Drawing Blood

The AAFES sucks forums are on the rise. We got the consumers vs. the managers, and it's getting ugly. I love it. I am still the #1 hit for "AAFES sucks" on google. I love that, too.

Come by and visit! AAFES sucks

Listen

Last night while watching a press conference with Donald Rumsfeld something reoccurred to me.... There is something about the man that drives me bat-shit.

Next time you see him speak in the press room- take note of the way he punctuates his sentences by smacking the podium with his fingertips, resulting in a dull, echoing and soft thud every time he does it. It has gotten to the point that I can hardly pay attention to what the man is saying because it irks me so bad...

He especially does it when he says the word "Iraq". (thud) When he is talking about staying the course and taking care of the military (thud) men, protecting the troops (thud) from the insurgents. (thud)

I bet if you tied his hands behind his (thud) back, he wouldn't be able to speak.
And now it can irritate you.

No Sense

As of this morning, we are unable to connect to this site, or AAFESsucks.com. Unknown reasons as to why- but I have figured out that it is something on our end, as even the jokers at TKS can get to it from their office... plus I am typing now on AOL. Crappy broswer, I know, but it's what I got right now.
When Mozilla finishes re-downloading, we'll see if we have any better luck.
Must be the Wizards of Fate testing my patience again.

Birthday

My beautiful son is now 7 years old. He is smart, and strong, and learning faster than I can keep track of. This year, he is learning to read and spell. He is learning simple math, and he excels at it.
I am left on these days feeling far too old for my age, and incredibly dumbfounded at the things being a mom teaches me everyday... Even if today's new lesson is learning the true boundary of my threshold for emotional stress and the limits of my patience.
He seems so grown up to me, but yet- he is still so little... Just a baby, really. I imagine it is the difference in having a child who can come to you and say what is on their mind versus the baby that was here 7 years ago, crying when he yearned for something, and me having to decode that into something that would stop the cry.
I can't wait to see what the difference will be a year from now- but I bet it will be huge- in both of us.
Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

Let it snow?

In addition to great food and fabulous friends last night- we got our first snow here in Germany for the season. Now I am not a big fan of snow, and my husband assures me I was deprived as a child not growing up in it, "Because if you had, you would love it."
Bollocks.
Snow was something we got in the car and drove an hour out of town to go see, then we came home. On the very rare occasion, snow was true magic, as it is a miracle to see snow resting lightly atop a cactus... and then it melted away, like frosty, with a promise of being back one day- like Halley's Comet.
My kids get it- the magic of frozen ice crystals falling silently from the sky, and coating the world with frozen sparkle. Of course, they also get the magic of a swimming pool on a blistering hot day- but I don't have recent pictures of that to post- so we'll stick with the snow.
Winter is finally upon the KMC- Now my family can watch me go out on the icy pavement and bust my big ass on concrete as I lose my footing on the slick bricks of sidewalk.... Then hit me with snowballs will I lie there bleeding from a head laceration, and sweetly ask me if they can now have their hot chocolate.

Picture Perfect

To say that a picture speaks volumes... We had a great Thanksgiving!
I call this photo "Dickhead".

Refugee

People absolutely amaze me with how mean and heartless they can be.

This weekend we got a call from Heidi regarding a cat we had seen a few times running around housing. The last time I saw her she was but a kitten. Well fed and clean, we assumed she was someone's pet who got out, or she was an outdoor cat, but certainly loved, as she was affectionate with people.

Come to find out, some bastard who moved out of her building around the time we first saw said animal, packed their shit and threw her out into the streets to fend for herself. Heidi and her kids are deathly allergic to cats, but they had been feeding this poor little thing for a few days off and on last week... then she showed up on their patio, and didn't want to leave. She tried to get into the house, and as heartbreaking as it was, Heidi had to keep her out, so she called us.

This sweet little thing should weigh about 15 pounds by the size of her... she is skin and bones, but beautiful none the less, and so sweet. We are unsure if we will or are able to keep her, but in the very least, we will get her back to health. I am taking her to the vet this week to have her checked out.

With the military family, it is certainly no surprise that you will have to pack up and move... How could you take on the responsibility of a pet, and then just dump it? In case the previous owners of the sweet little muffin should happen across this blog- I hope you freeze to death in the middle of a muddy puddle, you heartless fucking piece of shit. Your balls should be frozen with liquid nitrogen to the point of shattering and fed to you on a scoop of asshole ice cream. Help control the world's surplus dickhead population and have yourself spayed or neutered.

