Some Guy With A Website:

Last week, the Canadian branch of Campbell’s Soup announced that they were making the horrific, outrageous decision to create a product that would appeal to tens of thousands of consumers. As you know, nothing gets in the way of capitalism so the right wing would be thrilled about this venture into oh man I almost had you there.

Fifteen percent of Americans are living in poverty, and there’s a call to stop eating soup because the company that makes it is trying to get more people to eat it. I’m worried about the death toll if someone ever declares that oxygen has a liberal bias.

This reminds me of the time back in the mid to late 80s when my mom suddenly couldn’t find her favorite hair color in stores because Clairol’s parent company at the time, Bristol Myers Squibb, made the horrible mistake of naming a Jewish CEO and/or manufacturing some of their products in Israel, so Kuwait halted all imports and outlawed Miss Clairol. America, please let’s get as dumb as the people we despise and see how far that takes us.

***

No Halal Soup For You is just as nauseating as this asshole who openly proclaims that he hopes “the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.” And the nation’s loud and proud secularists blog/tweet/scream not a damned thing about it, while the Christian right comes back with, “Nuh uh, it will be our flag.” Before wingnuts of all stripes and their media lapdogs quickly warp this narrative into the Christian vs. Muslim domination of America (and you get on a no-winning-side side of it), let us bring it back to what it ought to be – religious ideology vs. the founding principles and future relevance of this nation – and fight from there. See above paragraphs. I did not leave Kuwait for America only to witness the same ignorant, fundamentalist dick-measuring contest unfold here. So take your home-grown and imported zealotry and shove it. There is no room for it in civilization. Who’s with me?

***

Data converging rapidly to show that each time someone writes HERE IN AMERICA WE SPEAK ENGLISH, their next sentence will be grossly misspelled. I kin speek Merkin.

On 23 August 1990 President Saddam appeared on state television with Western hostages to whom he had refused exit visas. In the video, he patted a small British boy named Stuart Lockwood on the back. Saddam then asks, through his interpreter, Sadoun al-Zubaydi, whether Stuart is getting his milk. Saddam went on to say, “We hope your presence as guests here will not be for too long. Your presence here, and in other places, is meant to prevent the scourge of war.”

– Wikipedia entry on The Gulf War

I used to wonder what my father would have said and done, had Saddam Hussein walked into his makeshift prison cell and spoken with him. Would he have been diplomatic in order to keep himself alive or gone down kicking and screaming? I still often wonder what our lives would be like had Dad not escaped twenty-some days after being taken hostage in Kuwait’s international airport. Or had he been fatally shot the time he was mugged after his escape, during his turn patrolling our home’s compound. Or had he never made it out of Jordan or Iraq on his way to India, to my mother and me.

Somebody has to tell my father’s story. Many have tried  - the countless interviews and his countless retellings – and failed. You really don’t get it all unless you were there. And it’s not your story or that of Dave Eggers. It’s not my story, for that matter, even if I figure into it. My teenage brain was a sponge; I remember everything from the month or so Dad was gone and every last thing he narrated once he returned to us, but it’s not for this blog, not today. Just know that if there was anyone all of this should not have happened to, it is my father. No one should be taken hostage and made to undergo the humiliation, uncertainty and terror of capture at gunpoint, escape, robbery at gunpoint, leaving your home behind and a greater escape to physical freedom, but not this sweet man. He who can make gardens grow from deserts, music out of thin air and light of any situation. Then again, maybe he was the right man for the circumstances, for times out of our control. Mom and I would have died or, more accurately, gotten ourselves killed. Dad escaped. It’s mom and I who hold a grudge to this day. Dad left it behind. And still would, if we’d only let him.

We cannot let him forget. When he forgets, who are we to remember? And when we forget, we forgive, trust, drop our guard and make the same mistakes over again. The memories are the scab that protect and remind.

