Well as I bitched in Write Way, my editor told me today that he considers the term "War budget" technically incorrect as a term for the U.S military budget. According to him the entire military budget before 911 was a "defense budget" and that baseline remains a "defense budget". Only spending above the pre-911 level can be described as a war budget.

Because the U.S. did not get involved in non-defensive wars or military actions before 911. And unused military capacity is by definition defensive since no one would ever built up military power and THEN use it aggressively.

Ugh Anne. I hope things get better soon.

How are people?

I are good!

I am home, yay! House looks pretty good! Startlingly, the across the street neighbor has built a garage/outbuilding on his neighboring lot. It blocks a minimal amount of my view but works out well overall for me because it also blocks the two streets away neighbor's view of my house from their deck. So I have more privacy! Which, you know, I needed since I live in the middle of the desert with only one neighbor.

I walked in the door and then spend the next hour and a half doing domestic abuse counseling, though, ugh. And over the hour and a half we only got as far as "I think we might need to take a break." "Get out the first time you get hit" seems to have not taken. But I'll take what I can get if it gets her out of there. Sheesh.

Anne, NO CATCHING FIRE. Argh.

Good job, brenda! That was hard to do, but very smart.

Yeeps Liese, that's quite a welcome home. Uh, welcome home!

I am sitting here quite sure there's something I'm not taking care of. I don't like that feeling.

I got raked over the coals by the project team for the project from hell. I feel sick as a dog and I hate the world, so it was really not a good time.

And I'm *out* of Ambien, so the lack of sleep is just going to get worse.

On the other hand, I got a good author for my next big bang, even though it's going to be a tricky story to illustrate.

Anne, NO CATCHING FIRE. Argh.

At least I didn't actually catch fire. Also, I am in a position to be able to get a new car, even though it means postponing a few other things I had planned. So yeah, bad, but it could be much, much worse.

At least I didn't actually catch fire.

Some days, that all you can ask.

Welcome home, Liese! And much ~ma to your counselee.

It's sort of like the long-running, highly successful "Walk for Hunger" here. Uh, maybe walk against hunger??

Back in the day, when I was a professional peace activist, it disturbed me that people kept chanting, "Bring down the bombs!"

Um. I walked across America to KEEP THAT FROM HAPPENING, can't we find different words?