Haiku for Two...

...and two for haiku!

I know I promised I was going to take “the hardest test in the world” and write a cohesive, coherent essay in three hours on the word “deployments.” I started it, I really did…and then, curse my short attention span, I got trapped in Peter’s Haiku Generator website, and I’m still generating these random little poems, a little too happily, might I add! It’s my new addiction. That is just one more thing that I have found about deployment separations: you each have more time to devote to new things. I’ve learned that I really love the idea of using a piece of technology to randomly generate artistic things. It’s just cool to the ridiculous factor of a hundred…and, no, I don’t know exactly how cool that is, but “pretty nifty” ought to cover it.

Here are a few that I really liked:

Poetry splashes.
Badly walking wonder falls.
The young women walk.


Happiness bites joy.
Spices burn and flowers melt.
A hunted boat waits.

Since I’m a kitty cat mama, this one made me laugh. Imagine the consternation of said feline:

A cat hates a hair.
Soft, roughly ugly tail turns.
Midday carouses.

Another thing deployment separations can do is to heighten any sort of emotion you may already be feeling. So, I put the next couple into categories that might crop up during the time apart, and let the computer generator speak for me:

Fear –

The baskets bell roots.
A death twists weaker boots.
A surface sniggers.

Explosions collapse.
Hell gibbers then weak thirst vaults.
Selfish fear whirls whips.

Loneliness –

Shivering, gifts laugh.
Flaccid indifference slips.
Temple’s bell fluid.

Blackly full snow runs.
Rain sometimes fears the lovers.
Small heaven scolds lakes.

Joy –

Leaves flutter the birds.
Gold rain scolds playing autumn.
Soft judges eat rain.

The blooms spin clowns.
Walking selfless cherries sing.
An apricot talks.

Smoke perfumes the boats.
Smashing, kind wisdom spreads toys.
Gems mesmerize truth.

Happiness –

Shining spring giggles.
Quivering, the gems whisper.
A sun conceals cats.


Love – (Always more of this than anything else…no matter the distance, no matter the separation time, no matter what!)

A lover flutters.
The lakes plunder eagerness.
Foolish stanzas splash.

Heat transforms water.
The unknown birds kiss towers.
Blooms paint cherries.

Hands walk and spring squeals.
A balloon leaps and lakes walk.
A lover responds.

A bauble spins love.
Eagerly young earth giggles.
The lovers frolic.

So, yes, I seem to be lost in the maze of computer generated emotions and won’t be getting into Oxford anytime soon. Ah, well, maybe it wasn’t to be. It could be worse, I suppose. I could be trapped in a website that randomly generates dirty limericks…hmm, hold that thought, I’ll get back to you on how that goes. :->

While messing with randomly generated poems, I also produced two of my own Haiku. I’m pretty pleased with them, as I wanted them to embody all the best that a deployment can be. The first is the unbreakable connection that our little family of cats and coupledom creates for me, even when I’m sleeping, away from him.

A light cat shimmers.
Cascading laughter chirrups.
This dream in the night.

And, since my other addiction is the LunaPic photo editor website, I combined this next Haiku with the messy art I’m enjoying fashioning of late.

Some sweet wind darkens.




Luminous husband stirs.




Time out of our lives.



So, after this artistic interlude, I promise to get back to the serious occupation of blogging about how much fun deployments can be, dammit! ;->

Peace, Love, and Artistic Tolerance for all!

"The Hardest Test in the World"

Hello All!

Hope all is well with you and yours over this Memorial Day weekend. Amid all the barbeques and trips to the beach, let’s remember what the holiday is really about. Thank a Vet, trust me, it makes us happy, and, surprisingly, it never gets old to hear it! :->

On another note, I was reading an article in the New York Times by Sarah Lyall about a test, now discontinued, that had been given at Oxford to prospective fellows for over 75 years. I will share some quotes from the article and then some thoughts on it.

She begins: The exam was simple yet devilish, consisting of a single noun (“water,” for instance, or “bias”) that applicants had three hours somehow to spin into a coherent essay. An admissions requirement for All Souls College here, it was meant to test intellectual agility but sometimes seemed to test only the ability to sound brilliant while saying not much of anything.

“An exercise in showmanship to avoid answering the question,” is the way historian Robin Briggs describes his essay on “innocence” in 1964, a tour de force effort that began with the opening chords of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” and then brought in, among other things, the flawed heroes of Stendhal and the horrors of the prisoner-of-war camp in the William Golding novel Free Fall…

Lyall continues: …But it is the one-word-question essay (known simply as “Essay”) that candidates still remember decades later. Past words, chosen by the fellows, included “style,” “censorship,” “charity,” “reproduction,” “morality,” “error,” “possessions,” “novelty,” “chaos” and “mercy.”

And she ends with: …Vickers, the current college warden, has worked as the Bank of England’s chief economist and been president of the Royal Economic Society, among other jobs. He draws a self-protective veil over the memory of his own essay, in 1979, on “conversion.”

“I do shudder at the thought of what I must have written,” he said.

So, those of you who know me understand that I’m a freak and an English professor, two things that go together naturally, don’t you think -- and…I LOVE the idea of that test. Imagine, bringing all types knowledge and genres of writing together to support a thesis while ruminating on only one word. How cool is that??? Since I have more time on my hands than I normally would, I considered what word I would assign to my students, and I also thought about what word I would select for myself.

Initally, I was having a tough time, then the big “doh” reached up and smacked me in the forehead. I’m an idiot! I’m writing a blog about deployment survival, aren’t I? Sooooo… what better word to choose than… Wait for it… Duh! Deployments!! Wow, I’m getting a little slow in my old age. Anyway, I love the idea of writing about one word, it’s the “cohesive” part that scares me a bit. We’ve discussed my lack of linearity, so that might hinder me some, but I do have a knack for tying things together that may not seem to belong together, but in the end (in Kristen-world), they fit just fine. So, I’m going to try this and get back to you with the product.

I will let you know that the first thing I’m struck by is how each of the words from past tests Lyall highlighted in her article –

“innocence,” “water,” “bias,” “style,” “censorship,” “charity,” “reproduction,” “morality,” “error,” “possessions,” “novelty,” “chaos” and “mercy” –

all can be connected to my essay on deployments. If I were feeling particularly snarky, I could probably fit them all in one paragraph, connect them with lines of Haiku and song lyrics, and sprinkle in a couple of Newton’s laws – and BAM! Oxford, here I come. But, I guess I’ll never know since they’ve discontinued the test. Pity!

