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My wildly entertaining letters to my son and other American Soldiers suffering in Iraq and elsewhere...posted in no particular chronological order.
Monday, November 24, 2003
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Dear 101st Airborne Guys,
I’ve been worrying about you guys lately. Are you eating enough? Are you warm enough? Are you taking vitamin supplements? (Well, don’t! I read that those vitamin supplements can actually damage your liver.) Eat a wide variety of fresh foods and you won’t need any vitamin supplements. Avoid anything “lite” or “low-fat.” It’s fake food. Eat only real food. Don’t overdo it on the exercise, either. Exercise is good, but too much activity makes you crazy. It is very important to sit around staring into space for at least 30 minutes a day. Trust me on that.
However, it is possible to become addicted to sitting around staring into space. This is especially true if you have lots of interesting and entertaining thoughts, like I do. I’ve noticed lately that it takes me two days to do one load of laundry. I tend to get very busy sitting around thinking. I just ignore the dryer buzzer. I figure it will still be there tomorrow. The next day I have to turn the dryer back on to “freshen up” the dried clothing. That gives me 30 minutes of freedom to think or read. Eventually guilt and self-loathing drive me to get the damned laundry out of the dryer and into my family’s dresser drawers, but I take my sweet time about it. It’s a good thing I have a part-time job. Else I might not complete a single meaningful activity in any given 24 hour period.
I am so lazy I gave away Dylan’s 20 gallon fish tank yesterday because I didn’t want to clean it out. (Well, Dylan wasn’t cleaning it either!) I told some guy he could have the whole system if he would come over and get it. He thought he would be picking up an empty tank. HA! He had to siphon out the water, disconnect everything, and haul it out of Dylan’s room with no assistance from me whatsoever. Hey, it was free, right? Guppies and algae-eater included!
It’s not that I’m totally comatose or anything. I go to work every day, and I never call in sick. I am very active in the PTO, I volunteer at school every week, and I keep a clean house. I just like to do things in stages. Today I vacuumed all the floors. Tomorrow, after Chess Club, I will wash the kitchen floor and clean the bathrooms. Friday I will dust and wash windows. And, obviously, I do some portion of laundry every single day. (Today I moved the washed clothes from yesterday into the dryer. Tomorrow I’ll be forced to take them out of there and make room for the next load. It never freaking ends!)
What do you want Santa (me) to send you for Christmas? From what I hear it is getting cold over there. Maybe you need some long underwear or a heating pad, or some insulated boot liners. I was leafing through the Spiegel catalog the other day and saw something I would LOVE to send you guys: an electric fake fireplace. The ones they have now are very realistic and quite attractive. I wish I had an extra $500 to buy one for you. I think it would be so great if you could hang your stockings in front of a realistic looking fake fireplace! But the shipping would cost as much as the fireplace, and my husband is no way going to give me $1,000 to spend on fake fireplaces this year. He claims we are broke, due to our recent basement remodeling project.
So, since I cannot send a fake fireplace, you’re going to have to fashion one yourselves from items you might find lying about the Iraqi landscape. If you can lay your hands on some concrete blocks and a large wood plank, that’s really all you need. Stack the concrete blocks in a fireplace shape against an outside wall and put the wood plank on top as a mantle. If you can manage to paint the concrete blocks red, that would be even better. Lay a few logs in a nice stack inside and cut some “flames” out of colored paper. (I will include a few sheets for your convenience.) Voila! Instant fake fireplace! Now you can hang your stockings with pride and be the envy of your barracks neighbors. I think the fake fireplace idea would be a real morale-booster for everyone involved.
Let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like Santa to bring to you this Christmas. Otherwise, I’ll just guess.
Much love and upcoming holiday cheer,
--An Army Mom
Dear 101st Airborne Guys,
I’ve been worrying about you guys lately. Are you eating enough? Are you warm enough? Are you taking vitamin supplements? (Well, don’t! I read that those vitamin supplements can actually damage your liver.) Eat a wide variety of fresh foods and you won’t need any vitamin supplements. Avoid anything “lite” or “low-fat.” It’s fake food. Eat only real food. Don’t overdo it on the exercise, either. Exercise is good, but too much activity makes you crazy. It is very important to sit around staring into space for at least 30 minutes a day. Trust me on that.
However, it is possible to become addicted to sitting around staring into space. This is especially true if you have lots of interesting and entertaining thoughts, like I do. I’ve noticed lately that it takes me two days to do one load of laundry. I tend to get very busy sitting around thinking. I just ignore the dryer buzzer. I figure it will still be there tomorrow. The next day I have to turn the dryer back on to “freshen up” the dried clothing. That gives me 30 minutes of freedom to think or read. Eventually guilt and self-loathing drive me to get the damned laundry out of the dryer and into my family’s dresser drawers, but I take my sweet time about it. It’s a good thing I have a part-time job. Else I might not complete a single meaningful activity in any given 24 hour period.
I am so lazy I gave away Dylan’s 20 gallon fish tank yesterday because I didn’t want to clean it out. (Well, Dylan wasn’t cleaning it either!) I told some guy he could have the whole system if he would come over and get it. He thought he would be picking up an empty tank. HA! He had to siphon out the water, disconnect everything, and haul it out of Dylan’s room with no assistance from me whatsoever. Hey, it was free, right? Guppies and algae-eater included!
It’s not that I’m totally comatose or anything. I go to work every day, and I never call in sick. I am very active in the PTO, I volunteer at school every week, and I keep a clean house. I just like to do things in stages. Today I vacuumed all the floors. Tomorrow, after Chess Club, I will wash the kitchen floor and clean the bathrooms. Friday I will dust and wash windows. And, obviously, I do some portion of laundry every single day. (Today I moved the washed clothes from yesterday into the dryer. Tomorrow I’ll be forced to take them out of there and make room for the next load. It never freaking ends!)
What do you want Santa (me) to send you for Christmas? From what I hear it is getting cold over there. Maybe you need some long underwear or a heating pad, or some insulated boot liners. I was leafing through the Spiegel catalog the other day and saw something I would LOVE to send you guys: an electric fake fireplace. The ones they have now are very realistic and quite attractive. I wish I had an extra $500 to buy one for you. I think it would be so great if you could hang your stockings in front of a realistic looking fake fireplace! But the shipping would cost as much as the fireplace, and my husband is no way going to give me $1,000 to spend on fake fireplaces this year. He claims we are broke, due to our recent basement remodeling project.
So, since I cannot send a fake fireplace, you’re going to have to fashion one yourselves from items you might find lying about the Iraqi landscape. If you can lay your hands on some concrete blocks and a large wood plank, that’s really all you need. Stack the concrete blocks in a fireplace shape against an outside wall and put the wood plank on top as a mantle. If you can manage to paint the concrete blocks red, that would be even better. Lay a few logs in a nice stack inside and cut some “flames” out of colored paper. (I will include a few sheets for your convenience.) Voila! Instant fake fireplace! Now you can hang your stockings with pride and be the envy of your barracks neighbors. I think the fake fireplace idea would be a real morale-booster for everyone involved.
Let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like Santa to bring to you this Christmas. Otherwise, I’ll just guess.
Much love and upcoming holiday cheer,
--An Army Mom
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