Cyber Monday Reflections on a Black Friday

I caved.  I did it.  I became one of the crazy shoppers Friday morning hunting for bargains.  (Although, I DID NOT camp out overnight.  Dutch Boy and I showed up at Best Buy around 11 in the morning.)  After scouring the ads for most of Thursday night, we finally settled on one TV worth the hassle:

[Drumroll, please...]

The Samsung 32" LCD HDTV!!!

I know, you're so excited you can hardly sit still.  This is pretty much the best thing that's happened since you consumed 7 pounds of Thanksgiving food last Thursday.  (Oh wait, that was me...).

But wait, THERE'S MORE!!!!

This TV story has 2 little anecdotes.

Numero Uno:  When Dutch Boy and I first walked into Best Buy, I was repeatedly slapped on the shoulder by some random man.  I turned around to make sure he wasn't trying to grab my purse or something, and that's when he saw his actual daughter.   Apparently, I closely resemble a 16 year-old with a varsity jacket.  He (and his daughter) apologized repeatedly, and then she (clearly humiliated) said something along the lines of  "Don't touch me" (to him), and "Don't judge me" (to me).  Dutch Boy declared that that incident alone made up for the fact that he was shopping with all of those people.

Dos:  Our plan all along for said TV was to make sure it fit in our large entertainment center before we decided to keep it.  Well, upon returning to the apartment, I did some quick measurements, followed by a groan.  The TV was 2 inches too big.  (THE HORROR!!)  Why not just buy a new entertainment center, you ask?  Well, when we first moved into the apartment, Dutch Boy and I had just gotten married and had very little furniture.  I was sick of our TV sitting on top of my little bookcase, and so I searched Craigslist for a new entertainment center.  It had to fit in the back of my car (a medium-sized SUV).  Unfortunately, while we were able to get it into the car with little incident, it took us 45 minutes to get that beast back out.  We ended up having to partially disassemble it.  Needless to say, Dutch Boy declared after that incident that we were keeping that entertainment center for the duration of our marriage. 

With all that being said, we still hadn't decided what to do about the TV.  So, after an HOUR (no joke, seriously, we debated all this for an hour), this is the solution we came up with:

That's right.  Our TV is now on top of the massive entertainment center, leaving a giant hole where the TV is supposed to go.  Any suggestions for what to do with this hillbilly-ish space?

Story of My Life

I feel like this: http://theforexmom.com/why-teachers-drink/?ref=nf just about every day.  Go figure.

Thank You

Today is Veteran's Day, and, while in years past I have not completely understood its deep significance, this year in particular, I am so thankful to all of those who have served our country.  On the way to work, I heard this poem read on the morning show I listen to every morning, and I teared up:


What is a veteran?

What is a Veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can’t tell a vet just by looking.

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She – or he – is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

He is the parade – riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies
unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being – a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU”.

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.”

-- Father Denis Edward O’Brien/USMC

As a history buff, I know so many details about all of the American wars, but I know so little about the people out there doing the fighting.  I know so little about the lives of those who are so willing to defend and die for the freedom I take for granted, and the least I can do is thank them.  



So why this year in particular?  This year, my baby brother, Tim, (or Timmy, but only if you're me, because I started calling him that when he was 3 days old and have earned that right for putting up with him after all these years) has just started his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio to become a member of the Air Force's military police.  I'm getting ready to write him a letter (which is the only contact we can have with him right now), and am so proud of him.


Thank you, to Timmy, to countless uncles and grandparents and distant relatives and to all the veterans, many of whom I will never know, nor will I know all of the sacrifices they have made.  I truly am blessed to call myself an American.

Hunting Easter Eggs in the Graveyard

This afternoon I had the privilege of reading a set of "Night Writes" from a 4th grade class who has been busily preparing for their TAKS Writing Test in the spring.  Their assignment was to write about a time when they found something.  One of them, in particular, had me from the get-go:

"Me, my dad and my bro were on our way to the graveyard for the Easter egg hunt."

Now, I don't know about you, but when I used to go to our community Easter egg hunts as a young child, we tore through the grass behind the fire station where it was held.  While there happened to be a graveyard a little ways down the street, we never entered it.  Whose idea was it for this person to hold a cute little Easter egg hunt in a GRAVEYARD?  The piece goes on to describe his heroics in defending the honor of some little kid who was being made fun of by a group of older kids.  After the writer describes getting punched, he wrapped it up by telling us that, "It hurt so bad that I felt like a woman who just gave birth."

Kids say the darnedest things, I tell ya.

This essay got me thinking.  Did I have some holiday tradition that might appear weird to an outsider?  Something akin to hunting Easter eggs in a graveyard?  I can remember a plethora of holiday traditions from my childhood, but nothing anywhere near as strange as what he described.  How about you?