It has been more than twenty years since I last laid eyes on my childhood home. But, today twenty years ago, made sure I would never see it again. First, they took my dad and luck showed him out. Then they took everything, my mother reported from her April 1991 visit back. Neighbors who sold all of our appliances and electronics thinking my father would never return, looters who made off with other belongings from as heavy as a piano to as light as a teddybear, a government that made sure any last remaining shred of dignity would not be maintained. What could they possibly want with all of mom’s saris? What would they do with photo reels from our family vacations? How long did it take them to rip up the wall-to-wall carpeting? How dumb was spraypainting Long Live Saddam Hussein in Arabic on a bedroom door in the recesses of a foreign worker’s dwelling? Wouldn’t it make more sense to make that statement on an outer wall, you dimwits?

They took everything, including my desire to see Kuwait ever again. One would think the events of 1990-91 taught the Kuwaiti people a thing or two. But just as 9/11, Katrina and The Flood and now the Oil Spill have imparted to Americans nothing about humility, real values and our place and worth in this world, a violent invasion and bloody war were not enough to alter the sheer hubris of a bunch of oil-rich illiterates posing as leaders. They abdicated their duty to their nation in its greatest hour of need and haven’t changed a bit since. If all that wealth cannot save your citizens beyond no income tax and free healthcare, honor foreigners who gave the best years of their lives to your country and make you more human, screw you.

I also have some choice words for those who were supposed to help, not hinder, and much gratitude for the aid that did arrive, albeit from unexpected quarters, but you know what, forget it. It’s bad enough that, each time we return from a trip abroad, my brother and I have to explain to American immigration why our passports say we were born in Kuwait City, as if that makes us some goddamned terrorists. My parents lived and worked there at the time and had my mom known how much trouble this was going to be, she’d have popped me out elsewhere but them’s the breaks, so can I go now? That’s enough Kuwait for one lifetime, thanks.

The memories are the scab that protect and remind. My 1980s were spent begging my parents to leave Kuwait for America. We have our green cards, let’s just go. No, American schools are of low quality, you need to finish out your education here and us our careers. Be loyal, see it through to the end, start and finish in nice round numbers. Humans are funny, aren’t we? We think we control life and that it is fair by labeling portions of it with terms such as “beginning,” “end,” “dedication” and “reward.” I was no fool – I thought of 1990 and everything we lost when packing all of D’s and my papers, photographs and heirlooms into the car on August 28th, 2005. Humans are funny, aren’t we? We think we have all our bases covered. Instead I fell in love with a city that flooded when it was slated to be hit by a hurricane, that I then left when other responsibilities called. Life happens, things change, the past has passed and the future is uncertain, so what remains to protect and be reminded of?

That our money and things ought to help us but not define us, not the other way around. That we cannot choose our family, but we can choose our friends. That there are some people, places and things worth saving and others to avoid at all costs. That reality means we cannot keep or keep from all of the time. That love and hate are normal, but we can’t let these emotions consume us, or who will be left to dish out love and hate? That time is our greatest ally and our worst enemy – it takes us away but it takes us away. That all of us, every single day, understandably and undeniably wage a monstrous battle in that space between who and where we want to be and who and where we indeed are, and that we switch sides so often in this battle to alternately live and stay alive. That this, in the end, is the paradox of being human. That this is being human.

That these lessons are not lived easily even if we know them to be true. My mother and I fight the world constantly, while my father accepts it as best as he can. This has been our Gulf War for the last twenty years.

It’s July 1st, so I’ve been back in the Midwest for, what, three months? A quarter of a year.

After fits and starts, travel and more travel and D gone for half of each month, we are beginning to own our home, home-ownership and the giant yard that always needs tending.  While D mows, I trim the plethora of plants we inherited and attack the weeds which threaten to take over after every rain.  While he puts food on the grill, I sort through the piles of mail addressed to Our New Neighbor or Bamani Venkat (my new name, which I am sure is a result of the following thought process over at Ohio Snail Mail Spam Central: “Maitri Venkat-R … what? Aaaah, new name! *FREAKOUT* Damned furners. *FREAKOUT* I don’t know what to do! Let’s just put it down as Bamani Venkat. Next!“  I am told not to complain as this is a great way to cull the junk mail.)

