Hooray! For once my nefarious plans are not foiled!

FINE. I hope you're happy!

No, really, I hope you're happy. That was one fine nefarious plan, and I enjoyed my ice cream!

I'm eating a diet "chocolate chip cookie bake" does that count? I mean, it's on my diet. But it is chocolate chip cookie-esque. Though it would be much improved by ice cream.

On the other hand, my dad was stationed in Scotland in '65 and '66, and I guess he and my mom relied on letters.

Now I feel ancient. When KCD was in the Navy in the late '80s, it was all letter writing when the ship were away. I numbered my letters because it was inevitable they would be delivered out of order or in clumps. If something was crazy urgent, we could send a Red Cross telegram.

Back in 1987, when the USS Stark was hit in the Persian Gulf, it had just relieved KCD's ship from that post. Not that any of us knew those specifics when it happened. We just knew that our ship was supposed to be in that general area at the time "a" ship was hit. The next day our ship, the USS California, made an unplanned port call in Spain so the guys could call home and say they were ok. Quick 24 hours in port with shifts to get off the ship, call, back on and tag someone else off, basically.

Wow, SA, that is a really interesting subject!

I am selfishly glad that I am not the only one with a "unique" conception story. I was taught to be ashamed, and I don't want to be, and I think the more of us who talk about it will make it less shameful. In doing a lot of genealogy, I discovered that not only was my mother's generation "unique" (her older sister married a pedophile, then divorced, older brother was divorced, younger brother divorced), and my grandparents disliked each other and slept in separate rooms, but on my grandfather's side there was divorce and abandonment back to at least the early 1800's, and his sisters also were married but estranged and dating men other than their husbands in the 1950s! I think things must have happened more than we think, and people just didn't talk about it.

I think things must have happened more than we think, and people just didn't talk about it.

Oh, yes, indeed. Sexual shenanigans have been going on forever. The more repressed the society, the less anyone talks about it. When some scandal happens, people just don't mention it. Ever. Even if nothing else entirely makes sense because there's this piece of information that's missing.

Sexual shenanigans have been going on forever.

My dad's stories about sex in the '40s disabused me of any notion that people were behaving themselves before the pill. When my uncle was in HS he was banging a teacher in the supply closet. And that was in the 30s.

My sister was born well under 9 months after my parents married. She was "premature". Yeah, right.

I'm putting off succumbing to the desert talk until Saturday. I have a Valentine's tradition involving a large helping of something decadent, wine, and a viewing of Tank Girl or similar.

I saw a study once that looked at the first few years of the Plymouth Colony, and found some huge percentage of babies born less than six months after their parents were married.

Interview in 10 minutes.

Good luck, shrift!