we do something unexpected.

We have invited 20 fourth graders. It's the entire class because we didn't want to exclude anyone, even though I have a list of kids I'd like to personally hit with a water balloon.

The plan was to have water balloons, squirt guns, soccer, volleyball, outdoor games, outdoor food and outdoor bathrooms. HEY! We could use the port-o-johns that are in our front yard! Plaid Nation won't mind, they're on a three day weekend.

But, now it's supposed to rain. Now is when I'm going to officially freak out. Would it be wrong of me to stay inside with the doors locked?

I need some chocolate. Where are those goody bags? Those kids don't need all that chocolate.

For Women Only 2

Not so favorite Word of the Day

delectation \dee-lek-TAY-shun\, noun:

Great pleasure; delight, enjoyment.

If you look at the pronunciation of this word, it sounds remarkably like lactation. Lactation, at least for me, is not a great pleasure, delight or enjoyment. And when you're a lactating mom with twins, everything is double. EVERYTHING. And eventually a lot lower.

How can it be enjoyable to walk around with two large napkins stuffed into your bra, just in case you spring a leak? Who wants to wear a bra with a trap door? That whole lactation, nursing bra thing is like a homeopathic solution to birth control. Forget Lybrel, hold on to your nursing bra.

No, I won't be using this word.

It might go right into the same category as the S---M word.

For Women Only

The FDA has approved use of the drug Lybrel, the no period promising birth control pill. After reading some of the press releases about this miracle drug, I'm still left with a couple questions.

1. Did a man invent this? If so, I'm automatically skeptical. It's like a male OB trying to describe what giving birth should feel like. The Wyeth PR statement used Dr. Ginger Constantine to speak on behalf of the drug maker. In a breezy, non sales pitchy voice, she states,

"For those women seeking contraceptive options and who are interested in putting their period on hold," says Constantine, M.D., Vice President, Women's Health Care, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Lybrel may be an appropriate choice."

What? endorsed by a woman who's probably making more money that I ever could even if I auctioned my own liver on ebay? Who's not interested in putting their period on hold? It sounds so easy, like everyone has a giant, programmable uterus and they've just discovered the motherboard. Solid marketing ploy. Solid.

2. Later in the article, it says, "Of those who took Lybrel for a full year, about 40 percent still had intermittent spotting and 20 percent had bleeding heavy enough to require the use of a sanitary napkin or tampon." Isn't that kinda like a period with a surprise attack?

Maybe someday we'll all be period free, but we have to consider the consequences: No period=No PMS=No chocolate binges.
Is it really worth it?

Melinda Doolittle and The Necklace

I don't have loads of time to read as voraciously as I would like, but I enjoy reading short stories. When I re-read The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, he used this intriguing line I hadn't caught before: "for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving for them birth or family. Their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, nimbleness of wit, are their only mark or rank..."

Is that true today that women have no caste or class and it's the beauty and charm that categorizes and places us according to such?

I usually watch American Idol. This season has been pretty ho-hum so I haven't been as loyal as when say, Bo Bice was singing. I did listen to LaKeesha and Melinda belt out song after song with talents unrivaled.

Did these two women ever have a chance at winning such a contest when they're competing against a 17 year old beauty? If we're actually judging by lyrical talent, shouldn't the better singers be higher up in the caste system and therefore still be in the contest?

I'm just pondering...and, quite frankly, I can't sing at all. Not at all. (I have to lip sync in church). So maybe Jordin is just as good and I can't tell. Pffft. Who knows. Ain't none of them Bo Bice.



And yes, I know. I should read more and watch less reality TV. Got it.

**Note to self: Don't try to vacuum dog hair directly off dog. Bad things happen.

Seeing is Believing

This is Sascha, our Siberian Husky. She's pretty.

This is Sascha shedding, or "blowing" her winter coat. See all that white fluff that looks like the inside of a cigarette? Yeah, it's husky fluff. You can pull it out by the handful.

This is after a few minutes of brushing. I was stupid and didn't believe the books that said huskies shed a lot. (Even though the book was called Siberian Huskies for Dummies.) I could knit an entire wardrobe from the amount of dog hair that I now have in my house. Except I can't knit. And a dog hair shirt would make me sneeze.