I had forgotten how beautiful the midwestern countryside is.  From atop a western hill, we often lose hours staring at the fields between our house and the county to the south, and the sun setting behind a limestone cliff.  Or a wild turkey or ten and deer that invariably spring forth from the same spot in the woods to the southwest. D watches them without a single movement, like an Ent or a patient predator, while the city girl in me moves and tries to get as close as possible without scaring off the critters.  I scare off the critters.  Apparently, they have great eyesight and like neither bright colors nor sudden movements.

Summertime, and the sun takes forever to wane in these northern latitudes.  At 10pm last night, patches of fuchsia and imperial violet sky peeked out from breaks in the trees and rocks.  Breathtaking.  And that’s when the fireflies and stars come out.  As the sun sets, they rise higher and higher, until you cannot tell where the fireflies in the tall trees end and the stars in the sky begin.  The stars.  Oh, the stars.  You can see every last one of them lying in the soft grass.  The Big Dipper, Draco, Cassiopeia, the rest of the northern sky, they’re all there.  I asked D if this is what it was like for him growing up in the Wisconsin back 40.  He nodded.  Wow.  I grew up in the Kuwaiti desert, where few ventured out at night and the twinkling red lights over the city’s skyscrapers were all the stars you needed.  Besides, living in the midst of the merciless urbanization of a coastal desert environment, the only animals we got to see were jack, squat and the occasional feral cat rummaging through the garbage.  Now you know why I want to say “Yeah, and one day we put dear old Humpy down and ate him with buns and ketchup” each time someone asks me whether I grew up with a camel in my backyard.

Might I have been a different person raised in a country house surrounded by trees, fresh air and animals?  Who knows?  Was I envious of kids raised here?  Possibly.  I remember midwestern farm kids, though, who wanted to trade places with me, bored of shucking corn, scrubbing the horses and other endless chores.  I may not consider a city, be it Kuwait City or New York City, an ideal place to raise a kid, but people live every which way and that is how it is, equally legitimate.  The way to go then is to enjoy our geographic variety as a species and live alongside, with respect to.  When I once asked my Barcelona-dwelling friend Annie if she would ever move back to northern Wisconsin, she replied, “It’s not a great place to be, but a wonderful place to be from.”

Notice that this whole time I’ve talked merely of the outside of our house and not the responsibilities inside or at work?  The not-completely-put-away and under-furnitured inside being a sore subject and all, let’s move onto work.  Or how much it isn’t like work when I’m playing with methods to place, render and store 3d, georeferenced cities on the 3d, georeferenced earth.  Having lived two to three miles below the surface of the earth for the last fifteen or so years, it is literally blinding to consider objects at the surface.  What?  No overburden?  No imaging issues?  And you don’t plunge yourself into cold water repeatedly while clothed in order to prepare for an offshore trip? That’s where the differences end and the similarities begin, and why I dig working up here now.  Once you begin to view subsurface and surficial features as computational entities, you realize three things:  a) a mesh is a mesh is a mesh: throw some properties on it, introduce force, temperature, fluid removal and observe results, b) rocks are materials: most materials break and bend very similarly, and c) it’s still a matter of scale: how many internal constituents of said object, neighbors and properties do you wish to affect your calculation?  It was and continues to be a matter of figuring out the key variables and telling the customer (previously internal, now external) that the study can be as fine-grained as they want it to be, please let us know and we will allot time and costs accordingly.

Another glaring commonality among all the realms I have worked in – academia, industry, geology, geospatial engineering, computing, visualization, large corporation, smaller firm – is the lack of information flow between disciplines that ought to be working with one another, with respect to one another.  At university geology departments, we called it “stratification” (especially at Wisconsin, where disciplines are ironically organized by floors, with geophysics in the basement and hydrogeology at the very top. Oh, stop).  In the oil industry, we referred to it as “compartmentalization.”  Now, in the realm of geospatial computing, data formats and departments are “siloed” resulting in “stovepipes.”  *headdesk*  Two decades after I stumbled upon computers and geoscience, guess what the challenge still is: Interoperability!  Or lack thereof.  It follows me around like a stray dog.  And guess what people still do about it: Grumble about it loudly at conferences and nothing.

