“Beta Zeta hats off to thee. To our colors true we will ever be. Young and strong united are we………”
We did sing it, but not in the bar or in the restaurant. We sang it in a cirlce, just as we used to do forty years ago. We sang it at about midnight in one of the hotel rooms as we ended an evening of boisterous and loving reminiscences.
I couldn’t help notice that we sang it a lot slower than we did forty years ago. But it probably meant even more to us now then it did then.
There are stories to be told about this reunion of what turned out to be fourteen women and the husbands of three of them who remember the same time of innocence, that time of boundless energies. A time when we were all learning together how to figure out who we wanted to be. A time when draft beer was 10 cents and girls would be confined to their dorms at night for a week if they stayed out later than 1 a.m. (midnight if you were a freshman).
I want to get up early enough to meet them for breakfast before they leave the hotel and the past behind. But for now, I sit here grateful for all of their reminders of that girl that I was, for remembering me as I remember me. For reminding me that I am still that girl.

I worry about terrorists. I don’t obsess, and it’s not on my mind every minute. But I think the Bush administration has set up a self-fulfilling prophesy.
So when I read Ann Jacobsen’s article in the Women’s Wall Street Journal last week, it made me nervous. Because, given the tenor of the times, I probably would have been seeing and feeling what she was seeing and feeling:
After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified.
Jacobsen’s tale is long but compelling and worth reading.
Even more worth reading (and a lot shorter) is lawyer and Stanford Ph.D. candidate Clinton Taylor’s research and analysis of the happening.
It used to be easy to tell books by their covers. Sometimes you still can. You just know that this one is sure to be a bodice-ripper.
This one is too, in it’s own way, but it’s harder to tell. (This new “romance” category with strong, brave kick-ass females and strong, brave, tender males is one I plan on writing more about.)
I’ve had doors held open for me by Goth-garbed kids and have been given the finger by guys in suits driving SUVs. You can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys any more. Or gals either for that matter.
Who knows what wickedness lurks behind the pleasant facade of a little ol’ granny.
UPDATE: For more on the fall-out from the airplane story, go here and scroll down.
UPDATE: I like Betsy Devine’s take on the whole thing, that ends with:
So, taking my own advice, I think that prosthetic shoes, etc. should not be off-limits to airport security searches. I think the rule that you can’t question more than two people of any ethnic group, if such a rule exists, is dangerous hooey. I think that questioning people about their flight plans, etc. does not violate their civil liberties. I think that people who do weird stuff on airliners should be told by flight attendants to behave themselves. I think that airline passengers who intentionally scare other airline passengers should be charged with assault.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Alexander. Now, Alexander was a very special little boy, especially to his Grammy, who loved him so much that she wanted to do something very very special for his second birthday

It hit me thirty years ago as a newly single mom. And it seems like it

ACLU Says White House Is Engaged in Patriot Act Misinformation Campaign; Releases Point-By-Point Response to Bush Falsehoods

It’s Freedom Friday, and I’m wearing a red T-shirt. I don’t think it’s going to make a hoot of difference. But I try to practice what I preach.
I’m also eating the reddest most delicious tomatoes that I’ve ever grown. They’re the first of my crop, and I’m not even sharing them with my mother. Today, on Red Friday, I’m the Little Red Hen.
And, finally, red is for all the Rage.
no conscience
when there are no shoulders
left for tears
no firm hands to touch
all there is left
is to scream
into the heartless void
and shit your losses
where you sleep

All of us who are parents want our kids to figure out what they’re good at and then go and do it well. Sometimes they wind up becoming even better at doing what their parents are pretty good at themselves. Such is the case in this family.
I’ve blogged about b!X’s citizen journalism before. Many times.
And now my daughter has a lovely short story published in the latest issue of the online magazine, DreamVirus.
I was a reasonably good mother. She’s an amazing one. And now she’s publishing fiction. I just blog.
Their Dad also has been acknowledged as a playwight. I failed to point this out last month when the audio performance of his The Killings Tale beat out Garrison Keeler in the 2004 Audie Awards category of “Audiobook Adapted from Another Medium.”
I can’t wait to see what creative path my (now) toddler grandson winds up taking. His dad is an illustrator. I mean, what are the chances of this kid winding up a CPA???
I’ll see the little guy for his second birthday this Sunday. The car’s already packed to the rafters with new clothes (including a t-shirt I made for him with his face in the cockpit of a cartoon rocket heading into outer space), a kid-sized pillow covered with a moon and planets fabric, a toy rocket, a kid’s toy kitchen (hey, he likes to pretend he’s making mac & cheese), and, of course Grammy’s Magic Gypsy Blanket (along with a little booklet that tells the story of how Grammy came to make it).
So, now there are two generations pushing out into the world ahead of me. . But I’m still hanging in there. Pant. Pant. Wheeze

Duck Kirk, a Texan combat veteran eloquently stands up for peace and against Bush:
….The thing that really stands out is that the vast majority of those who feel free to label their fellow citizens as un-patriotic, un-American, traitors, wimps, etc., especially those of us who actually wore the uniform and went to war, is that they themselves, for whatever reason, never wore this country