Dies Irae

Morning routine was well established. Kirk always got up first so I could get that most blissful kind of sleep - the few minutes snatched after the alarm goes off. He would start the three-stage process of actually prying the children out of bed by thumping on doors and giving fair warning before he started his shower. By the time I got up the thumping had been followed by open doors and overly cheery greetings (because he was evil that way in the mornings). The rest of us eventually staggered out into the kitchen to start breakfast and pack lunches to the constant background noise of the news.

Kirk never lost the need to check the news - it was the first thing on in the morning, the last thing at night. At work he always had a news site ticking away somewhere on his computer, and throughout the day I could expect IM's updating me if anything happened that he felt was important.

That day almost all shoes had been found and put on, nearly all lunches finished and dumped to the bottom of backpacks to be squashed by notebooks. Kirk was a couple of minutes from going out the door to work. And the first plane flew into the World Trade Center.

I was the one who saw it - everyone else was bustling around getting ready to go. I called to Kirk and he ran in and froze.

'Is it...?' I asked, but he didn't answer. I could see the color drain from his face, literally washing down and leaving him totally grey. He was utterly still.

'Kirk, do you think...?'

And the second plane hit.

I know the kids were asking questions, I know the television commentor was talking, but my memory is of total silence. His silence.

Then the Pentagon - and Kirk knew people who worked there, had gone there himself for briefings I believe. Black smoke. And our phone began to ring.

'Hello? Yes. I saw. Yes. No - no, absolutely not. Of course I'm sure. You'll be fine, he'll be fine. No. Okay, I'll see you there.'

It rang again, and again - five or six times and always the same conversation. Did you see what happened? Should we go out? Can we drive on the Bridge?

He turned to me.

'It's happened.'

'I know Kaj, I know, I'm sorry. Do you... '

But I didn't even know what to ask.

He reassured the kids then - don't worry, you'll be fine. These guys, their religion forbids killing children, it's one of the worst things they can do. They believed him, trusted him, went off to school.

'I'll try and call J, see what's happening.' J was his close friend and partner from the counter-terrorism unit. 'I need to know... I'd better go.'

And he drove to work.

I don't remember most of the rest of that day. In the afternoon I took the kids to Half Moon Bay to soccer practice, and remember having a parent ask in a totally normal way 'so, how are you?' and I couldn't think what to answer. Kirk met us there at the middle school field, and we sat together on a worn wooden porch outside one of the barracks.

'You okay?'

He hunched over in his black suit and studied the ground. Silence again.

He had written it. He had suggested that a terrorist could use a commercial plane, one loaded wtih fuel, as an effective bomb. What if, he had written, what would we do if... and they had laughed. No one would do that. No one had ever done that. It has never happened before.

There are buildings that will be targeted, he said. Bin Laden failed once with the Trade Center - he's going to try again. And there are others, and he listed them. The Pentagon. The White House.

He wasn't the only one of course, and it wasn't that he sat as a Cassandra spouting true prophecy and ignored by the Powers that Be. It might have made no difference even if someone had listened. After all, the terrorists have the advantage - they only need to succeed once. But maybe, maybe this time like Y2K, things could have been averted.

Across the field the boys' team scrimmaged in the fading light; the evening fog began to roll over the grass. Parents were gathering in small groups, talking quietly. I felt removed from them and from Kirk. I knew too much to feel quite a part of their reaction, too little to be part of Kirk's private pain. He stood up, held out his hand.

'I'll have to see if there's anything I can do.'

'I know.'

'There probably isn't, but I have to see.'

'I know.'

'Okay. Let's go home.'

Settled

And that was it. We unpacked, the kids started school and began to make friends, we learned the routines of another new place, began to place ourselves in the new spaces.

Children 2 and 3 took up soccer over the summer (Child 1 was too old for the fledgling program) and launched yet another family interest.

We tried to remember that we were here for a longer time - that this was meant to be home for a while. It wasn't easy; the nomad mentality was part of us, and we weren't used to viewing any place as permanent. The house itself didn't feel like it - all 1970's dark wood panelling, 1980's dusty rose paint in the master bath, 19 whoever-thought-this-was-a-good-idea aging elephant grey carpet. But the beach was two blocks away, and every night we could walk down and watch the tide come in. On the rare clear evenings we could even see the milky way, and we would take the binoculars down to show the kids the fuzzy blob of Saturn, and the small cluster that made up the Pleiades. That was home. That and the warmth of the people we met.

So we took up the pattern - work, school, play.

It was Autumn, 2001.

Inheritance

When I was dating Kirk he once showed me a new years' resolution he had made that January - "I will not injure myself for the entire year of 19--." It was March when he showed me and he had already broken it several times. He was, to be honest, not the most graceful of beings. Athletic, yes, capable, definitely, but without that basic sense of his own body space that would stop him bashing into solid objects. Well, also there was the small problem with common sense.

He broke an ankle one night when we were in a park - they had recently watered the grass so it was a bit slick and he was goofing around somehow. But typically he insisted on hobbling painfully back, casually inspecting the swollen, discolered thing, and announcing he was just fine, done this lots before, definitely just a sprain. He didn't go in for an xray for several days to learn it was actually cracked.

In Virginia he took a mogul a little wrong - not an earth one, but a stacked log beast with a sharp lip you had to pop your front tire over at just the right moment. He was going too fast, took the corner and forgot it was there. I kind of wish I had seen that one because he said it was pretty funny the way he rotated slowly forward. Less funny was landing wrong on top of the logs. He rode out, and then rode again the next day (moaning a bit), insisting it was "simply bruised" until he finally got himself checked out and was told he had broken four ribs. His contention was that the treatment was the same either way, so why worry? My feeling was tearing over rough single track with broken ribs wasn't either intelligent or a reasonable therapy. Didn't stop him though.

The pattern was the same in California. He managed to do some utterly bizarre thing to his toe (quite impressed the ortho doctor) that apparently happens only to professional atheletes, and then only on the fingers. Kirk happily messed around with splints, gauze, and tape until he finally worked out a complicated strapping solution. His doctor was delighted and, I think, actually presented the whole thing at a conference somewhere, dubbing the taping method as the "von Ackermann technique" or something. Since Kirk was the only person who had managed to do this to himself, it's probably not ever going to become a household term. Still - moderate fame and glory!

One of the funnier (yes, I do have a slightly dark sense of humor) happened when we were biking up in the local hills. Kirk was ahead as always and disappeared around a corner where we heard:

SPLASH... THUMP!... "I'm all right!"

We came around to find him staggering on the far side of a steep-banked stream, covered in mud, his helmet completely bashed in. The muddy water had masked the very deep ravine - just the right size to trap a front wheel. Kirk had gone arse over tea-kettle, landing headfirst in the mud. Well, I told him, at least he hadn't damaged anything he used. Again, he insisted he was just fine, although I did make him let me drive us home. Only after he was sure he was healed up did he admit he couldn't really remember much of the rest of that day.

I got used to it. I stocked the house with wraps and knee braces, ace bandages and instant cold packs. Our freezer always had one or two ice packs ready to go, and we had several stashes of medical tape, disinfectant and gauze. Bandaids hardly got a look-in.

There is a great deal my kids have inherited from Kirk. They have his sense of humor, his quick mind - they certainly have more his nose than mine (probably for the best). And from the time they were tiny the house has echoed to.... *crash*.... "don't worry! I'm all right!"

Too Much Time on His Hands

Kirk was bored. Actually, he was under employed. It's not easy to go from 14 hour days, constant pressure work to a simple management position in a software company. At first he would keep his computer on all night long and check emails constantly until he realized that the business world doesn't exactly operate on that sort of timeline.

So... he got a little bored. And when Kirk got bored he tended to find ways to occupy himself.

Take K, for instance. She was a beautiful, intelligent, charming woman with an unfortunate habit of confession. She just couldn't seem to stop herself from telling Kirk things. They weren't terrible things mind, no venal sins, or dreadful secrets, just things that fed his active brain in ways she might not have anticipated. One of those confessions took on a life of its own.

First Kirk let it be known that he knew Something about K. Something, the implication was, dark and sinister, or maybe just horribly embarassing. Naturally the entire group began to beg and plead to be told what Something was.

Oh no, Kirk said, eyes wide and innocent, I couldn't possibly tell you this Something, it is... just too ... no, I couldn't.

This went on for about two weeks. Then:

'Well.... maybe I could give a hint.'

I don't remember all the hints but 'Paintbrushes' was one and 'All of Cuba knows what's in a name' was another (I supplied that one. I never said I wasn't bored too)

Curiosity began to boil over. I think the meanest trick was when he wrote the whole thing out in white text at the bottom of an email and then happily claimed 'but I already told you!'

I think they managed to spin it out for a month or so. Finally K was supplied with proper accessories, and brought in some props for the denoument.

K (poor woman) had been the Castroville artichoke princess.

Alpha Males

Kirk was something of an exotic species at his new job. The majority of people he worked with had gone to college, moved on to the rarified world of business school, and then joined the work-force. They had spent their adult lives learning and practicing the vital truths of Running a Corporation, Motivating Employees, and Furthering the Corporate Philosophy. They could quote 'Who Moved My Cheese?' and list seven effective habits word perfect after tossing back three shots of Stoli (for all I know they did... rather sad thought), but almost none of them had experiences like Kirk.

He quickly made friends with one who did - a Gulf War veteran who had flown helicopters in Iraq. The other guys were slightly wary of them both, something Kirk didn't realize until a month or so after he started. There were about five of them walking across the courtyard when Kirk's friend's phone rang.

'See, man, that's why you two are scary.'