Here's a word to the wise: Be ye not so stupid. Huskies shed an absurd, almost inexplicable amount of dog hair. But, she's still pretty.

The Things You can Learn from the Bible

My 10 year old son Dylan is a quirky child. His perspective on life is delightfully obscured. We spent the afternoon at one of his soccer tournaments. During the game I could see one 10 year old boy from the opposing team talking to Dylan throughout the game in a volume too low to understand but with body language universally understood.

He had to be the child of the obnoxious dad who kept snarling from the sidelines. I asked Dyl later what the kid was saying to him.

"Oh, he was gushing folly in my ear."

"Gushing folly? Where did you hear that phrase?"

"Oh, you know, the Bible."

Huh, who knew? I guess that is a more tasteful way to say, 'trash talkin'.

On a side note: What's wrong with parents? For the love of Pete, they're kids. I've heard kids being berated verbally from the sidelines, heard parents be screamed at by their little angels on the field, seen parents encourage their athlete to 'teach that kid a lesson,' 'give 'em an elbow to the head', 'show him who's in charge' and other such provocative threats. No one is exempt. I've heard coaches being belittled by their own players, heard coaches drop the F** bomb on their own 10 year old players and parents turn on each other.

What turns normally decent human beings into fanatically insecure and rabidly desperate spectators who use children as pawns to feed their own ego? (That's my own unprofessional assessment). To get a good dose of this epidemic, wander over to your local soccer field and sit amongst the parents of the kids who are playing. It will turn you stomach. Granted, it's not the English Premier League, but give it time and we'll be trampling the refs.

End of side note-

In another instance of biblical education, Dylan enlightened me as to the result of kissing when one is still an elementary school student.

"Why? What will I happen?" I ask out of curiosity.

"You can get an STD. So don't kiss because something bad will be transmitted, like the chicken pox or bad grades."

"Where did you learn that?"

"From the Bible."

Hmmm. Would I be bad mom if I let him believe that until he's 30?

I almost forgot-my favorite and most likely to embarrass him if he reads this. One day he was doing the universal male dance for "I got hit somewhere embarrassing and it reaaaaaally hurts." With four boys around the house, we have an assortment of names with which to refer to the male region most susceptible to pain.

"Owwww. He hit me in my man's weakness," Dylan squeals.

"Your man's weakness? Let me guess-you learned that from the Bible?"

"No. From school," with an incredulous look that obviously said, "duh."

Norman!

I looked death in the eye last week and lived to tell about it. Was it white water rafting? No...hiking in the Great Smokey Mountains under the watchful eyes of the black bears? No. It was at the hand of Norman!



Boarding a 47 passenger coach implicitly implies that the driver is both physically capable and mentally sane. Has the job market declined so much that these expectations have been waived? One hopes that the driver behind the 50 ton mass transit unit has a clue in his head.
There were certain signs along the 8 hour drive that normal mental capacities may have been diminished with Norman!
But I'm an optimist and hope that it's just my imagination and the scared driver act is just a bad comedy shtick.

To get to our cabin in the Great Smokey Mountains-notice mountain-in the title, the map required that we follow the road UP the mountain to get to the cabin. The problem is Norman! and his big bus. Norman!
and his big bus did not want to go up the big mountain.

I happened to be sitting in the very front seat, so I got to hear his every comment. I had a great view of the one lane road, the switchbacks and the valleys below where any minute I was going to plummet to my death.

At one point we were driving so closely to the edge, I swore the tree branches were going to come through the window and gouge out my eyes. In a preemptive measure, I contemplated doing the gouging myself so I wouldn't have to suffer the visual nightmare but all I could find was a dull pencil and a tube of lipstick. One mustn't waste lipstick.

Here's a list of things you don't want to hear from your bus driver as you begin the treacherous drive to the top of a mountain:

1. "You've got to be kidding!" as he slams on the brakes and throws his hands up in the air in a feeble protest.

2. "This bus is not going on that road." Um, it's the ONLY road.

3. "Nooo. No. No Way!" -Somebody let me of this bus and I'll walk!

4. "Oh, Lord." I said my prayers and prepared to meet my Maker.

With every hairpin turn he got more nervous and I got more green. My friend sitting next to me nearly passed out in fright. And she was in the Air Force!

