Vintage Images - Patriotic Posters

copyright-free, from Dover.

Spoils of War

One benefit (although the spousal unit doesn’t think so) of hiyaku-ing off with the Red Cross is that if I do happen to get a day off, and if I can get my hands on a car, I can wile away a hot, humid, rainy afternoon hitting the local thrift stores*.

Proof that the Lord loveth a cheerful shopper, there was a large Goodwill store about six blocks from the DRO.  I came home with a purple barkcloth Hawaiian floweredy shirt, a beautiful leather cross-body satchel, and four bags of sock yarn.

Edited to add:  I of course had a legitimate reason for shopping at Goodwill; I needed a travel coffee mug, as DST (the disaster technology peeps) were getting tired of me knocking over my morning cup of joe in the cardboard cup. 

(*What did people do before the Internet?)

Caturday!

For Him The Glass Is Always Half Full

image from Pinterest

Several of us have gone out to dinner.  One of the waitresses – not the one at our table – is a young woman of impressive superstructure, and the buttons of her shirt are holding on in defiance of any known principle of structural engineering.  There are certain...ahem....gaps through which one can ascertain that she owes it all to Mother Nature and not to Maidenform™.

This has not escaped the notice of the volunteer sitting next to me.  He is a massive good ol’ boy everyone calls after his home state.

Me:  Tucky, I know you’re just waiting for one of those buttons to pop.

Second Volunteer: And when it does, it’ll put your eye out.

Tucky: Yeah, but I’ll go blind happy!

Never Underestimate The Power Of The Mouse

This is the sort of story I am inclined to disbelieve when I read it on the internet, but several people in the DRO vouched for it*.

A volunteer (who is also an Army reservist) was handing supplies out of the back of an ERV when he spotted a couple in line with a little girl half-hiding behind her dad.  Thanks to the generosity (or hegemony, depending on your point of view) of the Disney people, the Red Cross has a supply of Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls in every vehicle.  Sarge pulled out a doll, dropped to one knee, and offered it to the girl.

She grabbed the toy and threw her arms around Sarge and began crying “Mickey!” over and over.

Her parents told Sarge that it was the first time the child had spoken since they were evacuated.

(*and Sarge scowled, jammed his hands in his pockets, and walked away while it was being told, which is the response I would have expected).

Home Again

Joy was not entirely unconfined; Reserve Cat kept trying to roll on his back so I could scratch his chin, and Newdog kept dropping the Kong on him.  

Accidentally, of course. Newdog appears to have wised up considerably while I was away.

I am so tired that when I ran into a couple of his wife's clients at the Atlanta airport this afternoon, I couldn't remember Brian's youngest brother's name.  

Little Does He Know

Newdog just about tied himself into a pretzel when I got home last night.  I’m not sure how he’s going to take the news that I’m headed for Houston on Wednesday Tuesday.