Not too long ago, I reconnected with an old friend from high school.  Until yesterday, we had only chatted and emailed.  Then, in the course of those chats and emails, we discovered a true “small world” connection…

This friend (I’ll call her Karrie to protect her privacy) has been married and divorced since high school.  That short marriage produced a daughter, and she has joint custody with the father (her ex).  So as a result she remains in fairly close contact with her ex’s family.

This is the “small world” part:  Her ex’s aunt turned out to be my fourth grade teacher, and one of the best teachers I ever had!  I always regretted losing contact with this teacher.

So yesterday, I went over to my friend’s house and in the process got to meet my old teacher again.  That made for a great day.  It’s definitely a small world - but sometimes I just love that!

Yesterday I ate lunch at Mcdonalds.  I had a lot of reasons for that - mostly, I was out running errands and needed to pick up lunch somewhere, and McDonalds was there.  So I bought a meal and found a table in the corner - my favorite place to sit when I’m eating out alone.  It’s a good place for people watching.

Anyway, I got my seat and started munching on my fries.  As I looked around, there was a group at one nearby table that looked odd.  Sitting at the table were an older man, an older woman, and a young girl- presumably a granddaughter and grandparents.  Standing next to the table, talking to them, was a middle aged man who I can only describe as “shaggy”.  He was not overwhelmingly dirty, but his clothes didn’t fit him and were obviously worn out.  He was in bad need of a shave and a haircut.  Clutched in his arm was a worn-out box that presumably contained a Bible (the box had Bible stuff written on it- things like “New International Version” and “study Bible”).  The whole scene looked a bit like “one of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong”.

That reminded me of another experience that I had many years ago.  My parents and I were eating dinner at a Boston Market restaurant.  (This was back when we had a Boston Market near my house.  That restaurant closed a long time ago… that tells you how long ago this was!)  We eating our dinner, chatting, and basically minding our own business, when a woman came up and set a beaded, homemade bracelet on our table.  She proceded to set bracelets in front of all the other customers in the restaurant.  Attached to the bracelet was a small tag that read something like, “My name is Jill.  I am a deaf-mute resident of (my city).  My last home burnt down in a fire.  My parents are both deceased.  My son died last year.  My boyfriend left me and my truck broke down.  Please put some money on the table for me, and the bracelet will be yours to keep.”  Obviously this is somewhat exaggerated - I don’t remember exactly what the note said.  But that’s the gist of it.  The woman then made a second circuit of the restaurant, picking up most of the bracelets and what little money had been given to her, and then ran out of the restaurant at about the same time as the employees realized she was bothering their customers.

Anyway, at McDonalds yesterday, the scruffy man stepped away from the grandparents-and-granddaughter after a minute.  Then he walked over to ME and asked me, “Spare a couple dollars, ma’am?”  I shook my head and he walked away.  He walked over to another man and repeated his question.  Soon after, he left the restaurant - I don’t think he ever did get any money.  But, I certainly found it strange to see this man, presumably homeless, panhandling in my local McDonalds.

I got into my first car accident shortly after I got my license at age 16.  It’s not as bad as it sounds, though; the accident was not my fault.  In fact, I was hit by another teenage driver in my high school parking lot.  This girl backed her car out straight into mine.  Irritating as that is, this girl then tried to claim that the accident was not her fault.  I was angry, of course, but not terribly surprised- Since she hit the corner of my car, the body shop had to replace the whole front end and the repair costs totaled more than $3500.

And, as a random aside… the w button on my keyboard is starting to act fickle.

My mom was an Air Force kid who moved a lot during her childhood, but she hated it.  So as a result, once they had kids, my parents put down roots.  My first move was after high school, when I moved to college, and I “moved” back and forth from there several times.  After college, I moved overseas, which was the absolute hardest move I have ever made.  Imagine packing everything you own into two suitcases and two carry-ons!

