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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.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Dear Rob,

I feel kind of sorry for Jessica Lynch. Not just because she got ambushed and run over by a truck, although getting ambushed and run over by trucks is on nobody’s list of fun things to do in the desert. Still, it might be even worse having everyone call you a war hero when you know full well you’re just not very good at following directions. And what can she do about it now? When she tells Larry King she’s not the hero of her story, he just chuckles knowingly into the camera as if to say, “Look at that, America. Isn’t she just the cutest little war hero you ever saw?”

I mean, think about it. What can you do if nobody will believe you when you tell them you’re not that great?

Personally, I’ve never had that problem. People tend to agree with me when I make self-deprecating remarks. Just the other day I was in the dressing room at Kohl’s department store trying on a pair of Capri pants and I asked a fellow shopper if they made my legs look too skinny. She looked me over and said, “I really don’t think its because of the pants.”
I politely refrained from saying, “Oh yeah? Well that skirt you’ve got on makes your ass look like an industrial concrete mixer.”

The point here is not so much that transparently envious fat women are allowed to hurt my feelings in Kohl’s dressing rooms, but that people watching Larry King Live would believe me if I denied being a hero. If I were a guest on Larry King Live people would probably call in to ask just who the hell I think I am.

Unlike me, poor Jessica Lynch is unable to convince people she’s an incompetent troublemaker. It’s a catch-22 situation. If she goes on TV and tells everyone she’s not the hero she’s cracked up to be, they think she’s just trying to look modest. And what’s she doing going on Larry King Live if she doesn’t think she deserves the attention? On the other hand, saying nothing is liable to get her accused of not wanting to tell the true story. Her fellow soldiers would think she doesn’t want to give any credit to the actual heroes who rescued her. She’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

If you ask me, Jessica’s dilemma is mostly due to her photogenic cuteness. Larry King probably wouldn’t have given her the time of day if she’d been an ugly jarheaded guy with missing teeth. Also, she’s much too sweet for her own good. It’s hard to convince people not to like you while being nice, cute and polite. Thus, my advice to Jessica Lynch is that she should arrange to have a disfiguring accident during the commission of a heinous crime of some sort. Perhaps she could get her nose bitten off by a pit bull while attempting to burglarize an orphanage.



Speaking of heroic deeds, Rudy just left to take Dylan shopping for an archery bow. Taking Dylan into a sporting goods store is somewhat like taking a gay priest into a strip club: he’s not likely to be interested in the merchandise. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sneaks away to hang out at the bookstore or the arcade until Rudy’s done selecting an appropriate weapon for him.

Rudy, however, has decided that he can convey his great love of archery to the next generation. The fact that last Saturday was the first time Rudy’s gone to the archery range in three years is irrelevant and in no way indicates a lack of dedication to his chosen form of outdoor recreation. On the way out the door Dylan gave me a beseeching look of sheer desperation, a look that said, “Please don’t make me go to the sports store with a geeky archery fanatic!” I shot back a look of my own, “Sorry, kid. Nothing I can do.”

Much Love,
--Mom

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Dear Army Guys,

Yesterday morning I stood in the doorway of Dylan’s room and asked him point blank if he’s the laziest person in the world. He considered the question for a moment and then replied,
“No, cuz there’s Charles. Charles doesn’t even get up until, like, nine o-clock in the morning.”
Charles, whom Dylan had just thrown under the parental comparison bus, happened to be standing right behind me at that moment, fully dressed and ready to begin a new day.
The two of us watched Dylan swing his skinny untanned legs out of bed and, sticking his hand down the front of his droopy boxer shorts, stumble off to pour himself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
I glanced at my watch. 10:35 AM. ‘Nuff said.

I, on the other hand, am a virtual dynamo of activity. Despite what you may have heard from our neighbors, I do NOT lounge around in a lawn chair all day reading books and smoking cigarettes. True, my activity has been somewhat limited this week, but I require several cups of coffee a couple of times during the day and coffee must be brewed by someone. Due to our unfortunate lack of household servants, that someone is me. I am also compelled to empty the ashtray regularly, and biology forces me to occasionally visit the bathroom and/or forage for food.

