I don’t know if anyone really noticed, but it wasn’t even a few hours after the announcement of his death that “See something, say something” was being reiterated across the internet.  I’m quite certain no one out there believes that the death of bin Laden signals an end to extremist violence around the world.  But at least give us an overnight, maybe a day to enjoy finally winning the longest damn game of hide and seek on record.  A small break from being pushed to paranoia in the name of National Security would be quite welcome.

Getting rid of one person, even if it is the guy at the top, isn’t really going to change things.  There are still followers, still people who hate for irrational reasons and who will lash out with violence or rhetoric to incite violence as their response to their own fear of a changing world.*

It will never be gone, but there is one less person advocating it today.

Is it right that he died voilently at our hands when we supposedly are a peace loving nation?  I don’t know, but two things come to mind:
- Karma is a bitch, and
- He started it.  (OK, that’s my inner 8 year old talking, but my outer adult can’t argue with the sentiment.)

*It’s not a Muslim extremist thing.  It’s an extremist of any kind thing.  Fear leads to hate and then violence.  Any diety provides a good excuse.

After a ridiculously social weekend where I was utterly exhausted and completely wound up beyond belief, I went up to my favorite watering hole for a pint or two and commiseration over the Caps being down 2 games in the series against Tampa Bay.

Then things got interesting…

Notice of a Presidential address.  Hmmm.  Late Sunday night?  WTF could that be that the major networks didn’t already know?  Couldn’t be the economy – that’s more prime time than late night.  Walked out for a smoke* and walked back in and every crawl had the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Well that will certainly change the tone of an evening to be sure.

Though I will be happier with photographic and/or DNA confirmation, as I said on Facebook – I’m glad the cocksucker is dead.**  I’ll admit that while cheering I did send off a message to Friday’s dinner companion to get his thoughts on the matter as he has some experience with all this.  (What a strangely fortuitous time for him to find his way back into my virtual rolodex.)

That all being said, while news of this doesn’t necessarily change anything in the big scheme of thing – it’s nice to feel like we can firmly put one in the Win column for a change.  (I’m sure there have been other wins, but they don’t all filter down to the American public…)

As much as I know I shouldn’t take any glee or pleasure in another’s death – this jackass tried to kill my friends.  In my mind, after that, all bets are off and you deserve whatever painful and ugly end that befalls you.

Working backwards to more positive parts of the weekend…

This afternoon I spent a few lovely hours at Wheaton park with Chris and Celia and their two gorgeous little ones.  This encounter made me realize that Facebook (and the Internet et al) can warp time a little bit.  It wasn’t until I sat down and thought about it that I realized I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen them since they got married.  Thanks to the grapevine, email and Facebook, I had a fairly decent idea of what was going on with them, so it didn’t seem like it had been that long since I’d seen them.  Didn’t hurt that Celia isn’t aging.

Unlike me – if you’re asking a 6 year old.  Saturday was a great little cookout with Jen & Bob and their adorable little one, J.  Well, J’s friends from next door came over.  J, being the Hostess with the Mostest, grabbed K’s hand and said, “I have to introduce you to someone”***  K says, “Oh, your Grandma?”

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Thankfully little J replied with a reassuringly vehement NO and that I was Aunt Cindy, but still – seriously???  I know I’ve got some grey streaks in my hair, but for me to be the grandmother of a 6 year old – there would to have been two *really* youthful pregnancies along the way.

This after I was feeling all young and semi-gorgeous on Friday night.  Up to Old Town for great evening of dinner & cupcakes & TV with a friend I hadn’t seen, in oh.. 4 years?  (Again, thanks Facebook!)  We’d lost touch thanks to work and life and stuff in general just getting in the way, but it had always been a curiously no-drama, no-holding-to-high-expectations friendship and there were no hard or hurt feelings on either side – and meeting up again it felt like we’d not skipped a beat and it was like sliding on a old pair of favorite blue jeans – just right.

That all being said, I think I will need to sleep for the next 3 days.