'What do you mean?'

'Every time X answers the phone he puts it away like it's some gun he just fired and cleared.'

Kirk looked at X - 'Got you there dude, I've even seen you slap your hip like you're checking for a side-arm.'

'Yeah, well you're worse, look at what you're doing with your umbrella. You look like you're about to demonstrate some CIA secret commando technique.'

'That's ridiculous,' Kirk flipped the umbrella again. 'I mean, I suppose I could demonstrate it, but then I'd have to kill you.'

In a world where the pecking order is established by the institution name on your MBA , sometimes it's nice to shake things up. Just a little.

Bargain

It was a lousy move - a terrible move, a move that made me announce with gritted teeth and a certain amount of venom that I would never, never ever, move house alone again. I would also not fly the kids across country on my own using a bizarre (but thrifty) itinerary that had us change planes twice, and take a taxi from one Dallas airport to another.

The timing could have been better as well. The kids and I flew in to San Jose late on the night of December 22nd. It wasn't until a few days before we left that I realized we had done absolutely no Christmas shopping for the kids at all. None - no stocking presents, nothing for under the tree, nada.

So December 23rd we packed up the crew and took them to a 'brainy' toy store in San Mateo. With the subtlety of a Disney animator we casually suggested that they 'look around' and 'just see what they saw.' Yup, very smooth. Fortunately we have (had) trusting and slightly naive children who saw nothing funny about this and happily wandered the store while we tailed them and took notes. They also claim they didn't notice when I hustled them into the Target next door for spurious errands, nor did they see any large bags piled in the back of the truck. Now that I think about it, it's possible that I'm the trusting and naive one for believing them all this time!

We didn't even have a Christmas tree yet, but there was a sales lot outside of Half Moon Bay on the way down the highway towards home. There was a larger selection than I would have expected - still several dozen trees, although they were definitely the scraggly, also-ran variety. We picked out one that didn't lose all of its needles if you glared at it sideways, and headed for the lot owner. He was sitting dispiritedly on a bucket, listening to some country singer wailing about his truck.

'Yup.' he said, starting at our tree. 'O.K. Well, we're selling these here at a discount on account of its so close and that.'

He looked around at his half-full lot, looked back at us and brightened up as a brilliant idea hit him.

'In fact folks, it's buy one, get one free!'

Honesty is the Best Policy

I've gained a connoisseur’s taste when it comes to pan-handlers. I pass so many every day that I've developed a discerning and appreciative eye. Body odor, for instance, is certainly to be expected, but rank, stale, cheap, regurgitated beer is a quick disqualifier over simple couple-day-old sweat. Slurring out a demand for cash, combined with a leer and a suggestive hand gesture is also somewhat unendearing. No, higher points go to those who show a little initiative.

There is the Hari Krishna guy who sings his rather plaintive Krishna hymn every day under the 'art' on my way to work. He's been doing it for over a year now, and I've learned from him that there is only one Hari Krishna song, and apparently it only has one refrain of about eight bars. I think it also has only four words, but that might actually be two words with varying inflections. He has his guitar case open by his feet, but manages to seem utterly unaware of that fact, so entranced is he with his singing. He must get the shock of his life when he goes to put his guitar away and discovers all the change. Maybe he views it as a sort of monetary miracle of the virgin birth variety. Or maybe he seeds it with a few quarters and it's more loaves and fishes.

There's a fascinating aging hippie/entrepreneur who sets up shop now and then opposite Krishna man. He wears a slightly baggy suit (on a more than slightly baggy frame) and decorates himself with a scarf or a few strings of beads. He has trinkets for sale which makes him a dodgy type since technically he's supposed to get a permit, but by showing up only occasionally he has so far managed to avoid official eyes. He spreads his wares out, then talks about philosophy loudly to anyone who will listen and watches the young women out of the corner of his eyes.

Then there's karaoke man. It's more fun to watch the people passing him than to watch him - he's a bit boring actually: around thirty, slightly overweight, rather non-descript. But the people who pass him run an amusing gamut. Some walk by fiercely projecting that they have no idea there's a man belting out Bananarama's 'Venus' a semi-tone flat three feet away from them. Others have to stop and stare for a little while, shake their heads in disbelief, point out to their friends that there, right there, is a guy, a man, singing really badly, can you believe it? No - there. I saw someone stop and pull out a cell phone to call someone and share the experience - holding the phone up a few feet from karaoke man who sang blissfully on, smiling kindly at his audience. I'd like to think he has a hat down by his feet somewhere, because honestly I believe he'd do better than Krishna guy and the hippie combined.

But a couple of weeks ago I really had to give the pan-handling prize to the young man waiting for the bus. He was possibly the most perforated person I've ever seen - if he took all the studs out he'd qualify as a wind instrument - and sported the obligatory spiked hair and goth makeup. "Excuse me ma'am," he said politely, "could you spare some change for beer?"

I might have given him some too, just to encourage that sort of honesty. But it was 8 in the morning, and I do have some standards.

By Process of Elimination

When we knew we were leaving the Air Force we began the job search the way all intelligent, mature people do. We decided where we wanted to live and started looking.

The east coast was out. We had enjoyed Virginia, but as tourists rather than residents. It was a bit too domesticated on the right side of the map, and too thoroughly populated. South of the Mason Dixon line was out as well, with a particularly firm X drawn through Texas. The desert Southwest was discarded without a second glance although we left a tiny amount of space for Colorado as a long-shot outsider. At the back of everyone's mind was the thought of going back to Alaska, but since Kirk wasn't in the petroleum industry and didn't do commercial fishing we thought it would be best to expand our search just a little. The north-west coast was our target - Washington or Oregon in particular. Both of us discussed seriously how we would think about California, Northern California only... but only just.

Naturally Kirk got an offer from a company in San Mateo, and before we knew it there was a whirlwind of contracts, and strange foreign phrases like 'stock options' and 'vesting period' were flying around. Strange place, this real world.

We pulled out Rand and McNally and took a serious look at things. San Francisco, San Mateo, San Jose spread themselves in an amorphous chalky orange blight across a huge swath of Northern California. We eyed it, glumly. We wanted rural, isolated, bereft of human life even (preferably with a good cheese shop, some excellent sushi, and a really nice bookstore or two. You know, the basics you find on every desert island), and we were heading into one of the largest cities in America. But... if you don't mind a little commute there's a tiny dot on Highway 1, just west of San Mateo and south of San Francisco. Half Moon Bay. Never heard of it - but it was extremely small and that was good enough for us.

Sight unseen, an arbitrary decision based on a tiny black spot on a map - Home.

The Creators

I just read a beautiful and incredibly apposite piece written the day after the subway bombings in London. It's titled A Prayer Answered.
(while you're there, you really should read the rest of the blog - SpeakingAsAParent, it's joined my short list)

It struck me particularly, having just written about 9/11, because the author writes about destruction versus creation, about power, about motivation.

And I've been thinking about how sad it is that Islam has been, in so many ways, reduced to this. Sad, because their heritage is so rich, so vast, so wonderful. The golden age of Islam saw the highest achievements in science, mathematics, philosophy, literature, art, architecture that the world knew at the time (arguable, yes, I am aware that there are some great achievments in the far east and in the Christian west. Work with me). I think about some of the great characters - Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī writing about linear and quadratic equations in the 9th century, Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta covering over 70,000 miles in his amazing explorations (and beating the pants off Marco Polo I might add)or Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād Herawī designing unbelievable illuminations and miniatures. Creators, all of them at a time when my ancestors were probably still rolling in pig muck and bashing eachother on the head.

It's all still there, that culture, that delight in learning and beauty. It's just the crazed few who are so vociferous in their hate and ignorance. I'm an optimist. I think the creators will win.

Eventually.

3 Children - Way Ahead

We hadn't run into school testing... darn it, I was trying to break the upper case habit, but this is School Testing, proper noun, (note to self, taper off upper case? maybe rationing...) until we got to Virginia. I suppose Alaska schools must have done some testing, but they certainly didn't make enough of a production of it to hit my radar. Or maybe the kids were just too young at the time. Tests, however were a major issue in Virginia, a life changing, daily thought-of issue of gigantic proportion.

When we went to tour the school, one of the first things the principal did was mention the testing. She looked at us sourly, with our three mid-year transfers of unknown quantity. Testing, she said, was the school's top priority. I noticed she didn't mention how the school actually did on the tests. I also noticed that this elementary school - shabby, slightly down at the elbows - had no playground.

Child 1 came home and announced that it was 'selected' for special after school work. Selected meant that the teachers, whose salaries, promotions and even employment were all tied tightly to test results, would do anything to keep scores high. Our kids had not been groomed carefully through the Virginia curriculum (including local history) and so Child 1 was slung into extra tutoring. Luckily the tutor was about the only inspired teacher in the whole place, and Child 1 had a great time. The principle of the thing set my teeth on edge though. (edit: so did the principal. I have had to correct my spelling of her title all way through this post. I'm not sure what that means, but I have a feeling latent whatchamacallits and supressed whoojits have a lot to do with it. Principally.)

I was more than a little irritated that our children were judged before they had turned in a single assignment. These kids, and rest assured this is an unbiased opinion, were any school system's fantasy. They were bright, eager about learning, politely attentive and participatory in class, and never once had had a discipline issue. They were (remember, unbiased) practically perfect.* But the fear of the Tests hung over the school like a black cloud and without a Virginia Testing System result for each Child no one was taking any chances.

