Friday, November 14, 2008

I got a phone call from a lady inquiring about her husband’s money. The husband was one of our “guests.” He was released and deported. His check was signed out from the jail by a deputy.

I asked a few questions and learned that the wife was told by the jail that the check was cashed.

“Then your husband must have cashed the check,” I told her.

“Oh no, his check was supposed to be sent to me,” she told me, her tone indignant. Apparently, the husband wrote to the wife to tell her that he hadn’t gotten his money from the jail, which is why she was calling. His money was supposed to be mailed to the wife.

In my head, I thought, “Your husband was just released from jail and deported. What makes you think he would not lie to you about cashing that check?”

What I said, “I’ll call the jail and look into it.”

Just talked to the jail - that dude totally lied to his wife about cashing the check. According the person I talked to at the jail, this happens all the time - she gets calls from wives, mothers, and baby mamas all the time looking for their money. Also, the deputy who signed for the check definitely gave it to the guy. I’m not looking forward to telling the lady that her husband lied to her.

*sigh*

Beau has an excellent post about Church and State Habits. An exerpt:

It seems to me that, like Esther, we each have a job to do, even if it’s not in a palace. Of course, voting in a little booth is a lot less scary than Esther’s approaching the king to speak the truth. But although our involvement in politics is limited, can our involvement be anymore unrelated to God’s plan than Esther’s? Can speaking the truth be secondary to “kingdom” work?

Go read the rest and share your thoughts with Beau.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Yet another sleepless night with the nice addition of a recurring nightmare.

It all started when I fell into a deep sleep at about 8pm. Beau got home from small group at around 10pm and I woke up when he came to bed. And then I was wide awake (thanks to what turned out to be a nice nap) until after 1am.

That is when the dreams started - disturbing dreams that ultimately woke me up at around 4am. The kicker was when Jesse ran off the end of an unprotected balcony despite me calling for him to STOP! Then every time I closed my eyes, that vision would come back and continue only with me trying every way imaginable to get Jesse to STOP before running off of the balcony, to no avail - he ran off every single time. The last one was me begging Beau to get him to stop because clearly the kid was not going to listen to Mom. That didn’t work either, so I lay there with my eyes wide open and desperately praying for new, less deadly images to replace the repeating one. Eventually I fell asleep sometime after 5:10am only to be awakened rudely by my alarm at 6am.

I will be begging my OB for Ambien or something similar at my appointment next week. I need deep sleep.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

There’s a new post about Jesse over at WC.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

To all of the veterans,
Both here and abroad
And from times past and today…

Thank You.

Monday, November 10, 2008

We started to watch Iron Man last weekend, but the DVD was defective and we only saw the first 20 minutes. We managed to watch the new copy last night.

Beau didn’t think it was as great as the word of mouth said when it was in theaters. I thought it was pretty good.

I have always liked Robert Downey, Jr. and I thought he was great as Tony Stark. I was surprised at the chemistry he had with Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts). And it took me a minute to realize that was Jeff Bridges.

I’m looking forward to the sequel.

Iron Man gets 3.5 stars out of 5.

A couple of weeks ago I started to watch Jack and the Beanstalk, The Real Story on ION. Sadly, I wasn’t able to finish it that night, because I fell asleep about halfway through. However, I found it on Netflix and watched the last half yesterday.

The bones of a giant are discovered turning Jack Robinson’s life upside down, teaching him the truth behind the fairy tale and how he can fix a greedy ancestor’s mistakes.

I found the movie charming. The special effects weren’t perfect, but didn’t distract too much from the story-telling.

JatBTRS gets 2.5 stars out of 5.

There’s a brief update at Ticklish Giggles.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Via Dad via email - Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.

Abraham Lincoln
Second Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1865

Fellow-Countrymen:

AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Eloquent.

