Veteran’s Day

My husband, father, brother, and uncles all served in the military. Yet it’s hard for me to identify much with Veteran’s Day. Hab Moo has the day off and that’s all the celebrating we’re doing. I don’t recall anyone in the family making a big deal of it. The holiday has always seemed like a day just for old men who missed their identity as soldiers.

It should amount to more. Serving in the military isn’t anything I’d want to do, but nations do need defensive and offensive capabilities. So I’m glad someone is willing to do it. Probably the best way to celebrate the day is to give quick, reliable and friendly service to all those so used to waiting around, and getting one set of direction to be replaced by a new set to be replaced again by yet another set of orders. And soldiers are always willing to accept a thank you for their service.

I’m having a hard time writing this post. I have conflicted feelings about the military. I hate the fact that it jerks my husband around. I hate the fact that they require him to be away from home so often. But I’m glad they have separation pay. And they are making my lack of full-time employment a lot easier on us. I like watching friends and family talk to Hab Moo about his experiences. It’s great that people buy him lunch every so often when he’s in uniform. But it’s still uncomfortable somehow.

I think I may have picked up some of my father’s messed up emotions about serving in WWII. He didn’t talk much about it, but when he was dying he talked about how he still resented not getting a promised promotion. I think he was proud of the work he did and he believed in what he was doing. He also lost companions, missed out on time with two kids and a wife, and endured a lot of physical discomfort. I think he just wanted to put it all behind him. I knew not to ask him much about his experiences.

Then my husband goes to war and we chat online every day and he suffers through sitting around and from a short-term lack of onion rings. I know that in other wars, some soldiers served their time away from the front lines and danger, but those stories never got told in books or film so it’s as if they didn’t exist. I feel like there’s no real story for soldiers today. The wars are too complicated or maybe the stories can’t be told until the conflicts are over or resolved somehow. Except for getting married two days before Hab Hoo left for his deployment, I don’t feel like we have any real story either.

I don’t even feel like the nation knows that their are men and women serving overseas. Maybe it’s because I’m in Minnesota, far from any large bases. I only know a small handful of others with loved ones serving. No one is growing a victory garden. Very few people are protesting. It’s like soldiers are custodians that are easily ignored. It’s not pleasant to think about the person who is going to clean the toilet you just used and it’s not pleasant to think of the person in Afghanistan trying to clean up that mess either.

The only times I’ve really seen veterans honored has been at pow-wows and rodeos. Then I have to fight back tears.

At all other times I’d rather not pay attention even though I know several people currently in Iraq or who have had at least one deployment. I’d rather talk with them about their cars than about their service. It’s awkward. If they weren’t in the shit then what is there to talk about. And if they were in the shit, then that’s too uncomfortable to talk about.

So I guess I’ll end by just saying that I do appreciate soldier’s service. And I appreciate what those left at home go through. I have no clue what it’s like to lose a loved one to a recent war or conflict, but I do grieve for such loses until the point I think about the soldiers I know and then I rush away from that grief.

I think I will refrain from apologizing for celebrating by doing nothing more than going to a Veteran’s Day sale. I mean that’s partially why we fight, right? To keep the American way of life and what’s more American than shopping at a chain store? Soldiers fight for those who are oblivious as well as for those who are actively engaged.

One more thing, though. I’m linking to an article written by a Gold Star Mother who challenges us all to pay more attention and take real action on this day: Veterans Day: Not for Sale. You should pay more attention to her than to this confused woman.

Silly poems of my own

Silly poems are harder to write than you might expect. I’m having trouble with the rhythms. But I’m going to share anyway.

Skunks in love

They drink their lattes in perfect sync.
Drink by drink their cheeks turn pink.
Lost in each other; their love turns blind.
Neighbors point; they do not mind.
Neither notices the other’s stink.

Tea, jam and honey

Tea, jam and honey
What will you have?

   Tea, jam and honey?
   Why I’ll have them with toast.

Just tea, jam and honey.
It’s really better than most.
But to have it with bread
I’m afraid you’re mislead.

