He was about seven years old and staring at me in the deli aisle. It might have had something to do with the giant floppy green bow with white polka dots I was wearing on top of my head.

"Mommy," he whispered, "why is she wearing that?"

"Never mind," Mommy snapped, throwing me a glare as I reached past her for the mozzarella.

"But, Mommy, why? It's not Halloween!"

"Ignore her!"

When Mommy looked away, I glanced down and smiled at him. He took a deep breath. "Why are you wearing that?" he whispered.

"Because I want to."

"But you're a grown-up," he said, just as Mommy whipped around and grabbed his arm.

"So?"

His eyes slowly got big and his mouth fell open in wonder as Mommy dragged him away. I nodded and headed for frozen foods. My work was done.

t laughs and points at Connie

Deb, you probably already know this, but the website of the Royal Engineers museum says that the museum answers questions from researchers -- [link]

wtf? Ate my link...

Dayum.

ARMY BOMB DISPOSAL EXPERTS IN DOCKLANDS BOMB DRAMA

Friday 2 July 1999

Early this morning a German World War 11 bomb found in the Royal Victoria Docks in London was blown up with a controlled explosion by Bomb Disposal experts of 33 Engineer Regiment based at Wimbish, Essex

The 50 Kg bomb had been uncovered by a construction site excavator yesterday morning. The police closed the London City Airport as well as river, road and rail routes.

The Bomb Disposal Officer, Sergeant Colin Hill and his assistant, Corporal Andy Peters discovered that the bomb was of a type extensively used by the Germans during the Spanish Civil War and only dropped on London early in the Blitz. It is quite possible that this was one of the first bombs to land in the Capital - and it was a dud.

Sergeant Hill said "Deterioration made it impossible to positively identify the fuse used so we narrowed down the possibilities and selected the worst possible case before successfully immunising the fuse

To destroy the explosive and its casing, a deep trench was dug and the team improvised an aerial ropeway to transport the bomb over 100 metres and lower it in. A plastic explosive charge was attached to the bomb before it was carefully covered over by hand. After 60 tons of earth were piled on top, the charge was successfully fired and detonated the bomb with no surrounding damage.

As I get ready to post this(again), I'm reminded of something Anne Lamott said about showing a particular story to one person so much, that she imagined that editor saying "Thank ya, Jesus," when she got to look at something else. I promise this is the last time...

I have been a disability rights activist for about ten years, which, given that I was born at the crest of Gen X, feels like geologic amounts of time. I thought I knew some things about my nation from the demonstrating, the canvassing, the terrifying phone trees...the random strangers that paused in their daily labors to tell me about Freedom Riding and bus boycotts, and, hey, keep up the good work. I thought I knew America. But America doesn’t know me.

I do have morals. And character. And values.

Listen up, because this could be the last thing I write, because right now it doesn’t feel safe to be educated. I’m feeling like the middle of the country called me a skank, and without the accustomed affection my friends use, because we “baby busters” love irony so much. And nobody in the media called them on it. Nobody except for Jon Stewart.
This hurts, as sometimes the ironic jaded thing is just a pose. If you prick me, I do bleed, sometimes. I come from solid, hard-working Democratic people who wanted a break for the working man and woman. All right, so I didn’t get confirmed in the eighth grade. And I don’t spend every Sunday in a building with a steeple on it, but believe it or not, I have guiding principles: I keep my promises and never let people run down my friends. I was taught that any work has dignity and that you don’t run the other guy down just for doing things you don’t understand.

We all know that sometimes an aggressive appearance of piety is just that, an appearance, that has more of a relation as a smokescreen to cover up sins, than as the way and the light. Let’s try to separate that out from real devotion and principled living.

Let’s talk about free will. The Founding Fathers weren’t religious in the conventional way we understand the term today. My understanding is they believed God created the world, wound it up, and walked away, leaving people to figure it out.

They believed that people had the capacity to govern because they had will and rationality. My faith in that concept has been shaken, maybe forever, but I appreciate the ideal. I appreciate the recognition it gives the human mind. I’m proud of my mind It is perhaps my best instrument. In some way, the Creator thought enough of me to give it to me, or possibly curse me with it.

My values say you don’t turn your back on people. Not because of whom they love, and not because they live on a different side of the tracks than you.

My values say if your country is heading off the rails, you try to stop it. My values say that is patriotism, and I’ll never believe otherwise.