Turns out there was a reason for no playground. The school allowed the teachers to decide if they wanted to give recess time each day. Most teachers chose not to lose precious Test Preparation time. The kids said that twice a day (if they were lucky) the class was taken outside and told to run laps. I think the theory was they would sweat themselvse into exhaustion and stagger back in, quiescent and passive to have more Standard Learning poured into their flaccid little brains. (note to self, strong feelings about school appear to make upper case rationing unreasonable. Postpone project for later post. Also check tendency towards alliteration, and think hard about parenthetical asides which appear to be getting out of hand)

We had a run-in over the discipline policy as well. One of the kids came home quite upset because for four days in a row they had all had to keep their heads on the lunch room tables because of a minor infraction by one child. Once I got over the icky-shudder thought of my little darling's pristine cheeks pressed against a lunch-room table, I joined Kirk in getting worked up over this practice of punishing the innocent many over the sins of the guilty few. He wrote a fantastic letter to the principal about it. It went something like: Sacred American rights... rant rant... historical precedent.... rave rave... probably cutting remark about questionable psychology... rage rage... threat threat threat THREAT, yours cordialy, etc. It worked too, although I'm not entirely sure it endeared us to the administration.

There were a few other moments as well, and by the time we were getting ready to move (again mid-year, we always seem to do that), we were all five more than ready to shake off the proverbial dust. We thought the feeling would be mutual, and weren't shocked that the principal was hostile when we walked in the door. To our suprise though, it was anger over our leaving.

Turns out our questionable children were being counted on to raise the test scores for their respective classes. Gosh, just broke our hearts to do it, but...

*Note to practically perfect children - the past tense is not intended to reflect on your current perfection, only to work nicely with the story. Thanks to your amazing genetic heritage, and fantastic parenting (ahem) you have only improved on what should have been unimprovable. You are, my darlings, utterly marvelous. Now go clean your rooms, and if I find one more homework assignment has not been turned in there will be Blood For Breakfast!

Mountain Bikes

I was not raised to be athletic. I was raised to dance, which I did because I didn't know any better. I used to tell people firmly that my father called traditional square dancing until Kirk pointed out that no one else knew the difference and to them it was all junior high school ordeal-by-dorkitude. But sports - never a part of my life.

Kirk naturally was the opposite. He did martial arts, he had played football, he sweated on a regular basis even when not mandated by military authority. He even, and this baffled me, ran - on purpose, when nothing was chasing him. Gradually his strange ways began to influence me. While he was in Italy I went out and learned how to ski (all by myself, with full knowledge that I would be making an utter fool of myself. It's quite possibly the bravest thing I've ever done). When he came back we both took up mountain biking, and yes by the time we got to Virginia I was running.

Actually doing stuff like that became the main focus of our lives. We ran every evening we could (which wasn't all that often with Kirk's schedule), we biked throughout the weekend, and when it got cool enough at night we would go on base and play tennis while the kids played on the playground. Good times, but it's just possible that we weren't always sane about it.

Like the time it snowed, and there were no plows so the sloppy, wet, slushy snow stayed on the roads for over a week. Kirk got so frantic with cabin fever he convinced me after five days that the roads were clear enough and we could certainly get the bikes out. It wasn't until the end of the block, by which time he had already tipped over twice, and both of us were drenched past the knees, that he admitted that just maybe the six inches of icy water and snow was not going to make riding possible.

Or the day we went out to play tennis, both of us insisting that there wasn't that much wind, and besides it always dropped by the water anyway (!?). We passed the flag, whipped straight out from the pole, and refused to say a word. Hey! No waiting for a court - see, it's all good. Three serves in, even we had to admit the ball was taking a sharp 90 degree turn, and even standing at the far edge of the court to hit against the wind wasn't going to make a game possible. We solaced ourselves with sushi, and laughed at how ridiculous it was all the way home.

That fall, the fall Kirk got out of the Air Force, was incredible. He was on terminal leave (which always sounds rather sinister - like a lethal vacation or something), and because of the job intensity he was maxed out on time, so we had weeks in which he would ostensibly look for a job. He did do some job hunting, but mostly we were able to send the kids off to school, and then drive out to the trails.

We had found that our favorite biking trails connected by fire-road to another long track; there were maybe 10 miles or so of really nice single track altogether. The trails wind through oak forests, and that fall the leaves were unbelievable. During the day hardly anyone uses those trails, and we mostly had them to ourselves. Kirk would lead (so I wouldn't hold him back) and we would just take off. I wish there were a way to express it - the noise of the tires over the dirt track dusted with leaves, the slightly musty smell, the sunshine filtering through trees and dust. And several times we would come around a bend to find a buck with a full rack frozen for a moment. Magic.

It was perfect - and we never even got to the point of concern over the job. Not far into terminal leave Kirk got his first phone call, his first interview. The company flew him out to California, and by the time he got back he had an offer. At the end of his leave in November he would head out to start work and find us a home.

It was good, we assured each other. It was time to leave. It was the right thing to do. I'm just not sure either of us believed it.

Legacy

I've been thinking hard about this post, about what to say. It's interesting that the blogs I read (not many I'm afraid) haven't even mentioned the day - well, with one exception. I thought about just going on with The Story today, but I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do.

I also thought about just not posting at all. It could be a silent tribute maybe; but when I tried that on for size the philosophy was too threadbare to cover the real problem - indecision, uncertainty, and probably a solid dose of simple cowardice. No, I need to say something.

But the difficulty is the timing. We're not there in The Story yet. We're close of course, but not yet there. Silly to argue timing now when I've been happily skipping back and forth like I have a DeLorean hyped up on stolen Lybian plutonium. Still, I want to tell it in the right place, it's important.

So I spent the day scanning the news and looking over headlines and things wondering what to say. Everyone seems agreed that 9/11 was a defining moment for our generation - possibly for our century. That morning changed everything.

That's what they wanted of course, the terrorists. They wanted to shake us, change us, rock the world. I wonder what they expected for us five years out? Did they think Islam would roll over the world, a return to the glory days of the middle ages when great Islamic armies ruled the Mediterranean, took Spain, took central Europe and knocked on the gates of Rome? Is that what those young men were promised with they got on the planes?

The problem with starting change is that once it leaves your hands, once you've gotten things in motion, you also lose control. The ripples from a stone in a pond analogy doesn't even work - too many factors, too many sentient, living beings involved; what comes after the event is impossible to predict fully.

So the only thing they can claim, finally, is the event itself. And that's a sad, sorry sort of victory. Their greatest achievement is death and destruction. No one achieves a real victory on emptiness - there has to be the other side, there must be creation and generation. And that they simply do not have. Even their initial victory was twisted out of shape by the heroism of flight 93. Some chose to die to take lives; others chose to save them.

In the end we get to choose the legacy, we have the right to decide what 9/11 means. And that's probably as personal as the day itself. For me it is still a thing of hope. Because we haven't crumbled as a society. As Americans we have had to accept that we are closer to the world than our borders would lead us to believe - but that also is a good thing. We have made mistakes, we continue to make mistakes, but we also watch ourselves, we learn, we grow. Maybe we don't feel quite as safe and secure as we did five years ago, but that safety was an illusion; knowing that makes us stronger. And I think, I hope, it helps us remember what we do have, and what a wonderful thing it is to be free, to have hope.

Looking Good

I was so on. I was witty, I was intelligent, I was even wearing something other than jeans and a t-shirt while I chatted urbanely with several important members of the department. Oh yeah, it was just my day to shine.

Until I realized that for the last ten minutes I'd been standing like a praying mantis. You know - elbows crooked, hands both flopped over. Holy exoskeleton, Batman, why? No wonder the guy was backing away - he thought I was going to pounce and chew his head off.

Or maybe he thought I was doing an homage to all the Auntie characters from classic 1940's Hollywood. Just sling a black patent leather pocket book over my arm and call me Mavis.

Farewell AF

Compared to the Greek epic that was getting out of the army (complete with pointless quests and tragic battles and things), getting out of the air force was more like a Jane Austen novel. There was a great deal of charming conversation, some of the verbal sparring variety, some more a gentle banter, and a few moments of genteel uncertainty backed by the comfortable knowledge that all would turn right in the end. Unfortunately neither Colin Firth nor Ciaran Hinds (yes, I like those film versions of the books; no I wasn't all that keen on Gwyneth Paltrow. Hugh Grant in his fluttering eyelashes mode makes me slightly ill and only Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman made that film nearly - nearly - worthwhile) were in evidence.

Bit ironic* that it took herculian effort to extricate ourselves from the army when we were desperate to go and they weren't really terribly interested in keeping us, while leaving the air force, which we didn't actually want to do at all, went quickly and easily.

Kirk polished up his resume (and let me tell you, a bit of intelligence work and some counter-terrorism is very interesting to translate into traditional business skills!) and registered himself with an executive head-hunting firm. We bought him a suit, three shirts and a handful of ties. For the first time in our marriage we were going to have to face the real world.

*Yes I'm aware that this is an incorrect use of the word ironic. However I wish some bright person would come up with a word that means what everyone thinks ironic means, because it's an extremely useful word. For the moment I'm simply going to misuse 'ironic' because it sounds better in the sentence than 'rather wry and interesting coincidence.' However my reckless abuse of the language will haunt me. No, honestly it will!

Fear, and a Tree

I had sort of hit a wall with mountain biking. It was frustrating. When I first started I was terrified - couldn't go down steep grades, got butterflies when the track ducked between two posts - big chicken. Then, as I think I mentioned before, I learned The Lesson - the Big Lesson of Mountain Biking (well one of them, another is stick your butt behind you really far when you're going down a tough grade, but that one doesn't sound as good when used metaphysically) look where you want to go, not where you don't.

