Supporting Our Troops??

Sometimes I just don't know what's worse: that we have sent our soldiers to risk their lives for a fight that has nothing to do with us, or the callous way we rationalize their deaths. I am glad that Ms. Cason wrote this article that she gave these kids (all three of them) one more time in our collective memory. The newspaper that published this story gave one of these soldiers, a local native only 21 years old, about five lines the other day. Perhaps it was too difficult to go out and speak to Mr. Meza's parents, to search out one teacher or former employer, perhaps they just don't care. All I know is that all of our soldiers, but especially the ones who have sacrificed their lives, deserve at least a little more time to research and then tell the story of their lives. CORRECTION: I didn't see the article they published two days later: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/oct/12/soldier-in-iraq-less-than-a-month/

I know you are capable of clicking onto the link and reading the story on your own, and I am not trying to fill up my blog with all these words that I didn't write, but with these local newspapers, the links eventually go away, and I want to give all three of these soldiers a little bit of posterity.

Different twists to two soldiers' stories
By Colleen Cason Sunday, October 14, 2007

Some stories, once heard, stake out a place in our brains.

Most of the time they hang out quietly in some back lobe of the cerebrum. But something will happen and they come roaring to the front of the mind.

Pfc. Kevin Luna's story is one of those for me.

I thought immediately of the Oxnard native last week when news broke of the death of Army National Guard Cpl. Ciara Durkin of Quincy, Mass.

Durkin, a 30-year-old native of Ireland, died while serving her adopted country in Afghanistan. She was found with a single gunshot wound to the head outside the chapel at Bagram Airfield.
In short order Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy called for an independent investigation. Government liaisons were at the family home providing support and information.

There are red flags here, to be sure. In shades of the case of National Football League safety-turned-soldier Pat Tillman, the Durkin family apparently first had been informed Ciara was killed in action.

In addition, Durkin was gay and had told her siblings if anything happened to her they should push for an investigation.

I begrudge the Durkins nothing. The family of a solider who gave up her life while serving this country deserves every kindness and comfort this nation can provide.

But Kevin Luna's family got neither outraged senators nor solicitous liaisons after he died Jan. 27, 2005, while serving on the front lines in Iraq. He was killed in his barracks by a single gunshot wound to the chest.

There were red flags in his case, too. In the weeks before his death, he had told his mother and an Army buddy that he was being ostracized by his unit.

The official story is Luna's sergeant, James Pousard, shot the 26-year-old husband and father while playing with his gun.

Before Army investigators arrived, soldiers took it upon themselves to clean up the crime scene.
His family, particularly his mother, Theresa, has never bought the Army's version — not because of what she had heard — but because of the silence. She has heard almost nothing from anyone who served with Luna in Iraq. If it were just a horrible accident, wouldn't all his comrades have lined up to console her?

Instead of liaisons at her disposal, she has been forced to file Freedom of Information Act requests for records on his case.

She had to travel alone to Germany, where Pousard's trial was held, to deliver a victim-impact statement when no one else in Luna's unit came forward.

And senators calling for investigations? Forget about it.

When I was reporting on the Luna case for a Memorial Day feature, the sandbagging I got was so outrageous, even by government standards, I kept the e-mails.

Still, I believe everyone cares about what happened to Kevin Luna. They just don't care enough to follow up.

Even the president of the United States.

Last month at an event for military families at the White House, Theresa Luna was able to look into the face of President Bush and talk about her son. She told the commander-in-chief she had questions about how he died. She told him she had even written him a letter.
What was the response? Mr. Bush had asked.

Theresa Luna was referred to the someone at the Pentagon. It never went anywhere, she recalled telling Mr. Bush before she began to weep and saw tears in the president's eyes.
But there was no follow-up.

I hesitated to even write this column. I feared it would be giving too much attention to one soldier.

The other day, at the very moment I was debating it in my mind, I received a rather clear sign, though.

I was driving on Highway 101 when a blue pickup passed me. On the rear window was one of those memorial decals. This one read: "In Loving Memory of Kevin Luna."

On Oct. 5, Cpl. Gilberto Meza died in Iraq when a roadside bomb went off.

Perhaps, one of you will read a story about this 21-year-old Oxnard man, and his memory will find a home in your mind.