I’ll give myself three hours and post what I come up with over the next couple of days. We’ll see how hard this really is. And, as for y’all, what words would you have the most fun writing about? I’d love to steal some of them as writing assignments for my students. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on “deployments,” too. A one word response to a one word test might be kind of cool. Depending on the day, my response would ricochet between:

Deployments – Rock!


And

Deployments – Suck!


What words stick in your heads?

National Geek Day

There are times when, even during a separation, you just know you married the right person. His brand of crazy immediately makes you smile. And, your type of nuttiness makes sense in his world. The love-bug and I came to that convergence the other day. He sent me the following via email from the other side of the world:

“In observance of National Geek Day, I wrote code to generate Haiku. Used it once to produce the Haiku below. Then, having served it’s purpose, I ritually deleted it.

Secretive penguin
Ready dragonfly by coin
Furl greeting”

I asked him how difficult it was. He told me it took nine lines of computer code and 75 words selected randomly from the dictionary with one, two, and three syllables to generate that Haiku. For him, that means it took very little time. I love that he crossed from his Geeky world of computers and engineering (as he always says, “You can’t spell GEEK without Double E!” For those of you unfamiliar with the reference, he means you can’t spell the word geek without the two E’s that start the words Electrical Engineer…and he thinks I’m a dork!) into my Geeky world of words. How cool that you can use one side of the brain to generate something so beautiful to be appreciated by the other side of the brain.

I will now combine some photos, a drawing by Robert Seymour, and some clipart with some visual effects to generate a pictogram of his Haiku - because I am that dorky!







(It may be difficult to tell, but that last is a white flag with the word Welcome on it, and it has been stretched into a kaleidescope effect. I liked how it turned out!)

Hmm, I think, perhaps, my peculiarities complement his.

And I celebrated National Geek Day in my own special way. I honored my addiction to sewing pairs of 80’s Hammer pants. I can’t help it! (Can't touch this!) Every few years or so, I’m overwhelmed by the need to create multiple pairs of these fabulous trousers, and this week’s Geek Day was the perfect excuse! (As if I needed one! :->) I just cut some out of white fabric with pink and brown leopard spots. They’re perfect and wonderful and ridiculous – and I threatened to meet him at the airport wearing them. He knows better than to be embarrassed by any of my get-ups. He’d just be exhausted by now. And, hey, turns out you can spell GEEK without “Costume Designer,” but why bother?!

Have I said lately that I loved the 80’s?

Well, I know I have said I love the hubby and I know he loves me enough to generate a Haiku for me.

(Let’s just hope he loves me enough to be seen in public with me in my Hammer pants! Otherwise it'll be a long walk home for him! ;->)

Here’s to kooky couple-dom!

Love, Peace, and Haiku Writing to you all!

(Not so) Lost

So, I watched the series finale of Lost last night. (Don’t worry, if you Tivo-ed it, I won’t ruin the ending.) I know, I know, you’re thinking, “But, K, you only watched the first three hours of the first season on DVD before both you and your hubby looked at each other and agreed to pass your time with other endeavors. Why would you watch the end without watching the interim episodes first?”

Well, just ask my love-bug. He’ll tell you that I tend to do things out of order. I never start my stories to him with a subject. Keeps him guessing! :-> And, sure, I teach English, but I don’t think, talk, or compose in a linear fashion. I couldn’t create an outline prior to a story if my life depended on it. I don’t know what I think about lots of things until I talk it out. Asking me to start with a thesis statement is the surest way to a fight I know of. Just ask some of my former professors. (May the gods bless Dr. Seitz! He actually gets me.) I have to meander before I gain a sense of direction. So, telling a linear story makes no sense to me.

So, when the finale for the show came on yesterday, it made perfect sense in Kristen-world to tune in. If I liked it, then I wouldn’t be sad like the rest of the Lost fans, I would still have nearly six whole seasons to look forward to. They would be coming to the end of an era that I would just be starting. And, if the finale sucked, well, I would only have given up two hours of my life, which really wouldn’t be a total loss, since the scenery in Hawaii - where it’s filmed – is so pretty. So, I settled in with more of my stinky cheese, three cats, and a bottle of wine to see what the entire hubbub was about. (Or, maybe it was one cat and three bottles of wine…I'm just sayin'!)

Turns out the show’s creators suffer from the same lack of linearity of thought that I do – and I mean that in a complimentary way. I learned that not only do they use flash-backs and flash-forwards, but something called flash-sideways gambits to advance the plot…or retreat the plot…or something. And, somehow, even though the show has been going on for six years, I wasn’t lost (sorry, pardon the oh-so-obvious pun) at all. I’m not sure if the mythology of the show has just seeped in around the pop-culture corners of my life, or if, since I don’t walk through my own thoughts in a straight line, the storyline and folklore just kind of make sense to a bat-shit nut-job like me. So, to answer the question that I know is on my husband’s mind, since I never start with the subject…I liked the finale. It just seemed right. It was like putting on my favorite pair of footie pajamas that my parents got me for Christmas when I was in sixth grade and finding that they still fit.

And, I think the deployment is a major part of the reason I could get a handle on the show. (You knew I’d connect it back to the deployment somehow, right? This is a deployment survival blog, after all!)

Warning: What follows is what’s in my head after watching the show…still, no plot spoilers. But you might get trapped in the labyrinth of my thoughts, though. And, yes, I’m pretty sure there’s a Minotaur in there somewhere - along with lots of cats wearing neon-colored high-top Reebok tennis shoes. Don’t ask! Anyway, back to the show…

The whole show seems an apt metaphor for what couples or families go through while undergoing a deployment separation. The island, in an odd way, represents our home front, and as in the show, it must be protected at all cost. Everyone who deploys wants to return there when their job is done. There is a peace that comes with reuniting, but in the iterim, you end up living parallel lives with your mate while you’re apart, so the flash sideways plotlines apply here, too. Though you aren’t always in the same “somewhere” you are in the same “somewhen.” You can still touch each other, even if not literally. You are linked to that person: what affects him or her will affect you in some collateral fashion. Your stories impact each other, even though they are occurring on different pages of the script right now.

What I think I liked the best is this: the notion of unseen, unexpected bonds between people. Similar, dissimilar, related, or not, lovers, families, friends, strangers – we’re all players in this story. We are all woven into the same fabric. As deployments drag on, those threads of connection can start to wear a little thin, but then something like this show comes along and reminds us that even though distance separates us, we are still an ensemble. We’re a group of sometimes like-minded people doing the best we can in less than perfect circumstances and in the end, the alliances with each other, those relationships, are the payoff.

