Rachel Speaks

While waiting for my slooow dial-up connection to boot up so I could write this post, I noticed the title for this page: Rachel Speaks. I feel as if I should add a subtitle: Just try to shut her up.

Would you believe that, as a kid, I was incredibly shy? I was. I didn't speak clearly, and kids being the little demons they are, I got teased a lot. My teachers used to say, "They don't intend to be mean. They're just kids. They don't understand."

Bullsh*t. Even as a child, I knew better than that. Kids -- even normally good kids -- are just plain mean from time to time. (Not me, of course. My snarky side didn't develop until . . . oh, last year.) They're often snotty little brats, and can be as calculating as any adult.

Anyway, I got rid of the speech impediment with some intensive therapy, but the shyness stuck around for years. Put me in a situation where I had to speak to a stranger, and I just shriveled up inside.

No more. I'm not sure what happened. One day I discovered I had a lot to say -- stored up over all those years, I guess. And this blog is just perfect for me, because I can say what I want. It provides an outlet, and has become one of my rewards for all those long hours at the computer writing. (And as Robert used to tell Navy people standing at attention in front of him, "Here's the way it goes: I speak. You listen." Hence, no comments.)

Speaking of long hours at the computer . . . I'm about halfway through Selena #3 and even though I'm working off a more-detailed-than-usual outline, I'm still finding some surprises as I go. I'm enjoying it tremendously, so I hope all the powers-that-be are as happy. Rachel3:54 PM

More wedding bell news

My niece got married yesterday, and DIL2B was a bridesmaid (along with my other niece). They all looked beautiful. The wedding dress was gorgeous and white, and the bridesmaids' dresses were flashy and hot pink. Too pretty!

I'm not a sucker for weddings. I've never gotten the least bit teary until yesterday. When I saw DIL2B yesterday, how gorgeous she was, and realized that in less than a month, SHE'LL be the bride coming down the aisle, I admit, I choked up a bit.

Another thing this wedding brought home to me: how totally unfair dressy occasions are for women versus men. In his entire adult life, Robert has never had even a moment's indecision about what to wear: a suit or his uniform, depending on the occasion. The kiddo hasn't had the slightest worry about choosing a tux, spending a fortune on it, having alterations, managing to walk and stand in it. Nope, he's wearing his dress blues. Simple. Easy. And he can wear them again and again, as the situation requires.

But for us women . . . we have to shop. Try on dresses. Spend a ton of money. Worry about shoes, slips, bras, pantyhose. Tripping over hems. Strapless bras that don't do their job properly. Falling off heels we're not accustomed to. (The bride's mother yesterday carried her shoes for a good deal of the time, and I don't blame her. The only thing that stopped me from taking off my own flashy little cute heels was the very real possibility I wouldn't get them back on.)

And for the wedding dress, it's a one-time shot (please, God!). All that money, and you'll never get to wear it again. At least I can wear the dress bought for the kiddo's wedding again . . . provided I ever have another formal event to go to!

Maybe that's why women tend to embrace shopping more than men do. It's not my favorite pastime, but I admit to finding a certain pleasure in it, especially when I find something lovely like the dress I bought for the niece's wedding, or the one for the kiddo's. Oddly enough, though it takes AN EVENT to get Robert into a clothing store, the kiddo likes to shop. Lord knows, in Italy, there are enough cool places to do it.

I once saw Dr. Phil's wife, Robin, on television, talking about how her personal shopper brings clothing to her house for her to try on, then returns what she doesn't like. Now THAT'S my idea of fun shopping. Rachel9:17 PM

Sumday I talk gud

Sometime in the last week or so, two Tulsa hospitals took out full-page ads announcing that they'll no longer accept certain insurance plans (they're encouraging people to use another insurance plan which, surprise, surprise, they own).

In a written statement to the media, one of the hospitals gave a line to the effect that costs with these banned companies would be more than they could "bare."

Uh . . . NO. Sounds alike, same letters, major difference.

(To be fair, I don't know where the misspelling came from -- the hospital statement or the media. Either way, it's an inexcusable mistake.)

Soon after I saw that, I had the chance to read the report commissioned by Tulsa's mayor re the police chief. (The full rant is in the archives, probably late February.) The guy who did the review, Frank Hagedorn, is a partner in the law firm of Hall, Estill -- a highly-regarded firm. And it is, truly, one of the most poorly written, misspelled, mispunctuated, repetitive pieces I've read in ages.

