I want to thank everyone for voting, no matter who you voted for.  And for each and every one of you who entered, it doesn't really matter who wins because your child is beautiful, special, and precious.  Thank you CRE13 for such a cute idea.

Our cat Hita ran away eleven days ago. 

We have put up posters and fliers in a five mile radius of our house.  In every mailbox there is.  Before and after work we comb the street for her, calling her name.  We love our cat.  We miss her like you wouldn't believe.  But eleven days, is eleven days, and we are realistic about the odds.

Then: a spark:  Some guy calls. "Ive got your cat. How much do you want for it?'  "You have Hita!?  Oh my God, I have fifty dollars for you! Thank you so much for calling!"  I am crying with joy, I am overwhelmed with happiness that Hita is okay and about to come home.

"Fifty dollars? No, you'll have to do better than that." And then he hung up on me.  HUNG UP ON ME.  From a blocked number.  Mike thinks it was a prank, but I'm thinking we've entered into a ransom situation.  But not really, I think the mother fucker was just trying to get a rise out of me.  Which he did, I cried.

I miss my cat.

Our cat Hita ran away from home on Friday.  We've done every last thing we can think of to get her back, and now all we can do is wait.  Wait, and walk around calling her name.

I miss you, Hita.  Please come home.

My parents called this morning to wish my husband Mike a happy Veteran's Day.  "We know that you have given a lot for your country and seen so many things."  And although they had the best intentions, it set Mike off on a tirade about war.

Mike was in the Marine Corps.  He was special forces and did a lot of horrible things for our freedom.  Horrible things.  He won't even talk about the missions before being deployed to Iraq.  Mike's platoon, along with Delta, was the first group into Iraq on the first day after the bombs were dropped on Baghdad.  There is a place called RPG Alley where he and his platoon fended off nearly a hundred insurgents.   And when I say "fended off" I mean killed.  And when I say "insurgents" I mean young Iraqi boys.   They were armed to the teeth and attacking Mike's platoon.  Marines are trained killers, they did what they had to do.

There was a time when he was on patrol, at the right place at the right time.  Two armed men had come into an Iraqi hospital's psych ward and proceeded to rape and kill all the mentally disturbed women.  They were in the process of stealing some medications when Mike and his group of big bad marines saved the day.  Do you know how they did that?  They shot those rapists, but not before they drug them out into the street and kicked their heads in.

Another heroic tale.  There was a young man who approached the Marine base camp with an automatic weapon in the middle of the night.  He was screaming and waving the weapon and was perceived as hostile.  Mike's buddy told him to stay where he was and to drop the weapon.  He didn't, so Mike's friend pointed his firearm at the man and screamed it again.  The man would not stop and turn back, they took him for a suicide bomber, and they shot him in the chest.  As Mike and his friend approached the man writhing on the ground, it became clear that the man was retarded and didn't know what he was doing.  They called for the medic and tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late.  The retarded man bled out right there in front of them.

One evening, around dusk, Mike was running across a rooftop, awaiting the demolition of a weapons cache.  He was shot as he was running across that rooftop, right in the bottom plate of his bullet proof vest.   The ceramic plate shattered and caused him a hernia that wasn't treated until he got back to the U.S.  He complained about his injuries but the way war works, if you aren't bleeding profusely you're doing fine.  He didn't get a purple heart, even though he was wounded in combat, and at 27 years old, is on 100% V.A. disability.   15% from the hernia, 25% for the traumatic brain injury caused by all the explosions near him, 50% for the lung condition caused by inhaling fumes and gas particles in Ramallah oil fields, and the rest for PTSD and nerve damage.  He trusts no one.  He never sleeps.  He drops to the floor at any loud noise.  He can't work.   He is 27 years old.

My husband has been broken by war.  His body is ravaged, his soul is devastated.   He has killed so many people, hundreds.  I say, "They would have killed you if you didn't kill them.  They were indoctrinated by and evil they could never overcome."  He says, "They were still somebody's sons."  I say, "You are so beautiful."  He says, "I am but a shell compared to what I once was."  I say, "You're a hero."  He says, "I am a United States lie." 

Mike sees the propaganda and becomes enraged: Support Your Troops.  These Colors Don't Run.  Semper Fi.   "You people have no fucking idea what you're talking about." And you know what?  He's right.  I didn't go to Iraq.  The majority of us didn't have to be a part of the waking nightmare of Iraq.  Or Afghanistan, or Somalia, Viet Nam, Korea, Germany, wherever.   Mike says the Iraq war was a complete sham.  He regrets every last minute of his service.  He believes the War on Terror is nothing more than a mass human sacrifice.  He believes they know exactly where Osama Bin Laden is, and they don't care.


"Mike, did you want to do something to celebrate Veteran's Day?" I ask.  "You know what you can do for me?  Help me figure out how to get my life back."  Veteran's Day is a horrible day to be a veteran, this much I know.

I haven't been posting.  I wanted to let you all know that I love you very much (unless you are a religious fanatic reading my blog in which case, I only like you as a friend).

I have an urge to write a few posts about food and how to eat it, but due to the recent crisis I have suspended my blog to focus on the economy.  Not really silly goose, I've just been a little busy!  I will be posting and more importantly commenting very soon.  In the mean time, here's a little off the worst of youtube to satiate your need for the crappy and tasteless entertainment my blog offers!

This woman has NINE of these horrible songs.