So, yeah, I think I’ll start watching Lost from the beginning now. It seems I have a lot to look forward to.

Peace, love, and flash forwards to you all.

Frenchie's Revenge

Okay, people, so I’m back today to report on the first official tasting of the three cheeses the fab hubby sent me. First, let me share with you what the Artisanal Cheese Center marketing arm wrote about their wares.

“La Peral is a lightly blued, rare and delicious cheese hailing from the village Illas in Northern Spain. It is made from pasteurized cow’s milk to which sheep cream has been added. Also known as Queso Azul Asturiano, La Peral is made by the Lopez Leon family. The wheels are aged for sixty days in their Asturian caves just to the point that the blue begins to develop. La Peral resembles an Italian Gorgonzola and has a nice olive flavor and pungent aroma. Its slightly crumbly texture becomes significantly creamier in the finish. Try pairing this outstanding blue cheese with Tempranillos, Cabernet Sauvignons, Gamays, Ports or Spanish dessert wines.

Roomano (editor’s note: no, I didn’t misspell this, it has three o’s) is a skimmed cow’s milk Gouda from Holland aged up to six years. The texture is hard and crystalline; the flavor has intense caramel and butterscotch tones. Roomano is suitable for grating as well as eating – pair this cheese with big reds or crisp, fruity whites or…with dark coffee and let it surprise your taste buds.

Epoisses is a cow’s milk cheese that hails from Burgundy and has been made in the small town of Epoisses since the late 1700s. In order to develop the characteristic dark orange rind, Epoisses is washed with brine for several weeks then finished with wine or brandy. In the Artisanal Premium Cheese caves, we continue the Affinage process, washing our Epoisses several times with Burgundy brandy. This extra washing deepends the flavors of the cheese and guarantees a spoonable, silky paste. One piece weighs approximately 10 ounces.”

Who wouldn’t respond to this sort of siren’s song, by the way? Cheese in all its glory written up by people who adore it and take the process very seriously!!! I was drawn in. So, I sat down last night to taste the cheese. I poured myself a glass of the Syrah you see in the picture. It was one of the “big reds” they had mentioned. I didn’t want to sully the flavor of the cheese with any other foodstuffs, so I just grabbed a few very plain crackers, the wine…and the cheese. I will now attempt to become the new writer for the marketing department by sharing my experiences with you in that sort of literary fashion.

La Peral – For those of you who enjoy eating blue cheese while listening to choirs of angels…try this cheese. It is bold, creamy, and truly heavenly. Its strong flavor is further enhanced by sturdy red wines tasting of shoe leather and musty library books. This cheese makes me want to play with my food…so I wouldn’t advise serving it to children, not if you’re trying to teach them suitable table manners, anyway. The Spanish Fromagers have outdone themselves with this delectable cheese. A definite winner! I will try this over a salad of pungent greens tonight, though it is great on its own.

(So, yeah, I’m still friends with the Spaniards. They make some damn fine cheese. I thoroughly enjoyed eating it, and am looking forward to more this evening. I love the Lopez Leon family and their Asturian caves of Cheese Whizzery, and I think my husband kind of likes me, since he sent this flavor to me. )

Roomano – This is quite possibly the best cheese on the planet, and while I may not be a Maitre Fromager, I knows me some good cheese! This, my friends, is the shit! It is a hard, crumbly, caramel hug for your mouth. The hearty red wines support and bring out the subtle nuances of what can only be called cheesy-goodness! This is a cheese I might even be willing to give up my cheese-slutdom to. I would become a one cheese woman for this stuff. I, like Sam-I-Am, would Seussically eat it in a box with a fox wearing sox! I want to hug the whole country of Holland for this cheese. Really! Get some! ‘Nuff said!

(Yeah, I’m not always overly subtle in my love of things. I’m kind of like a puppy with a new bone with this cheese. I could just lie out on the back deck in the sun and gnaw on a hunk of this cheese to happily pass an afternoon. Well worth the price…whatever it is! I can tell my husband loves me with this cheesy gift!)

Epoisses – I think I can only do this cheese justice by sharing a few of the quotes that my husband took down while I was Skyping with him this morning about my first solo cheese experience. Apparently, I said the following about the funky foot cheese from the horrible French devils:

Holy Shit!!!
It was like hazing.
I needed nearly the whole bottle of red wine to wash it down.
It was the baddest-assed brie I have ever met in my life.
I loved it – kind of like having a riding crop taken to my ass.
I’m going to take my Freedom Fries and go home.
I had to turn my head to eat it. (What then followed was a conversation about getting cheese in my ear.)
This is the French getting their revenge.
It smelled like French feet that have tromped through grapes, the cow pasture, and then, somehow, missed the bathtub.

And, last, but not least:

Even the cats wouldn’t eat it.

(I can’t really add a whole bunch to that other than to say that my friend Rich informed me he wouldn’t ruin any of the good beer he was drinking with ass cheese consumption. I think those French bastards sent cheese that was actually made in the 1700s, and, just for the record, any cheese that has to be washed with anything up to and including brandy has got to be some funky cheese. Yeaugh! Yup, that about sums it up. I hate the French, and my husband must hate me if he sent it to me.)

But, what is apparently comical to my love-bug is that after all of these verbal gyrations over Skype, he asked, “So, did you like it or not?”

My response, “Yeah, I loved it!”

And, really, I did.

It is just a cheese that I will have to choose to do battle with on my terms. I will not let it defeat me! And, I will only eat one bite at a time, no second bites without scrubbing my palate with Ajax first, cuz that flavor just builds and builds until it punches you square in the face.

Apparently, I likes me some feisty cheese.

So, to you good people, enjoy your cheeses from Holland and Spain, but be wary of the fromage from France. I think that whole country really is the Devil!



(Thanks, Baby! Love you! Love the cheese! Love, and yours for as long as you keep sending me cheese, Your Cheeseball of a Wife!)

Wish me luck, I'm heading downstairs to figure out how to duel with the funkiest of cheeses. Until next time,

Peace, love, and the mostest, funkiest, of fabulousest cheeses to you all!

Cheesy Poofs!!