Am I wrong to expect a lawyer to be able to write in a straightforward manner? I'm not suggesting he should be able to spell or punctuate properly -- just write coherently without backtracking, rambling, repeating himself, etc. And whoever typed the report -- whether he did it himself or it was someone on his staff -- that person is way overpaid if that's the best s/he can do. S/he needs a refresher course or a new job.

How can we expect school-age kids to bother learning spelling and grammar and how to choose the proper words when adults who should know better obviously don't? A major hospital, a major law firm, even major publishers are making mistakes that my fifth-grade teacher would have smacked me for, and no one cares.

Okay, that's not really fair. My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Henson, was a kind woman who probably never smacked anyone in her life. She taught long enough to have my father, my sisters, and me.

So she wouldn't have hit me. But she would have been sorely disappointed. Rachel8:34 PM

Living Rich

Leah, Robert, our friend Jackie, and I visited the Skelley Lodge east of Catoosa to see if it was suitable for an RWI retreat. (Ha! I felt more as if we should determine whether we were suitable for it!)

It's a gorgeous place, built of rock, with lots of boulders/exposed rock around. I love Oklahoma rocks. Love looking at them, climbing on them, working with them. They make the setting beautiful even now, when the trees are still bare. It must be breathtaking when everything's leafed out.

The lodge was built by one of the Skelleys of early-Oklahoma-oil-boom Skelley as a hunting lodge, and was visited by some of the big names of the time, including Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower. Can you see us bunking down in the same rooms where they slept? Too cool.

Don't know if we'll be able to afford the place, though it would be perfect for our weekend getaway. I've got dibs on the comfiest spot on the second-floor balcony overlooking the valley! Rachel8:27 PM

Weddng Bell News

The kiddo's wedding is less than a month away – in fact, a month from today, they'll be at sea on the honeymoon – and I'm really starting to get excited. There are showers to go to, gifts to buy, shoes to find. (No problems with purses, though. Though I rarely dress up, I love evening bags and have a nice little collection of them – something to go with everything.)

Next on the list is ordering the cake topper. It took me a while, but I tracked down exactly what DIL2B wants: bride in her lovely gown and groom in his dress blue uniform. We've got a picture of the kiddo in his dress blues with all the ribbons and insignia; as soon as we ask DIL2B a few questions, we'll get it ordered.

I was surprised to see some of the stuff you can get as cake toppers these days. Back when Robert and I were married, you had the traditional bride-groom combination or flowers, and that was pretty much it. Today you can get teddy bears, frogs, dogs – and that's the fairly normal stuff. You can also get Harleys, John Deeres, monkeys, Homer and Marge Simpson, ATVs, pickups, trucks . . . sheesh.

I was also surprised to find out that cake toppers with grooms in dress uniforms go back to the 40's and post-WWII. I would have loved to found one of them in good condition, but the ones I came across were pretty worn. Porcelain and bisque don't hold up too well over the decades.

We still have our cake topper somewhere in the attic. It's probably faded and yellowed now. I haven't looked at it in more years than I can remember, but I could never throw it out. It'll stay up there with one of our invitations, our guest book, a few dried blooms from my bouquet and whatever other mementoes we kept.

Then someday, when Robert and I are both dead and gone, the kiddo can throw it out.

In fact, I'm leaving a LOT of stuff for him to throw out. Rachel2:58 PM

Whatever happened to manners?

I was in the truck yesterday when the President's press conference was on, so I listened to part of it. I was blown away at how many times the reporters interrrupted President Bush. Several times he said, "I'm not finished with my answer" or "Can I have a second, please, to finish?"

Okay, so reporters don't like Mr. Bush. Whatever happened to respect for the office of President? This is the highest office in our land. Whether you like the person filling it, whether you respect the person filling it, you owe respect to the office.

When I was a kid, no one in my acquaintance ever called the President by his first or last name. (Okay, I know there was Ike -- before my time -- but that was an affectionate nickname.) Even if they didn't agree with his politics, even if they thought he was a worthless human being, they still gave the office the respect it deserved.

No longer.

Let's set aside that interrupting anyone is rude, or that doing so in private is just as rude as doing it in public. Interrupting the President of the United States in a nationally-broadcast press conference, not because you're arguing with him or want to clarify the question you asked, but because you apparently don't feel his answer is worth finishing, goes far beyond rude.

