I'm in the house, of course, since I am once again sans vehicle, although I don't so much have any place to go anyway. Couldn't get R's car to the station today since after I got back from the dentist I couldn't get it started at all, and I called for a tow but they just never came. AAA are not my favorite folk at the moment. After waiting two hours I called them back and told them to forget it, as we had places to go. The garage said I might as well just get it towed and left there on Sunday, which sounds like a plan. So R is off to work; she and a few other coffee shop people from her store are traveling to another store about an hour south of here to help out at their midnight Harry Potter party, since local laws forbid her own store from being open then. But she's coming back north at two or three a.m., and then going in at 5 to get ready for her own store's party. (The store opens at 7 tomorrow.) And since her store is the biggest one in this area (I guess) they are going to be honored tomorrow afternoon with a book-signing appearance by Mary GrandPre, the HP illustrator. So maybe there will be a signed book for mommy in the deal as well.(Tomorrow is the kid's last day in the store, as it turns out. She's decided to look for a real job. She's going out with a bang.)
I, meanwhile, am hoping my book will be delivered in the early a.m. (if not, I'll have hers by two or so) and then, it's reading for me. The Sibs asked how long I think I'll be ... out of commission, I think she said, and I'm guessing 8 or 10 hours. The book is less than 800 pages long, and it's not Tolstoy, after all. I am SOOOOO excited. Har-ree, Har-ree, Har-ree!
And now for something completely different.
I was at the optometrist's yesterday, where I admired the pictures of his many grandchildren and hesitated to ask about his son, a boy I knew from the high school, because I was afraid of what the answer would be. But the doctor's wife, who also works in the office, knows that I know him, and told me:
As of May, he is in Baghdad and Tikrit. I knew he would be there. He is such an interesting boy; always was: very very bright and always a smile, even if he got into trouble, he'd just shrug and smile through it. He was a little unfocused in high school, left college after one semester, and joined the Army. When they did their placement tests, they realized what a gem he was, and they sent him to West Point. Can you imagine? Then he went for extra training, because from the first, even as an enlisted man, he was in Army Intelligence. So he's an intelligence officer in Iraq. His mother gave me his email address and said he would love to hear from people at home. I'm going to ask him if it's okay if I post his bulletins -- she says he sends out group emails to a mailing list and would put me on it -- on the school website, as a way of making it more real to our students and staff. And maybe some of them will write to him, too.
Here's the other interesting thing, and probably not something you'd expect to hear along with the story of this kid and how he got into the army and that he's fighting in the war. Although he is not especially religious himself -- he went to public high school -- his family is Orthodox Jewish, and he was raised that way. His parents live an ordinary suburban life but are very observant -- the doctor's office is closed on Saturday but open on Sunday -- but both of the soldier's older sisters live a traditional Orthodox life: married, they keep their heads covered, wear long sleeves and long skirts, have many children, etc. I think (and I may be wrong) that the common view would not anticipate Orthodox Jewish Americans serving in the Army, volunteering to be officers, even attending West Point. So I tell the story as a matter of interest, I guess. Certainly I am opposed to the war and think all the soldiers should be home now, but I am grateful to those who serve and proud of their resolve and strength and courage. Another boy I know, a former Junior Class president I worked with, is an officer serving in Afghanistan. Let them come home safely, please.