So, lovely readers, how’s it hangin’? Hope all is well as you motor along through your deployment separations. Had to let y’all know that the hubby did something really cool the other day. He sent ME a care package! Now, how tremendous is that? Pretty damned AWESOME, is my answer!!

I know I’ve been chatting with all the Statesiders about how to make the deployment easier on your favorite deployers (sounds like somebody who has been “em-ployed” and now…isn’t – gotta love the English language sometimes!), but how about the flip side of that? In the vein of “what have you done for me lately?” it’s always nice to know that someone is thinking fondly of you. So why not send a little memento to your favorite Statesider once in a while? It really does make our days brighter, too, ya know.

It’s much easier than it used to be. If you are serving your country and want to send a gift back to a loved one, just to say, “I’m thinking of you,” you no longer have to capture your own silk worms, spin, weave, dye your own fabric, and then sew up a masterpiece. Whew! Sounds a little messy in the best of circumstances, and in the heat of the desert that my husband keeps referring to as the hair dryer, it would be made nearly impossible! Nor do you have to package up your favorite MREs and send them to us. (Thanks for thinking of us, and all…but you can keep those right where they are!) Also, we don’t really want your laundry…I’m just sayin’. But guess what, beautiful people?? There is a new-fangled device called a computer and it is hooked up to something dubbed “the internet” or “interweb” if you prefer. So, soldiers overseas, like that fantabulous husband of mine, can click a button, empty out their virtual wallet and send us…wait for it…



CHEESE!!! He sent me cheese that came directly out of the caves where it was being aged! I never thought I would say this next phrase in a public forum, but here goes nothing. “God Bless the French for their Cheese!!!!” I love cheese! Cheese makes me happy! Cheese makes the world go ‘round! Skip that, it’s not cheese, it’s a little temperature controlled slice of HEAVEN, people!!! It arrived at my doorstep better packed than the cats did (oh, yeah, did I tell you I signed up for a Cat-of-the-Month Club? :-> ) and once released from the packing material, the aroma of stinky cheese filled the house! Ah, life, what will you deliver next?

I’d love to say that’s enough waxing rhapsodic about cheese, but it just isn’t. That’s a state that can never be reached. So, I will pass the website of the cheesy goodness on to you, my wonderful friends, because I love you all so much. It’s www.ArtisanalCheese.com. You MUST check this website out! It has cheese wheels the likes of which I’d never dreamed, and people, I dream of multiple cheese wedges all the time. One is not enough for me. I’ll admit it - I am a cheese slut, in case that fact has escaped any of you. My love muffin does know the way to my heart; it apparently winds its way through caves in France where they store and age the most perfect manna in the world.

What’s cool about the website, other than the sheer variety of cheese, is that the cheese experts (man, I want that job!!) spend time extolling the virtues of mixing cheese with wine and beer. They even have something called a Cheese Clock – it takes the guesswork out of pairings for you. So, if you want to look like a wine and cheese snob at your next gathering…come on, you know ya do! Log on and check out their recommendations. They even have a discount for us military folk going right now.

So, to my adoring husband, thank you, I love the cheese! It is the perfect gift for a cheese-ball like me. Pat and Dani, you must check this website out. It’s like the coolest thing ever…and that’s how the cheese arrives, too – overnight and still “cave-cool” to the touch. To my favorite vegans, I love you and I’m sorry that I have to eat your portion of the cheese…well, mostly sorry, anyway. ;-> To Rich, I’m sure lots of these cheeses would pair nicely with the Vanilla Bean STOUT you texted me about from Ale Fest. And, to the rest of you who haven’t elevated cheese to the status I have, well…you suck! No, just kidding. What I meant to say was that I’m sure there are other items you can have delivered to your main squeeze that he or she will appreciate almost as much as I did the cheese. So, think about us once in a while, and we promise to do the same. And, really, it doesn’t have to be a gift, we like emails, too. Nice, sappy, ooeey-gooey, lovey-dovey emails. Nah, never mind, those would just make us wonder what you’d been up to…so, just tell us you like us once in a while.

And, Baby, finally, I don’t think the cheese will keep until your return, so I’m going to mix metaphors terribly, and jump on that grenade for you. (Groan!! I know, my jokes are still awful.) I’ll let you know how the selection is. I’m pairing it with a nice Chianti.

Lend a Hand

Okay, so the Four Month Deployment Drag has set in. And, on the deployment scale of suckage, it ranks around a 7 out of 10. Time has, indeed, become relative and droopy, barely slithering past. Every time you look at the calendar, you swear you see Dali’s The Persistence of Memory painting out of the corner of your eye. You and your love bug have been apart for over 100 days and it can really start to get frustrating. For the deployed members, the “this is new and cool” factor has started to wear thin and the gravity of some of the stuff they’re dealing with has really started to settle on their shoulders. For us Statesiders, the joy of eating nothing but Spaghettios for four weeks straight has also started to become bothersome, as well. Or, maybe it’s just the telling “Freshman Fifteen” that has begun to settle on our hips that causes us to take issue with the stupid military for separating us from our love muffins and chefs.

So…what should we do about it? Instead of bitching and complaining about something we can’t change, and probably something our partners are really enjoying most of the time, why not help someone else out? I just read an article in the Dallas Morning News about a man named Doc Compton who, after receiving some help around Christmas-time for his family a few years ago, decided to pay it forward, one dollar at a time. The article was interesting not because of great sums of money changing hands – after all, what can a dollar do? – but, because of the hope each dollar seemed to instill in the recipient. He put a dollar in each of 100 envelopes with a note that asks the recipient to keep it if they need it, but to add to it and pass it on if they don’t. Some kept it, as a harbinger for better times to come with the plan to add to it when they can, others immediately added what they could and found someone else to pass the envelope to. His hope is for “giving to go viral.” This is my way of trying to help.

What else can we do that doesn’t involve money? How about volunteering your time, skills, or energy for a cause? There are plenty of libraries who would love to have volunteers help with reshelving books or reading to children during Story Hour. I remember from my foray into elementary school teaching that many parents don’t even have five minutes a day to sit down and read to their child. Why not donate an hour or two a week and the dulcet tones of your voice to share a great classic like The Cat in The Hat with kids who would love it, and might just gain a life-long love of reading out of the deal? If you love books, pass it on!