Thing is I had been staring fixedly at whatever scared me - the major drop to the right, the large stump right off the trail etc - and like magic the bike would steer right for it. I would get terribly tense and the adrenaline would steam through and I would talk firmly to the bicycle about what I wanted it to do, still staring at that obstacle, and driving merrily right for it. But when I learned The Lesson, learned to pick out a good line and watch it everything became easy. No problem, if I can do that, I can do anything! Fear was gone; I was invincible.

But something happened well into our time in Virginia. We went out biking practically every week, and one of our favorite places was a three-trail series called [censored]. I'd tell you where it is, but it's such a delicious ride and I'd hate for it to get all chewed up and over-crowded. The three trails were supposed to be beginner, intermediate, and expert, but we all agreed that the intermediate was by far the most technical, almost irritating, and the expert was the most fun. Eventually only Kirk and sometimes one Child or Another would take the middle run while the rest of us played in the creek and waited. We had run those trails dozens of times, so I don't know why the fear came back.

I wasn't going to give in to it of course. I still went out every week and ran those trails. But it wasn't much fun any more when I was holding on like grim death and forcing myself to keep the pace up. There was some satisfaction in finishing in good time, in not giving up, but it wasn't getting any better. And I was too stubborn to even talk about it with Kirk.

And then it happened. I was about halfway through the expert trail, well behind Kirk who kept up a blistering pace; I came fast around a bend, hit a tree root polished slick with tire wear and covered with some fallen autumn leaves and everything went to pieces. I ended up smashing into a tree - the bike was somewhere in the other direction. When you hit that hard, when you've been going that fast, there's a moment of complete disorientation before everything falls into place again. 'hmmmm...' I thought, 'I suppose it finally happened. And boy is it going to hurt.' I was right.

I did stagger on foot for a while, but got impatient with that and managed to ride the rest of the way out. No broken bones, no spurting blood, no sucking chest wounds - everything must be fine. Well, a dinner-plate sized bruise on one leg, and some magnificent scrapes and bumps, but no permanent damage.

Kirk's face fell pretty far when he saw me coming out.

'I came off,' I said, probably unecessarily. 'Pretty hard.'

'Oh...' he said. 'I guess that's it then.'

And he was trying hard to be okay with that. Biking was a huge part of our lives by then, something we did as a couple and a family - something extremely important to him in particular. But he wasn't going to argue at this point. He knew I had been struggling. I had tried, I had failed, that was it.

Except it wasn't. Because that's the thing with fear - it's when you aren't quite sure what you're afraid of that it's bad; it's the endless possibilties. Once I crashed it wasn't an unknown any more. I'd done that, it wasn't that bad. The fear had borders, and so it retreated.

I'm not invincible any more. But I've learned my lessons. Keep your eyes on where you want to go. And sometimes, falling isn't the worst thing you can do.

Torn

The problem was that Kirk was doing good work. He was doing vital, essential work - work that was literally saving lives and changing the world. Not many people get to do that sort of thing, make that sort of difference. He loved the challenge and the pressure, loved the chance to put his theories about information operations to work.

But there were other problems. The intelligence world is a strange place, a place where sources and information are impossibly valuable and are fiercely guarded - not just from the enemy without, but from other intelligence branches. CIA, DIA - all of those 'men in black' view eachother with deep suspicion. They do not, to put it mildly, play well with others.

And then there was the entrenched mindset, the very conservative status quo above Kirk. The people at that level had come into the intel world during the cold war, and their focus had never really changed. They were used to a particular kind of enemy - one that was established, codified, predictable; a known quantity with a home to protect. They were extremely good at dealing with this enemy, they knew it cold. But the new world, the world of Bin Laden was not like that, and they were slow to change. So Kirk was endlessly fighting against people who did not want to listen, people who firmly believed they knew everything.

I don't know how much of it was like that. I just know he hit wall after wall. Worse, I think he probably got a reputation for being a bit wild - for having crazy ideas. I'm just guessing, but from his frustration I think it's likely that certain people simply stopped listening to what he had to say.

So there he was, doing excellent work but in a way that made life nearly impossible. Because he was so successful he was being read into increasingly higher clearances - need-to-know only stuff, things only a handful of people would have access to. He was being drawn deeper and deeper into the counter-terrorism world, but wasn't being allowed to do what he felt he had to do. Eventually he realized he was completely caught. If he stayed in the Air Force he would be doing counter-terrorism for the rest of his career.

And we were at the decision point. Everyone in the military reaches that moment. If you sign up for one more tour you might as well stay in and collect your retirement; if you get out now you have time to make a new career for yourself. Kirk had his time in the army as an enlisted linguist, he had half-time credit for being in the ROTC, and he had his tours in Alaska and Virginia. If he stayed now, he was going to do this for the next ten years.

He loved the Air Force. He loved everything about it. And now he felt that he had no choice. He had to leave.

dual lives

Kirk was still working insane hours. We didn't even pretend he got enough sleep - he just grabbed what he could. He didn't want to miss time with the family during the week, dinner was pretty important time at our house, but it meant he sometimes got by with only four or five hours of sleep a day.

When he was with us, he gave everything. He did his best to be wholly there for us when we went biking or fishing; he tried not to let the other life, the counter-terrorism life, intrude. It became harder and harder.

I realized it gradually, realized how much this work was taking over. It didn't happen when we were in the woods - when we were catching frogs down at George Washington's Retreat in Yorktown, or biking the three trails at Harwood Mills - but when we were driving around town there would be moments when he was distracted, different.

Like the time he glanced over as we passed a local bank, stiffened and muttered something about 'so they use that one...' I think he had recognized someone going into the bank, and now part of him was concerned with working out how to use this unexpected windfall of information.

One afternoon we were driving up the highway outside of Langley. I was reading a magazine - the Smithsonian I think - and I was chatting to Kirk about an article discussing the greatest achievement of modern medicine: the successful campaign against smallpox. Wasn't it amazing, I said, the way the WHO had managed it, wasn't it wonderful that the world was safe now from a disease that had been a deadly threat for thousands of years. Very quietly, his hands stiff on the wheel, he said 'it's not gone.'

Just that. But I knew - I knew that not only did he know that more than one country had kept live samples of the virus, he knew intimately the infection rate, the symptoms, the horrific scarring that those lucky enough to survive would suffer. He knew how it could be weaponized, had thought about delivery systems, had worked through countless scenarios in which various populations were targeted and infected.

And gradually I realized that he was living like that constantly. Everywhere we went, there was part of him looking around and evaluating targets, thinking about blast zones, considering mortality rates, political value, public reaction.

In order to stop a terrorist, you have to think like one. To be successful, you have to inhabit his mind. Kirk was very good at what he did, and it was beginning to take over everything. He was staring into Nietzsche's abyss.

Steve Irwin

We first started watching the Crocodile Hunter in Alaska - a remarkably reptile-free area. We were all charmed, amused, intrigued, by this big enthusiastic guy leaping around in his anatomically correct shorts and raving about his crocodiles.

It started the kids on what continues to be an enormous interest in and love for reptiles in general. When we went to Virginia they could find red-eared sliders in the ponds, mid-sized land tortoises, a variety of frogs, and multiple snakes (harmless mostly but one cotton mouth who was treated with deep respect). They learned to see the beauty in all of these amazing animals, and knew how to treat them with care.

When we were hiking once in California we came across a colony of small salamanders - gorgeous little things with tiny, impractical looking legs and bulgy eyes. We looked them up when we got home and found out they are quite rare and endangered and the kids solomnly decided not to tell any of their friends where the little critters were living - just in case. They felt a responsibility that was rooted in their lessons from Steve.

He inspired us all as well to want to go to Australia. Naturally we've never done it, but we'd all still love to at least visit and see some of the incredible things he shared. I think all the kids at one time or another secretly wanted to go work for Steve at his animal park.

There was an honesty to the man, and a generosity that was incredibly appealing. He was a part of our lives, and we will miss him.

Confessional

I have a terrible secret. It's something I'm quite ashamed of really. You couldn't tell by looking at me, but... I... well, I make... stuff. No, time to be honest. I make crap. And usually, almost always, it's totally useless crap as well.

This crap making definitely gets worse if I'm under-employed. When we first lived in California and I hadn't gotten a job yet, Kirk once came home to find I had blown and handpainted half a dozen eggs - with extremely detailed, tiny little still-lifes. To give him credit he admired them very nicely and didn't once say, 'um... but what, exactly are these for?'

When I joined him in Texas, coming off an extremely intense final semester of college, we weren't going to be there long enough to get a job, so instead I encrusted a hand-made red bodice with thousands and thousands of silver bugle beads. It looked fantastic when it was done, but must have weighed at least 4 pounds and was perhaps a little extravagant for the 7 year old's halloween costume. The child had asked to be a vampire; I'm not sure how silver beads work into the legend.

That same child wanted to be a mermaid one year in Alaska so I sewed and then hand beaded several hundred separate scales in varying shades of blue, green and silver. She even had a magnificent tail picked out in beads. That one only took two months to finish off.

There was a dragon costume at one point, also covered with individual scales. There was the birthday party for which I sewed tiny flower pouches and made several dozen decorated paper cones to fill with candy. And there have been many, many small dolls, rabbits, bears and other items hardly worth mentioning.

And the funny thing is, I don't really like a lot of the stuff I design. It's often kitchy or country or calico while I love simple lines and neo-classical design. So I make all sorts of stuff that I wouldn't even want in my own house.