Sharing

Last night, I half woke up about 4 am to roll over, as I was tangled in my blanket like a trapped animal in a net. I opened my eyes long enough to see my husband also turn over, towards me, then open his eyes, reach out and snatch the pillow from my arms. Then he began to snore. I am quite sure he never woke up when he did it, and I am quite sure he doesn't remember it. (If he did, he would be a fool to admit it.)

This is one of the things your mother never tells you about marriage. If she had it might have sounded something like... "Make sure you buy two quilts for your bed, so you always have one for you. Also, ensure you keep an extra pillow or two on the floor beside the bed, so that when he steals it during the night like a comfort klepto, only to throw it onto the floor on his side of the bed- you can reach down and get back to sleep without getting that insatiable urge to stick a spoon through his forehead as he sleeps."

My 5 year old has a boyfriend....?

Everyday, I get up early, ready the children and walk them to school. In the afternoon, I walk down to pick them up. like an attentive, doting mother should, and it is made completely worth it most days to have them fly into me with a huge smile- like a bowling ball into the one pin left standing.

When Rachel returned to me yesterday, I noticed she was holding hands with a cute little boy as she came up the stairs towards scholastic freedom... Odd that... As we turned to walk to pick up her big brother, she announced to me, "That boy was Nicholas. He's my boyfriend!".

(Pause here for me to pick my face up and reaffix it to my skull.)

She proceeded to tell me that he is, in fact, her boyfriend, because he loves her, and because she kissed him. (Again, I had to will myself to keep walking whilst trying to not have that look of "Oh how cute and painfully disturbing" on my face.)

Of course, I asked her if she didn't think that she was too young for a boyfriend at the tender age of 5. This sent my Little Miss Mouth of the South into a flurry of verbal thought, of which I caught about every third word... love.... marry him... dancing together....

Okay, so it is really cute- cavity sweet, in fact. It is also mildly disturbing. She's 5, and I am aging too fast. The only thing getting older quicker than me? My kids. I am gonna wake up tomorrow, and I'll be 50 with grey hair, and they will be moved out.

Maybe she'll be living with her boyfriend.....

Ho Ho Huh?

This time of year is not marked as my favorite. Not that I don't love the holidays, I do- it's the build up that kills me. The stress of shopping and picking out gifts is a mind twisting stress factor- not something the crazy bi-polar lady needs. The adults in my life are fairly easy to shop for, and I always seem to hit the mark like Robin Hood. My children are a different story.
The struggle begins to find the toys that will not be dumped in a toy box and long forgotten about by December 26th. After last year, with my shopping, my mother, my father, and the in-laws, including my sister-in-law, this house was so full of toys, I could have supplied Santa all he would need for this years deliveries. The living room was literally a river of shit 3 feet deep I had to wade and weave through to get to the coffee pot in the kitchen.
Not too many of those toys survived the year. Of those that did, about 25% of them are still played with. Hence my dilemma. What to buy them that is durable, yet not an incredible waste of money? Using last years toys as a guideline, I have thus far opted for video games for my son, and Barbie type dolls for my daughter. The shopping season is not yet over, so my panic continues... especially having to do most of my shopping online, since we all know AAFES sucks, and carries almost nothing they wrote those cute letters to Santa for.
Any ideas? What would YOU buy a 5 and 7 year old to educate while entertain, durable yet fun, keep their interest without isolating them....

Unknown Cause

Ever have those mornings when you wake up with a terrible spinning hangover type feeling in your head, but you did no drinking the night before to justify it? It sucks, really- it's like paying the price (a big expensive price) for something you never bought nor enjoyed.

Bastards

I have turned off trackback pings- As I have twice in the last 4 days found a bag load of references to horse screwing and underage sex in the lists.
If you would like to be tracked to- please email me.

Nothing On

AFN sucks it. Sucks it bad.
I pay 39 Euro a month for cable TV (that's about 50 dollars), and this buys me the opportunity to spend 75% of my TV watching time channel flipping, like an unmedicated Tourette's patient, though all 9, (oooh, a whole 9), of my channels, hoping that this time around will find a program of interest that wasn't there 45 seconds ago.

AFN has also shown me the true power of propaganda, as we see no commercials here. Instead we are flooded with public service messages, the base commander (who looks like one of those troll dolls does his eyebrows) talking incessantly, and other blends of ideas- from american military history sound-bytes to the importance of operational security. It's quite an education.