And then I heard this:

5. "Are you sure I can make that turn or is a wheel going to drop off?" Oh, did I fail to mention that due to a previous busing accident, Norman!
has only eight working fingers? All ten digits should be required to maneuver an eighteen inch steering wheel. The same wheel that he was in no hurry to turn away from the gorge of eternal peril. I think he suffered from no depth perception. Perhaps that's why we got a discounted bus rate?

6. "There's no margin for error here." Stating the obvious in a crisis situation is a sign of weakness, according to recent studies.

Meanwhile, the teens squealed like their little immortal souls were on a roller coaster.

7. "I fretted all night about coming up this mountain. It's my first time to drive up a mountain." Someone revive me when it's over.

The 4 mile trail to the cabin took almost 20 minutes. 20 minutes of being in the ninth circle of HELL. The edge of the road and the wheels on the bus seemed to converge so that any minute I was sure we going to go rolling off the road into death valley below where Satan himself was beckoning.

Of course, teenagers are oblivious to such perils and watched in schadenfreude amusement as we turned green with horrifying-wet your pants-fear.

Next time I chaperon a class trip, definitely staying at sea level.

Remember Me? Part II

Through the power of modern technology, I can see where visitors to this blog are from. I most definitely have not seen my mother visiting my blog. Cautiously optimistic that I had offended her with my anti-chiropractor tirades, I asked her last night, why she doesn't read my blog.

"Blog? What blog?"

Wow. Thanks, ma.

Word of the Day

My favorite word for today:


Nonpareil \non-puh-REL\, adjective:

1. Having no equal; peerless.
2. Something of unequaled excellence; a peerless thing or person.
3. A flat disk of chocolate covered with beads of colored sugar

Perfection and chocolaty, sugary candy in the same definition? Clearly this is a woman's doing.

Next Rest Area 17 Miles

Late this afternoon I was confronted with the ugly reality of someone carrying on a dual existence, right under my nose. Maybe not so much who but what, is the object in question. I happen to glance out the window to see a Fed Ex truck turn into the driveway. Oh yeah! I think to myself. I must be getting a surprise late Mother's Day gift.

When the arrival of the gift bearing man takes longer than anticipated, I look again to see what took the Ex out of express. Wait a cotton pickin' minute. I can't believe what I'm seeing. With darting movements, the FedEx guy leaps from his truck and sprints toward the port-o-john.

What?? Is he delivering a package in there? Does someone need toilet paper? Mylanta? After a few tense moments he emerges and hops happily back on his truck. Wait a minute! He just used the plastic roadside bathroom. Eeww! And I was hoping people would think they're just yard ornaments.

It's bad enough I have Siamese port-o-pots in the front yard, but now our house has become a local rest area? It's one thing to know she's providing services during the day,but at night also? To complete strangers?

Who else has been using the facilities? What-is it like a homing beacon for the transportation industry? Just how many people know about the roadside commode? Do they send secret underground messages to alert the needy of its whereabouts?

Where will it end? Bus drivers? A car full of screaming kids? Then again, maybe Mr. FedEx is on to something. I bet if I sent the kids down the drive to use the bathroom, I could seriously cut down on my cleaning time, the water bill, the toilet paper bill and the overall wear and tear of the bathroom. How much easier would it be just to trot the little tots down the driveway to take care of business?

Yes, something tells me I'm on to something good. Tomorrow I will post a sign on the regularly used bathroom door that refers all occupants to use the brightly covered outhouses at the end of the drive.

I bet if I added a vending machine and a newspaper stand I could make a fortune.

Remember Me?

I just spent the last four days chaperoning a senior class trip to the Smoky Mountains. I learned some refreshing life lessons:

1. I'm not 18 years old and therefore cannot begin my day fueling up on Pop-Tarts.

2. I can survive a white water rafting excursion with a raft guide half my size, half my age, dreadlocks, tattoos and a southern slur. And I'm not talking about an accent.

3. At this age, some couples actually STILL want to make out in the back of the bus.

4. Guitar hero, pool and a loaded arcade room is bliss, sheer bliss, especially until 3 a.m.


When I returned home from the trip, my six year old says, "Oh, so that's what you look like. I kinda forgot, but I did remember that you had curly hair."

