When coming home doesn't mean resting...

Well, I arrived home from my week in the desert, and I haven't had time to myself since.

Mom picked me up at the airport, in the company of my best friend Mari. We got home just before midnight Friday night, and in the morning, yesterday, I was informed that the Buchanan Center for the Arts was asking for local artists to offer up works for sale, for the Christmas season, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Buchanan. I didn't have anything handy, so I had to go digging, then make the delivery. I spent a little time talking about the future of the BCA (and other nonsense, but then, I'm a Chatty Cathy doll with an endless string pulled) with one of the staffers, then headed out homeward.

When I returned home, I was asked to help out with (and, naturally, to attend) a reception for MC's Stacy Cordery, in celebration of the success of her new book. She's one of the most successful authors to be connected to my alma mater, and my mom's best friend and her husband were hosting the reception, so we raced over to help with setting up and such. I'll do my best to get a few pix posted as soon as I can.

Anyway, my week-long absence was arranged by my seester and her husband, in order that I might have the opportunity to meet the daughter I had given up for adoption upon her birth nearly 30 years ago. I had never directly seen her -- not even on the day she was born, because I knew even then that, had I looked at her or held her, I'd never have been able to surrender her to the more capable adults who I hoped would raise her. So, this was a momentous occasion for all of us, I suppose... I was in terror that I would say something or do something to completely botch things and leave the young woman hating me (or worse, finding me less than nothing) for the rest of her days.

Instead, we had a very nice dinner at a restaurant convenient to her home -- very important, since less than a week days prior to this dinner, she had given birth to her second child. Technically and biologically, that makes me twice a grandmother. Still, my daughter's parents offered a HUGE kindness, as well: they had been watching over the firstborn for the past couple of weeks, a few hundred miles away, and brought the five-year-old daughter up to The Meadow so she could meet me, my sister, her husband, my daughter's biological father, his high-school buddy who lived in that city and had made the arrangements, and his wife (or significant other). So, we had my daughter, her husband, their daughter and newborn son (seriously newborn!) arrive a little bit later than we did (the baby had expressed his hunger just as they were ready to go out the door. Imagine that! ;-) ).

I had a chance to shake hands with the bright little girl who was my granddaughter, and held my sleepy little grandson in my arms for what seemed a lightning flash and an eternity. I suppose there are better feelings in the world, but I have not yet experienced them.

Still, I've been so busy since Monday evening, I haven't really had a chance to sit and sift through my senses. I hope in the next few days to post a few thoughts and a buzillion photos... none of them from the dinner, because I was too nervous to remember to bring my camera in for the occasion... But my seester and her husband and I did quite a few other things while we were in LV, and some of those pix are pretty cool.

Updates after I've had at least 8 hrs of shuteye.

News we can use

Iraqis are more than the sum of what we see in the media, and Richard Lowry gives a short report on one way the MSM has missed big time. You won't see it on the networks, or in the newspapers, but it's seriously worthy. Pass the news on.



Oops! Where are my manners? Hat tip to Drew M. at AoSHQ.

Waukegan city officials decide to enforce laws

I was beginning to abandon all hope that Illinois could come up with rational responses to the problem of illegal immigration and further crimes committed by illegal aliens. But one Chicago suburb is reviving my faith in sensible local governments.

The city has decided it's okay to hand over illegal alien criminals, to the Feds, for deportation. They're not going to become a criminal sanctuary city. I wish I'd lived in Waukegan, back in the day. They seem nicely non-leftwitty.

Of course, somebody's going to tell me that Waukegan is nothing but imperialists and fascists who came here illegally long ago, and now they want to stop anybody else from having the same privileges ... o'course, they're ignoring the part where the deportation is for those convicted of crimes other than border crossing without papers.... like, y'know, rape, murder, robbery, and all that kinda stuff that, apparently, the opponents of this measure would have us believe every illegal has committed, or they wouldn't be getting deported, now, would they?

Feh. A government group did something right, this week. I'm going to take that as a good sign.