And if he does, tell his story and if it comes to it — and I hope it never does — make noise when things aren't right.

Just because fallen soldiers are out of our sight, they should never be out of our minds.

— E-mail this Star columnist at ccason@Venturaountystar.com.

To find out more
To learn more about the investigation into Pfc. Kevin Luna's death, go to: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/may/27/no-headline---na1fcfriendlyfire27/

Must Listen

Listen to this.

Trust me.

Just do it.

Let me know what you think.

Ranting TOTN style

Though I am not a huge Vicente Fox fan, I must take issue with the kinds of questions that Neal frequently asks about the undocumented and their "illegal" actions.

I want to know when it comes to breaking laws, why is it that crossing of the border without visas is the only law breaking that matters? When have you asked about the employers who break the law, willingly and knowingly for the most part -- who in fact are fighting the reporting laws trying to be put into effect by Chertoff as we speak? Employers from the largest packing, construction and farming industry to the individuals who hire nannies, house cleaners and day laborers every day are ALSO breaking the law. This does not even include the worst offenders who help smuggle in workers from Mexico and Asian countries and then treat them as virtual slaves. Not only do they enjoy the protections of citizenship and due process, their law-breaking is not being prosecuted in any way with very few exceptions. When the raids go down, the powers that be in cities and regions step in to PROTECT the economy, but not the American-born children of those hard-working folks who are being held in substandard lock-downs. Clear presentation of both sides of this issue, particularly the economic subsidy that employing undocumented and other low-wage workers provides for all of us who want cheap clothing, food and services. When will you discuss OUR role in the illegal acts? When will you expose the inconsistencies and fallacies that are expounded on your air waves, such as undocumented are living off of welfare (American-born children are not breaking the law by receiving aid) or that undocumented immigrants are the reason for our emergency room crisis? Better yet, when will you unpack the issue of why anti-immigration is on the rise now? Does it not strike you as more than just a coincidence that Americans of Latino descent are not the largest "minority" group with the highest reproductive rates in the country? FAIR is not afraid of undocumented immigrants, it is afraid of me, an educated third generation American who votes. How about some connecting of the dots?

I don't mean to take it all out on you, but it is not the first program I have heard on TOTN (as well as many other NPR programs) that does not dare to ask hard questions of the anti-immigration lobby. Please consider this email regardless of the obvious annoyed and frustrated tone.

Sightings

I am sitting in the brand new, upscale Starbucks and no upscale people are around at this hour. The 5 o'clock get out of dodge bell rang over an hour ago.

A homeless man with a backpack came in for a sample of something. He charms the woman behind the counter into giving him a coffee. He tells her when he's a millionaire, he'll share it all with her and tries to get her to agree to this pact where she'll reciprocate. He is sweet and endearing.

He walks out into the street carrying a little sample cup in one hand and his coffee in the other. A young woman spies him from across the street. She has just exited the yuppie bar and grill where I am to meet friends in a few minutes. The place were we pretend to be a multicultural community despite the fact that no interracial groups will be in attendance.

She's carrying a little left over box. She runs across the street to hand it to the homeless man. He gently places his two cups (one very small) on the sidewalk to accept her gift. He opens the box as she runs back across the street. Whatever is inside must be good, just what he was hoping for, because he looks across the street at her adoringly. He closes the box again and places it in his backpack, picks up the cups and heads off out of my sight, talking to himself or maybe to his invisible companion.

Modern Day Slavery in the U. S.

This is just to make sure your eyes are wide open.

Bad, "third world" things don't just happen in other countries... and sometimes when they do, it is as a result of our country's meddling or profiteering.

YIKES.

The Run

Where should I start?



The truth is this was the most challenging course and I knew it would be. Or rather I imagined it wold be. The 12K on Mt. Tam was a little bit of a wake up call to the REALity of just how challenging climbing 1200 feet in a few miles could be, but not enough.



I did not train as well as I should have, as well as I could have.



I struggled in the 12K and made it in dead last, but still running at the finish line. I could have gotten serious then about training, but I survived so I didn't muster the determination to full out train. I did better than I had been, but still not enough.