I love the Monday morning (or Wednesday, in this case) quarterbacking. I’m disgusted that there are staffers from the McCain campaign who are trying to lay the blame for their loss on Sarah Palin. Listen up, you ran an ineffective campaign from the git-go. Palin came on the scene in August and you think she’s the reason you lost? You were losing well before she came along. You hemmed her in, over coached her, and ignored the very traits that made her the perfect VP pick for the last months of this campaign. She is the one who brought in up to 60K people to rallies. I wasn’t hearing those types of numbers for the Presidential candidate’s rallies. Shut yer traps and go lick your wounds, quietly.

I feel for her. From the moment she was named as the VP pick, her whole life was picked apart. I don’t know why people even think about running for higher office anymore, especially Republicans. They have to know that the media will nitpick over every tiny thing - any slight mistake in your life and you’re doomed. It’s shameful and it’s what I loathe about politics.

As for our President-elect, I’m praying for him. Expectations are high on all sides. I hope he can live up to them. 

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

It seems I’m doomed not to get a full night’s sleep until this baby arrives. Well ... until the baby decides to sleep through the night and who knows when that will happen.

I got home later than normal last night because of horrible traffic and was feeling pretty ill by the time I managed to eat something and go upstairs to change clothes. So I changed into my PJs and crawled into bed. I watched election stuff until I dozed off at about 9pm. Beau came to bed at 10pm with the pending bad news. I barely lifted an eyelid, rolled over and went back to deep sleep. Until about 12:30am… At 2am I gave up and got up, headed to my recliner in the basement, and turned on the TV to watch more election coverage. I watched and watched, waiting to get drowsy. No go. I did eventually doze off at about 5am, but didn’t fall into deep sleep because I was afraid of oversleeping. At 6:15am I went back upstairs to start getting ready for work.

At this point, I’m starting to get very tired. I think the drive home will be very long. And I’m headed straight to bed again.

I’m going to ask my doc about getting a sleep aid. I need to sleep more than a couple of hours a night. I’m exhausted.

*yawn*

As you can expect, I am sorely disappointed with the election results.

I’m disgusted with the GOP Senatorial candidate here in Virginia, who lost to Mark Warner. Did the man even campaign anywhere? What a travesty.

I’m gratified that our incumbent Republican Congressman was re-elected - he’s fantastic.

The Republican party has some serious work to do to get back on track. At least there’s young hope in folks like Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal.

Today I mourn and pray. Tomorrow it’s time to acknowledge and move on.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

I got an email from a co-worker from one of our sub-offices where she related her voting ordeal.

She got to her polling place early this morning and waited in line for a bit. Once at the table, she gave her name and ID and was told that she could not vote because she already voted absentee.

“No, I didn’t,” she told them.

She was told to go to the county government center Registrar’s office (I believe that is across town) to do the research into the problem. That took more than an hour. Of course, they had no record of an absentee ballot being mailed to her. That’s because she did not request one. They told her she could vote by Provisional ballot, to which she protested that she absolutely would not vote by that method - she wanted her vote to count! She was told to go to another building where she was able to vote by a paper ballot that she hopes gets counted (I’m skeptical). Total time spent voting - 4.5 hours and most of that was driving and waiting around. The only plausible reason given for the error - a typo when entering someone else’s social security number for their absentee ballot.

I have no clue for whom she voted, but that tale is surely but one of many poor people whose voting experience was less than pleasant.

My boss said that one candidate said one word repeatedly during the campaign that completely offended him. When I asked him what the word was, he said, “Fight.”

He followed that up with, “That man has to stop fighting. There’s been enough fighting in this country.”

I think he misinterprets what the candidate means by fight and I really don’t see how his use of that word is offensive.

My response? “I don’t want him to stop fighting. He fights for the people when no one else does. Frankly, I don’t think he fights enough sometimes. Some politicians don’t do enough of that period. Others do it for the completely wrong reasons.”

He just walked away. I think he voted for the other guy, which I expected.

Of course I thought of the best questions to ask him just a minute ago. “What do you want him to do then? Sit back and let things happen that he knows will be bad for our country?”