Okay, so you get stage-fright of the highest order just thinking about speaking in front of people…let’s consider doing something that doesn’t really involve a whole lot of interpersonal contact. If you love gardening, like my Mom and Ashley do, and you find yourself at the end of the season faced with The Attack of the Gigantic Herd of Wild Zucchinis, perhaps you can donate some to families in need. Come on, you know when you put three plants in the ground at the beginning of the season, you will end up with a dump truck load of those bright green squash in September just mocking you. When you can hardly bear to look up yet another recipe for Zucchini Bread, Zucchini Casserole, Zucchini au gratin, or Ratatouille…and when your kids catch you grinding up a whole passel of the evil green things to hide in their spaghetti sauce, or hamburgers, or, god-forbid, their pancakes – just step away from the kitchen counter. Hands in the Air! Now, say it with me, “Donate the rest.” Good! You’ll be doing everyone a favor, and your kids will love you for it! And, if you really want to keep the face-to-face contact to just about nil, all you have to do is bring a bag of the three-foot-long mutants to work, sneak into the break room, and leave them there. Artfully arranged, of course! And, they will promptly disappear, taken by people like me who can’t even keep the grass alive. (Thank god the cats let me know periodically to feed them, or that wouldn’t be going nearly so well, either! Yes, Neekie, Mama’s almost done! And, no zucchini in your cat food, I promise. )

If you have more of a black thumb than a green one, maybe there are other skills you can share with people. There are plenty of artists among my readers, some of you are digital scrapbooking whizzes, some of you make really cool silver jewelry, some of you knit or crochet or sew…well, you get the idea. Why not throw an impromptu class at your home for friends, or contact the local art studio or fabric store and offer to teach a class there? They are often looking for instructors. You can share your ideas with a whole new group of people and I guarantee you, you’ll have a great time when the light bulb goes on in your students’ heads and the creativity just shines through them. It can be a pretty big high, let me tell you!

I’m sure you all have other ideas that will help to pass the deployment more quickly. And, never forget, in helping others, we help ourselves. So, let’s get over the Four Month Deployment Drag together and connect with someone. Giving to support a cause is great, and if part of that cause is you…then all the better!

Umm, anybody have any zucchini they want to donate to me? :-)

You Are Your Inbox

When you meet people, whether it’s other people from your military member’s squadron or if you’re spending time introducing yourself to your students – so they know what they’re getting themselves into – it can be tough to encapsulate personal information into small enough and interesting enough nuggets to leave your audience with a point. Hell, it can be hard to do in a blog, too! But, fear not my friends! I’ve found a place where all that work has been done for you. When your mate’s new squadron commander is dragged over to meet you and asks you the dreaded “Tell me about yourself,” you can just steal information from your email inbox instead of ummmming and errrring like a guppy yanked from the fishbowl.

Think about it; where else does such a microcosm of who you are as a person exist? Of course, those of you who are scrapbooking fiends are covered already. You have all kinds of ideas and pics stored at your fingertips. And, I enjoy looking at the ones my sister-in-law has put together digitally, as well as some of the books my friends create. I’m just not that organized, therefore, I’m reduced to scavenging though my own inbox instead. I spent a little time scanning through the entries prior to cleaning it out to see what I could learn about myself. Maybe you can do the same thing and see what surprises you.

First, I came across a story (a very LATE story) sent to me by one of my students. Keep in mind that I’m not even teaching this semester, but one of my former students had completed his assignment last year but neglected to turn it in. He thought I still might like to read it, so he sent it yesterday. Crazy kid!! But…it turns out he was right! The assignment had been to write a story about how you were going to defend yourself when the zombies come to take over the world. He decided to write the story from my point of view. He put me in my basement with my cats, my iPhone, loads of weapons, great costumes, vegetarian MREs, and my husband. The only ones who survive his story are me and my cats. (Sorry, Baby, apparently it came down to you or Zoe…but, I love you! :-> ) I laughed a lot as I read through this nutty tale, and then began to wonder WHAT I had told the class about myself for him to peg me as a gun-toting, iPhone clutching, cat-loving vegetarian who values Renaissance Festival clothing enough to drag it into the basement prior to the Zombie Apocalypse. How did he peg me so perfectly?

His story drove me to dig a little more deeply into my inbox to see what I could find. Hmm, twice a week I get an email from The Gun Source touting “Pistols and Carbines Starting at $149 – Tough, Reliable, Affordable!” and “Smith and Wesson Tactical Pens Are Back! – Now Available in Three Different Colors!” Okay, I’ll admit it; I looked up info on their Tactical Pens…and for 24.95 I may have to get one in every color! (I don’t want them to clash with my outfits!) I also found the instructions from my hubby’s twin on how to take the Kevlar he sent me and turn it into a bullet-proof vest of sorts. (The family that shoots together wears Kevlar together?) So, yes, score one for my student and his terribly tardy story. He got the gun-toting part right, as supported by my inbox.

What else does my inbox say about me? It does, indeed, contain multiple emails on the new iPhone apps I can download at my convenience. There’s a wine tasting application that my friend Drew sent me that will come in very handy when I can figure out how to download it by myself. It’s not that it’s very difficult…I just don’t remember the password to get into the Apple store online. Sigh…perhaps my student should also have put a computer and a baseball bat in the basement with me in his tale of the Apocalypse. I‘m sure I would have spent a lot of my free time practicing my swing on the computer. Literally! (I thought computers were going to be a fad that fades away, people!!) So, iPhones and their ilk permeate my inbox, too. Score another one for my student’s overdue yarn.


I’m almost afraid to dig more deeply into my psyche as supported by the inbox. But…let’s just see how many pictures of cats, mine or otherwise, are sitting there…with their cute little noses and scruffy little bellies! Ah, distracted by cats, yet again. Welcome to my brain, folks! Okay, on May 15th alone, I have nine pictures of Lucky that I sent to myself from my iPhone camera. Lucky in my luggage, Lucky in a drawer, Lucky in a box, Lucky in the cabinet, well, you get the idea. Lucky is in my life. And, I wouldn’t change a thing. He’d be great in a zombie attack, too. He’s quicker than the other two because he’s about ten pounds lighter than Zoe and ten years younger than Neekie. So, yup, my student gets that one right, too. Cats in my inbox, cats in my brain, sometimes I even find cats in my pants…don’t ask! (And, too funny, as I finished re-reading this paragraph, he hopped up into my lap. And, I just took another photo, with my iPhone camera, and mailed it to – you guessed it – my inbox! And, people think I make this stuff up!!) Maybe there is a twelve step program for people like me. Hi, my name is Kristen, and I’m a Cat Lady. Actually, never mind! I hope there isn’t. I’d rather not be cured, thanks. So, yes, cats everywhere, check!