*I don’t want to hear it.
**Thank you to the writers of Deadwood for giving me a full appreciation of the many ways in which the word cocksucker can be considered appropriate.
***6 years old, and says “introduce” not “meet” – too smart for her own good, and god help Jen & Bob when she gets older.

- We don’t really have anything like the royal family here.  (Yes, I know that was part of the plan in telling England to sod off back in the day.)  Sure, we’ve got our first family, but that changes out every 4-8 years and various and sundry celebrities, but nothing quite like the royals.

- Hats.  This country does not have enough large scale events involving hats.  I especially would like to see what Grandma E busts out of the hatbox for the occasion.

- The Dress.  Of course I want to see the dress she wears.  Despite all appearances to the contrary, I do have a girly side, and she wants to see the dress!

- It’s enjoyable to watch a wedding where you know you won’t get stuck at the singles table.

- It will break the internet.

- Commoner marries a Prince!  Though I’ve long since abandoned any notions of growing up to be a Princess, I can’t help but latch on to a few of the more practical aspects, such as a very large housekeeping staff.

And for all that think the media coverage has been a touch ridiculous, just remember our media seems to only follow news and events in one of two ways:

1. Beat it into the ground like a dead horse until it turns to glue, or
2. Ignore it.

*~*~*~*~*

Speaking of beating a dead horse, the President has released his long form birth certificate…  Something that I have always felt to be a total non-issue to start with, and yet I am quite certain that this won’t be the end of it.  If it’s any consolation Mr. President, I have no desire to see your reports cards from any school you attended.  (I really didn’t care about President Bush’s grades either.  Or Clinton’s.  Or Bush Sr.’s  Or Reagan’s.)

*~*~*~*~*

Locals:  Had to go find some Rescue Remedy today, and finally found it at Felix & Oscar: Pet Food Naturally over on Backlick Road.  Of course I found it just as the storms were clearing out, but I’m guessing we’ll have a few more before the summer is over.  For whatever reason, RR is hard to find around here – Whole Foods only had the Children’s formulary – which I implore all parents of school age children to purchase, and OTPR only has it for in house use and not for sale.  (Many thanks to their giving me some samples in case I couldn’t find it today and for pointing me to F&O’s.)  Neither PetsMart or PetCo carry it.

Got two bottles cause I am sure I’ll lose the first one before it’s empty, just like I misplaced the last bottle I bought…

I was sitting at my computer wasting time and trying to un-engage my brain and I heard *something* coming and I wasn’t even sure what it was other than the fact that I knew it would greatly upset the dog lounging out on the deck and I had to get him inside immediately.  I dashed to the back door and said, “Moxley, get your ass in RIGHT NOW!!”  (It had a sound of very severe thunder and I’d rather him inside than digging a 4 foot deep hole to take cover in outside.)  He happily complied and I went dashing to the deck to see what was up.**

I viewed what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a fighter jet in afterburner leaving the neighborhood, but sounding much more like an airplane about to lose an engine.  TO THE INTERNET!  Facebook & Twitter yielded no immediate answers other than one person on my friend list who had heard/seen the same incident and had the same questions I had.  (I am still quite surprised that there was only the two of us in the neighborhood that took to the internet to figure out what on earth was going on.)

OK, time to mine the Twitter contacts for who may be In The Know.  Well, as it happened, Nathan Hager of WTOP News (@nhagerwtop) had made a post on his account a few minutes before this Very Loud Incident above my home, so I figured he might still be up and perhaps he’d seen/heard something – and shot him a tweet.  Within minutes I had my answer of “Norad training” – and as soon as I saw Norad, I remembered seeing a blurb about a training exercise that had been postponed due to weather.  (Sadly, it didn’t stick in my head until I was reminded of it.)

So, on the Twitter side of this posting – I can’t help but give some big props to Nathan (my personal local news guru) Hager for a) paying attention to his Twitter account, even on what had to be his verge of going to bed, and b) taking the time to post a response.  It was just great to get an answer so soon.  (Really, if you’re not following @nhagerwtop, you should be!