Update on Bat

Mom (Bat) had to go back to the doctor today, since, while her dizziness had eased some, it had not eased sufficiently to satisfy any of us.

Initial results: She's not going to have an intravenous potassium boost, today. Her blood pressure is down to a comfortably safe level, her medications are being readjusted, the change in diet has been good for her, and she's now able to sit & watch tv... although I may go rushing down there in a minute or two to shut the idiot box off, since she just said something about "don't have to watch anything about that cow", and I think they were on the subject of Rosie O'Donnel. Can't be letting Bat raise her b.p. just as we got it back under control, now, can we? But the remainder of the recovery is just going to take a little more time.

As it stands, I'll be doing a little over half of the grocery shopping tomorrow -- Dad gets the list for the one store where they give senior citizens a 10% discount on Tuesdays (I'm too young, still, to pass for 55, dammit. Who'd a thunk?), and I'll head out to the other stores for the remainder of the essentials for this new, high-potassium, low-fat-low-sodium diet Mom & I will be working on as partners (poor Dad! So much for good cookies).

"Company" (okay, extended family) coming with supper, tonight. Gotta go and set up the table, etc.

Snow returns!

Not this kind


-- these pics


are a few weeks old,


already. The weekend is the start of a heat wave -- hot Snow... Tony Snow.

Hot diggety dog, he's scheduled for return to his dais tomorrow!

ACLU loses Mt. Soledad assault

From STACLU, the good news is that the courts have decided the ACLU are the bad guys, in the case of the memorial cross on the San Deigo hillside. Of all the places to have the far-left anti-liberal, anti-Christian group stymied, it was the 9th Circus who decided that the order for (a) the removal of the cross and (b) fines against the city for every day the cross remained at its memorial site -- that order was moot.

WooHOO! The Constitution wins! Freedom of expression wins! The people win!


(HT: Gateway Pundit)

Good news on missing MO boys

The press conferences have been covered by Fox news: not only has 13-year-old Ben Ownby been returned to his family after his disappearance just over four days ago, but the police also returned Shawn Hornbeck to his family, after he'd been gone four years!

There aren't many details made available about the boys' ordeals, but they do seem to be very happy to be back with their parents again, and their folks are justifiably teary-eyed.

I'm always pleased to see happy endings to stories of missing kids -- those seem so rare, by comparison to the miserable news of losses.

And I hope some very unpleasant things happen, for a very long time, and under lock and key, to the man who abducted these two boys.

Another gratuitous postcard: new year is bearish for some

It looks as though this is a bad year to be a terrorist.

The news comes from all over, about stuff going on all over -- from the courtroom to the battlefield, from propagandists and apologists to professional hatemongers, life is becoming somewhat less bearable for friends of al Qaeda and their murderous ilk.

Unfortunately, the news is not all bad for islamists. They're still allowed to assemble and cook up a little sedition in free countries like Australia. Let's hope it doesn't get too grisly, there, when they release the football hooligans....

Good news from Iraq: Baghdad Sniper "Juba" captured

Via lgf, the news is brought to the forefront by Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report:

Interestingly enough, I found this information from Michelle Malkin, who I believe doesn't yet know the value of the press release she was sent from CENTCOM (UPDATE: Now she does). The purpose of the press release was to counter stories by the AP which seem to be false. But buried down in it is this from Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf Al-Kenani, Ministry of Interior spokesman:

The third subject is, this week the strikes we made against the al-Qaeda terrorist organization in Baghdad were many and very strong in Baghdad. Before my arrival to this press conference, I was informed that one of the three who were just captured or detained is Mazer Al-Jubouri, aka the Baghdad Sniper, and his group. He admitted many things that are very important and very dangerous and our forces used this information about his network and conducted raids in the past 24 hours and detained 30 terrorists.

(emphasis Dr. Shackleford's.)

So, in a press release the Pentagon sends out to slap the MSM with the facts surrounding the AP's fictional "police chief", the good guys "let slip" that they caught a very bad guy, indeed. No doubt, the AP and al Reuters will be all over this. Oh, yaah, suuuuuure, ya betcha.