But since Kirk went missing I haven't really done much. There was the ring-wraith costume of course, but that's hardly worth mentioning (besides, that was cool). The impulse just wasn't there; the 'oh wow, how could I make that?' didn't even come up. I've been doing a huge amount of digital work of course - lots of photo work, lots of graphic design, lots of web stuff - but almost nothing physical.

Until last week when I was hit over the side of the head and realized there was something I simply had to make. It's not done yet, probably take another week or so. So...

...If you know anyone who would want a pink flannel pig dressed in a pin-tucked black witch's costume, hand beaded of course and probably with crotcheted lace on her socks... well, let me know.

I know I don't want it!

ethnic profiling

From the comment below:

Anonymous said...

What did Kirk think about ethnic profiling?

9:25 AM

Good question. Kirk was a pragmatist. He also knew his stuff very, very well. So here's the pragmatic approach:

The majority of people who are acting in this particular terror war are of certain ethnic groups. Not only one group, mind. To ignore this fact would be stupid. To think that only people from a sub-set of ethnic groups would be involved is equally stupid. So ethnic profiling is a short-cut, but one of only limited use.

Kirk knew that really good intelligence work is much more important. You have to know your enemy to know who they are likely to use, who they will surround themselves with, and who will be most drawn to their cause.

These are people who use other people's children to kill and maim. They thrive on death, on power, on destruction. They have a particular background and a specific code of their own. Without understanding that you don't understand them.

He felt very strongly that using ethnic profiling for anything other than the very limited application it was suited for was not only wrong, it was dangerous. There is a tendency to think that doing something - anything - is useful, and worse that doing something means something else doesn't need to be done. It gives a false sense of security; it does both passive and active harm.

It is, however, a starting point. When the FBI wants to catch a particularly dangerous criminal they might use a profiler - someone who can narrow down the most likely characteristics of the perpetrator. These characteristics often include ethnicity, but are certainly not limited to it. The intel world does the same thing - they look at ethnicity and religious affiliation because they'd be stupid not to. But to stop there would be useless.

In fact, the intel community doesn't use ethnic profiling in the way it's perceived commonly. They do not look blindly at only one demographic. They are looking at far more complex things than just ethnicity.

The public however, the great mass of humanity, can and does do so. And that's where the real problem lies.

When 9-11 happened many of our friends called Kirk. They wanted reassurance, they wanted to know if the Bay Bridge would be safe that day, if their children should go to school, if they should go to work. They wanted to know, over and over again, what they should do.

Go to a mosque, Kirk said. If you want to know what to do, go to a mosque. Talk to the people there. Talk to them as Americans, as people, as humans with a common grief and a common concern. Reach out and make friends and find their humanity because that is how you defeat this terrorism. Look beyond their racial background. Help them look beyond yours.

ADDED: I'm speaking for me now, not Kirk.

I was talking to someone about the security issues with flying now, the new restrictions the added searches and banned items because of the latest terrorist arrests. This person said that the terrorists had 'won' because our actions had changed as a result of their behaviour.

I disagree. First, there is nothing in the way we board planes that is sacred. We do not use our security screenings as part of our religious ritual. Our ability to take sports drinks on a flight does not change our moral code or alter our ethical belief system. Being more careful, being more stringent is not a sign of victory for the terrorists because they've forced a reaction. Actually, it's made their lives a little harder because one more possibility has been recognized and limited. This is a failure for them

We change our habits constantly - change is part of life. It's called adaptation, and if we can't do it we can't survive. So showing up a bit earlier for a flight, planning ahead as far as hydration goes? We'll get used to it; life will go on.

However, bringing things to a screeching halt because someone is 'behaving strangely' if that strange behavior is mostly having a long beard or carrying a Koran or something is a victory for terrorism.

I do think, though, that it is an extreme reaction from initial fear. Things will calm down again, we will become used to the new world just as we have done before, and once more we will, most of us anyway, be able to look at eachother as individuals of great variety rather than large masses of stereotyped genres. Maybe in stress it's easier to lump people into broad and general categories, to do a quick and harsh sort into 'safe' and 'not safe.' But it's not a practical thing, or a realistic thing.

Hopefully we all know that humans in general have a great capacity for violence, and a great capacity for empathy and acceptance, regardless of race or creed, arbitrary geographic boundary, religion, tribe, or division real or imagined. The destroyers are loud and horrible and impossible to ignore - but they are a tiny minority; a tiny minority in every culture.

Writing Reality

Kirk was still doing work creating excercise scenarios. He was very good at it in Alaska, and he was good at it here; still coming up with creative ideas to test people in new ways.

The trouble is, sometimes people don't want to be tested in new ways. It's much nicer to be tested in old ways, so you're ready and you have all the answers set to go. Notice, this isn't something unique to the military! Don't we all want to have the questions before hand? Don't we wish we could take the test we did last time, because now we know exactly what to say.

So in the Spring or Summer of 2000 Kirk wrote up a little scenario that involved a large navy ship. The idea was that a few terrorists would load up a small zodiac - an inflatable boat with a great little engine and no draft - with explosives, then float it up right next to the ship and detonate it.

The navy was not amused. Their ships, their nice, big, powerful ships, were not vulnerable to things like this. Terrorists would never attack a heavily armed and armored vessel - it just didn't make sense. The scenario was disgarded, never seriously looked at.

The USS Cole was bombed on October 12th, 2000. 17 sailors were killed.

Kirk was deeply troubled. He knew it had just been an idea, just one of several concepts he had come up with. But there was such a large 'if only' there. If only they had run the excercise. If only someone had noticed that this was a possibility. If only...

There had been so many people saved at Y2K, such an amazing day of success. Was this the inevitable flip side? And how do you cope with something that was, however improbably, preventable.

I know he thought about it. I don't think he ever found any real answers.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Friend: You had a secure telephone line in your bedroom?

Me: Yup, at least for a while.

Friend: And you didn't ask why?

Me: Nope.

Friend:... sure you did.

Me: Nope.

Friend: I mean, you didn't come out and say 'Kirk, why do we have a huge ugly secure telephone in our bedroom,' but you asked anyway.

Me: Nope.

Friend: Hinted

Me: Nope.

Friend: Suggested.

Me: Nope

Friend: Oh come on!

Me: Honest! I double dog swear with cherries on. I never asked, never hinted, never suggested. Not once.

Friend: You have GOT to be kidding.

Me: He wouldn't have been able to tell me anyway, so what would be the point?

Friend: You're unbelievable.

Me: Gets worse.

Friend: ?

Me: One day he came home really super late and he said he had just gotten back from briefing the White House. They had flown him in by helicopter.

Friend: The White House White House?

Me: Yup, the one with the annual turkey reprieve and the friendly men with very large guns.

Friend: Don't tell me.

Me: Yup, never even asked. I have no idea why he went, what he briefed about, or who was there.

Friend: That's not natural. There would be smoke coming out of my ears.

Me: That's because you keep your head stuffed with brains and things. Mine is a splendid wasteland and therefore free from overheating.

Friend: Well, that explains a lot.

A Little (off-white, clunky) Security

'They're going to put a secure line in the house,' Kirk announced one day. It was well after Y2K, and no naturally I don't know why. I also didn't ask.

Hmmm... a secure line. Like in 'get the president on the line' - the secure line.

It would go in our bedroom. My. A top-secret secure line in our bedroom!

This would probably mean a bit of redecorating. I mean, we didn't have really swish black furniture or anything, and our mossy green duvet cover would definitely not go with subdued blue lighting and lots of plexiglass panels for Kirk to scribble meaningful things all over. The banks of flashing LED displays could probably go up against the East wall next to the attic door. There was just enough room there for a couple of low-ranking flunkies to look intense while wearing headphones. Also my wardrobe would need to be updated to include a lot of very streamlined suits with exceptionally short skirts. Wow. A secure telephone line.

I don't remember seeing it installed. I would like to say there was a small army of coveralled burly people with suspicious bulges around their persons and paranoid twitches. But so far as I know it simply appeared one day. And actually, it turned out to be an enormous, clunky off-white thing that sat glumly by Kirk's side of the bed and got in the way of the alarm clock.

And when he was away I was always just a little worried... what if ...

... but it never rang.

But it NEVER Snows Here...

It snowed. It snowed real snow, several inches of it, in Virginia. The kids were beyond pleased because the green winter that had been confronting them was suddenly and comfortingly coated in white - as it should be.

Granted it was a sort of strange white. It was a white that didn't squeak underfoot, and that packed easily into various sculptural shapes. Alaska snow is too dry for snowmen. Our neighbor built a snow fort by simply wedging up the concrete-like chunks discarded by the snow-scraper, then spraying them down to make an ice palace that lasted until well into June. This stuff was wet and sloppy and when thrown at a sibling it splatted delightfully before trickling down necks or into boots.

Then there was the fact that most of the neighbors came out to marvel at this odd whiteness covering their landscape. They commented on it loudly for hours as well. By the end of the morning it was clear that they all agreed - it never snows here. Not here, nope, not snow, never.

Nothing phased the kids donned coats, mittens and boots like the snow-experts they are and headed off to school It was only a five block walk, but they left a bit early because with this much snow-ballable material it was going to be necessary to pause now and then.

Kirk had left hours before, powering out with our newly purchased old-clunker truck, but I enjoyed watching the Edie Bauer edition SUVs around us fizz and whine in the snow that was icky and slippery and probably ewwwwwww getting their detailing all mucky!

Then the kids came bursting back in the door.

'Mom! Mom! The school is closed! Closed!'

'Why?'

'Well... I don't know really. What's a snow day?'

Three years in Alaska, feet of snow every season and at least one winter where it didn't get above zero for what felt like months and we hadn't once, not once, had a weather closure at our school.