Here we go, back to plumbing the depths of the inbox. Once a week I receive an email from the Food Network detailing all the vegetarian recipes they have added. I think I have as many cans of beans in my pantry as I have pictures of cats in my inbox. So, any excuse to do something new with them is a great thing in my world. I also found the directions to a diner around here that makes their own vegetarian green chile that I’m sending by the twelve-pack overseas right now. There are also periodic messages from a magazine I get called Vegetarian Times. Damn, I’m getting the impression that my inbox knows more about me than I do! I’ve always been a little afraid of Big Brother…and I think it might just have become a reality. I’ll ask my inbox, it seems to know everything else about me.

Of course, it also is filled with notes from friends checking in on me during the deployment, love notes from the husband, great stories from my parents who are gallivanting around Mexico right now, and requests for letters of recommendation, from students, even tardy ones. And, even though his story is about a year late, I think I’ll write him the letter he asked for. Anytime you can make me laugh, I’m willing to go the extra mile for you!

So, if you’re looking for a quick answer to the question, “Who Are You?” You might just spend a few minutes digging through your inbox to see what you can reveal about yourselves. I found a cache of guns, a stack of vegetarian recipes, a passel of cats, and more friends than I can count on all of my digits. I’m pretty happy about all I discovered. To all of you who send me kind messages: Thanks for joining my inbox! You’re in good company!!

The Proposal...I don't think they'll make a movie out of it anytime soon!

I told you all earlier about our "Origins" and how we got started as a couple, and I promised to tell you the proposal story. So…here goes…We are definitely a non-traditional duo in many ways. It started out like that and we’ve never seen any reason to change it. I still like mowing the lawn and he enjoys cooking. I'm the race-car driver, he's the commuter. And, I asked him out on our first date…well, specifically, I invited myself over to his place to have him cook something for me. Being a tad forward, and finally stumbling on the dude I had been waiting all my life for, I asked what he was cooking for me the following Friday night. Turns out it was Tequila Lime Chicken and some wine his friend had given him called Panty Dropper Red. Good choice!

His apartment was on the second floor with the stairs on the outside of the building. As visitors walked up the steps, they got a full view of the chef in the kitchen. That night he was wearing an apron and steaming the rice as I arrived. His smart-alec comment as I arrived and told him how wonderful everything smelled was that he’d make someone a great wife some day. He said he also expected a ring and for the suitor to get down on one knee and propose properly. Suffice it to say, I filed that away for later use. Poor guy! He didn’t know he’d been had! Yet.

After dating for a while, I decided that I wasn’t going to let this one get away, and though we had talked about marriage and figured we’d eventually get hitched, it remained kind of nebulous for a few months. So...I hatched a plan. The great thing about moving so much with the military is that you can discover all sorts of events in places you’d never think to unearth them. Like a Highland Games festival in Albuquerque of all places, for example. Of course, any event sponsored by Guinness was a shoo-in for us. Duh! Cheap, GOOD beer in the land of green chile? Yeah, we’re there! Guys running around in kilts and caber tosses (people, they throw telephone poles while wearing skirts with nary a bit of private part exposure…it’s pretty amazing! I still don’t know what they wear under those kilts, by the way.) were a bonus, as well. The Celtic music and dancing was fantastic, as were all the booths selling family crests, tartans, kilts, and jewelry.

The love-bug and I found some really cool gold rings with Celtic knots and animals on them. There was a particularly interesting one that caught his eye; it was a band with dragons wrapped around it, each one devouring the next. (Yeah, really romantic, I know! Right? Remember, non-traditional! He probably needed the masculinity of the dragons to combat the fact that he would be referred to as a “love-bug” in the future! :->) He said that if he ever got a wedding ring, he would want it to look like that…so after he walked away, I ordered one for him. I hoped to get it before his birthday and was going to propose to him then. Easy, breezy!!



Then…the gravity of what I was about to do set in. Not the marriage. Y’all, I’ve done that a few times before. I’m a pro at that!! Even the wedding wasn’t an issue in my mind, no stress there. But, the proposal?? Yikes! What if he said no? I know we’d already talked about getting married, but what if on that day, when I got down on one knee, he laughed? Or said, “nah, not ready yet, but thanks for asking! Want some more chicken?” Yaaaaugh!! I was a wreck the whole week leading up to his birthday. The woman who was working on the ring had been in touch and said she’d try to get it Fed-Exed to me before his birthday, but wasn’t positive it would make it. This, of course, added to my full-blown panic.

I am at least well enough acquainted with myself to know that when I freak out, the gift of gab just up and leaves me. (And, sometimes I turn in a circle, inadvertently, while my left arm flaps around as if groundless -- don’t ask!) So, I wrote out what I wanted to say, in lime green ink, of course, so I could just hand it to him with the ring, in case I couldn’t remember my name or why I was there…who are you again? Anyway, back to our heroine…

I was disappointed that the ring hadn’t arrived by the morning of his birthday and decided to wait until it did, giving me some measure of relief. I could put my panic on the back-burner and enjoy his birthday with him. As luck would have it, Fed Ex does run on federal holidays (I know, who gets their birthday named a national holiday, anyway?), but I didn’t know it. When the doorbell rang, he grabbed it while I made the bed. He walked into the bedroom, said in an offhand way, “Hmm, feels like a ring box,” and tossed it to me. Very suavely, I hurled it over my shoulder into the closet and in a voice pitched so high that only the dogs in the complex could hear it said, “What ring box?” Looking confused, he wandered out to make brunch for us. A little uncouth, making him cook for himself on his birthday I know, but we both decided it was better than the alternative…which was ME lighting something on fire for him and calling it toast. But, believe me, having him cook his own lunch on his birthday was the least of my worries at that moment.

In my head, the proposal played out beautifully: I would don a fantastically sexy dress, one he’d always remember, wear high heels that I wouldn't tumble off of, I would open the package, retrieve the ring box, get down on one knee and read him this wonderfully crafted proposal before we sat down to omelets and hash browns. Beautiful, huh? Well, an Idaho girl must have her potatoes, people!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, what actually happened was this: I was still wearing my pajamas, trying to recover what shred of pride I had left after flinging the package over my head, patting down my bed-head-from-hell, and having to ask for a knife to get the stupid package open…my fingers were shaking so badly I’m lucky I didn’t cut myself. Puzzled, he walked into the bedroom to hand me the knife and asked me what was up. From the middle of the bed, I screwed up my courage, shoved the package and the mangled, sweaty proposal note in his general direction and curled into the fetal position with an audible EEEEP! (It was sort of the same as being on one knee. Right? I just happened to be on both knees, hyperventilating!)