When my older sister moved overseas, she was a bit luckier - that was pre-9/11, and she was allowed four suitcases and two carry ons.  After she moved back to the US, she became much more mobile than I, living in Virginia, Texas, and (now) Boston.  She never hired anyone to move for her- she always used either friends and family or self move services like ABF U-Pack.  With good friends, in fact, we wonder why anyone hires overpriced movers!

I remember, when I was in high school, and my English teachers required us to read and study old, “classic” poems.

Now don’t get me wrong here.  I’m not a poet, but I am a writer.  I see the value in poetry and I understand why poetry is written.

But in high school, when I was presented with a poem written 400 years ago, it might as well have been in a foreign language.

Oh, I suppose some were better than others.  Sometimes I felt like I actually understood what the poet was trying to say.  But often, I just had no clue.

That’s how I feel with code.  I’ve been searching for a new theme for this site, but with only some success.  I sort of understand what the various codes say.  But only sort of.  And trying to understand what the code is trying to say has been incredibly frustrating!

Remember when you were a kid, and your mom wrote your name inside your underpants?

It was embarrassing, and you hated it.  Until you got older… and realized how smart she was.

When I went to college, I chose to label practically everything I owned.  Clothes, office supplies, housewares, you name it… I had a sticky fingered roommate and if I didn’t label something, it was likely to disappear forever.

I don’t have to worry about theft anymore, but I still label a lot of my stuff.  It’s good to have my name on things that I take to the pool, or to church, or whatnot.

It’s good to know that I can now get big orders of labels.  I could get enough labels to last for months or years.  Or, I could get enough labels to set up a moonshine still in my bathtub and sell wine out of my garage. I can see it now… “Melinda’s Vineyards” wine.  Luckily we’re not living in the prohibition era, so I think I could find some kind of legal (and clean) place to set up a still and sell wine… and my bottles would each wear a Wine Label!

Seriously, though.  I highly doubt I would ever open a still… not because I have anything against drinking per se but just because I’m not interested in that kind of thing.  But if you’re interested in opening a still, you CAN still get tons of labels! (If you do open a still, send me a note.  I’ve never seen a bathroom still before.)

I was in 4th grade when I went through my horse phase.  I think every American girl goes through a horse phase, or at least it seems like it.  I wanted all the horse gear - the helmets and riding pants and Lucchese boots that the girls in all my favorite books wore.  I wanted a horse too, of course, although I think I was hoping for the magical kind of horse that never pee’ed or poo’ed or needed brushing, but was always available whenever I wanted to have fun.  My wonderful mother got me enrolled in some horseback-riding lessons at a local stable, though I was never very good at it!  It was a fun time, though, and a good stable.

I’ve been thinking all day about what to write.  This is such an intensely powerful and tragic day in our nation’s history.  There are no words to describe this day.  All I can say is a gentle promise to those who died, and those who survived: I will never forget you.

It seems appropriate for me to tell you where I was seven years ago.  Like many of my countrymen, I will never forget where I was when I heard about the attack on freedom.

I was young back then, and naive.  I was 18 years old and, just a couple of weeks before, I had moved away from home for the first time.  I lived in a typical college dorm room, in a typical college dormitory, on a typical college campus (in the Central-Standard Time Zone).  I was tasting freedom for the first time- staying up late, going to Walmart after midnight, and packing on the “freshman 15″ in the all-you-can-eat cafeteria.  In spite of all that, though, I was a good student.  I didn’t skip class, I studied, and I worked hard to get good grades.

On this day, my first class was at 10am, but I awoke at 7am to get breakfast and perhaps do some homework or read a book before class.  At approximately 7:50am (CST, 8:50 EST, just moments after the first plane hit the north tower) I was dressed and about to go to the cafeteria for breakfast.  I lifted my right finger and rested it against the “power” button on my television.  Before I could apply pressure, though, the screen changed to the telltale logo, accompanied by the voiceover saying, “We interrupt this program for a breaking news bulletin…”

Naturally I paused.  I’m an absolute news junkie, and of course I was interested in this breaking news.  If it turned out to be a “boring” piece of news- a change in the interest rate, or a new agreement between the president and some other country, maybe a presidential speech - then I’d turn it off and go to breakfast.  If it was newsworthy- a lost child, a found child, an escaped convict who had been captured - well, then I’d watch it for a few minutes, then go eat breakfast.  It wouldn’t last long anyway - they never interrupted the regularly scheduled programming for long.