Much like the pesky requirement of sleep, the whole food thing sometimes seems outrageously inconvenient to me. Personally, I could live without it if only I could live without it. Eating is a nuisance, an intrusion, a messy way to spoil both a nice clean kitchen and the attitude of relaxed indifference I’m trying to enjoy this week. Dylan’s laziness is obviously haphazard and dysfunctional, whereas mine is cultivated and purposeful. Setting out to do nothing all day as a sort of mission in life is much different than accidentally blundering into it. Dylan’s laziness is a by-product of his disorganized lifestyle and lack of character development. Mine is a pure and noble experiment in nihilism.

Yet both Dylan and Rudy insist upon being fed, as if I’ve got nothing better to do than provide them with steaming plates of thoughtfully prepared menu items with which to accompany their compulsively scheduled 6 PM viewing of CSI re-runs on Spike TV.
Perhaps I encouraged them to believe meals would be served on a regular basis during the school year, but what part of “SUMMER VACATION” are these two selfish gluttons failing to grasp? Honestly, it boggles the mind.

Here’s the typical scenario: Rudy comes home from his not particularly stressful, and not at all physically demanding, workday at 4:00 PM. (Can you BELIEVE that? Shouldn’t he be required to stay at work until at least 5:30? How the heck am I supposed to read an entire novel AND make the beds by 4:00 PM? It’s outrageous.) This week I’ve taken to tossing a pile of the laundry I’ve repeatedly tumbled around in the dryer on and off all day onto the bed at about 3:55. The sound of the garage door opening is my cue to begin folding it so as to appear to be doing something constructive.

We exchange those inane “how was your day” comments, whereupon I am then freed by his daily exercise regimen to continue my own activities which, unlike his, do not require a change of clothing or the ridiculous pretense of physical fitness. At 5:30 PM he emerges from the Solo-Flex area of the basement and goes back upstairs to take a shower.

Dylan takes this as his cue to come out of his room and, for the first time that day, engage in meaningful dialogue with me, his mother. His repertoire is brief and does not include discussions of any of the many things he might’ve been pondering all day as he sat, unclothed and virtually catatonic, in front of a glowing video screen. His daily script is well-rehearsed and unchanging in its laconic delivery. He says, “What’s for dinner?” He says this as if dinner is one of those things that, like mail or Jehovah’s Witnesses, just show up at your house with no effort on the part of any member of the family. Rudy then strolls casually into the kitchen with a look of expectation and faint eagerness on his fatuously innocent face.

I am then expected to produce, out of thin air, fully cooked nutritious meals for these people, these parasites who call themselves my family. Usually I prepare myself for their demands by actually cooking something, but sometimes I’m caught off guard and have to improvise by throwing a few scraps of moldy bread and a bottle of ketchup on the table. On those occasions I like to remind them that I, too, have a life you know.
There’s something about the way their eyes meet then and quickly glance away that causes me to doubt they believe me.

Well never mind, because next week I will impress the hell out of both of them by energetically engaging in my planned BIG GARDENING WEEK production. Much like BIG CLEANING WEEK, my BIG GARDENING WEEK will be something to behold. I plan to tear up and replace entire sections of our faulty landscaping. I will perform high-flying feats of gardening that only the professionals on HGTV would dare attempt without a net. Sweat will drip from my forehead and various rashes of unknown botanical origins will break out on my arms and legs. Nobody will have the nerve to ask me for food at the end of my hardworking days as a filthy grubber of soil and compost, that’s for sure.

Much Love,

--An Army Mom

Monday, June 13, 2005

(photo of stupid bird in
hanging flower basket
on our front porch)

Wednesday, June 8, 2005


Dear Army Guys,

Can you believe this stupid mourning dove is living in a hanging flower basket? It moved in about a week after I hung the basket; didn’t even bother to fake like it built a nest. Just plopped down and promptly laid two cute little eggs. Now it sits in there 24/7 and only flies away if I aggressively wave my arms around while shouting, “Fly away, stupid bird, I have to water the flowers!” It actually looks like a pretty comfy spot until the wind kicks up. On windy days the basket spins around wildly and the bird looks a little more confused than usual.

Rudy suggested we could easily get rid of it by making a miniature two-egg omelet for Mama Cat. I think that’s a bit harsh, don’t you? After all, if this bird is so stupid it cannot even build its own nest, it probably deserves our sympathy and good will. Besides, I practically invited it by hanging a free “dream nest” on our front porch in the first place.