I didn't think about the fact that THE RUN would actually be not the double of Mt. Tam but TRIPLE. I somehow erased from my thinking that I would climb 1200 feet or so 3 times, never mind the 3 descents which my Mt. Tam experience had also taught me to dread.



So, it was difficult. It was hellish. It seemed neverending. But I did it. I survived. I finished. I conquered all three hills even if it was not at my best.



And it was beautiful -- breathtaking views of the California coast that even my sister said it was more beautiful than our coastline (we grew up near the most beautiful and filmed coastline of Malibu and it is gorgeous as well as holding a special place in the hearts of our family). I did stop to enjoy the views and sketch my aching muscles and cath my breath.

The Economic Consequences of Hate and Selfishness?

Yeah... so, sometimes karma comes and bites you on the butt.

Watch out...

This is a cautionary tale, and a little vindication for my opinions.

Happy reading.

Must See Film

I just watched the documentary Made in LA on PBS's P.O.V. (one of my favorite shows ever).

I think it speaks best for itself...so you should watch it. Check your local listings...it should be on your local PBS station.

I had the opportunity to go see it in San Francisco this evening and even meet the filmmakers, but I had to work late. Luckily I taped it.

I wish I could have been there, though, to feel the energy in the air. To participate and hear the audience participation. To feel shock, the horror, the pride and the strength.

Instead, I cried silently with the women, felt proud of their determination, felt the pain in my heart when they were frustrated, and ultimately felt relieved when their hard work was rewarded, even if in a small way.

It's important to know that we are all a part of this crazy mess. It's not poor people in some backward country sewing your clothes and they should be happy for the job and the money. It's poor people in this country, your country. You know, the one that you want to send your kids to other countries to fight for...

Exploitation should not be the American way.

It is hardly the legacy I would want my children to have.


Oh...and as a special treat, at the end of the film, there are two shorts. The second a film called Bullet Proof Vest by May Lin Au Yong lets two young siblings from Richmond, CA speak eloquently about why they cannot play outside. You can watch it here; it's only five minutes long, so take break and check it out.

Extremely powerful.

I love PBS... who needs cable?
;)

On why I would like to work at Google...

This little story is just another example of why it might be fun to work at Google.

You can check out the gallery of dignitaries photographed with "the guy from Google."

Not afraid of hard work, I am not turned off by the potential long days (and nights) of work, but I just can't get them to look at my resume.

I swear there must be a job for me there!

Why Guilani Is NOT Some Benign Republican

I know that there are those of you out there thinking, well Guiliani is not as bad as those fundamentalist Republicans. Well, please, think carefully about this.

If it is not enough to know the callous way that the public servants who worked at ground zero were treated and continue to be treated at Guilani's direction, then consider this documentary: Every Mother's Son.

It details the way that Guiliani's get tough on crime initiatives TERRORIZED the citizens of New York City.

This is exactly what we have to look forward to as citizens of this country and the world with a person like Guiliani as president.

You thought Bush was bad, well, this is like having Cheney as president.

The Kind of Spunk I Like...

and can get you in trouble.

Reggie has a brand new home in a lovely, rather expensive area of town, and yet, he would rather be FREE.

These are the latest escapades of the wild gator, Reggie.

Luckily, his handlers are philosophical about the whole thing; they understand his waywards ways:

"It proves to us that he's a very smart, healthy gator," Jason Jacobs, zoo
spokesperson said.

"...maybe he was heading back to Harbor City," said City Councilperson Janice Hahn. "We all know that Reggie is a very smart and elusive gator," she said. "It took us almost two years to catch him and I would expect nothing less than at least one escape attempt from him."

Reminds me of my uncle's cow who kept escaping and trying to get back to Buellton. But that's a whole other story.

Hate Did Not Win Today

You can read this one on your own... the brief: Hazelton, PA's anti-immigrant law was struck down.

I hope their mayor does appeal it as far as he can, so it can go in the law school books under this title:
THIS IS WHAT HATE LOOKS LIKE...
or maybe:
CLASSIC SCAPEGOATING

Worth a Read...trust me

I would just give you the link and urge you to go there, but it's a NY Times Select Article, so if you aren't a subscriber, you can't see it (unless you pay, of course). Check out the quote about Condi; if she was scary before, this is slasher movie scary...