Huh.

Superheroes

A little late Mother's Day-

This was published in Chicken Soup for the Pre-School Mother's Soul a couple of year's ago. I've never been a fan of the series but when they waved $200, I gladly gave them all the publishing rights. To which my super intelligent and academically snooty cousin referred to me as a literary prostitute.

I never saw Spiderman look so good. In a plot to create a Mother's Day surprise, my eldest son orchestrated a covert gift-giving operation. From his four siblings, he recruited the two that don't drool.

Secretly, they filled page after page from their favorite coloring books to create their masterpiece: a Spiderman collage. Their superhero, adorned in a rainbow of colors, is depicted in all sorts of cataclysmic scenarios-battling villains and ensuring that good triumphs over evil.

The pages are ranked according to the artistic abilities of a seven-, four- and three-year old. Each bears a message-written in varying degrees of coherence-ranging from "Happy Mother's Day" to merely the artist's name, in randomly selected capital letters.
It's adorable. Completely uninitiated and, therefore, all the more cherished.

The kids stowed the pages in a private location, accessible only by the tooth fairy: underneath their pillows. When the pictures emerged on Mother's Day, they looked, to say the least, well rested.

I'm a big fan of the web slinger. But that's not what makes the gift tear-jerking precious.

Instead, it's the chubby face with dazzling eyes. It's the dimpled hands. It's the "Happy Mudder's Day" moment when a priceless work of art was thrust at me-the reason all mothers save yarn flowers, painted rocks and Popsicle stick crafts. It's that face, that look, that says, For this moment in my little life, you, Mommy, are the most important person in the world to me.

I dread the day they won't look at me with such admiration, when my loving glances, might not be reciprocated. Or the day my man-child looks at "another" woman with admiration and love. And today's handcrafted token will become souvenirs of my past.

But for now, I am the object of their affection. Their first love. Their superhero. And I'll tuck away my Mother's Day gift along with a piece of my heart.

Besides,a purple and orange Spidey? You can't put a price on talent like that.

You know, I'm such a control freak, that when the editors made a slight word change, it make the whole $200 not worth it. I felt cheap. And used.

They altered the original and used the phrase 'man-child.' Who used the word man-child? Rudyard Kipling, that's who. I'm not writing about Mowgli! Sheesh. That's so embarrassing I didn't tell hardly anybody about the publication and certainly not without a disclaimer.

Happy Mother's Day Y'all.

Who knew there was more to spew?

I cannot believe how much information one can accumulate about a word such as sputum. A Google image search produced over 9,000 results. Who knew? This delightful image was on www.worth1000.com. I also found some sick health care 'professionals' who managed to create lyrics about sputum. I suppose it's all in the perspective. Allow me to present:

THE SPUTUM SONG

Based on "The Christmas Song" written by Mel Torme and Robert Wells.

Sputum thicker than a rubber tire
Green snot dripping from a nose
These are things that we’ve come to admire
In the profession that we chose

Everybody knows how quickly nurses turn and go
When a goober’s in mid-flight
They will say that they just do not know
How we can do it day and night

It always seems to be that way
Other departments wonder how we spend our day
They always look at us with great big eyes
And say that sputum’s the one thing they despise

And so by now we’re sure you’re wondering
What all of this is leading to
The point of it is we believe as a group
Better sputum
Than poop

To sing it yourself with an accompaniment track, go to:
www.rtlyrics.com/photos/sputum.gif

I strive to produce educational material. It's the least I can do and I always try to do the least.

If you're going to spew...spew into this...

My sister-in-law is going to nursing school. Hearing about her classes has brought back memories about a certain life altering decision that could have crippled my moral well being. A few years ago, I thought seriously about going back to school to become a nurse. I wrote a couple freelance stories about the impending nursing shortage, researched schools, talked to nurses, applied to be a nurse's aid, the whole bit. This fascination lasted for three years. I was on the waiting list for acceptance into a school when my tediously made decision did an about face thanks to the events of spring, 2005.

In the middle of my, "I think I know what I want to be when I grow up phase," my husband was hospitalized for a week with pneumonia.