   Just tea, jam and honey
   I heard what you said.
   If that’s all that you serve?
   Man, you really have the nerve.

Tea, jam and honey.
Please to observe
how it sweetens the tongue,
its praises to be sung.

   Yes tea, jam and honey
   Maybe I’m just too young.
   Perhaps a cracker instead
   to use your sweet spread?

Just tea, jam and honey
What’s gone to your head?
A cracker is dusty and crumbly and dry.
I don’t feed the wasp or cockroach or fly!

   So tea, jam and honey
   I think I might cry.
   A pancake would be good.
   Or a bagel if I could.

Just tea, jam and honey.
Has your mind turned to wood?
Bagels are too round and pancakes are so flat.
What waste my condiments on something like that?

   Then tea, jam and honey, I finally agree.
   Yes, tea, jam and honey — with a spoon if you please.

Tea, jam and honey. I’m so glad that you see.
A spoon? I’ll have to get one. Pray lend me your keys.

Quiz: Storytelling and Other Poems

Twelve questions just for fun.

Assonance in the family

I was getting a little family history out of my mother and was struck by the names in her family. She had the following female cousins:

• Eva May (with a long e)
• Ila (long i) Ion (long i and o)
• Una (you-na)

Una seems to be an Irish or Scottish name (she was a little of both) meaning “lamb.” Ila is Sanskrit, so I have no clue how they came up with that one. Ion, according to name searches, is the Basque and Romanian form of John. So maybe she was named after some Basque or Romanian friend of the family. Or maybe it should have been Ione.

Mom’s mother was Eva (with a short e, thus the Italian, rather than English, pronounciation) and her aunt was Ivy. Someone is the family must have been very found of vowels.

So were the parents of the twins my sister went to school with: Echo and Elmer. Poor kids. Mom knew twins named Isel and Flavel. Now those are some good names; not common, but I did find a few people out there lucky enough to have them, although Flavel is usually a last name.

Moms’ father’s name was Emil. Another “E” name, but a pretty normal one. She recalled some other male relative named Enick, but maybe it was really Enoch.

My mother’s parents continued the vowel obsession in their own way. In 1921 they made up a name. Actually they made up a spelling of the name of one of their friends who was named after two aunts. Mom’s name is LaMata. So the a won the battle of the vowels that time.

None of these names is being continued in the family. The middle name Faye is in its fifth generation, however. The four living women with that name all have a red birthmark on the back of their heads, at or above the hairline. I’m a little bit jealous that I’m not a Faye.

The only name that continues on my father’s side is his mother’s maiden name: Albert. I think Dad, my nephew, and perhaps his son all share that middle name.

My middle name? Well it’s another a: Ann. It’s better than Adelia (my father’s sister’s name.)

Shoot!

I think there’s a myth that children like to do things to scare themselves. I’m not so sure. Yes, I jumped off roofs, played chicken with cars, and listened to ghost stories, but only to prove how tough I was. It was not to scare myself. But as an adult I’m trying to do a few things that frighten me or take me out of my comfort zone. Last week I went to a professional group’s mixer and talked with people I didn’t know. But a few months ago I did something much scarier. I took a defensive handgun class.

Now I’m not a fan of guns. I recall, correctly or not, my grandmother telling me in hushed tones that she had another brother who they didn’t talk about. He had died. Her older brother had shot him when they were both little kids and if you said his name the older brother would walk out of the room. That made an impression. There were guns in my house when I was growing up. I think. I never saw them, but I did see a holster my father hand-tooled in leather. I played with cap guns. But only if we playing Big Valley and I got to be Audra who carried a little deringer. It was really more of a fashion statement than a weapon.

Then I grew up and married a gun nut. I’d be quite happy if no one was allowed to own guns. Then I welcomed this man into my bedroom and all his arms into a closet with a new lock on it. The guns make me nervous. They symbolize violence and death to me. These are scary concepts now made visible in my home.