If I had raised any one of those reporters, I'd sntach him bald. Rachel9:09 AM

The things we hold on to

At the last RWI meeting, a few of us got to talking about our mothers and "stuff." One mom kept, washed, dried, and stored (but never reused) the foam coffee cups she got over the years. Another washed (and reused) the throwaway plastic plates, cups and forks. Sandee, our extraordinarily talented newsletter editor, said she never throws away a plastic bag, and I realized, when I recently cleaned out my office store room, that I never met a box I didn't like.

No kidding. I have boxes with lids, boxes without. Sturdy boxes for shipping and boxes that are only being held together by miles of tape. Small boxes, large boxes, teeny tiny boxes, boxes I've bought new and boxes I've salvaged. I even piles of those cardboard flats with lips that hold my 24-packs of bottled water, which aren't good for much of anything else (though they are great for carrying hot dishes to dinners, which I do about once a year!).

When I cleaned that 8X16' store room, I threw out bags and bags of flattened boxes, and I'm determined to get rid of the ones cluttering up the house, too. Though of course I'll have to keep a few for shipping stuff to the kiddo . . . and a few more for things that need filing . . . a few more for when I eventually clean out the garage and the attic . . . Rachel8:35 AM

The sharpest cut

About six months ago, I was in the mood for sweet potato french fries, so I dug the old mandolin out of the back corner of the cabinet where I store it, washed it up, and went to work. And after cutting only about five slices, I did a partial amputation of my right middle fingertip.

I should have expected it. After all, the darn thing's cursed.

The mandolin, you see, was a gift from The B*tch. (If you look back in February's archives, you can read a bit about our history with her.) TB was a HUGE fan of sweet potato fries from a restaurant in Tulsa, and was also aware that cutting very thin slices of sweet potatoes without a mandolin is almost impossible. Her solution? She bought ME a mandolin so I could make HER sweet potato fries. Such thoughtfulness.

I was using the protective guard, but it slipped and my fingertip went across the blade instead. It was amazingly painful, and became more so when Robert put a pressure bandage on it. Because it was my middle finger, I kept banging it and starting the bleeding again, so for days I had to wear a splint to protect it from everyday wear and tear.

So six months have passed. My fingernail, which was cut practically to the cuticle, grew back good as new, and I have a nice moon-shaped scar on the fingertip. The non-cut side of the scar still hurts, but the cut side (the blade went through at an angle) hasn't regained sensation yet. But I can type and do anything else I need, so it's no problem.

Did I mention that the next time I dragged the thing out to slice something, Robert took over the slicing (to protect me from further damage) and cut his own finger? After that, the damn thing went into the trash. I really do think TB put a curse on it. She'd be just the type to do it. Even now, I can imagine those nasty little blades creeping across the landfill, slicing and dicing anything that gets in their way . . . . Rachel1:26 PM

Gawker Stalker

There was a story on Nightline a couple nights ago about a website that encourages people to basically stalk celebrities. It's sort of a real-time thing -- people who run into someone famous post as soon as they can who, where, when, etc.

Naturally, there were celebrity publicists saying this is a dangerous thing, and naturally the guy who owns the website was saying they're celebrities; they've given up their right to privacy; and besides, there's a 15-minute delay between reporting and posting to give the celebrity time to leave before an obsessed fan could track them down.

I'm trying to imagine this: I'm out dining or shopping with Liz, Leah, DL or Robert (because I neither dine nor shop alone), I see someone famous, and the first thing I do is rush to the nearest computer to post it on a website??? Uh, NO.

That's about as likely as my going to a website to see where someone famous was fifteen minutes ago. WHO CARES?

I'm not overly impressed by celebrity. DL, our hubbies, and I had lunch a couple tables from Catherine Zeta Jones on Rodeo Drive a few years ago. It was cool seeing her -- she was as beautiful as I expected -- but it didn't exactly distract me from an excellent ensalata caprese.

When I look at People or In Style magazines, I don't know who most of the folks in the pictures are and don't care. I don't know who's married to whom, who's sleeping with whom, or who's pregnant by whom, and my world hasn't come to a stop yet. I can't even imagine caring about those things. These people are strangers. What importance do their personal lives have in ours?