My altruistic health care world came crashing down the third day of that ordeal. Was it the dehydrated, emaciated frame of a once strapping man? No. Was it the tubes and needles and anesthetic reek? No. Bedpans? No. The geriatric roommate on the other side of the plastic curtain who runs down her list of ailments like a grocery list? No. Jello? No. The plastic shoes and scrubs covered in rainbows? No, but seriously, who designs scrubs to look like crib sheets?

I was walking down the hall in search of a Diet Coke when I stumbled upon two nurses engaged in a very loud conversation, obviously about a patient. This is what I heard verbatim on that dreadful day, "Have him spit into a cup and get a sputum sample."

Eeewwwwwww! Eeww! What? What kind of word is that? I can't bring myself to say it out loud. I rolled the word around in my head all the way down the hall. SPU-TUM. SPEW TUM? SPYOO-TUhM. My face turned greenish-white and I thought about finding an appropriate sized cup for myself. It's not what the word represents, but the sound, cadence and general 'spoo' of it all. What kind of sick abecedarian thought these letter worked well together? I can't imagine why anyone would approve such a heinous word for general use and then force it upon unsuspecting listeners. I was word raped!

By the time I got back to my husband's room, my future occupational goals had been halted indefinitely. There is no human way possible to work in a field that glibly employs a word so hideous as sputum. It's disgusting to say and even more distasteful spelled out on paper. S-P-U-T-U-M. Who thinks of these ugly words and how many others are still out there? How can I possibly be expected to help and heal with the threat of vile sounding words leering at me from behind medicinal clipboards?

From that moment on, I have never once considered going into the health care profession. The argot required of future Florence Nightingale's is too great a price. Nope. Can't do it. Crisis averted.

Word of the Day

termagant \TUR-muh-guhnt\, noun

1. A scolding, nagging, bad-tempered woman; a shrew.

Clearly this word is the etyomological hallucination of a petty man.

Or...it might possibly describe the personality of a certain woman coming down from a Little Debbie induced sugar high.

Just saying...

There's Nothing "little" about Little Debbie

I don't know why I do it. I work out and squat and lunge and crunch, only to ruin it at the end of the day. Sure I've eaten rice cakes and spinach and lots of things green. But when the kids go to bed, I'm starving. I've eaten nothing but styrofoam and fiber all day.

I know they're in there, those Little Debbie snack cakes. They're for the occasional dessert for the kids' lunches. I don't even really like them, but somehow I need to have one, or six. Last night was oatmeal creme pies. I don't even like oatmeal creme pies that much. But I have no power over the pre-packaged desserts. I hate her, Little Debbie, harlot of the snack world.

Aagh. What's a girl to do?

A Rude Awakening

At last the house was quiet. I should've had two hours of uninterrupted solitude coming my way. However, there's nothing like being roused from a mid-morning nap by a sound so shrill it can only be compared to the landing of an air craft carrier. Add to that the shaking and rumbling of the earth's underbelly that moved the house with a sickening thud.

"Dear God,save me!" I wailed, grasping to keep antiques from tumbling to the floor. Except for I don't have any antiques but I grabbed a picture frame and some used candles. I was still groggy and a little bit resentful of losing nap time.

Another loud crash shook the walls, throwing me off balance. It was all I could do to maintain my dignity as I screamed, "The Apocalypse! The Apocalypse is upon us!"

When I looked out the window I saw the mother of all construction toys. She was a beast. The plus size version of the other track hoes. And then...

There they were. The state sponsored squatters. The people who have pitched their cement tents five feet from the house in January and haven't left. They just keep bringing in more and more people and bigger and noisier toys.

And here was the giant of them all. It did the work of 200 men. It stretched to the sky and left tracks in the soil at least 20 feet wide. Eagerly the giant clawed at the ground churning and chucking mounds of dirt.

The Lilliputians cheered as the mother load picked up giant cement pipes and "lowered" them into the black hole. I say "pipes" because they number at least 20 and they have to weigh a couple of tons each. I know because I tried to push one over.

I say "lowered" because it was more like recklessly launching them into the ground. Like a horseshoe. A two ton horseshoe. Swell.

Not one to give up some peace and quiet so readily, I grabbed a book and tried to ignore the ruckus outside, despite the white caps on my coffee.

Maybe next week will be quieter. Maybe next year. Maybe in another county.