But as the story of planes and the towers unfolded before my eyes, my hand fell away from the television.  I slowly sank onto my bed.  Breakfast was the farthest thing from my mind.  The story on television looked like a horror movie.  I wondered if this was like Orson Welles’ 1938 radio drama, when mass hysteria followed a fictional radio drama.  It must be a fictional story, because what I was seeing was not possible.

As I watched the drama unfold, though, a sinking sensation developed in my stomach as I realized that this was real.  I watched as a second airplane struck the south tour, then a third hit the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in central Pennsylvania.  I watched as the south tower collapsed, then the north tower followed suit.  I listened as Peter Jennings, Charlie Gipson, and Diane Sawyer attempted to make sense of what they were seeing and hearing.  At times I changed the channel, but the situation was the same on every channel.  ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN… they were all taping the horror at the towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania.  None of the anchors had any answers.  For a time, they weren’t even sure what caused the attacks.  But knowing what had happened, or how it had been done, or even who had done it, still didn’t answer the one question that loomed over every broadcast: Why?

Seven years later, I still don’t think we’ve answered that question.  We may never answer that question.  We have shown our enemy that we will not submit to their hatred.  We have shown each other the incredible depths of our humankindness.  We have lit the torch of freedom around the world.

The voice of freedom cannot be silenced.  We will go on.

Yesterday I went to a John McCain rally near my home.  Both McCain and Palin spoke, as well as several other local Republican politicians.  I had lots of fun and had a great time hanging out with other Republicans.  However, I forgot to take my camera, and besides, I was never really able to take any good pictures.  So instead of making this a political, “vote for McCain” post, I thought I would write about another of my experiences while I was at the rally.

Naturally they had a US Flag on display at the rally - in fact, there were two prominant flags, one on each side of the stage, and hundreds of smaller flags spread throughout the venue.  Toward the beginning, two local homeschool girls took the stage and led us in the “Pledge of Alligiance” and the “Star Spangled Banner”.

As all the people in the arena, and all the people outside the arena (easily hundreds of people!) took off hats and placed their hands over their hearts, I felt my skin tingle with goosebumps.  Suddenly, it became even more real to me what those words meant.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I simply cannot describe the sensation I felt.  In my mind, I was thinking of the symbolism of the flag’s colors, and the blood it represented.  I was thinking of the great history of our great nation.  I don’t think anyone in our world today will ever understand the great risk that our forefathers took to give us this nation.  It wasn’t a simple matter of signing their names to the Declaration of Independence.  They were putting their lives at risk.  Not only their lives, but their homes, every penny they’d ever earned, even the lives of their families.

Many of them did give their lives for this nation that was only a dream.  Since then, many more have given their lives in defense of the cause of liberty.  The blood that was shed was a gift to me.  Every day I can wake up, in my bed, in my home, knowing that I am free and do not have to fear oppression, because of their sacrifice.

At the rally, I cried.  I bawled.  I cried because of their great sacrifices, and I cried from the great thankfulness that filled me.  Even now, my eyes are tearing up.  There are so many ways in which we complain about our nation.  We say there are problems in our economy or in our military, corruption in our government, flaws in our educational system.  But for all our imperfections, we live in a great nation.  I live in a great nation.

I’ve decided to start adding stories from my travels to this blog.

Why?  Mostly because I can’t think of anything else to write about.

But just to clarify: Right now I am home sweet home in the US of A.

In 1999, I went to Thailand, Laos, and Burma, with a stopover in Japan.

In 2001, I went to China and Hong Kong, returned to the US for a month, then went to Guatemala.

In 2006-2007 I lived in West Africa.  During that time I visited or lived in Ghana, Liberia, and Burkina Faso.

Earlier this summer, I went to England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.

I’ve been to well over half of the states in the United States.

Stories from any of these trips are liable to wind up on this blog.