It's just too weird.

Keep the fame. I just want the fortune. (Yes, I'm grinning!) Rachel9:28 AM

Dial-up sucks

Everyone in the world gets a quicker connect speed on their computers than I do. (You think I'm joking? About a month ago, I tried to sign online, and the connect speed was 9.somthing!) About the best I can ever get is 36.something, and that'a rare occasion. 24 or 26.4 is pretty much it for me.

Years ago, I didn't care. I didn't spend much time on the Net, so it didn't matter how slow everything was. I still don't spend much time on the Net, but I have discovered a couple of things that make me dream wistfully of high-speed connections: iTunes and pictures.

I LOVE iTunes. Love getting to pick only songs I like instead of having to buy entire CDs. Love being able to find older songs when my cassette tapes (hey, I said "older") have worn out. But downloading one average-length song takes 15-20 minutes. And I can't do anything else on the computer but wait.

And photos . . . I've got this cool little digital camera that takes incredible pictures that I want to share with everyone. In fact, Monday I decided to load some pictures from our RWI meeting into a Yahoo photo album to share with everyone who was there. Three HOURS to load THREE pictures! I know, I can resize them, make them lower resolution, blah blah, but all that takes time, and then it still takes forever to load. With the connections I get, I might as well be chiseling stuff in stone and sending it via Pony Express.

But I WANTED to live in the country. I was willing to give up amenities for privacy, woods, and no close neighbors. I don't mind the spiders, snakes, and scorpions; I can live with the deer, the coyotes and the occasional ostrich sighting. I can even bear the dirt road that means our house is NEVER dust-free.

But I sure would love a cable Internet connection. Rachel8:28 AM

A publisher should know how to spell

Or at least hire people who do.

I just finished a book published by a small press. I admire people who like books enough that they're willing to invest time and money in starting their own press, but there should be two basic rules to the process: you publish well-told stories, and you publish in accepted English with proper sentence structure, nouns and verbs in most, if not all, sentences, and good spelling.

An author doesn't have to be technically good to tell a compelling story. When the kiddo was twelve years old, he mentioned to me that John Grisham had a heck of a lot to learn about point-of-view, but he told a darn good story. (Yeah, that's one of the hazards of growing up with a writer for a mom.) You can make mistakes in POV, have uneven pacing, throw in a few underdeveloped characters, but if your story is compelling, readers won't care.

This particular small-press book wasn't compelling. One-dimensional characters, pacing that went from zero to sixty and back again in the space of a paragraph, no plot to speak of, awkward writing, no emotion whatsoever.

And on top of that, NO editing. "Their," "they're," and "there" were used interchangeably. So were "it's," "its," and "its'." And the author had this knack for finding a word that was similar to what she wanted but not it -- "circumvent" for "circumnavigate," "proficient" for "prolific," "catechism" for "cataclysm." Even simple words were off -- "he" when it should have been "she," "her" for "his."

I don't blame the author totally. I believe every writer has an obligation to learn to spell and construct sentences right along with plotting, characterization, and pacing, but we aren't a nation that considers good language skills important.

But the publisher . . . They spent money to publish this book. They arranged distribution. Presumably, they've paid royalties to the author. They had an obligation to turn out a grammatically correct book, and they failed. Big-time. They presented to the consumer a product that was shabby and shoddy.

Hire a copy editor. I know God made them for some reason other than to harass me. (Yes, I say that with a wicked smile. I have been known to harass them right back -- and I usually win our arguments.)

If you're publishing a book, publishing one that's written and punctuated in proper language is the least you owe your readers. Rachel9:44 AM

I vant to suck your blooood

I never understood the fascination with vampires -- never thought they were sexy, never liked watching movies about them or reading books about them, never found they heated up anything except my "ick" factor.

I mention this because sooo many of the books I've come across lately -- all erotica, by the way -- feature vampires. When they start talking about feeding on blood, I just want to puke, and when the heroines get THE most incredible orgasms in all of eternity while being bitten, I get giggly. The whole thing is just WEIRD.

And I don't know if this is some sort of vampire lore, but they've all included lots of shower/sex scenes -- every one of them. Makes 'em sound more like some sort of amphibian life force to me.

