It's Veteran's Day. I'm embarrassed to admit that this day hasn't always had much meaning to me. It essentially meant the inconvenience of banks being closed and seeing some old men in the parade wearing their garrison caps with weakened bodies and oft repeated stories of old memories and fallen comrades.

But then I became the wife of a soldier in combat. The wife of a mere three weeks before her soldier went to Iraq. One of the nastiest, scariest, most dangerous part of Iraq. The entire deployment, from the pre-deployment training, time in theater, and post deployment time in the U.S. but still separated from family lasted nearly two years.

I feel differently about Veteran's Day now. Veterans aren't just old men anymore. Veterans are no longer an abstract concept to me, no longer just people who are good, that matter, but just not to me. I get it now. I get the sacrifice. I get the necessity. I get the fear. The worry. The bargaining with God. I get the pride. I get the patriotism.

I have walked in shoes that few people have. I have run a gamut of emotions that defies the imagination. Yet everything I felt while James was gone, everything I went through was nothing, nothing compared to his daily reality. His reality of facing death on a daily basis. Voluntarily. His reality of seeing the carnage, seeing the indescribable evil of the regime of Saddam Hussein. His reality of worrying about me, home alone, knowing I'm worried for him. His reality of seeing men in his unit being served with divorce papers while in country because their wives couldn't take it. His reality of men going home draped in the flag instead of sitting on an airplane. The reality that it could have just as easily been him.

It was a life changing two years. It is something I wouldn't change, wouldn't give back. Ultimately it's something I'm thankful for. Thankful because I get it now. I don't take much for granted anymore.

I saw a bumper sticker today. It said something like, "If you can read this, thank a teacher. And because it's in English, thank a veteran."

That about sums it up. Thank a veteran. Be someone who gets it.

Dear Johnathan Hillstrand,

Captain, take me away.



Yrs,

Dear Zantac Marketing Think Tank,

Your slogan pisses me off every time I hear it. Can you seriously have missed this? Do you sit in a room and play with helium balloons all day? Do you play a little game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours"? Whatever it is you do, assuming you're even awake while you're at the office, it can't involve much brain power. Creativity was not in the job description, eh?

Because every time, every single time your commercial comes on and the voice over guy says, "Heartburn? Attack it. Zantac." I scream at my television and resist the urge to bludgeon it with the nearest blunt object. I resist only because it's not my TV's fault you're all too damn dumb to come up with "Heartburn? ZANTAC IT."

Did you get it? See how I did that? Attack and Zantac? How they sound the same? They kind of make one word? It creates a little PLAY ON THE NAME OF THE PRODUCT YOU'RE PEDDLING? Fools.

Hate,

Fade in.

The year? 2009.

Planet? Earth.

Location? The kids' bathroom.

The question on everyone's mind? What is Soylent Awesome?



AH! Soylent Awesome is MOM AND JOSHUA!

Fade out.

I've been sitting here for awhile trying to whip up something really clever to introduce what you must realize is another edition of Friday Fragments hosted by Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin Time. Here's what I have so far.

Clever Intro Number One - The Question.
Why is it that I look so forward to Friday? It probably isn't because it signals the beginning of the weekend because weekends are essentially meaningless to me, a stay at home mom of two children who are too young to go to school. This can be interpreted two ways. 1.) Every day is a weekend because we are free do whatever it is we want, or B.) There is no such thing as a weekend because moms don't get time off; we don't have wages, labor laws, or union delegates. What is a weekend again?

I think I went really off track there.

Clever Intro Number Two - The Hook
So there I was, walking along the sidewalk, diaper bag and car seat complete with baby in one hand, toddler straggling along barely holding onto the other when this scraggly looking man approached us and said...

Ooh, a cliffhanger.

Clever Intro Number Three - The Anecdote
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who liked to wear Gucci and compulsively make lists. The day she found Friday Fragments was, quite possibly, the best damn day of her life. Well, behind the day she got married, gave birth a couple times, and discovered the combination of fried chicken and maple syrup.

Well, we can phone it in with that I guess.

Um, I'm a little worried and I can't really talk about it yet because it might be nothing but it also might be something but I don't know if the nothing is something yet or if it's still nothing but if it turns into something, or rather already is something and I have that confirmed I will talk about it but if it turns out to be nothing than I will perhaps share anyway if you really beg and plead and then we can all laugh about it and say "well good thing that something turned out to be nothing otherwise something would have really hit the fan" and if something really is something we can deal with the fallout together which really wouldn't be all that bad and might actually be kind of neat but still would be a pretty worrisome kind of something.

I'm going to call the Guinness Book of World Records to have the previous declared the longest nonsensical run-on sentence in the history of time.

Am I the only one who believes that cats are the embodiment of evil here on Earth? I think it is only rational to acknowledge that felines are the furry, four legged minions of Satan. They serve no discernible purpose. They send everyone on the planet who dares oppose them me into anaphylactic shock when contact is made, and I'm pretty sure they eat babies. How can anyone love something that eats babies? Show me a cat lover and I'll show you someone who supports the actual eating of babies.

Yup, I've got it all together. Have not lost one bit of my mind, thank you.

I'm still doing my stupid yoga. I still think it's asinine, but it does work. I don't buy into all the "Ohm" bull shit, but the unnatural ways they make you contort your body do begin to make it look a little more like you should be allowed in public without a warning label and a little less like Jaba the Hut. Java the Hut? Jaba? Java? To-may-to? To-mah-to? I've never seen Star Wars. I really don't get the reference, but I think he's some sort of fat guy or something. Maybe I should have researched that a little before just including it willy-nilly.

I've also never seen Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or Friends. I don't know if I'm missing anything, but I am a pretty high functioning individual even without knowledge of this "sitcom" stuff. I think the whole humor thing is a fad anyway. I'm sure it'll pass.


And? Scene.