I realized that I might, if threatened, decide to take hold of one of these weapons. (In the past I’ve tended to arm myself with pens or butter knives when investigating an unknown noise downstairs.) If I didn’t want to be holding something in my hand that scared me as much or more than an intruder, I should learn how to shoot the thing. So, for that reason, and because I wanted to scare myself by doing something out of my comfort zone, and because I knew it would make HabMoo very happy, I told him I wanted to take a class.

The first thing I had to do was go to a sheriff’s office to get some sort of credentials. I didn’t pay  much attention. I gave up a fingerprint and $10 and received a form after they ran a background check of some sort. That and a handgun, lots of ammo, magazines, eye and ear protection, and some lunch was all I needed. I let HabMoo take care of all of it except the lunch.

I was nervous driving out to the range. I had discovered that all my jeans come all the way up to the waist and a holster up that high might make it uncomfortable to draw. Which turned out to be true. I had shot a few times before, but unless I was shooting something I hated (like an old DVD player) or something that produced a few special effects (like a jug full of colored water) it didn’t really capture my interest. So ahead of me was 8 hours–yes a full day–of shooting at a paper target.

We drove up to what looked to me like an abandoned gravel pit/newly created junk yard. There were some old drums full of garbage, a couple of folding chairs, and other refuse. It didn’t really inspire confidencee. A few other vehicles drove up and it did appear that we were in the right place. And, no suprise, I was the only woman. And the toilet was basically among the small bushes and grass behind where we all parked. So far, so good. I could deal with all of this.

But I had no idea what culture I was in. What were the norms? What would be considered appropriate behavior? I put on the belt and holster and gun. It did not feel comfortable. But no one stared at that. HabMoo took my photo. Everyone was friendly and talked about nothing in particular. The instructors began and we had to introduce ourselves and our weapon. I had asked HabMoo to tell me what kind of gun I would be shooting before we got there. So the first round of questioning posed no problems. I aced it. (Don’t ask me today what I shot, however. I have no idea.) And the first part of the course was going to be lecture. Not a problem. I could calm down.

I didn’t receive any range safety information, but I did learn a lot more about what people who have carry permits worry about. We discussed how to transport your weapon, what might set off alarms in a police officer, when it might be legal to shoot, when it might not be, and why. My concerns with personal safety have always been along the lines of how to not look like an easy mark for a bad pick-up line or a purse snatching. I look inside my car before I get in it and I know how to do the testicular jerk. I’ve never worried about riots or someone entering my home with a weapon or having my family threatened.

After the lecture/discussion came some real shooting and then my nerves kicked into action. I had to load a magazine. This I need way more practice in. Or more finger muscles or something. Thankfully HabMoo brought along some little device that made it much easier for me. But I was still the last one to get loaded. And now I had a loaded gun in my holster on my hip. And so did all these other guys. I was walking along with armed men. That is scary even if I couldn’t imagine them all using me for target practice. I could trust these strange men that much.

I told myself that the only thing I had to do to make this a sucessful day was to make it through the day. I didn’t expect to be able to shoot well. I would even allow myself to take the dumb girl role if needed. (Act like the blonde stereotype and giggle at everything as if it were a joke.) And I didn’t shoot well. But I was able to press the tringger and I was able to produce holes in my target. The fact the one instructor seemed to devote himself entirely to my instruction could be seen as kind of flattering. Right?

We took breaks to reload and rest. I really needed the rest. My shoulder started hurting after maybe 20 minutes of shooting and we  had the rest of the morning and all afternoon ahead of us. The guys seemed to really be enjoying themselves. One seemed a little concerned with his abilities and equipment, but I was there so he didn’t have to worry about being the lowest common denominator. We all chatted and no one showed surprise about HabMoo and I being married. (With some regularity people first assume that I’m his mother. But I’m sure it’s uncommon for sons and mothers to attend handgun classes together outside of Texas.) They expressed their approval of the reasons why I was taking the class and I relaxed my well developed social anxiety muscles.

Then came more shooting followed by lunch in the junkyard portion of the site. I was the only person there eating a vegetarian lunch and drinking carob soy milk. I felt like a cultural envoy.