Speaking of vampire lore, another thing that drives me nuts is that there's no standard "vampire lore" in these books. In one they can't come out during the day; in another, daylight not only doesn't hurt them, it sustains them. In one they have to have human blood from time to time; in a lot of others, any blood will do so it's usually animal; in another, biting during great sex (and vampires ALWAYS have the greatest sex) is a substitute for feeding. It's like the authors have decided that since there's no FACTUAL lore (isn't that a contradiction in terms?) that they'll just make up any sort of creature and call him a vampire and readers will buy it.

So why am I reading them? I like erotica (normally) and they're freebies. I'm a reader. I can't turn away a free book without at least giving it a chance. But I'm quickly developing a dislike for the whole subgenre. One of these days I'm going to miss out on a truly great vampire story -- if there could be such a thing -- because all of these others have . . . well, sucked me dry. Give me a good wizard story . . . a shapeshifter . . . an alien . . . or, wow, here's a bold idea: give me a normal human male who's sexy as hell without looking like he's in bad need of good dental care.

Just no more vampires, please! I already gave my blood at the lab. Rachel8:35 AM

Bad cops, bad cops

There waa video on the news last week about a female cop on a traffic stop trying to deal with a guy way bigger than her. He took her stun gun away from her and (I believe) used it on her before someone came to her assistance. The tone of the news story was brave cop, survived attack, blah blah.

I'd have fired her if she was my officer. She let the situation get out of control. She never should have allowed the suspect to get close enough to take her stun gun -- if he could get it, he also could have gotten her weapon. He could have easily killed her and who knows how many others, all because she mishandled the stop.

I watch "Cops" a lot and see a lot of inappropriate behavior. It's really scary to see how incapable so many cops are of taking control of a situation, and that's one of the things they teach in every academy in this country. So many cops don't have a "command voice;" they yell. They get emotional. They lose control and don't know how to regain it.

We were sitting at a stop light in town a while back, watching as a cop pulled a car over. The driver of the car immediately jumped out of his vehicle and started toward the officer, who came out with his gun drawn and told him in a very distinct command voice to get back in his car. As a bystander, I had no doubt that the officer would do what was necessary to keep control of the situation. Apparently, neither did the driver. He threw his hands up in the air, shut his mouth and returned to his car.

One of the things that drives me -- and Robert -- nuts on "Cops" is how often the cops repeat themselves. "Put the gun down. Put the gun on the ground. I'm not telling you again. Put the gun down. This is your last warning. Put it down. Put it down now. Don't make me say it again. Blah blah." We once counted on an episode, and the officer told the suspect seventeen times to put his weapon down, and said "I'm not telling you again" three times. (Actually, I did the counting. Robert was too busy saying, "Shoot the sonofabitch.")

They either never take control, or they lose it and can't regain it. And bad things happen then. Like that California deputy who shot the unarmed passenger after a high-speed chase. The kid who was shot was unarmed; he was cooperative; he was obeying commands; he was, in fact, calmer and in more control than the deputies. The deputy was incompetent, poorly trained and/or poorly suited to the job, and his behavior was totally inappropriate.

Lucky for the kid, he was also a bad shot. Three shots at close range, and the kid lived. Hopefully, he'll make a full recovery, the deputy will spend the next twenty years in prison, and the sheriff's department will look at its training, capabilities and emotional stability of its officers.

Cops who can't shoot worth a damn . . . a pet peeve for another time. Rachel9:57 AM

Kid TV

Okay, so I've mentioned a time or two before that I don't like to watch TV news. When I do watch it (and get to choose the channel myself), I watch Kid TV news, better known around here as Channel 2, KJRH, the NBC affiliate. I swear, half the people on that station are fifteen or younger, and they're just all so cute in their little suits and grown-up clothes.

To be fair (and to paraphrase one of them -- Glenn McEntyre), they're not as young as they look. But when you look fifteen, who cares how old you really are??

On top of that, they're pretty good reporters. Their bias is far less noticeable than the other local stations. They'll ask the hard questions while 6's and 8's older, more experienced reporters just bob their heads in acceptance of some of the most asinine statements ever made.

I do have one complaint, though. There's one little sweetie -- I won't name names, though, frankly, like the kiddo's friends, I get them confused -- who's done a bunch of stories on the endless wildfires that have swept across the state this winter, and in more than a couple of them, she's commented that no homes were destroyed by that particular fire, but several outhouses were.

