I don’t agree with how the flow chart got there, but out of all these options, Lloyd Dobler is my ideal 80s boyfriend on merit alone. (And it was John Cusack, COME ON!)
Well, my sunburn is starting to peel, but the multiple scratches I got from his concert wristband are apparently going to take longer to heal.
Strangely enough, I did that for Lent one year. I was dating a strict Catholic, and the sex was that bad that it was a valid excuse not to have sex with him for 40 days!
Conversation With My Boss
Yesterday 5/29:
Me: Hey, I spent 5 hours on the phone trying to get through to unemployment. Turns out I have to make $**** in the next ** weeks to be able to reopen a claim before the emergency benefits run out. Which would be fine, but that falls BEFORE I graduate or go for any of my National Registry testing. I can’t be hired for a job that I can’t legally perform yet.
Boss Lady: Do they understand what a substitute is?
Me: I explained that, and that it would have been nice to know this ahead of time, but I guess I just might have to get a second part time job and hope I can just finish my Clinicals in time to graduate.
Today 5/30:
5:44am Text from Boss Lady
Hey missy, want to come into work at noon today?
Boss Lady is awesome
One of my most prized possessions, one of my Gram’s lockets I had redone with a photo of her and my Pap posing in her Sunday best and his dress uniform the day he reported for duty in WWII. She had that photo of him in a locket for ages before she gave them to me when I was 19. I thought it was only fitting that I take the photos of me out of the bigger locket and find a copy of the original photo and place them side by side. In 1999 photo editing wasn’t what it is these days, but I had found a photographer who did the best he could to enhance the grainy photo and get it to the right size for the locket. When it was finally complete, I took the locket to my Gram to show her. She cried, and cried and cried. She was honored that I thought to put Pap’s photo in the locket, and loved that I told her they belonged side by side. (For those who don’t know, my Pap died in 1985 and my Gram mourned him every day until she dies in 2010.) I wear it whenever I need my Grandparents ‘with’ me. Someday I’ll get the photos redone again, and get the locket gold plated, but since I’m still pretty fresh into my grieving process, some days I need to add this to the security blanket that my tattoo is.
I come from a ‘military family’, Army specifically. Not one where it’s a heritage, just a sense of duty. My Paternal Grandfather wasn’t enlisted, but that didn’t stop his son, my Father from joining, nor some of his brothers. I guess it was a better choice than staying on the farm. My Pap was in WWII and two of my Mom’s three brothers followed suit and joined up. I even entertained the idea for a bit, but I had some health problems I had to take care of and then never looked back into it. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not fiercely patriotic. All of my trips during my getaway this week were to military historic sights, and each one I observed one, if not many moments of silence. Fort McHenry really got to me though. I watched the movie twice, shedding tears each time. After the movie shows you of the attack, and of Francis Scott Key penning his famous poem, the intro to the Star Spangled Banner plays, the movie screen rises, and up on the hill you can see Old Glory waving in the sea air, just as those in the fort did after the attack. I wanted to smack everyone in the head who didn’t immediately rise to their feet.
The thing about patrioisim is, my Father’s heritage is British, my Mother’s is German, and then there’s my, the adopted child who had no true idea about who or what she is. Yet, the flag we fly over our house is American. We may be other things, but first, and foremost, we are Americans.
Thank you to everyone who has served and is doing so now.