The nicest thing he EVER did was to pick up the note, and without reading it, said, “First -- Yes. Second -- You’re a doof!” Then he hugged me. I started sucking in huge draughts of air at that point. When the pounding of my heart quieted some, I figured out he had accepted my proposal! WHEW! He helped me open the package (stupid shaky fingers, you failed me again!!) and we read the proposal together after I had put the ring on his finger. I initially tried to put it on the wrong hand…but, forgive me, people, it was confusing…there were two hands there, I panicked! Too many choices!! Holy Crap, who knew there could be so much adrenaline involved in a proposal?? Pant, pant, pant!!

To my credit, I had written out the proposal earlier, when I had some semblance of a silver tongue left in my head. And, because of our first date, I ended it with the words: Will you be my wife?

He said yes.

So, every time he jokingly introduces me in this way: “This is my first wife, Kristen.” I will be able to do the same, because, though he isn’t my first spousal unit, he is, indeed, my first wife.

And, though I have since figured out that I’ll never be able to make any money standing on the corner of Suave and Debonair, I am happy to report that I earned some style points for effort (and calories burned in fear) for that proposal. The best part is that all through the deployment, all he needs to do is look at his ring to remember who his favorite doofus is. That market, I DO have cornered!

Peace, love, and crazy proposals to you all!

Care Packages

One of the jobs of the Statesiders (thank you, Shannon!) is to keep our military members in whatever goods they are craving while overseas. As I discovered while in Ohio, there is just no living without Taco John's Potato Ole's, oh, those golden nuggets of deliciousness make life worth living!!! But, I digress... The U.S. Postal Service has made shipping care packages easier than ever with the flat rate boxes. You can ship anything that will fit into the boxes, within a weight limit, for a very reasonable price. So, there should be no excuse keeping us from alleviating the specific yearnings of our partners. Now, I’ve been married to mine long enough to know that I should wait for him to ask for something he’d like, or make gentle suggestions about things I think he might like versus sending a surprise package. He’s of the ilk that tends to buy his own birthday and Christmas presents…sigh! I think I am finally getting used to it.

Food is something that I think most of our loved ones have to “deal with” while deployed. It’s not that the DFACs (Dining Facilities…apparently the use of the word Mess Halls and Chow Halls offends the Services’ professionals these) don’t do a good job keeping our lovers in calories. Even our vegans won’t starve to death over in the desert. These DFACs even try to vary the menu on occasion, and I can’t imagine having to feed that many people, let alone the morass of growing 18 year-old males currently stumping about in the sand. I’m sure it’s an overwhelming task. (They’re lucky I’m not in charge. I don’t cook much and view a slice of American cheese melted over a bowl of Spaghettios, with calcium, mind you, to be a gourmand’s delight! They say an Army fights on its stomach...if I were in charge, there might be a revolt!) All that being said, sending some treats to the troops you know and love will probably be appreciated.

Tailoring your gifts to the palate of your giftee would be helpful, too. I have a girlfriend flying helicopters abroad, who is a vegan, and she might not appreciate actual beef jerky, but the Tofurkey jerky I found at Whole Foods may be something she can add to her slim-pickin’s of culinary choice at the moment. (No matter how well-intentioned, dead-animal for any of us vegan/vegetarian types would just be wasted.) Now, my husband would happily eat either kind of jerky, though he prefers the stuff his dad makes, but his requests to me usually revolve around hot sauce. You’d be amazed at how many plastic bottles of the Siracha, or Red Rooster sauce, you can fit in one of the flat rate boxes. I think he actually puts a bottle in his ABU pocket and carries it to the DFAC every day at lunch. (Okay, I have to say it: Is that a bottle of Siracha, or are you happy to see me? I warned y’all early on that my jokes are terrible!!) I did find some vegetarian green chili sauce that I sent to both of them as well…which leads me to my possible oops.

I think I have mixed up the care packages. So, we come to my bit of deployment advice for the day: People, pay close attention when you are mailing two boxes that look exactly alike if you haven’t already scribbled the address onto said boxes, or you may end up with a husband wandering around a war zone smelling like fruity Italian grape soap and Coconut/Mango shampoo while wearing a lovely, multi-colored leopard print tank top. I do think the colors will really bring out the green in his eyes, though. Baby, you may end up fending off quite a few suitors. I think the Army personnel are fond of green, aren’t they? And, sadly, my vegan-chica may be reduced to chewing on the plastic around the dead-animal jerky while reading through copious amounts of dreamy-love-muffin stuff I’ve written to my husband. Hmm, I suppose it could be worse…I could have sent them the wrong cats.

“It’s okay, Lucky! She’s a cat-mama, too. She thinks you’re a “good kitty,” even when you’re stealing your sister’s food. Your favorite auntie will take care of you, and you might even get a ride in a helicopter! Zoe added extra stamps to the box…just so you won’t be returned to sender anytime soon!”

Anyway, take care of yourselves, take care of your partners, and be on the lookout for boxes with air holes poked in the sides. I’m missing a few felines and fear the worst! :->

Peace, love, and hot sauce!

Hello Wonderful People!

I’ve returned from a trip to a Wine Tasting Festival in Durango and would recommend it for everyone next year. Though they refer to it as a Wine Experience, they aren’t actually as “Aspenized” as I had feared they might be. Everyone in town was really friendly and fun to be around. The wine, of course, was fabulous and the food fantastic, even for vegetarians.

While on the trip back, I got to thinking about change and began crafting a great blog post regarding how to deal with the pluses and minuses of change due to deployments. My friends, fair warning: this is NOT that blog. :-) I got tied up thinking about how to refer to those of us who are the mates of the deployed military members. I wanted to refer to the two groups separately and “Military Members” works fantastically for them. But, how the hell do we want to be referred to? If you’re at all like me, and I’m hoping that’s not too much of a curse, you hate the word dependent, too. Ugh! Dependable, sure, we take care of the stuff when the military member is away, but dependent, no way! Sounds like we’re just appendages to the chick or dude in uniform, right? So, I’m the right leg to his torso? Weird. I’m the pinky to his thumb. Closer, but…no. Ah, I’m the middle finger to his right hand. Yeah, that sounds more like me. So, as a group, we flip off the system. I think I might come back to that one.

