Thursday, June 11, 2009

Three Thursday Thoughts

1. My little sister had her baby yesterday. The baby was almost 8.5 pounds! Very exciting stuff...I can't wait to meet her but it looks like it will be July before I get back down to KY...We've got quite a lot of stuff going on the next few weeks...so a 10 hour round trip for a couple days isn't really in the cards. I'll be in KY for about a week in July anyway so it seems as if it'd be better to wait until then so I get some real quality time with my sister and her two daughters...

2. I've been reading Marion Chesney's Edwardian Murder Mystery series. It's pretty good though not as good as her Hamish Macbeth or Agatha Raisin series...I started with the Hamish Macbeth series after a friend recommended it and then moved on to Agatha Raisin for a while. I started the new series because I am missing two of the Hamish books (I got the rest really cheap on eBay) so am waiting to read the others until I get those two...In the meantime, I also finished reading a biography about Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Volume 1 of the Complete Sherlock Holmes, both of which I really enjoyed. I'm about a third of the way through Gulliver's Travels but I'm just not taking to it so I keep putting off picking it back up again...I already told my husband that I'd like Volume II of the Sherlock Holmes for my birthday or Christmas. I enjoyed Sherlock much more than I thought I would...though I've always loved mystery stories...even as a little girl some of my favorite books were Nancy Drew and those books where you could pick the outcome - I don't remember what they were called...

3. My husband handed me an article yesterday he thought I might enjoy and turned out I loved it. One of the magazines we receive is "Military Money Magazine" which we get because I'm a member of the National Military Family Association. The article was Sarah Smiley's "Shore Duty" column. I occasionally read her column because she has a lot to say about being a military spouse though I had missed this one. The article was essentially a review of a documentary called "The Way We Get By." It's mainly about three residents of Bangor, Maine who, along with many others, are unofficial greeters for American troops passing through the airport. What really struck me about this article was the fact that I myself have benefited from these greeters at Bangor. Back in 1998, I was headed out for my first deployment as a 2nd Lt. We went to Bangor because we were flying the rest of the way to the UAE with the "Mainiacs" and one of their KC-135s. We got there late and it was already dark. There were only about three or four of us and the airport seemed pretty dead. When we got off the plane, all I remember is being greeted by some very nice people who asked if we needed anything, told us where we could go to get a good lobster dinner and thanked us for our service. Now, I don't know if they were the same people covered in this documentary, but it's something I have never forgotten. The fact that people came out to meet us and see if we needed anything made an impression on me I'll never forget...

3 comments:

  1. Congrats on the niece! Almost made it to Flag Day--one of the few remaining "date-based" holidays. At least your sister won't have to endure any more of the heat and humidity compounded by the pregnancy!

    OK, so here's a friendly threat--Benjamin may try to track you down while you're in Kentucky (or Southern Indiana as we call it around here). He loves giving hugs and could tell you all about his tick.

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  2. I don't recall anyone meeting us at the Bangor airport when we transited there for customs in C-130s. However, we usually landed and took off at really odd hours, either very early or very late in the day.

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  3. Trebord - it would be great to see you again and finally meet Benny! I'll let you know when I'll be in KY...or maybe we can set something else up...

    Speaking of which, bigboid - still need to get together! Sad that it hasn't happened yet when we live realtively close together...

    Update...my wonderful husband figured out what books I was talking about in the blog - do you remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books? Those were awesome!

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