I also know that this hardly counts as MY POST when all I am doing is passing it along, but indulge and forgive me. I am still recovering from hectic two job weeks...

A Crack in Team Bush
By JUDITH WARNER
Published: July 21, 2007

It was a shock to see Defense Secretary Robert Gates battling tears Wednesday evening as he spoke about Maj. Douglas Zembiec, a Marine and father of a 1-year-old daughter, who was killed in May after requesting a second tour of duty in Iraq.

Shocking and yet somehow profoundly validating and cathartic.

Choking, pausing, visibly suffering and clearly fighting off an onslaught of unwelcome emotion as he addressed the Marine Corps Association’s annual dinner, Gates seemed, for a moment, to tap into national sentiment in a way that the Bush team has never before done.

Sure, they tapped into our anger, fear and hatred in the days and months after 9/11. Sure, their swagger stoked our desires for vengeance and soothed some of the terror that took up residence in our guts in the weeks following the attacks.

But here was something new: an acknowledgment, however unbidden, of the complex range of negative emotions — sadness and frustration and, yes, I think, guilt — that’s now weighing upon the nation’s soul after four disastrous years in Iraq.

We’d never seen anything like it in the “Henny Penny” brush-offs of Gates’s predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. We probably never will discern any inkling of it in Condoleezza Rice’s robotic equanimity. President Bush is known to meet privately with wounded soldiers and families of the fallen and is said, at those times, to become emotional, but little of that softness seeps into his often cocky — and defensive — public demeanor.

It’s hard to imagine much sympathy emanating from a man who admits to no soul-searching on Iraq, who vacationed through the panic and devastation of Hurricane Katrina and who recently shrugged off the issue of health care reform with the line, “I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

Rice, I read in the recent biography, “Twice as Good,” is so incapable of empathy that, in her late teens, and after years of assiduous and ambitious practice, she was forced to give up her dreams of becoming a concert pianist because her teacher felt she didn’t have the “interest or inclination” to “make someone else’s thoughts and emotions [her] own.”

We’ve all seen by now where such emotional sterility, coupled with a ferocious attachment to ideology, leads. And I think, as a nation — as Gates just did so publicly — we’re starting to show cracks from the strain.

I kept waiting yesterday for signs that, after his almost tearful performance, Gates would be labeled a “nut” or a “wimp” or some kind of national disgrace.

They didn’t come.

Instead, on a discussion board at Military.com, an online organization for active members of the military and veterans, I found Gates referred to as “a man of honor and integrity” by a former Marine Corps officer, who admitted that he himself, hearing Zembiec’s story, had broken down and cried, for the first time, before his 9- and 11-year-old children.

“He is obviously a man who tries his best to serve his country as best he possibly can, and he isn’t afraid to show his emotions,” wrote another poster.

Another wrote of being moved to tears nightly by the evening news: “I ache when I think of America’s sons and daughters being killed in a distant land. I am so relieved that Robert Gates is the decent, caring man he is proving to be.”

I pictured Vice President Dick Cheney miming, “Gag me,” and Rumsfeld swaying with the motions of playing an imaginary violin. And I thought: how wonderful it is that someone, on high, has had the strength to own the pain that’s been caused by our disastrous course in Iraq. One has to wonder, of course, what public opinion would have been if the first cabinet official to lose it — just a bit — had been not the stoic bureaucrat Gates but instead our female secretary of state. Had it been Rice up on that podium, and were she constitutionally capable of that degree of non-Bush-centered feeling, would she have been denounced? Would she have been belittled, punished politically, dismissed as too irrational and emotional — too girly — to deal with the ugly realities of war?

We’ll never know, because she — like all powerful women in politics — will never let us find out. They can’t afford to. Not unless much more of official Washington decides it’s man enough to truly feel our nation’s inner disarray.

Judith Warner is the author of “Perfect Madness” and a contributing columnist for TimesSelect. She is a guest Op-Ed columnist.

Read about a hands-on civics lesson... AND VOTE!