The Virginia school was closed for 4 1/2 days. It appears the city had sold off all their snow plows several years before. Why?

Well, it never snows here.

context

I flew on the day the London explodable-liquids arrests took place. *

Being a former military-intel counter-terrorism wife paid off here because I immediately recognized that a. security was going to be trying to be tighter but wouldn't yet quite know what that meant so things were probably going to be a complete pig's breakfast and b. it would be a really good idea to rid my carry-on of anything liquid.

So, wearing free-from-metal slip-on sandals, checking my quite small enough to carry-on suitcase (only it weighed about 40 pounds or something), and carrying only my inoffensive not-a-purse (I don't do purses. It is not a purse, it is a quite artistic satchel that I happen to carry pens and wallets and unmentionables in) I felt pretty darn smug when I showed up 2 1/2 hours before my flight. Actually, I hadn't anticipated that 1 oz tubes of $1.69 lip gloss were 'liquid,' but my kind and not-yet-frazzled check in person thought to ask me about these items and I stuffed them into my checked bag just before it was whisked off.

I had been right about security as well. They were definitely on high-alert, but hadn't yet figured out just what that meant. So there were hastily printed signs saying things like: 'NO LIQUIDS!!! This means no: _________ ' with a long line of printed items and then, right as you got to the actual checker people, some hand-printed additions as well.

There weren't all that many people checking through though, so I kicked off my sandals, piled them into a bin and carefully displayed the artistic satchel nice and flat so they could clearly pick out things like tampons and stuff when it went through the scanner.

They decided my satchel wasn't actually dangerous although it did get scanned three times. Just as well otherwise I might have felt left out because the bag before me and the bag after me both got special hand-search treatment. And there was the lady who was informed that her eye drops were going to be confiscated. She was furious. She offered to pour the drops in her eyes right there, right that moment. She'd also pour them in her husband's eyes if they liked (husband shifts and looks desperately uncomfortable - probably because he had to convince the wife that he was totally backing her up on this while he was showing the security people that he agreed she was making too much of a fuss). Nope she was told, the eye drops are history.

'But they are my $25 dollar eye drops!' She wailed that really loudly and I HAD to look - I had to. Because what kind of eye-drops cost $25? And it was a mid-sized bottle of off-the-shelf contact solution. And I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and suggest she check out Walmart because her local drug store was really marking it up on her. She pouted and whined and shouted and threatened but security held firm and finally she stormed off through the automatic rotating door still muttering about how unreasonable it was that her eye drops were so dangerous.

I really felt for those security people, because you knew it was only going to get worse through the day.

Of course now I was only 2 hours early for my flight, but I was prepared with a brand new book, and there were still enough seats at the gate that I could sit down without deciding who would be least offended that I took the open seat at their side.

Over an hour later a woman of about 60 sat down next to me. She sat down with that exhale of breath, that sort of sigh that's a humph pushed out by the force of her body hitting the chair. She immediately pulled out her cell phone and began a loud, indignant conversation.

Security, it appears, had not been kind. They had not cared that she was a first class passenger. They had insisted on searching her purse. Her. Purse. Hers. Uh huh (excited chatter on other side) I know. And she had checked her suitcase even though she never checks her suitcase, but she did and now she'll have to wait at the other end, wait while they do god knows what with her things. And you know what they're like in baggage handling. I mean it's not like she's going to Europe for god's sake. I know. (more chatter). But then... and there was a deep inhale here... they confiscated her perfume. Her perfume. Her Perfume. I know! Very expensive. Oh, my dear very expensive. Well, no just the travel one but still. I just hope those security men like Chanel because you know they're just going to take it home to their wives and...

... and the battery on her phone died. And she snapped it shut, threw it in her purse, crossed her arms over her bosom shelf and looked at me.

'This,' she said dramatically, 'is the worst day of my entire life.'

And I said it. I smiled at her, very sweetly and nicely, and I said:

'Lucky you.'

*Where does the context come in? It was the day after I found this out.

Baffled

I do a lot of people watching while I walk to work. It's not the world's longest walk, but it does take me past about 200 constantly changing, endlessly fascinating people. It doesn't hurt that at least four of them on any given day will make me feel much, much better about myself and my life choices. Others... will simply confuse.

Last week I walked behind a man whose outfit revealed itself to me in small pieces. I think that was all my brain could cope with at a time; it had to see, analyze and accept each small portion before it could move on.

It began with the hat - the crocheted hat. The rainbowy, bobbles on it like an afghan hat. This is not an unusual sight where I work so I just thought 'hmmm... wonder if that guy went out with the strange woman who seems to compulsively crochet horrible accessories for all she knows?' until he took it off and revealed the carefully plastered four strands of hair stretched over his bald spot. Then I was impressed because a. the strands had survived the hat and its removal and b. the plastering which had made them survive had yet not managed to tame the inherent curliness of the hair. Never seen anything like it. Very interesting.

Then I noticed that he was wearing a brand spanking-new t-shirt. I know this because it still had the sharp square wrinkles left from being pressed in a plastic package at the bottom of a slippery stack of orange and brown t-shirts.

I thought I had hit the highlight though with the shorts. He was wearing black briefs - I know this because he was also wearing paper-thin white shorts. They were that indeterminate length where you can't tell if you're grateful they're not shorter or you wish they'd just said to heck with it and splurged on another inch or two. They also hinched up around the crotch so they had a sort of disconsolate droop at the edges.

I was so pleased with the shorts I nearly stopped there, which would have been terribly, terribly sad because I would have missed the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Over his black ankle socks (passed by without comment because:) he wore... well the closest I can come is saddle shoes. You know those 1950's black and white shoes that bobby-soxer's wore? Only his were sort of camel dung brown on the toes and heels, and a very pale creamy green across the middle. And his feet must have been at least size 15. Huge.

But the very best bit was that he was walking with a slim, silky-tressed blonde wearing a close-enough-for-government-work Chanel little black dress and classic pumps.

And she was holding his hand.

New Year, New World

We prized our weekends. We did more than that, we seized them from the first moment and squeezed every possible bit of time and happiness out we could. Because weekends were all we had, and we knew we were lucky to get those.

There was a silent battle going on, one most people still know nothing about. It had nothing to do with computers or millennium viruses. It was the fight for the next millennium, and it was deadly.

I don't know how many plots there were. I have a strong sense of the most vulnerable places in the world simply from reading the signs around me; I know where, almost certainly, things were stopped. But in the weeks leading up to Y2K there were dozens certainly - probably hundreds - of people who spent every waking moment thinking about the end of the world. They ticked off the things they knew, the things they stopped and worried constantly that they hadn't found it all.

At first Kirk left the house before 5 in the morning, generally didn't get home until after 7. Christmas day he didn't get home until 3 a.m. He slept a little, woke up to watch the kids open stockings and exult over presents, then by 9 he had gone back to work again. After that he was often gone by 3 or 4 a.m., not home until 8 at night.

New Years came. Kirk of course was at work. It's funny I just realized I have no idea where he actually was; I assume it was the ops room at Norfolk, but it could have been anywhere. I was home with the kids.

We piled up cushions and blankets on the couch and settled in; big plans for the new millennium - we were going to watch the Crocodile Hunter marathon. We must have started watching at 7 (crikey! There's a little beauty!), then as each hour ticked by I would flip quickly over to the news channel and we would watch 2000 roll across the world. The kids couldn't have been less interested; they didn't want to miss Steve but I insisted.

Asia changed over. Jerusalem celebrated and Turkey. Then Eastern Europe slowly ticked across, and Paris. And London. Each time there was a sick, horrified tension and then miraculous release: nothing. Thousands of happy, shouting people and... that was all.

Now, with the horror of 9/11 a constant reminder, with arrests in London, and kidnappings and bombs across the Middle East maybe we forget something. The new millennium, our time, was begun in peace.

That was the victory. There are thousands of people alive right now who owe their lives to the folks in Kirk's unit and others like them. And they don't know it - and that's how it should be.

Maybe it's good now and then to remember that.

Salesmanship

The HMS Indefatigable was a noble vehicle for many things. It swallowed five mountain-bikes of varying sizes without even a hint of indigestion (although come to think of it, the kids sometimes came out with tire marks on their faces...). It navigated entire states with a self-deprecating dignity that was beautiful to behold. It even gave us the unbelievable joy of pulling up at a rather posh winery and piling out to demand a tour at the same time that a BMW-load of Texans arrived elegantly hatted and sporting entirely improbable cowboy boots (yup, you can sneer at our travel-stained jeans, but you still bought two bottles of hyper-sweet sissy dessert wine from the gift shop. I saw you).

However... nimble? Not so much. Economical... hardly. Something anyone but Kirk was even remotely willing to get behind the wheel of? Well... no.

Which is why we were in the back woods of Virginia (no, no banjo music) checking out a car. We had already done the preliminaries which consisted of me giving Kirk the 'oh my word this is such a COOL vintage car! We will buy it at once' meaningful stare while he returned with an 'are you out of your mind? We have to check for [car buying stuff] and I haven't even begun the man connection thing with this guy so he'll drop $500 off the price' blank gaze. Now we were in the kitchen, slightly disturbingly lined with thousands of rosy-cheeked Hummel figurines. Turns out the wife is German which allowed me to try and chat her up (useless) and Kirk to slide in the we-were-in-Germany-military-connection thing. That goes quite well, and inevitably the question is asked - so, where you coming from then?

And that's when it happened. 'Alaska, eh?' The guy leans forward and drops his voice to a confidential whisper. 'Don't have many... coloreds up there, do they?'

