Mommmmmm!

On Monday Zach called me. He was stalled in the middle of a busy intersection. In Tucson. I am not in Tucson, I am in Anchorage. I was freaking out inside, because my baby was trapped in a dead car in the middle of a busy intersection and I am hundreds of thousands of miles away (okay, I know it's not that far, but it felt like it.)

I asked if there was somebody around who could help him push his car out of the intersection just as some kind guy came up and asked him if he needed help pushing his car out of the intersection. Whew.

Zach called me back when he was no longer a traffic jam, and I found out that the auto repair shop we always used has another shop not too far from where Zach's car was stalled. Thank God for teh internets. I gave Zach the number, he called and arranged for them to tow it and fix it, and then he called me back and chatted as he sweated his way to the nearest Starbucks (he got lots of money on Starbucks cards for his high school graduation. We have awesome friends who know Zach really well.). We have snow, and it is still hot in Tucson. It was 85 degrees there this afternoon.

His girlfriend picked him up, and they went off to phone bank for Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic Representative up for re-election in Tucson. ("Hi, I'm Zachary, and I am calling for the Arizona Democratic Party to remind you that tomorrow is Election Day! Don't forget to vote!" )

Yesterday he was at the Victory celebration for Rep. Giffords, and we called him when Obama was declared the victor, and it was very loud and happy there. Giffords won, too, which is a good thing. She is very knowledgeable and a good Representative.

Zach called me a while ago. The car is fixed -- $179 including the tow and an oil and filter change. Ventana Automotive in Tucson, a really excellent business. They "cleaned up the throttle body and reset the computer" or something like that. Zach said the throttle is different, and the car is a lot more responsive now. I am not sure that is a really good thing...

This is Zachary this past summer, at the Portage Glacier, which is kinda near Anchorage. He's holding a chunk of ice off the glacier, and that look on Zach's face is him telling me to take the damn picture, because his hands are freezing.

(I think it's the Portage Glacier. I have a terrible memory for names.)

Just waiting

for the first results of the election. My kids will be home from school soon, both wanted to stay home and watch the news because they are really excited about Obama.

However, I know they would have watched it for a while and then wanted to play Fallout 3, the video game they got yesterday...

Zach and his roommates had a Halloween party this weekend. They told everybody no alcohol (they are 18 and 19 year olds), but they assumed that somebody would bring some any way.

But nobody did. The party was inadvertently dry, because everybody thought somebody else was going to bring the beer. One guy left, but everybody else stayed, played video games and Twister, and had a great time.

Just goes to show that not all college students are preoccupied with drinking.

Oh, yeah, Go OBAMA!!!

random photo and the story behind it

I got this idea from Patsy...you open your My Pictures, and choose the fourth photo in the fourth folder and blog about it.

The fourth photo in the fourth album is one of my sons and my nephew on the beach. I love this photo. It's one I have done lots of experimenting with, which is why it's in black and white, and why I have an older photo in my more recent folders.

That's the Pacific Ocean, the coast of Washington state. We went to the beaches as much as possible when we lived on Fort Lewis. The kids loved it, especially when their cousins were along. It's cold, the ocean off of Washington, so we didn't swim, but we did lots of wading and playing chicken with the waves.

It's a gloomy day, because it's fall in western Washington state, which we didn't like at the time, but it did make a great photo.

This is closer to the original...

Weekly Winners.

Weekly Winners is the fevered brainchild of Lotus. More winners can be found HERE! ! !




Squirrel. I know it's just a squirrel. But we didn't have squirrels in our neighborhood in The Neitherlands or in Tucson, so we missed them. We don't see squirrels around our house in Anchorage either, actually, since there are no trees that are not saplings anywhere near my house. We saw this little guy at the Alaska Zoo.



Or maybe we don't have squirrels near our house because we have foxes. The dumb dogs did not even notice when this guy ran past our house.



We found a great beach on the northwest side of Anchorage, along the bluffs.



You know what else is on the northwest side of Anchorage? The airport. Airplanes come roaring over the bluff about every five minutes. (Anchorage isn't a hugely busy airport, thank goodness.)



Earlier this year, we saw this momma and baby walking up Ship Creek. This week I saw a momma and baby not far away from here, and the baby was much bigger. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. I still get excited every time we see a moose.



Our fall colors, last month.



I really did not mean to make a six-boobed alien creature birthday cake for my son Thor's 16th birthday...(follow the link for the full story of one of my really not shiny happy mom moments. )

And finally, your moment of Zen.

Taken from Bodenburg Butte, outside Palmer, Alaska.
This one is Mark's (my husband) photo.

My very best moments...

Not.

A couple years ago, I was Tess's Brownie Girl Scout Leader. We had some big event in the gym on the little tiny Army installation at Schinnen, The Netherlands, and I had tons of stuff to haul there and set up and haul away again.

I was loading stuff into my car after it was over. I took a bunch of stuff out, set it on the hood, got the car unlocked, and dumped it on the front seat and went back in to the gym get another load...

When I got in I realized I didn't have my car keys anymore and the car was locked.

So I got somebody to call the MPs and this very nice ( and young. When did soldiers get so young? Oh, yeah, when I got older) MP came out to help me get into the car.

We were trying to get it unlocked and not having any luck, so he went to check about calling a locksmith.

It was then that I realized that I was wearing my jacket and a zip up hoodie under it, and that I had stuck the car keys in the pocket of the hoodie.

And then I realized that the driver's door was unlocked.

Yeah. I felt like a genius. I told the baby MP that I found the keys. I really didn't think I needed to mention that the car had been unlocked the whole time.