So, then there is the other military standard: spouse. I’m sorry, but the word itself just sounds gross. It sounds like some kind of bird…the woodland spouse. See what I mean? It also makes me think of exotic diseases you might pick up in a swampy part of the world. “Pardon me, doc, but I think I may have contracted a killer case of the grungy green spouse. Do you have anything for it that doesn’t involve lopping off my middle finger?” Eeep! So…that word is out, too.

Next would be mate. While perfect when used by hot Aussies, it doesn’t work as well in my day-to-day writing. I may be my husband’s mate, but when I switch to the verb and not the noun, all I can think about is nature’s act of offspring creation. Ick! And, since some of us are opposed, on principle, to generating progeny, that word doesn’t work either. (Don’t get me wrong, the hubby has been gone for four months, so ALL I think about right now is “practicing” to make babies when he gets back. We just don’t want the actual baby at the end of the tunnel. Yikes, now there’s a weird metaphor!)

So, my quest right now is to find a suitable word that all of us “state-side stay-ers” would be happy to call ourselves…then I would be able to finish my other blog post, and you could all ignore the crazy that is Kristen. I think we should try out some of the words that mean – to support. Isn’t that how you see it, too? We support the cause by being here, taking care of business, and trying to remain sane on behalf of the military member. Okay, we’ll go with that.

Oh crap! I’ve just seen the error of my ways. Follow me here. If we’re the “support group” then we become the jockstrap to the member…umm, oddly, I have been called worse, but I’m not so sure the rest of you deserve that particular moniker. Of course, the more I think about it, the funnier it gets. Imagine the squadron gift we would all get as our military member PCS’s next time. :-) And, what would the plural of jockstraps be, if that’s what we decide to call ourselves? A flock, a horde, a wing-ding, a mob? I like that! We could be the mob of jockstraps that supports the war effort. And, in the interest of gender equality, we must also support our female military members, right? So, next we become the brassieres to the boob carriers? Or is it bomb carriers? Crap, now I’m confused! The plural of our bra community options: a throng, a jamboree, a fete, a bevy? Yes, that’s it! A bevy of bras!! Wait, no, no, no, no!!! That can’t be right. There are those of you out there, those of you with class (who, if you know what’s good for you, long ago stopped reading my blog!), who would be horrified to be known as a card-carrying member of the bra and jockstrap support group. I can’t, in good conscience, refer to you in that manner. But, that does mean you’ll need to get involved!

Okay, what do you want to be called? Help me out here! I have a friend who tried to lend a hand and he came up with “Princess” for me, and for you male supporting members, “Prince.” I do sort of like that, and you can be damn sure that I have a tiara for the occasion, but I am still stuck in a vision of bevies, brassieres, and balls!! SOS!!! 911!!! Please send aid! The woodland spouse is readying for an attack!

Peace, love, and over the shoulder boulder holders to you all!

New Digs

I’ve been promising to post pics of my new living room makeover.

First, a piece of advice: grab your sunglasses, or else your retinas may be singed.

:->

Ready?

Okay, (wow, that hearkens back to my cheerleading days of yore…anyway!) keep in mind that the lovely orange wall color that I showed you in one of my first blogs was in a home we owned. As we do not own this one, I left the walls alone. (Though I’m still undecided on painting all the doors. I think it would look cool.) I decided, instead, to give myself a budget of two hundred dollars and make over the living/dining room and the kitchen, if I had any money left. With some great sales (I’ve learned that shopping while the honey is deployed can be fun. He’s not around to say, “purple and orange…what are you thinking?!) I was able to stay on my budget and ended up recovering nearly anything that wasn’t tied down.



Yes, the kitties were worried. They thought we might be moving again. Even after their cat tube remained safely ensconced in the basement, I still don’t know that they liked my choice in spring color palette. I was going for bright floral colors…as I can barely keep perennials alive and need, therefore, to have my flowers fake and fabric. I wanted purple and orange, with green and black - green to represent the leaves and stems and black for my black thumb. No, just kidding, I needed the black to keep the bright colors from taking over everything. I based a lot of what I did on an orange trench coat that the hubby brought back from England for me last year. He's got great taste in clothes and I thought it would make a great jumping off point for the color scheme.




I decided to make the pillows reversible, so I can just flip them from stripes or flowers to a solid color. I’m really happy with it. The dopamine is coursing through my system. And, my husband, to his credit, just tends to shrug. (Especially after I told him that I kept the old, darker, more sedate pillow covers.) A friend of ours’ did ask what the love-of-my-life would think. Um, did I say he wouldn’t be home for a while, and I’m the Libra in the family? Besides, even if he hates it, he can just delete the photos I sent him. See? It’s a win-win situation!!!





I have a dress-maker's dummy in the living room and I tend to dress her in a complementary color to the rest of the room. I thought she turned out really well. And, that part of the makeover was free, as I just pillaged my own closets. Besides, I can't just keep the scarf and fuschia coat hidden, now can I? Everyone should get to enjoy them!



I also have a couple of belly-dance hip scarves. I pulled those out and added them to the color explosion. Zoe and I are both fans. The boys just try to eat the coins. Sigh...



There are still a few dark colors left in the room. But not many. :-) Most of them are in the form of Zoe, the grey one, or the black parts of Neekie. Lucky is still the color of sunshine and fits right in. He's well-camoflaged now and I think he enjoys hiding in plain sight to stalk his sister. (He's currently sitting in her patch of sunlight, blocking it...just because he's her little brother! Boys!!)



I was chatting with that cute husband of mine the other day and he reminded me that when I first moved in with him about eight years ago, he made an observation. He got up, opened the closet to remove his uniform for work, and told me that he now had a closet that looked like a clown had exploded in it. Well, Baby, you now have a whole bottom floor that would feel like home to the trapeze artists from Ringling Bros. Circus. And, I would love to say that the cats like it too...

but I think they're just keeping their eyes closed more often than before.




Maybe the husband will have to do the same when he returns. But, as for me, I'm now deeply involved in making some new art for the walls. I scared the guy at Home Depot when I told him about it. When I get done with the blow-torch, I'll post pictures!!! And, that, of course, is another great piece of deployment survival advice: use fire!! It makes the deployment go by much faster. (Along with the fringe benefit of your neighbors leaving you alone! Crazy lady with torch! Check!)

Peace, love, and blindingly bright living rooms to you all!