Still, it bothers me that two years ago I hung a charmingly attractive birdhouse in the tree not 15 feet from the front porch. It’s an open invitation to free housing for my feathered friends, yet no bird families have ever taken me up on it. This stupid bird has been flying around ignoring my birdhouse for two years, and now it’s planning to raise two chicks in a flower basket? What kind of a birdbrained insult is that? No offense to mourning doves, but I’m guessing they’re not exactly the rocket scientists of the bird community.

Next year maybe I’ll plant my flowers in the birdhouse.

I hope you’re taking good care of yourselves. Make sure you get plenty of rest and drink lots of water. Eat green foods everyday. Are you wearing clean socks? Be sure to wear clean socks. I’m not even going to ask about underwear. I don’t even want to know about any of that gruesome commando business.


Much Love,

--An Army Mom

Friday, June 03, 2005

April 6, 2005


Dear Robby,

I know you’re as devastated about the death of Pope John Paul II as I am. (You are- you just don’t realize it yet.) I draped the hallway mirror in a black crepe (see photo, enclosed) in mourning. I will remove the crepe when I see white smoke coming out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel announcing that a new pope has been elected. Then I, like everyone else, will talk about how the new pope is nowhere near as good as John Paul II. Eventually, I’ll get used to the new guy and when he dies I’ll go through the whole process all over again.

I’ll put together a box of stuff to send to you on Friday. Sorry, but Friday is the soonest I’ll have time because tomorrow is too busy. I have to pick Dylan up from DETENTION and then I've got a meeting for a fundraising thing at Historic St. Patrick's Church. Dylan, who has DETENTION tomorrow, will stay home with “Rudy the Mean Math Tutor” and will NOT be allowed to play “Tony Hawk Underground” on Game Box or X Cube or whatever you call that mindless game-playing machine until all math homework is finished, checked, and double-checked.

It turns out that saintly little brother of yours is not so perfect after all. He has DETENTION tomorrow afternoon until 4:15 due to not turning in a Math assignment. In fact, he just got his report card and earned a D+ in, of all things, Math. He got good grades in everything but Math and Health. He got a D in Health, which explains why he doesn’t know anything about puberty or human reproduction, which seems inexplicable to me since he was able to get an A in science. How does a person get an A in science and a D in a blow-off class like Health, you ask?

Beats me, but I’ve come to believe that I will never understand the workings of Dylan’s odd little mind no matter how much effort I expend on his behalf. I bought him a book about puberty and human reproduction, which sat on his dresser for a couple of weeks, and then inexplicably disappeared.

About the same time the book (titled What’s Going On Down There?) went missing, Dylan was working on a social studies project about China. He was supposed to gather information about China from internet sources and fill in a worksheet with interesting tidbits such as the population of China, the major agricultural crops grown in China, etc, etc. I got him set up on the Yahooligans! website and went downstairs to fix dinner. I came up to the office every ten minutes or so to check his progress, which was amazingly slow. He was getting nowhere with the worksheet, so I thought maybe an online almanac would be a more useful source of info. I leaned in and minimized the Yahooligans! site and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a "Google Images" screen full of photos of young ladies in various states of undress.

Meanwhile Dylan jumped from his chair and went to stand by the window in the overly casual sort of pose one strikes when caught red-handed doing something no good.
(Hands in pockets, looking toward the ceiling, would have been humming “doo-dah, doo-dah” had he thought of it.)
I took one look at him, saw the obvious body language of utter culpability, then looked back at the screen. Sure enough, “someone” had done a Google Images search for “GIRLS BOOBS” and was apparently perusing it while his mother thought he was diligently researching the major exports of China. The little reprobate!

Evidently your little brother has a keen interest in GIRLS BOOBS. (Not exactly sophisticated, but I suppose GIRLS BOOBS have a certain charm if you’re 12) I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing while I gave him a lecture about the kind of spam, cookies and spyware he could pick up doing that sort of “research” online.

My thinking is that people who don’t do their math homework have no business looking at GIRLS BOOBS, or any other fun things on the internet. And I really have to wonder why those GIRLS were not taught to properly keep their BOOBS to themselves in the first place.
If I had the energy, I'd hunt them all down and give them DETENTION. But not with Dylan.

Much Love,

--Mom

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