I couldn't help thinking about how just a day or two before we had gone to a local air museum where we saw a film and then heard a lecture by a pilot from the Tuskegee Airmen. Fantastic talk; amazing guy. Afterwards he signed a mug Child 1 had won as a door prize, and kindly answered our questions and chatted with us for a while.

This guy was a World War II vet too. He had met his wife in Germany and brought her over. He had missed D-day, but was there for the push deeper into France.

We didn't say any of the number of things that occurred. It wouldn't have changed his mind; wouldn't have shone a light in his dark, cramped world.

We just thought about it. Yes sir, actually there were any number of people from all sorts of backgrounds, because that's what the military is like, thank god. What I do know though is that at least in our experience there weren't many ignorant, cave-dwelling bigots around.

And, no I don't think we'll buy that car.

Battle Scars

Weekends we biked. Within three weeks we had done Jamestown, Yorktown, York River and Colonial Williamsburg all on two wheels. You should take a moment to feel for the poor tourists who were trying to really live the pre-revolutionary world of Virginia (visions of periwigs and authentic horse poop are free, food and drink extra) with a family of padded-shorts clad cyclists whizzing past at full speed: 'quick, look kids! A colonial town drunk!'

Mountain biking had become a passion during the previous summer in Alaska. Kirk already had a gorgeous Trek 9000 - midnight blue and stunning; and I had, with some of the first money I earned for my own self with my own company, bought a violent green but entirely lovable Trek 7000. Eagle River has a network of wonderful paved paths snaking through the neighborhood, which sufficed for the first two days. But a mountain bike has to be taken off road and thrown down gullies and things to be really appreciated. I was, admittedly, timid at first but then learned the quite obvious rule of biking - look where you want to go, not where you don't. Once I figured that out the bike lost its habit of steering into trees and over steep drops and things and life was very, very good.

Unfortunately I went directly from 'oh dear, maybe I shouldn't take on that hill' to 'hey! If I think I can do it I can!' leaving behind all sorts of little things like logic and common sense. Which is why when we were biking the Yorktown battlefield tour one day (it's just road bike stuff, but several miles of it, nice and green and great for kids. Plus hardly anyone bothers to drive the whole circuit so you mostly have the place to yourself) I decided to put on my biking gloves while riding directly behind Child 1.... while I held a set of hex-keys in one hand... so I was entirely incapable of using the brakes. Naturally Child 1 swerved right in front of me and... well I'm not entirely sure what happened then, but I do know that evenutally I was sitting against a tree looking at a fairly large hole in one leg and anxiously asking about my bike! Are you sure it's okay!?

Kirk looked at me.

'The bike's fine. You I think we're taking to the hospital.'

'Oh. But I don't want to have to explain how I did this. '

'Why?'

'Because it might sound stupid!'

'Not at all.' He paused for a moment, 'We'll just say you were wounded at Yorktown.'

Sounds quite impressive when you put it like that! You want to see my scar?

A New Approach to The Pamper Problem

So we were in Virginia... yes, sorry I couldn't come up with a neater, tidier segue than that.

Kirk was quickly absorbed into the counter-terrorist world. I was used to secrecy, used to not knowing details about what he did, but this was a step beyond that. There was more pressure, and far greater stakes. Before Kirk had protected 'assets' with secrecy, now it was clear those assets were lives.

He was also having to learn an enormous amount in an incredibly short time. There was no easing into this world - things were happening right now, and mistakes were simply not acceptable. Being Kirk he just stayed quiet for a few days and listened hard. He said he overheard one man being asked for an opinion on the new air force guy. 'Nice enough, but not the sharpest tool in the shed' was the verdict. That man ended up being Kirk's best friend in the unit - and he did revise his opinion. Kirk started making a few suggestions, throwing out a carefully casual comment. He was the outsider after all, and intelligence people can be clannish. It didn't take very long, he was allowed inside.

They had a pretty major coup within weeks of Kirk's arrival. As always I don't know details. I think it might be the incident that got a little publicity - the one that was to come through Canada. I do remember Kirk saying there were some Mounties somewhere that he really wanted to buy a drink. And I remember the quote from the unit commander when they gave the briefing after it was all over.

The terrorist was trying to smuggle something over the border apparently, and it must have been something pretty large, and fairly strange. But he was prepared, he was ready for questions this guy. This thing? This contraption I'm bringing into the country? Why... it's a diaper cleaning machine.

Right, the commander said. It'll blow the sh*t out of them.

Who You Calling a Victim?

I'm sitting here waiting for another 25 minutes to tick by so I can call the Victim Assistance people at the FBI. How's that for an opening sentence? Lousy actually, when I think about it. One of my more useless excercises has been avoidance of the 'victim' label.

It's one of the reasons I didn't (don't) tell people about Kirk and what happened. As soon as I do there's a huge sign posted over my head, and every time that person looks at me my features disappear and instead I'm a Situation and a Circumstance and a Reason For Pity. Ages ago I ended up telling a woman I deal with at work (she asked and asked and asked and there's only so much vague avoidance one can do before it stops being sidestepping and becomes outright lying. I don't like lying). Now every time I see her she gets a particularly wide smile on her face, tips her head to one side (right, always) and says 'how are you?' And I think, she couldn't really care less about how I am, she just likes thinking of herself as a really nice person who is terribly empathetic and that's what nice empathetic people do. Which is actually pretty nasty minded of me, but there you are.

I'm afraid too of the ease of being a victim. People are nice to you, they want to help you and do things for you. You might not have to try too hard because, poor thing, think of what you're going through. It's true of course. There are days when waking up is the hardest thing in the world, when I don't want to make those umpteen tedious changes to a page or copy edit that submission because it's trivial and pointless in the face of everything. But it still has to be done, today and tomorrow and for the rest of my life. Years from now won't that victim crown be getting a little tinny? What if I get too used to being the princess of pain and can't do things for myself anymore?

But some things I just don't feel adequate to deal with alone, and Social Security is one of those things. So I'm hoping somewhere out there is a person who can help me out. And if that means I have to be a victim today... well I suppose I can do that.

Fifteen minutes.

A Question of Tense

For nearly three years there has been the problem of tense. When I talked of Kirk was it present tense? Did I say he 'was' or he 'is' something. Kirk has a gift with languages... or is it he had one. Tricky thing, language.

Grammar was never my strong suit anyway. I sprinkle dashes and semicolons around with reckless abandon, and commas are like salt in my opinion - they add flavor to a sentence. I've been known more than once to start a sentence or even a paragraph with And or But. I'll split infinitives because it just sounds better sometimes to boldly go, and I'm not always careful about thatting and whiching. Microsoft Word scolds me something awful. My typing is always littered with chastising little wriggly green and red lines.

But the question of time... well pardon the pun but it was fraught with tension. I might not have picked up much beyond je voudrais manger avec vous demain in language class, but I know the theory behind perfect, imperfect and plu-perfect. I just didn't like the implications. I forgot as well. Kirk is (pardon) was such a vivid person that he is still very immediate to me. So more often than not I still use the present tense. There are people I've met casually who probably believe I have a living husband because that's how I speak of him.

I'll probably still do it when I write.

After all. He does live in the stories.

Investigation Status

I have to be really careful answering the question in the comment to the entry below. Keep in mind that I'm stating what I understand about things, and I might not have everything just right.

The investigation into Kirk's disappearance is not exactly closed. They still want to find the people who killed him - I think they know who it is, but those men are hiding. They also want to find Kirk's body if possible and there is still a reward out for information that will help in these things.

The large investigation is more complicated. There were three parts - Kirk's disappearance, Ryan Manelick's murder, and the allegation of fraud. The other two pieces are still unsolved so far as I know.

I should probably emphasize that - so far as I know. I was not given any information about anything other than Kirk's death, and since his death had nothing to do with the fraud or the murder, those things were not addressed. So my understanding is that the investigation is ongoing.

I want to publically thank the agents who met with me on August 9th. They flew out so we could meet in person, and were willing to take as much time as necessary to answer as many questions as possible. In a situation that was terribly painful and difficult they were thoughtful, considerate, and kind. They never forgot that this is a human story, and their humanity was their greatest gift to us.

Story

Went to California for a week - back to the Bay area where we last lived as a family with Kirk. It's a beautiful place, if slightly insane (2 bedroom house for $800,000? What a bargain!). There are hills with eucalyptus groves where, when the wind is right, you can ignore the fact that several million people are within a few miles; and there is the ocean with its comforting habit of continuing to sweep in and out whatever insanity is going on around.

I had some decisions to make, some things to work out - some big, some less so. One of the smaller was this blog.

You see, I had a meeting with the CID (that's Criminal Investigation Division remember - don't hold me to the exact wording though) on Wednesday, August 9th. It was two years and ten months to the day from when Kirk disappeared. They gave me their report, as much of it as they could.

So I've had a week to decide what to do about this story, about a blog that was started because Kirk was missing. And I think that I want to keep on telling the story - his story, our story.

But it's important to say that Kirk was killed. On October 9th, 2003, Kirk was killed by Iraqi hostiles when a kidnap attempt went horribly wrong.

So the story has an end.

Time Off

For various reasons I'm not going to be updating for a few days. Back in a week.

How to Defeat Y2K Without Really Trying

Call me cynical, but I think it's just possible the navy wasn't taking the whole Y2K computer security threat very seriously. Waiting until November, and then assigning the brand new guy, the guy from a different branch of the service, the guy who is supposed to come in and set up something that will likely make you change the way you're doing things - well, it just seems a bit superficial as efforts go.