On the “weird after-effects” side – I went to bed and damned if I didn’t have weird airplane crashing and/or end of the world dreams for the rest of the night.  I woke up at 0430 and after realizing I still had 2 hours of sleep available to me, yelled at my brain that it was just all a bunch of weird dreams and everything was OK, and that the dog, the cats, and my brother were all in and I didn’t need to worry about any of it.  Didn’t help as the weird dreams continued, but seriously, BRAIN, LET ME SLEEP.

The last time I had a couple of fighter jets go over my house in afterburner was when I lived over in Burke.  I wallked out to the porch, looked up and thought, “Cool.”  It wasn’t for a few minutes before I thought, “Wait, what??”  I can only attribute the difference in reaction to now having a dog & brother under the same roof.  (Had cats both times and all were inside anyway.)

Really, I have enough on my mind without my brain deciding to create new and non-existent disasters for me to worry on.  Really brain, chill out.

*I have forever referred to it as “on afterburner” but my Godfather (for lack of a better description) let me know it is “in” rather than “on” – WTF do I know, my Dad was on E-2’s – they don’t even have afterburners in the first place, and if you see one “on” or “in afterburner” it means an engine is on fire.

**Not sure how going outside to see WTF was happening bodes for me in the event that the Zombie Apocalypse occurs.  I may be the first one off the map.

Last week on the radio I heard a quick bit about a young man in Iowa who withdrew a wrestling match against a young woman in a statewide competition.  At the time, I just shrugged my shoulders and thought, “Well, that is certainly his prerogative” and didn’t think I’d hear much more about it.

Well, this morning, he was on one of the early shows on TV.  Now, I’m still not why this is worthy of time on a national morning news show, nor why any parent would send their kid out to an interview like that, but there it was.  And the kicker was the banner across the bottom of the screen was “Chivalrous or Chauvinistic?”

Really??  It can’t just be a kid who didn’t feel right about wrestling against a girl, knew exactly what the consequences would be, and said, “No, not for me”??  He’s either being this grand gentleman or a misogynistic bastard?

I know it has quite a bit to do with the fact that we have a 24 hour news cycle that we have to fill, and TV audiences have the attention span of fleas, and so everyone wants a flashy graphic that can boil it all down to an easy answer.  But it still annoys me.

Yes, I have shifted a bit left in my outlook over the last 20 some odd years, but I also really had nowhere to go on the right side of things given where I started.  I’d actually put myself pretty smack in middle of the center, but there seems to not be much in the way of the middle ground right now.  My ownership of tie-dyes and Tevas seems to have thrown me over the edge.  (And resulted in some incorrect assumptions of lesbianism, but that’s another post.)

That all being said and out of the way…

I realize that Mubarak continuing to be in power in Egypt is a good thing for the United States – not just because he is an ally, but for no other reason that “the devil you know”…  I really do understand that.

Yes, there is probably a decent percentage of Egyptians that are totally OK with him continuing to be in power.  I understand that as well.  (I say probably because I don’t have any polling figures, and I have to assume that not everyone hates him.)  That being said, I don’t think there is a bogeyman behind every door should he either step down or be voted out of office.  Yes, there *could* be, but just because something could happen doesn’t mean it *will* happen.

However, given that there are people of all ages* out there risking everything to make their voices heard – I’d say there are some real grievances that need to be addressed, and quickly.  Yes, a lot of the issues are economic in nature, and those can’t be fixed by any one person, but part of the price of being the guy in charge is that you get the blame along with the accolades.  (Had the US economy been going great guns in 2008, I think the Republicans would have had a better chance at staying in the White House.)

I know my life is nothing like that in other countries.  But being a big sentimental pile of mush – I’d like for people to be able to wake up wherever they are and even if they don’t *like* their government, they feel they can say so, do so safely, be heard, and see change as a result.

But what the hell do I know.

*For all I’ve heard of the protests being “youth oriented”, I’ve seen a LOT of people over 30 out there.