NYTIMES: CITYWIDE; Raising Young Voices for Illegal Mexican Immigrants
By DAVID GONZALEZ

Who knew a civics lesson awaited every time Daisy and Moises Mendoza looked around their neighborhood in East Harlem? Their parents came to New York from Mexico and raised them the hard way, earning pennies at a time handing out fliers on street corners and selling shaved ice snacks in parks. Other teenagers gave up on school to deliver food or bake pizzas. Their neighbors often slipped into the dreary low-profile routine of the illegal immigrant, sweating in gardens or construction sites and not complaining.

''Supposedly, they can't be heard,'' Daisy said.

That is where the civics lesson kicked in. Lucky enough to be born in New York, Daisy and Moises are citizens, for whom voting and civic participation are a birthright and duty. They grew up as pint-size bilingual guides helping their parents understand what was happening at school meetings and visits to the doctor's office. They are active in a youth group at Esperanza del Barrio, a local advocacy group that started out helping street vendors. And while they have to wait to cast their first ballots -- Daisy is 17 and Moises 15 -- they already feel a special responsibility to help their neighbors.

''We have more rights and they don't,'' Daisy said. ''We're legal and they're not.''
Her brother, a spiky-haired laid-back sort, finished her thought.

''They need somebody to have a voice for them,'' Moises said. ''That's our job to do.''
With Washington having failed to pass an immigration overhaul, advocates are increasingly turning to immigrants' children as allies in their political efforts. Many young people raised in this country know their way around a system that sometimes baffles their parents. Those who are citizens can speak out for those who have yet to get their papers. And they can vote.
Robert C. Smith, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College who has extensively studied New York's Mexican population, estimated that the city's half-million Mexicans could have as many as 150,000 children born in the United States. Another big chunk of children came to New York in the early 1990s, when they were reunited with parents who benefited from a 1986 amnesty law that made them legal residents, allowed them to bring their children here and put them on the path to citizenship. And many more are on the way right here, thanks to a rising birthrate.
''We're beginning to see people coming of voting age,'' Dr. Smith said. ''Already Mexicans have surpassed Dominicans in terms of birth. For the next 20 years, Mexicans have the tremendous potential to become a political force.''

The image of the Mexican community for years was one of an illegal and politically apathetic group. But in recent years there have been signs that the younger generation is willing to speak out, starting with issues that most directly affect it, especially education.

In 2002, immigrants successfully pushed for the City University system to preserve in-state tuition rates for students here illegally. Currently, they are seeking to keep alive the Dream Act, federal legislation that proposes to offer tuition help and a path to citizenship to immigrant high school graduates.

Marisol Ramos was born in New York 23 years ago to parents who were here illegally at the time. Her mother worked as a seamstress, but lost her job after production shifted to Mexico. Her father has worked for 30 years as a cook at a restaurant on City Island. They benefited from the 1986 amnesty. When they finally became citizens a few years ago, Ms. Ramos tutored them in American history.

''I was the first in my family to go to college,'' she said. ''I became politically aware and I tried to pass it along to my family members.''

She is now trying to help other immigrant children go to college, working with a coalition that is seeking passage of the Dream Act. Next month, she said, the group plans to start a voter registration drive focusing on the children of immigrants. It is a first step toward nudging them into civic engagement, she said, rather than being complacent as citizens.

''There is ambivalence,'' said Ms. Ramos, who is applying to law school. ''So many second-generation youth can be allies to the undocumented but are not. And they are not voting, so their voice is nonexistent, when it should be there.''

Advocates at groups working with the city's Mexican immigrants said politicians had become more responsive to their concerns. Some said they were ignored or even rebuffed in earlier attempts to meet with officeholders.

''The undocumented are phantoms who are not here legally, so they do not exist,'' said Dr. Gabriel Rincón, a dentist in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and founder of the advocacy group Mixteca Organization. ''Politicians did not see any benefit because these people do not vote. So we need to get people registered or else the politicians will never listen.''

Joel Magallan spent much of last year reminding local politicians that the children of the immigrants who come to him for help are all potential voters. Mr. Magallan is the executive director of Asociación Tepeyac de New York, an education and advocacy group he founded 10 years ago. When he started the group, his focus was on religious and cultural events that eased the isolation of recent immigrants. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he scrambled to help the hundreds of laborers affected by the disaster. Now, without an immigration overhaul, he has redoubled his efforts among the young.