On the menu we have 6 kinds of AFN... that's the Armed Forces Network, run by AFRTS- that's right- "AFARTS". We do get quality prime time programming from all the major stateside networks. We get them a year or more later. So- Enterprise is not over, and those who watch Lost are oblivious to the fact that they did in fact open "The Hatch". Our only saving grace? Shows like Survivor are shown with only a 36 hour delay. Gracious of them, no?

A new addition to our line up is AFN Movie- where we get the chance to see all those wonderfully hacked up old movies they show on late night NBC just before they run the national anthem. I especially like the "After School Specials" and "Danielle Steel" flicks from the 1980's... But hey, they just premiered "Ice Age" so how bad can it be?

So, here I sit blogging- waiting for my one hope- the BBC feed we get- as some nights they show a nice line up of US Prime-time Cop and Detective Shows, such as SVU and CSI. They are only a half a season behind- plus they have BBC Learning- the insomniac's dream. Many a night I have stared bleary-eyed at the television until 4 am, learning wonderful things about glacial ice flows and the Battle Of Baden Hill.

I have had to find find other outlets for my down time than my one-eyed mind fucker. If you have cable- feel blessed- as you have so much more to surf through while bitching about there being nothing on.

Blech

Mornings suck.
I have never been a morning person, and have spent most mornings of my life shrinking from sunrise like a vampire. It is especially rough when I am trying to get over a new nasty-sick that was spread around the school and brought home on the wind of my children.

In light of this, I will repost from last year- addressed to the parents of students who use the school as a daycare center as much as an educational experience....

Dear Parents of Vogelweh Elementary School Students,
I would like to make a simple, common sense request. If your child is coughing, has a sore throat, a fever or otherwise troublesome indicators of a contagious illness of some kind, please keep them HOME.
Perhaps you, in your divine ignorance, do not understand that one coughs when they are sick because that is what the illness wants them to do... it is a way of the illness replicating. It's simple biology, bitch. Same thing with sneezes and any other kind of excess fluid lost. In Kindergarten- those fluids transfer easily between kids, as they are not yet quite out of that "gross" phase of wipe, scratch, pick, touch and eat with the same hand.
Your dirt-urchin kid does not belong in a classroom with healthy children- like my son- when he/she is sick. I am very sorry for your problems with getting out of work or having no place to put them, these are however your problems- this is a school, not a day care.
When you bring your gutter rat to school coughing, with a sore throat, or a mild fever, you are exposing everyone else to the creeping crud your offspring has caught.
My son has never been so sick in all his life, as he has since he started school... I blame the mothers I see every morning, with snotty faced hacking kids in tow, who think a little cough is no big deal. It's a big deal, simpleton.
When my son is exposed to your kindergarten version of typhoid Mary, he either 1- gets sick, 2- carries it home and gets his baby sister sick or 3-both... in which case, usually I will get sick, as will my husband.
I am afraid your boss is going to have to take no for an answer, you twat. Your husband is gonna have to tell his C.O. that your kid is ill. It's called good parenting skills... I keep my kids home when they are coughing, or have swollen glands, or any other symptoms of a contagion. That's courtesy.... of course because of you- he has been home quite a bit as of late.
Take your child home, and keep him there until he is better... Grow a pair of balls for your boss, and a brain in your head, and keep your mud-bug at home.
Sincerely,

A Concerned Mom

Thank you for your co-operation.

Liar Liar

On Nov 1, Kevin got up early to walk our son to school. As he approached the school he was detoured around the long way, to avoid the abundant crime scene tape wrapped around half the campus.
When my son came home, he carried a note that chilled the blood of every parent on base... They needed help looking for a suspect in a sexual assault that happened the day before on the school grounds, and the physical description of the assailant was vague, at best.

(When Kevin got home with my son and said note, he told me a fifth grader had informed him that someone was kidnapped and/or murdered... ah the imagination of kids in the rumor mills of schools..)

2 days later, after all the parents were walking around looking over their shoulders and giving every man on base the evil eye- This Article came out in the "Stars and Stripes" ,letting everyone know that the child had lied.. she had not been dragged off into the woods, and raped by some mysterious man in a blue shirt. Apparently, as facts would have it, she got too rough with her boyfriend and didn't know how else to tell her parents about it...