Given that we have an opportunity to throw some bum out on a national level every 2 years, it’s hard to conceive of being stuck with the same guy at the top for 30 years, and have no opportunity to say, “No, this isn’t working for us, we need someone different.”  Being under Emergency Law for 30 years because “the bad guys might get a foothold” has to lose it’s shine after a very short period of time.  It has to become obvious after a while that there isn’t much of an emergency other than the guy in charge might lose his job.

Finally having the guts to lean out the window and say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” – I get that.  People can only take so much.  A very, very large chunk of the country taking to the streets – something they’re not even allowed to do in the first place.  Putting themselves up against the police force.  Putting themselves up against the army.  (Which seems to have taken the position of protecting the demonstrators from the police from a few things I’ve seen on Twitter.)  Having most of your channels of communication to the outside world completely cut off.

I think where I keep getting stuck is that these aren’t just little isolated incidents.  These people are telling their leader to get out all across the country.

I know the beginnings of our own country weren’t that far off – but I also wasn’t there, so I have trouble visualizing it.

My day has been, “Make some breakfast, do some dishes, take care of some bills, watch the All Star game, tend to some of my Avon order.”  Pretty mundane about the house things.  Things that probably happen in households all over the world.

I’d say in Egypt right now, the similarities end right after breakfast.  See who is taking the next shift on neighborhood patrol to keep any opportunistic asshat looters out of the neighborhood.  Make sure they’re armed, maybe send some tea & sandwiches along.  Grab the kids and head out to the demonstrations so Dads, Brothers & Uncles can come home and get some rest.  Pick jaw up off floor when Mubarak says, “I fired the government, and got a Vice President for ya!” and mutter, “You have GOT to be shitting me.”

I know I am so insanely lucky to live in a country where if I think the guys in charge are doing a bad job, all I have to do is march myself to the Elementary school up the street and vote for someone I think can do better, and I don’t have to risk life, limb or imprisonment to do it.

So – to the Egyptians risking everything out there to see Mubarak leave power:  Good luck, and I hope in the end Egypt is a better place for ALL of your citizens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_protests

Haven’t seen anything else as comprehensive so far.  (I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found it, it makes sense that a collaborative site like Wikipedia would have a continuously updated page on an international event like this.)

What boggles my mind a bit is that if your citizenry has taken to the streets to demand your removal, why would you think that firing the rest of the government and appointing a Vice President would make everything OK and all would go home?  I’m also guessing that it’s a touch unnerving to have the people of your country stop being afraid of you.

Saw an short article today saying that Dominion says they could have done better with communication.

Our power went out at 8:45 Wednesday evening.  I immediately reported the outage online and the initial reply was that they were still in assessment mode and couldn’t give a restoration estimate.  Perfectly understandable, given that they had 200,000 customers without power.  I opted for a callback at anytime with an update.  At about 4AM I got an automated call saying the restoration window would be Noon to 6PM on Thursday.  When I got up on Thursday, I checked online and saw that it had been updated to 7AM to 1PM.  (I missed the second update call.)

At 12:20, our power came back on.

I felt that they did fine with communication in my situation.  When they restoration window was established, they called me.  When it changed, they called me.  (Even though I missed it.)  I was able to look online and see those estimates as well.

I’m really not sure they could have done anything else to communicate better with me.

School was cancelled for tomorrow at 7:30 PM.

It has taken one of my friends a good 5 hours to get home.

The power just went out a few minutes ago – there are now 107K people without power in the county.  I doubt we’ll have it back anytime soon given that the transformers over the hill have been exploding.

We have a tree down in the backyard – of course, it went into our neighbor’s yard.  Fortunately, thanks to it being a rather light and bendy tree (despite it’s overall size) it is resting gently on the fence.  I do not own a chainsaw.  There is another tree leaning a bit – we knocked off as much snow as we could, but I’m guessing it’s going to go over as well.  That one is at least facing the yard.  And the house…

I can’t say I remember a snowstorm that did this much damage this quickly.  Thunderstorms, yes, but not snowstorms.  And it’s supposed to keep snowing until midnight.  Yay.