Now, I spent the first 22 years of my life in Oklahoma, and have been back for 11 years. I knew people who had outhouses in my toddler years, but I haven't laid eyes on one -- particularly one still in use -- in eons.

The word you're looking for is "outbuildings," honey. Try to remember it. Rachel8:41 AM

Back again!

Wish I could say I'd missed posting for the past week because I was in some fabulous, exotic, incredible place being pampered to within an inch of my life, but sad truth is, I've been right here, working. Too busy and/or tired to blog, answer email, surf the Net or anything else.

In the time since I last posted, Tulsa has decided on the final two candidates for the mayoral election next month. Good news or bad? Let's see . . . does this give you a clue: "the lesser of two evils"?

Just how do you decide which is the lesser evil, though?

Maybe a better old adage is "Better the devil you know than the one you don't."

Though I doubt that applies in this case. We know Bill LaFortune has been a bad mayor who "misspeaks" a lot. On the other hand, his opponent, Kathy Taylor, just recently paid big fines for tax fraud -- she couldn't remember whether her primary place of residence was her multi-million-dollar Oklahoma home or her multi-million-dollar Florida home, so she claimed homestead exemptions in both states. She had driver's licenses in both states -- another crime. She voted in the 2000 presidential election in both states -- another crime. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations has expired on the voter fraud. Shucks! I had hopes of seeing the first Tulsa mayor taken out of office in handcuffs. That would have been worth all the crap of the endless campaign.

Oh, well . . . there's a reason we didn't retire to Tulsa. Too bad we still have to see their politicians on TV all the time, shop there, pay the ridiculous taxes they vote in . . . Makes me dream of a mountain in the middle of nowhere! Rachel5:34 PM

It's been confirmed . . .

I'm the palest living soul on the face of the earth.

I've mentioned that my kiddo is getting married in April. Well, after taking a break Monday afternoon for a little sushi, Robert and I decided to go into the bridal shop in the same center just to look. They had a gorgeous rainbow of evening/prom gowns and wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses . . . and a group of mother dresses that were better suited to . . . well, my mother than me. (Though I did find a gorgeous black velvet dress . . . not that I have a need for a black velvet gown, darn it.)

Since the cute little sales girl looked appalled that I waited until seven weeks before the wedding to start shopping, and we had nothing else pressing, we went to the mall across the street, where I found more gorgeous dresses that were totally inappropriate for the kiddo's mom at his wedding.

But I did find some that had promise, and after much indecision, I narrowed it down to one. Don't get the wrong idea when I say it reminds me of a tablecloth – it's heavy lace over a satin underdress – because it's very lovely. It's ecru in color, with bits of gold woven into the thread and a pinky-peachy undertone, which goes perfect with the pinky-peachy wrap I found to go with it.

But it's got narrow little straps, with a deeper neckline than I'm accustomed to, both in front and back. In other words, it reveals skin that I'm not used to revealing, and it is pale. As in wan. Deathly. To use one of Robert's favorite descriptions, fish-belly white. And, as we all know, the days when death-warmed-over was considered attractive are long gone.

I don't ordinarily go to tanning salons (obviously), and there's no way on earth I could conceivably get a tan the normal way in only seven weeks. I'm a redhead and have the freckles and difficult-to-tan skin to prove it. So . . . along with getting ready for the kiddo's homecoming, shopping, the wedding, maybe dieting a few days – oh, yeah, and writing – it looks like I may have to bite the bullet and go into the tanning bed. Don't want to look like some un-crossed-over spirit in the wedding photos! Rachel2:47 PM

Happy birthday, kiddo!

Yep, today's his birthday. I'd tell you how old he is, but I'm using my fingers to type. Or I could call Leah. Her oldest is a year older and she always knows how old he is, so I use her to keep track. (The kiddo's getting married on her oldest's anniversary, so she'll keep track of that for me, too.)

Let's see . . . today he's 27. Holy cow! There were times I was convinced that one of us wasn't going to survive his childhood. He was the poster child for kids too smart for their own good -- always up to something, almost always smarter than the people he was dealing with (including teachers), and impulsive as hell. And stubborn as hell. And with an attitude from hell.

But he was, for the most part, a good kid. Honestly. Still is. For the most part.

So wherever you are in Afghanistan, babe, have a good day. We'll celebrate when you get home.

I'll even sing to you. Rachel9:25 AM