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*sigh* It started with an early morning phone call from my principal asking if I could sub in 3rd grade today. Fine, but first I had to get one of the dogs here, the one we're babysitting for the next year and a half for a deployed soldier, to the vet because he's been vomiting since Friday. He says that will be OK, so I take the kids to school, run by the vet to see if they have room ASAP--they did--and rush home to get The Old Guy. After an hour at the vet while they run bloodwork (he's 11 1/2, so we wanted to rule out pancreatitis and other potentially serious ailments), I get him home and find my phone is not getting a dial tone. Great. I call the phone company on my cell, and the earliest they can get someone to come out and fix the lines is "early" tomorrow--one in the afternoon! I told the woman on the other end of the line that obviously they did not operate on Army time as I really DO do more before 9 AM than most people do all day and 1 in the afternoon is NOT early. She laughs. I wasn't trying to be funny.
I go upstairs to take a shower and when I come back downstairs, there is water dripping from the kitchen ceiling--not a good thing. I poke my thumb thru the drywall and water rushes out--but thankfully not a lot. I grab a pot to catch drips and my lunch and leave for school. I can't call a plumber even if I wanted to as the cell needs to be charged. *sigh* After a trying afternoon in 3rd grade (with one child I finally had had enough of and sent to the office), I get my kids and go home. We made it inside just as torrents of water engulf the house :) Well, we do need the rain.....anyway, the phone is still dead, the DSL line keeps coming and going (why does my DSL work but my phone line doesn't??), and I have to hide in the under-stairs closet to hear the AT&T guy tell me what number I can call from my cell phone to retrieve my home phone voicemail messages as my kids are "talking" nearby (they have no concept of "inside voices", which drives me beserk.) Mr. AT&T also informs me that if I re-bundle the exact services I have now I can save over $30 a month on phone and satellite tv service. Why does one have to do this? Why can't they just give me the lowest rates because they exist?? He seemed to think I would call into customer service every month to see what new name they're giving the rebundling of services so I could rename mine and save even more. As if anyone thinks about doing that??!! Just give me the lowest rate for whatever services I have!! (I recall with amusement being in high school when Ma Bell was broken up for being a monopoly--and now owns it all again--what is old is new again, huh?!)
So now it's getting late, the kids are off tomorrow so they THINK they should get to stay up late (NOT!) and I have a headache. I have to sit around and wait for the AT&T guy tomorrow, find a way to call a plumber and find some drywall so I can patch the ceiling once the plumber does his thing. I emailed my husband but haven't heard from him in 2 days. He's probably not on his combat operating base and instead is traveling in convoys around Iraq. Thankfully his parents have no idea his job is this dangerous. I can handle it--I grew up the daughter of (and now the sister of) a fighter pilot. This is normal for me. He's been begging to go to war for 4 1/2 years now--actually apologizing to me as the war in Iraq unfolded on TV on March 19, 2003, because he wasn't there to do his job. His parents, die-hard Democrats, find it necessary to constantly tell me how we shouldn't be over there and what a mess it is, how terribly President Bush is and how they want him home soon, etc... They do not understand the military at all. My husband is a soldier. He feels it is his duty to lead his troops, and though he has to carry a weapon to defend his patients (he's a medic), he did not go to war to kill people. He doesn't care about the politics of the war and why we are there. It is his job to be there, taking care of the infantry soldiers by training his medics to save them, and that's that. His orders say he will be deployed for no fewer than 456 days. He cannot come home early regardless of how the war goes. For me, no biggie :) He's been a bear to live with all these years while they had a war and didn't invite him! He was in the first Army "boots on the ground" unit to go into Afghanistan after 9/11 and the adrenaline rush for him was incredible. Finally, after 18 years in the military, he was getting to put his training to work. He begged to come here after 4 years in other states so he could go to Iraq. He may regret that--he was put in charge of a unit that is 77% women--young women who had just started their military careers and had never seen combat. He likened his job at first to "herding cats." I told him he had me and our 2 daughters here at home, so he should be fully prepared to deal with women :) They all (or at least the ones I've spoken to) seem to respect him and appreciate how hard he worked to get them combat-ready. I know he's out in those convoys checking on them. And my brother is over there flying close air support in his F-16, so he's as safe as he can be, given the situation.
Well, I need to get these kids to bed. I need a break from children! My oldest and I will watch Journeyman later. Kevin McKidd is certainly easy on the eyes!!
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Posted by Bluestockings on 2007-11-05 19:12:05 | Rating: | Views: 41
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