I didn’t have to involve myself in this, some people would tell me, and I suppose that argument could be made. I’m being supported , right now; it’s not my job being outsourced. My poverty ensures me health insurance, for the moment. I don’t live in a vacuum though, and my concerns extend beyond myself and my own immediate needs. The stereotype is that I watch cable on the government’s dime, and pray to be good so God will free me in some way. The stereotype lies. My fondest wish is to be a full citizen of this country that I’ve heard described as the “great experiment”.

Liberals answer to a higher authority too sometimes...we call it different names. My values respect sacrifice over “getting yours”.

My values say you don’t deny food and medical care to little poor kids just because they’re from Mexico. I’m still horrified by the passage of “Protect Arizona Now.” I think it is UnAmerican.
My values say not to lie.
My values say values are declared best through action, but I’m tired of never having the floor in character discussions, so I’m breaking a lifelong silence with this piece.

Love (continued...)

( continues...) should be stronger than fear and hate.

And, yes, I’m still working on the finer points of faith and spirituality. A benign Creator would understand my questing nature and give me space to satisfy it when I’m prepared to. Because life challenges us all and some of us were not born to a nourishing faith,and this is sad but true.If you are fortunate enough to be secure in your faith you’ll feel no need to change mine.
Somehow the American concepts of diversity and reinvention, once fundamental, have gotten a bad rap, but America used to be where people came to get a new start and leave behind repressive rules. This is very much part of our Western legacy, and we should respect and honor it.

My values say if people don’t like abortions, they ought not to have one, but it is a different thing to torment somebody else for, and restrict her from, the hardest decision she has to make, and I guarantee that most people , whatever their views on abortion, know somebody who had one, whether they talked about it or not. She’s not “those women”. She’s a mom, a friend, the checker at Target.My personal count is four women I know. And I’m not freakish and wild, and neither are they. They are just average American women nobody could pick out of a crowd who did what they thought was best at a difficult time in their lives. It’s hard to make a sound bite out of that.

As a nation right now, even though election season has passed, we still have decisions to make about what kind of country we want to be. I suggest we pull together and pledge not to sacrifice the many for the few, that we listen instead of shushing each other; that we endeavor to move beyond lip-service tolerance to a stronger acceptance. It’s the moral thing to do.
ETA: Author's Note OK, that's it, you can say it now. "Thank ya, Jesus!" The sad part is, I could do all the revisions and it could vanish anyway, but I tried, I suppose.

Challenge #31 "Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise." -- Margaret Atwood

Another conference. Our thirteen-year-old’s five teachers stare at Stephen and me across the battered table.

Seventh-graders aren’t supposed to need conferences. But Jake has merited one, again. “Not working up to his potential.” “Bright, but so unfocused.” “A smart kid, but a little immature.”

I hear it all, nodding, my cheeks hot with the need to deny, explain, apologize, insult, beg, words that will explode like shrapnel if I open my mouth.

They must know what I am, underneath. The bewildered child who still wonders how she can be responsible for a boy in middle school, already taller than her.

I hear it all, nodding, my cheeks hot with the need to deny, explain, apologize, insult, beg, words that will explode like shrapnel if I open my mouth.

They must know what I am, underneath. The bewildered child who still wonders how she can be responsible for a boy in middle school, already taller than her.

Oh, AmyLiz, I love that. It captures so beautifully that bewilderment so many of us feel about "adulthood" sometimes.

I especially love that last image, of the son taller than the mother.

(Also, I am so writing a companion piece to yours, if you don't mind! I'd love to do the other side.)

(Also, I am so writing a companion piece to yours, if you don't mind! I'd love to do the other side.)

Ooh, do! That would be very cool. (And he is taller, by an inch. Not that I'm not short, of course, but still. And his feet are like small canoes.)

The bewildered child who still wonders how she can be responsible for a boy in middle school, already taller than her.

I especially like how it makes the mother look even younger than her son, with "bewildered child". It creates a picture in my mind's eye, of a girl sitting in a chair too big for her, so her feet can't reach the ground, dressed up in grown-ups clothes and high-heeled shoes, looking all lost and out-of-place, holding her purse and nodding to the teacher. All that long sentence.

And his feet are like small canoes.

Scary visual place.

deb, backsent from both addresses, as we posted about (sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - we had a network problem here yesterday, no computer agreed to talk with the outside world. But they're behaving now).

Just wanted to thank everyone for the great feedback on the last story. Confirmed many of my own suspicions and made it easier for me to fix some problems.