More shooting followed. It was determined that I had a terrible flinch, because I anticipated every shot and recoiled from it a bit. Well, yes. I was shooting bullets. A part of me was still recoiling just from that fact. I had twice violated range safety and received only a gentle redirecting of my gun by the instructor or the marksman next to me. If someone had slapped me for it, I would have accepted that as appropriate punishment. I was unsure of myself, still scared of the gun’s potential uses, and experiencing pain in my shoulder. For the entire afternoon I shot with blanks interspersed with regular bullets so I wouldn’t know when I’d have a live round and when I wouldn’t. To build my confidence perhaps, the instructors reminded us that it wasn’t necessary to hit the head of the target. Hitting anywhere on the body would tend to discourage an assailant. Hitting a real person with a real bullet really wasn’t what I wanted to be thinking about.

We were all assured that we would pass the final test of shooting our targets from various distances. I didn’t care if I passed or not. I just didn’t want to pass out.

I passed. I was in pain and I had the fewest holes in my target, but I passed. I was disappointed that there was no written exam. I’m sure I could have outscored someone in a written test. Certificates were handed out and we headed for home.

This was the best part of the experience. Since HabMoo and I don’t agree on issues of handguns, or many political issues, we don’t often discuss them. Now we talked all the way home. Neither of us had had an experience to change our opinions, but we’d had a shared experience. We could begin the discuss from that point. I complained about the lack of safety issues covered, and he talked what he thought of their advice on what a citizen’s reaction to the police should be following a lethal force incident. I can’t even imagine that scenario (or use that language), let alone argue what the proper reaction should be. But listening to each other was transformative. I hadn’t expected this marriage enrighment side effect.

The outcome for me? I felt proud of doing something scary and not falling into the stupid girl role. I felt that while I had married a nut, he’s a nut who is comfortable with me disagreeing with him, and I love him. And I decided that I did want to carry. I decided to carry a flashlight.

Random thoughts II

Mother-in-laws say the cutest things: My mother-in-law received a couple of iTunes gift cards last year and was talking about how many “iPod minutes” she had left.

There’s now a manga version of the Bible. It had to happen, but I was hoping I wouldn’t notice. HabMoo spotted one at Barnes and Noble. If you look online there’s more than just this one. From a New York Times review of an edition published by Doubleday: “The Sermon on the Mount did not make the book, though, because there was not enough action to it.”

From the Chronicle of Higher Education article “Ordinary Ugliness“:
“according to data collected by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 30 percent of cosmetic surgery is performed on people who earn less than $30,000 a year, and 71 percent on those who earn less than $60,000 a year.” Well I guess I should get me some. But I’d really prefer to take a loan out for some land. It’ll last longer than my face and probably pay out better, too.

I had breakfast with a friend and we were talking about our mothers. I realized that when speaking to them we both addressed them as “Mama.” We realized that we started calling them that once we started taking on more responsibility for them. We both went from Mommy to Mother (in adolescence) to Mom to Mama.

Random thoughts

Why don’t redbreasted woodpeckers have red breasts? Maybe they’re just too shy to show them? See what I mean.

I’m ashamed that I couldn’t name the nine most popular Web sites. I hadn’t even heard of live.com. Or it I had, I dismissed it because of their cashback offers.

I’m wondering about the things we become beholden to. This week for me it is the cats. I opened the front and side doors for them a half dozen times yesterday to prove that it was too cold to go outside. I yell at them and warn them about the windchill. I claim to have no control over the weather. Then I open the door. I started on the routine again today before breakfast. OK, I confess, I’m always beholden to my pets.
     For my mother its everyone who spends money on postage to send her something. She feels like she must read ever piece of mail that comes to her. It looks like she’s hoarding junk mail because she won’t just toss anything with printing on it. I confess to stealing her mail when I’m there. Just so she won’t have to read it all.

Did you know there are only 56 reasons to have sex? Number 23 won’t do it for me. And it’s harder if you’re gay or lesbian. And I’m not built for number 49. Or maybe I’m just too noisy. Either way it’s not going to happen.