A Bad Week Ends
9/14/1
I hadn�t really realized how busy I�d been this week. Monday was very busy, and since the attack on Tuesday, I�ve been going from morning to night, non-stop.
Tuesday, we got home and prepared the house for the college age kids to come over. Only two people showed up, and that was after they called to make sure it was OK.
Wednesday, I got home, ate, and we went to church. Not terribly busy, but I keep filling in the little empty spaces with watching Battlebots or blaring music really loudly in my car. At work, I�m either reading, writing, working in the lab with others, or doing stuff on the internet.
Thursday, I thought I could take a break. I wore my slip on suede shoes and my glasses to work. I intended to get home and take a nap before we went grocery shopping. I was also running late for work, so another reason for the glasses.
On the way to work, I listened to Live Through This by Hole. I went by the ATM at the Redstone on the Parkway and then to the McDonald�s at the intersection of Airport and Whitesburg. I didn�t know what the 99-cent breakfast sandwich was, so I just got my usual two breakfast burritos.
Work was work, but as I was leaving, I remembered that I had a checkup with Dr. Maddox about my hand. If you�re new to the Stuffo, I had surgery to remove a cyst on the flexoral tendon of my middle finger on my left hand about three weeks ago. The appointment was at 3:40 and I got there just in time after running by Aisai�s work and getting the checkbook.
The last time I was at Dr. Maddox�s office, I waited three hours and he saw me for about three minutes. He�s the big hand surgeon in town and I�d rather wait than go to the one other guy who no one can remember his name. I waited until 5 and then rescheduled for 7:30 in the morning next week. I had decided to do this since there were still three people in front of me and there was an A & M football player who had come in with a dislocated thumb. In the 20 minutes that he was there, that thumb got pretty big. And his friend who brought him just abandoned him there.
So, I drive in rush hour traffic, which I�m not used to, listening to ... I don�t remember. Something I knew the words to since I was singing to it. I get home and Aisai doesn�t want to cook. Fine, so we go to McDonald�s [after she lets me sit for a while and finish about � of a diet coke] and I had probably the freshest McDonald�s that I have ever had. I burnt myself on the fries.
From there, and now it�s 6:30, Aisai says we still have time to go grocery shopping, oh, not at Target, like I like to do, but at Hel-Mart.
And you ask, �Time left before what?� We had to pick up Aisai�s jet setting cousin from the bus station. She�s been traveling around again and at least she was in the country when all the borders locked and the planes stopped flying. Christy, that�s her name, got stuck in Ohio while visiting friends. She used to work for Delta and has something called Buddy Passes where she can go all over the place. We had to pick her up at 7:40 after getting a larger car, Ai�s mom�s Camry, which is on the other side of downtown.
We finish shopping and get the groceries home and we�re leaving the house at 7:10. It�s getting dark and by the time we got to 565, the sun had set. Setting suns aren�t a good thing for 565 at this time, because it means that the road crews come out. The four lanes which we go into were down to one, the far right only. I exited and took Rideout to Old Madison Pike to Bob Wallace to the Parkway to 565 and got around it. We didn�t get to the bus station on time. However, her bus was about 20 minutes late.
It wasn�t scheduled for 7:40, it was 7:55. The board on the wall which never changes said that. So it wasn�t like it was late, except that it came in at 8:15.
Moulton is a small town, or whatever is smaller than a town, [a grotto?], located on the other side of Decatur. It takes about 50 minutes to get there. So, we took Christy out to Grandmother�s in Moulton. I was in a driving mood anyway. Grandmother was more senile than usual so I stayed outside and played with the baby kittens.
People in that area will dump their unwanted kittens on Aisai�s grandmother, which is unfortunate, since she no longer can take care of them. I almost took one home. They were the sweetest kittens. All but two were sick. There were maybe seven kittens under six weeks old. One looked like Mouse she was so small. We all know what would happen to Mouse if we didn�t adopt her when we did.
We got back home at 10:40 and after looking at a catalog, we went to bed.
This morning was rushed and I got to work only one minute early. We have a time clock since one of the secretaries used to take four hour lunches. The irony is that we don�t have to clock out for lunch.
Labman is gone today. So after my normal morning stuff, I go in there and do some lab work. Then I have to wait an hour, so I�m back in my office. Then I set up all the bottles for BOD, and then I have to read the initial disolved oxygen. I was listening to the radio. They were playing patriotic songs.
Probably not since I watched the movie A.I. have I cried. I didn�t cry on Tuesday when they started showing us horror footage of New York. I didn�t cry at the prayer service we had in place of our normal classes at church on Wednesday. I felt bad, but I didn�t cry.
It was only when all the stimuli to keep me busy was removed. I was waiting on the stupid number to pop up on each of the 36 bottles I set up. 8.3, 8.5, 8.2, 8.7, whatever. I was thinking about it. About the attack.
Attack is my word of choice to describe it. I can�t think of anything else.
That song �Proud to Be An American� came on. I always thought that was such a corny song. I went back to he hallway that leads to nowhere where the scale and the oven are. I looked at the wall and cried. Then I got back to my work.
I am proud to be an American.
I was going to write an article about how I�ve never been proud of where I lived or went to school. I have been reading some Canadians stuff and they are proud to be Canadian. People from Texas who are proud to be Texans [as I am, but I only lived there til I was three.]
But I�m not proud of Huntsville. It�s OK. Very strategically important, in fact we were on the list of possible targets. I�m sure not proud of Alabama. I wish the state line followed the Tennessee River and we were in Tennessee [whoo hoo, no income taxes]. Huntsville never really thinks about Alabama, it�s got so many defense contracts, we really kind of answer to Washington D.C before we do the state.
But today, I remembered what I forgot. I�m really proud to be an American.
I looked up some Afghanistan info at the CIA World Fact Book. 15% infant mortality rate. The average woman has 5.9 kids [but obviously around a 5 kid survival rate]. There is no voting. There is no central government. When they did have voting, only males 15 to 50 years old were allowed to vote. Their main agricultural product is opium poppies. 47% of the males are literate and 15% of the females are. The legislative branch stopped functioning in 1993. The Judicial branch stopped functioning in 1996. There are 25 million people but only 160,000 radios and only 100,000 televisions [one TV per 250 people].
�Military branches: NA; note - the military does not exist on a national basis; some elements of the former Army, Air and Air Defense Forces, National Guard, Border Guard Forces, National Police Force (Sarandoi), and tribal militias still exist but are factionalized among the various groups�
�Illicit drugs: world's largest illicit opium producer, surpassing Burma (potential production in 1999 - 1,670 metric tons; cultivation in 1999 - 51,500 hectares, a 23% increase over 1998); a major source of hashish; increasing number of heroin-processing laboratories being set up in the country; major political factions in the country profit from drug trade�
�US provided about $70 million in humanitarian assistance in 1997; US continues to contribute to multilateral assistance through the UN programs of food aid, immunization, land mine removal, and a wide range of aid to refugees and displaced persons.�
Source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/af.html