I can image one of two things happened:

1. Senior officer type calls up Navy guy. 'I hear there's a new millenium coming our way. And some guy buying thirty cases of toilet paper informs me that we should be concerned about our computer situation. Have we got this handled?' Navy guy answers: 'Sir, I assure you we're putting our top man on this. Nothing to worry about.'

2. Navy guy ups and realizes that in two weeks there's going to be a huge briefing involving all sorts of senior types who will likely ask slightly uneducated and ridiculous questions about a situation they have read of in the popular media, but do not understand. Navy guy senses at once that this is not a good career situation. Either nothing will happen, and some poor other Navy guy will be needlessly sacrificed on the great altar of Briefings That Cause Pain and Agony, or something will happen and some poor other Navy guy will be thoroughly barbequed on the even greater altar of Save the Higher-Ups! That's What Lower Grade Officers Are For!

Anyway, Kirk became the Y2K goat. There was already a counter-terrorism unit so he was sort of cobbled onto that, and had to suddenly come up to speed on the counter-terrorism world in a matter of weeks. His initial focus was supposed to be on the rollover situation. He did his research, looked into the whole thing thoroughly, and when the briefing came around, he was ready.

Room filled with officers so highly ranked their noses bled. Much discussion of various security issues. Finally, senior official leans forward and asks about Y2K, computers, security, and the rollover.

'So, should we be worried?'

Kirk leans forward to his mike: 'No.'

Pause.

'Son, could you expand on that a bit?'

Kirk leans forward again: 'Hell no.'

Well, they remembered his name after that.

Pearls of Wisdom

First babies are watched with intensity. These little squashy bundles of potential are just oozing around waiting to produce a large litany of 'firsts' that you, as parent, are expected to note down with date, time, and place so you can answer appropriately at doctors' offices and school gifted assessment interviews. Also it's handy for playing the one-up game with other parents and their inferior offspring.

High on this list is the First Word. Most cherubs trot out a 'ma-ma' on schedule, or if they know which parent is most likely to reward biased behavior with sugar-laden snacks, they go for 'da-da' or (for the pretentious set) 'pa-pa.' The parent can then glow smugly with the knowledge that their infant truly loves them because at 8:42 on a Wednesday morning...

Yes. Well, then there's Child 1. Child 1 had been quite content to get along with a series of emphatic grunts. Mostly because its idiot parents responded to these grunts. Fun times those were - 'GRUNT' milk? you want milk? Or hungry - maybe you're hungry? Outside, is that it? 'GRUNT' oh. Kirk? It's your turn to change it...

We were visiting some friends in Nierstein - friends we had known since language training in Monterey. Male friend and Kirk were in a car, female friend, Child 1 and I were on the kerb. One of the males (no names, protect innocent) turned, saw us, started doing an idiot wave, and promptly ran into the back of the car in front. Loud and clear female friend says... well, this is a family blog so we'll say it started with 'SH' and rhymed with hit, bit, and... um... sit.

'[not sit!]' my innocent said promptly and delightedly. Also clearly. And loudly. First word. No question. It even passed the full first word test by repeating the word. Multiple times. With emphasis.

'Oh.' Said female friend, looking at my child's delighted face. 'Um. Sorry about that.'

Later that afternoon Child 1 produced its second word - 'fly' which, with a bit of encouragement, became the word of choice.

When asked, for most of Child 1's life I have blatantly lied. Fly was its first word I say, without a blush, definitely fly. Now that Child 1 is older however, it's time the truth was told.

I wonder if this will change its gifted status.

La Llorona

Desert soil isn't made to cope well with water. Sun it can take - soaks it right up and happily bakes itself hard and dry. Rain water though can't find a place to stay. The hard land just runs it right off again.

So if you're a kid in the desert you're taught pretty early to stay out of arroyos and gullys. Keep away from anything that looks like a ditch, manmade or otherwise. Rain miles and miles away can fill a ditch without a moment's notice.

There are two ways of getting this lesson home. First, scientifically describe the run-off process. The teacher explains that in our area there are mountains and hills that collect the water and send it hurtling downward where it will scour away anything small and two legged stupid enough to skateboard or paddle in the ditch. Those might not have been the exact words, but that was the gist.

Then the whole class goes to the library where the librarian turns off all the lights and gathers the kids in a circle back in the reading area. The librarian is pretty creepy even in full illumination, so shivers are already gathering on small spines. In a low voice she begins the horrible tale of La Llorona, the ditch witch.

Naturally half the class has already heard the story from uncles and aunts looking to terrify the next generation as one traditionally does. This group pipes up with various additions and expansions on the story, so for those who haven't heard it yet things get a little muddled.

Here's what I ended up with:

La Llorona was a beautiful old woman. With lots of white hair. And yellow teeth and green fingernails. And she had two small children. That she ate. No she didn't, she pushed them in the ditch. No she didn't, she was walking by the ditch and they fell in. And they drowned. But they cried. No they didn't, they were dead. So La Llorona was so sad she threw herself in the ditch. No she didn't, the villagers were angry so they killed her. No they didn't she died of sadness because she was so beautiful. And now she walks by the ditches and snatches children who play in the ditches and she kills them. And eats them. No she doesn't, she warns them not to play in the ditches because you could die. And there were blooooooody footprints (I especially remember this bit because most of them agreed but no one seemed quite sure where the footprints came from). And that's why you don't play in the ditch. I know. My auntie told me.

It made a great impression on me, that story. I didn't believe in La Llorona, but I sure learned a lot about uncles and aunts. Fortunately mine were all a fair distance away.

And I still want to know what happened with the bloooooody footprints.

November, 1999. Welcome to Virginia.

I would use the term culture shock to describe the transition if it weren’t that Virginia was too much of a lady to do such a thing to a stranger. It was more the opposite of culture shock. It was like swimming through a clear, crisp mountain lake to pull up on the shore of a giant squashy marshmallow. Terrible analogy, but true nonetheless. Virginia was civilized and soft and safe (although that didn’t break Kirk of the habit of calling out ‘come on, victims’ to bring straggling kids running to his heels when we went hiking). It was, at least at first, a bit boring.

There were gentle rolling green hills and great tall green trees. There were enormous, unbelievable herds of deer – a sight that completely baffled the kids who couldn’t imagine what those dog-sized edible creatures could possibly be, standing around simply waiting to be devoured. Stupid animals. And there were people, many, many people.

We did all the usual settling in things – going to the housing office to get the list of possible places to rent, scouting out the local base, the schools, the recreation areas. As usual as well we only looked at two houses before we settled down; always anxious to lose the uncertainty of TLF. We rejected the ranch house in Norfolk (even though the commute would be fairly easy) after a neighbor confidentially told us about the major fire the house had suffered the year before. They had fixed it up beautiful, she insisted, and it only smelled a little bit when it rained.

Home would be a large colonial. It was the biggest house we ever lived in. There were only three bedrooms, but (mirabile dictu) a real, genuine playroom for the kids where the mess of toys could be confined to one area. There was a huge family room, a breakfast room, a formal dining room, and even a livingroom that frankly was too much for us as with no budget and three growing children we didn’t have anything upholstered that could be remotely considered formal – comfortable would be true, and kind, shabby would be closer.

Within a week Kirk reported to the Naval base for work. He went through the rigmarole of getting a pass and signing in, and walked onto the floor. Ah, they said, the Air Force guy. Right. Well, actually we’ve decided we don’t really want an info ops unit. Instead, you’re going to join the counter terrorism group. We’re putting you in charge of Y2K.

Cross Country Holiday

We didn't take vacations. We never, in our entire marriage, packed up the family and just took off for the purpose of having a holiday. Not once.* Partly it was having a reasonably sized family and no money, partly it was not having time - and partly it was because we treated every day off as a holiday anyway so why bother?

But we were nerds enough to treat a trip down the Pacific coast and then a drive across the entire width of the country as a sort-of-kind-of vacation, so we enjoyed it as thoroughly as we could. Which meant we had a fantastic time until we reached somewhere in the middle states - around Tennessee - at which point too many days on the road simply packed in on us and we set our teeth and just sprinted for Virginia. However, there were a lot of very good memories.

There was Child 1, for instance, trying fish and chips for the first time in Haines, Alaska and deciding it was Food for the Gods. Child 1 fish and chipped its way down the entire coast - three days on the ferry, one day each in Washington, Oregon, and California. I believe Child 1 is now able to look fish and chips in the face again, but it's only been in the last year.

We learned that Alaska kids get a slightly skewed perception of what constitutes an exotic animal. viz:

Me: 'Hey guys! Look! That's an ostrich ranch, can you see the ostriches?? Look how gorgeous they are...'

Van Center en masse: 'mmmm.... yeah.'

Moments later:

Child 1: 'Oh my gosh! Look! LOOK! It's a cow!!!'

Child 2: 'Where? WHERE? I don't see it!?'

Child 3: 'A real cow? Really??'

It only took a day to realize that cows are a. not rare and b. quite boring. But it was a rush while it lasted.

We looked at seals in caves, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we headed inland and admired the very large hole in the ground caused by a meteor.

But it's a very big country, and eventually we all did get a little grim. We were tired, and slightly grubby, and very grateful when we finally rolled into Virginia, ready for the next stage.

*edit - now I have to take that back a small bit. We did take weekend trips, camping trips and the like, going up to Denali, or heading to DC etc. But we never did the week-long or two-week thing.

Sophie

Took a little longer than I expected. Mostly because I had to find the pictures I had forgotten about - the huge collection I had carefully archived in non-acidic tissue... like that's never happened to you!

anyway, as promised, here's a pictures of Sophie. You can read her story here.