''I had been thinking about this for a long time,'' he said. ''We were just waiting for the time when their children could be able to vote. And we have a lot of children.''

He admitted there are challenges. Many young adults are focused on work, rather than community. And others come from homes where parents made them suspicious of politicians, thanks to the corruption that marked Mexican politics. Mr. Magallan focused his efforts on the children of his group's earliest members, figuring they knew the issues and were willing to help. He hopes they will reach out to friends and encourage them to register to vote.

''The fight for immigration reform in 2009 starts now,'' Mr. Magallan said. ''We have to register all the children of immigrants who are 17 now so they can vote in the next election. These are the people who can then lobby our legislators in 2009.''

Estrellita Montiel's uncle was among the founders of Tepeyac, so volunteering there was a family tradition. Her parents, who worked cleaning hotels and offices, came to New York illegally three decades ago and took advantage of the 1986 amnesty. She was born here 22 years ago and now attends St. John's University. This summer she has been working with several dozen schoolchildren at the group's day camp in Queens.

''Their parents don't know the language, so by working here we're helping those who came here like my parents,'' she said Wednesday as she took the group out to a playground.
Just as important to her is finding her own political voice to help young adults -- including some of her friends -- who are about to get college degrees, even though they have yet to become legal residents.

''They'll have a diploma, but they won't be able to work,'' she said. ''They came here with their parents, but they have been here so long, what are they going to do? They can't go back to Mexico.''

Juan Carlos Aguirre, 27, has also been involved with Tepeyac since he was a teenager. He spent much of his early life raised by relatives in Mexico and joined his mother in New York 17 years ago. After a stint in the United States Navy, he became a citizen in 2004. Now he works at Tepeyac's English program and is studying communications at St. John's University.

Mr. Aguirre feels he ''belongs to this country'' and says he may one day get involved in politics. He is worried about teenagers like his brother, who dropped out of school to go to work and help pay the rent.

''A lot of them have not been as lucky as I was,'' he said. ''Those of us who can do something, especially for the undocumented, we should do it. ''

finding the antidote

I had to dig into my email to find this gem; it was worth it.

When we catch ourselves thinking or behaving judgmentally, we should ask ourselves where these judgments come from. Traits we hope we do not possess can instigate our criticism when we see them in others because passing judgment distances us from those traits. Once we regain our center, we can reinforce our open-mindedness by putting our feelings into words. To acknowledge to ourselves that we have judged, and that we have identified the root of our judgments, is the first step to a path of compassion. Recognizing that we limit our awareness by assessing others critically can make moving past our initial impressions much easier. Judgments seldom leave room for alternate possibilities.

Mother Teresa said, “If you judge people, you don’t have time to love them.” If we are quick to pass judgment on others, we forget that they, like us, are human beings. As we seldom know what roads people have traveled before a shared encounter or why they have come into our lives, we should always give those we meet the gift of an open heart. Doing so allows us to replace fear-based criticism with appreciation because we can then focus wholeheartedly on the spark of good that burns in all human souls.

For the past few days, I have been fighting through this... trying to figure out what I could do, needed to do and want to do in order to fight this feeling. Need to ground, find the center, acknowledge, and remember that compassion is my most fervent goal.

A friend asked me yesterday, as we talked about my inability to commit to ONE job, "What do you want to do?"

I don't know. I told her. I don't have any shame in admitting that. Maybe I should, but I don't.

But, I do know what I want to be, more than anything: compassionate.
I also know what I do not want to be: selfish.

So, I can be compassionate with myself on not being able to make good progress on finding the "right" job; however, I do need to be more consistent and persistent on being compassionate with the world, and especially with those around me.

Just a thought.

snippy

I hate the tight feeling... it's tight in my chest and I feel closed in a little box, barely able to move my head around... and it comes out as snippy.

You may encounter this feeling sometimes.

It takes a little while for me to notice that I am snapping (in my mind if not aloud each time) at every little irritant...and EVERYTHING is irritating.

When I realize it, then I know the real unease will begin.

Now I have to dig and find what is really irritating me and deal with that so that I can STOP being SNIPPY to the world.

YUCK.

