Congratulations to the Iraqis!

This election in Iraq is pretty exciting and I am very happy for all the Iraqis who are voting.

Now, to all the whiners in the US who still are weeping into their hankies about their guy losing the 2004 election I must say....for goodness sakes, get a grip! It has become clear that your only joy in life is to criticize the Bush Administration in any way possible. It is really quite pathetic and terribly petty.

Take for example all this snorting and huffing over Vice President Dick Cheney wearing casual attire at the ceremony in Auschwitz. Puh-leeeze, people. Are you so starved for something to carp about that you are going to repeatedly talk about the "disrespect", the "inappropriateness", "how ridiculous he looked", and on and on? Take my advice and walk over to the nearest mirror. Look at your reflection and take a deep breath. Now slap yourself in the face just as hard as you can. Do it again. If you still are concerned about how Dick Cheney looked, repeat the process as many times as required to knock that silliness out of your mind.

I wonder if the people who were liberated at Auschwitz all those years ago would have been outraged by what Dick Cheney wore to the 60th anniversary of their freedom? I don't suppose anyone bothered to ask any survivors of Auschwitz what they thought of the situation.

Try to keep things in perspective people.

Ohhhhh, Woise Guy, Ay?

After the morning church service this past Sunday, my family made a quick stop at one of the local home improvement mega stores for a fluorescent light. We three women sat in the vehicle while the man in the family went to select and purchase the light.

Seeing as how it was just us women-folk, I seized the opportunity to engage in a little "woman talk" with my oldest daughter. She recently broke up with her boyfriend of six months and I was curious as to the events and reasons surrounding the breakup. Okay, I was being nosey but I swear, it is on the job description.

The conversation was moving along and I was thinking that my teenager and I might actually be communicating when I noticed a shopper parking a cart in one of the return bins right in front of us. The shopper didn't push the cart very far into the bin but I didn't think too much about it until the wind caught the cart and rotated it 45 degrees in another direction.

I commented on the wind being strong enough to move the cart but neither of the girls had seen the cart moving. The oldest kept talking, in response to what she calls "one of my random questions". My eyes were glued to the cart. Sure enough, the wind forced the cart to rotate even further and it ended up facing 180 degrees in another direction....pointing right at our vehicle.

At this point, I probably should have just taken off my seatbelt and prepared for action but I was hoping and trusting that the wind would not be able to move the cart any more. Boy was I wrong.

"LOOK OUT!" I screamed, as the wind grabbed that cart and sent it hurtling towards the front of our vehicle. I don't know who I was screaming at but it felt like the right thing to do at the time.

Frantically I wrestled with the seatbelt latch and in the process managed to partially roll the window down and open the door before I was actually free of the seatbelt. Finally, I got loose and practically fell out of the van. As I rounded the front of our vehicle on an intercept course with the cart, I heard my 14 year old and my 12 year old laughing like crazy and chanting, "Go Mom, Go!"

The wind thought it would be funny to switch things up so it made the cart veer off of its course and into the rear of the vehicle parked beside us, effectively faking me out of my Sunday shoes.

The Wind (notice the capitalization which indicates I suspect a higher intelligence was in charge of this situation) once again grabbed the cart, which had ricocheted off the rear bumper of the next door vehicle, and sent said cart careening towards yet more innocent cars.

Thank goodness I had watched a lot of The Three Stooges when I was growing up because I was able to do a mini-Curly shuffle and rotate on one foot fast enough to corner and successfully retrieve that cart just before it smashed into another unsuspecting car.

As I marched that stupid little runaway cart back to the return bin, I once again heard my daughters laughing hysterically and I did the only thing any self-respecting adult could have done in my position. First I looked around to see just who might have been watching and then I burst into laughter myself.

When I climbed back into our van, all three of us women were still laughing uproariously and probably looked as though we had lost our minds.

But, some good things came out of that experience.

1. I learned that at the right time and in the right way, I can communicate with a teenager.
2. My daughters learned that I could move more quickly than they thought and that I was willing to do so.
3. My skill in performing a mini-Curly Shuffle, especially under duress, proves that watching The Three Stooges was not a waste of time. Therefore, I propose that more girls should watch The Three Stooges because they too might have to do the Curly Shuffle and it pays to be practised up and ready.

Just another day.