As the parent of a little girl I am relieved and terrified. I am quite glad to know there is not some pedophile out there snatching kids from the school grounds and raping them. Now we can move on to issue #2 which is... What is a 12 year old girl doing with a frickon Boyfriend? 12. 12?! And obviously interested in being sexually experimental and active.

It is truly a different time than when I grew up, as old-folksy as that sounds. Sure I knew the school whores- who were talking big shit at the age of 13 and 14 about having boyfriends and having sex- but they were 1- full of shit, and 2- Whores. At that age, I had no interest- in fact I thought boys my age were pretty retarded and unworthy of my attention until I was about 19. I had better things to do than bandy time with some walking hard on- even in high school. (Now that I am grown, I am have come to the realization that boys my age are indeed retarded, and doomed to be so until about the age of 40.)

I sincerely hope that the girl gets the obvious emotional help she needs- and I hope someone gets ahold of her parents and teaches them a few things about what age is appropriate to turn your little girl loose with members of the opposite sex... especially when those boys are still at the age of having wet dreams. The parents are 100% to blame in this case- I hope the military charges them for every dime of funding the cops spent investigating the "crime", plus some to compensate the parents on Vogelweh for the freak out factor.

Growing

As I went thumbing through my iPhoto library today... I found this little bit of something to make me wispy. As cliche as it is, they grow up so fast... One picture from just 2.5 years ago... one taken two weeks ago. You may notice I choose not to do this comparison of myself- the kids are just so much damn cuter.

Busy Busy

As I got my ass chewed by my mother for "Not having any time to talk to her" for the last two weeks, it occurred to me I should post and let my few sycophantic fans know that I am busy. With my Dad in the country, I have had little time to get to the computer to write.

I include this picture I call "Ed on the Mosel". This was taken in the quaint little town of Cochem, walking along the River Mosel. There are more castles in this section of Germany than I could possibly remember- and there are signs pointing the way to them in every direction... I counted 5 at least that didn't even qualify as "castles" just really large old houses on top of mountains. Then there were the ones that were marked for touring and those outnumbered any tour of beverly hills mansions you could think of.

We had already hiked the way to and from the castle "Berg-Eltz", (I am gonna get you, Londa, for recommending that little tourist trap- you suck as a vacation planner), before we saw the castle at Cochem.... and decided-"WOW! Looks pretty, but I can't possibly climb 25 stories up the side of a mountain today." So we took a picture- then stuffed ourselves on Schnitzel before the tenuous navigation home. It was a fun day overall, even if everyone fell asleep in the car on the way home, and left me all alone, to not go insane, driving 95 miles an hour on the autobahn, in the rain and through fog, and nothing but German folk songs on the station I was locked into.... We made it back, all but by the grace of God.

We have 3 days left... and sometime in that frame we have to go souvenir shopping for my Dad's friends back home. With all the slow clock counting we were doing for him to get here- now the time seems to be going by ever so quickly until he leaves, and we have to say goodbye again.

My dad flies out on Monday and I will no doubt post about the inevitable emotional breakdown that will ensue upon his departure- as he goes home to the US and I stay here. Not that I do not like it here, but it is not "home", and there are many days I feel isolated and cut off. Next week will likely be full of those days.

So stay tuned... Next week, the real bi-polar me should come blazing through in bright glory.

Halloween 2005

We survived. (Barely). You can see more pictures on the sewing links, and I will get a better picture of Rachel's costume when she feels more like looking pretty. Quite the trooper last night, as she was very tired, and somewhat suffering with a cold.

I have to say that the senior enlisted in the fancy new housing on Vogelweh should be ashamed of themselves- as they have shit loads of money, (at least compared to us), but the street was locked up tight as a drum last night. The kids brought home about 1/3 of what they usually haul on Halloween here. Not that they noticed, they had a great time... so we won't mention those stingy people around the circle this year who didn't bother to contribute. On base trick or treating kinda sucks compared to my childhood, so when we do get back to the states, the children will be most thrilled to be able to fill up a pillowcase.

We did have great fun walking around with the Watsons. Lots of laughs, good conversation, and we looked GREAT. I have to admit it is nice to be the family with the kids who don't wear the cheap-o knock off costumes from the crappy selection AAFES offers... It is a pride thing with me. No matter how many times I swear off sewing costumes, I always seem to do it.

Brenden is already asking about next year, as he has decided he wants to be Batman. Good. I can't work my fingers to the bone making Batman. No matter how skilled I want to be- I can't make a chest plate with enormous pecs.

Happy Halloween to my few but devoted fans.