The unsuspecting starlets

I have been following the progress of these two whales, like so many others. I never got in the car to see them in person... it's more fun to read the accounts, watch the people on tv looking for the whales, and to imagine what might be going on in their brains.

like snowflakes

each blog entry is unique...
some are rants
some are only masquerading as rants
some look deep inside
some just observe what goes on around me

the best thing about blogging is I don't have to worry about anything...read or don't read. I get to express my opinion, muse out loud, bitch about the thorn in my side or wonder at the world.

The Curious Turtle

Nearly six years ago, I was kayaking on the Rancocas River; it was a "family" outing -- "" because it was when I was still married and "family" kayaking meant me, him and my mother-in-law. In this case, it also meant the sister-in-law and her girls.

It's probably an exaggeration, but I never felt more alone in New Jersey than when I was with his family. Not that I didn't like, enjoy or get along with them. The connections between them let alone between them and me were as delicate as spider's webs. Obviously intricate and sturdy when used in a conventional way, say trapping flies. Unavoidably fragile when intruded upon by the unexpected other, say a culturally different (maybe opposite) not conventionally pretty or demurely behaved daughter-in-law clumsily tramping through a web.

So in our flotilla we started down the river. Late spring or early summer, maybe Memorial Day weekend, I can't remember. The trees were thick around us, but there was plenty of sun. As I glanced around me, I saw little tiny turtles sunning themselves. So tiny their sunning spots were lily pads.

Can I keep one if I catch one?

I had wanted a turtle for a very long time, maybe as far back as Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, but not the kind you buy in a pet store. That clearly would be cheating. My mom and dad found one on the bank of the canal during a walk on one of their visits to New Jersey. They brought it home to me, but it wasn't the kind of thing you would keep as a pet. Prehistoric-looking and not at all interested in beings other than itself.

Why I felt the need to ask permission is another story altogether. Though his disbelieving answer that I could certainly keep it, if I could catch it is important as just the tone of voice provided motivation.

My first attempts appeared fruitless but, in fact, they provided important data that could help in my capture of a small, unsuspecting baby turtle.

Keep in mind two things:

1) these turtles were the size of quarters;

2) I had to use the oar to catch one or risk tipping right out of the kayak.

I tried to be faster than the turtles, dipping my oar into the lily pads to score the prize. Before I could get to them, they dove. And then they were gone. I had to continue on to the next patch of sunning baby turtles.

Eventually, I realized they were alerted by the shadow of the oar. Pondering how to make a shadow disappear, I noticed one of the baby turtles had returned. She was peeking at me from beneath the lily pad. Surely she believed herself hidden. Not sure why her curiosity was piqued, but you know what they say about the cat and his curiosity, it occurred to me that I could use it to my advantage.

I positioned my oar beneath her and as she tried to figure me out, I carefully lifted her into my kayak.

She proceeded to walk the length of the kayak, investigating, as she is wont to do even now. In the time it took to get back to where we had put in, I constructed a story (plausible enough, I think) about her likelihood to survive in the wild given her intense and seemingly insatiable curiosity.

She was hawk snack for sure.

I saved her life.

Or so I like to think. Not sure what she would say if she could tell the story from her perspective. It's probably a good thing she can't talk.

Life sentence?

I am just wondering...at what point in my life will I stop being punished for having married the wrong person?I am just saying...

So, I am just wondering if I will reach a point where I will not be punished for having married the wrong man?

I don't mean to sound melodramatic. Honestly, despite what it may seem.

I did not expect that it to all go away with the magic wand of divorce.

I thought that getting a divorce would rectify the situation.

I didn't expect that it would all go away. I mean that I didn't get an annullment, I got a divorce.

So, I understood that there would be resentment, emotional issues to unravel and a life to set right. I imagined (and have lived through) the residual shame, anger, pain, resentment. I knew that it would take some time. Emotionally, it is not truly over.

What I did not expect is that every few years I would have a legal document land on my doorstep DEMANDING that I pay for my EX-husband's lack of financial stability or his lack of ability to manage his finances.

WTF?

At what point, exactly, in my life will I STOP paying for the mistake I made in marrying him? When, if ever, will I be absolved of making the mistake of marrying him?

Is this a lifetime sentence?