Yesterday, while looking at digital maps of Germany, friend Amanda informed me that her beau Marc Stone and she will play at a music festival this August in Innsbruck, Austria (a New Orleans sister city, as it turns out). Never before having considered any Austrian city other than Vienna, I pulled up Innsbruck on Google Maps and Google Earth to find that, if you view Austria as a chicken drumstick on its side, Vienna sits at the very tip of where you would bite in and Innsbruck is a 4.5-hour drive west, situated where you would hold said drumstick.  So much for having her visit the Habsburg palaces and throwing kisses to the spirit of Mozart for me (but she will not be too far away from Salzburg – hmmm).  Pulling up pictures of Innsbruck, I marveled at just how many streets and people fill this little European town in this little European country.  The world is full of people.  Yes, I know, my god, it’s full of stars, almost 7 billion full.  But, a billion, much less 7 billion, doesn’t hit home until you consider one person bicycling down a cobblestone street in Innsbruck, that he wakes up in the morning, has a life and dreams before him, and that he is as much human as you are.  And that you are as real, unreal, close and remote to him as he is to you. Funny then that the aim of current location-aware research is not where you are, but where you are with respect to, in reference to other people and things.  Whom and what are you going to encounter and impact, and how are they going to encounter and impact you?  That’s where your smartphone is headed, privacy implications and all.  Pay attention.

I guess moving to the Ohio country, traveling more often and working in surficial geoscience has only strengthened what I felt in the wake of Katrina and The Flood: that we strive to make ourselves interoperable within our towns, as communities, as cities, as nations, as scientists, as planners, as legislators, as teachers, as advocates, as citizens, as neighbors, as people.  That we work with each other regardless of difference, especially because of our differences; not subsuming our wants, but recognizing that other people have them, too.  That we know, really know, that we aren’t the only people on this planet, and that the views of our silo or compartment may be better or worse, but they need not take over another community or the whole planet in a fit of self-righteous rage.  That we are, but we are with respect to.  And that life throws us enough curveballs without us having to make it worse, on ourselves and each other, with our whining and scheming.

There are more posts brewing.  How can I not tell you about my interesting (but not in the same way) visits to the local social security office, Vermont and MIT campus?

It is NOLA Bloggers week over at The Rude Pundit.

Today, it’s Humid City‘s turn. BigEZBear writes:

Over the last few years, a lot of us have learned that “nothing” is what we truly possess. Everything we think we have, everything we think defines us, is ephemera. We are, each of us, alone. We know this now.

Time, place, things, social situations and lifestyle constitute our being as much as air, water, good health and beliefs. So defined, Life #1 ended on August 2nd, 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Life #2 almost ended on August 29th, 2005, but I was lucky enough to come back to it, to come to terms with it. But, things aren’t precisely as they were before. Call this Life #2b then.

Nothing is what we truly possess. This is what I have to remind myself when walking through the house and making a mental account of the sheer amount of stuff I’ve accumulated in the last eighteen years. Where did all of this crap come from and do I really need it? But, all of this crap makes up my home – my possessions placed by me in a spot for which I pay. Is this really home if it can all be taken away by war, theft, wind, fire or a flood? Can my former home really be my home if it no longer exists? What is home?

After the Iraqi invasion and Gulf War, my parents insisted that I study hard, excel at school and, together, we almost drove me to the point of burnout several times. I kept chugging. When I’ve asked my mom what she feels of her post-K(uwait) life, she says, “They can’t take your education and values away from you.” Admirable, but not really comforting enough to be convincing.

D is often the object of my envy, what with his ability to visit the house in which he grew up because his father still lives there. Three generations of his family came into the world in the same damned general hospital, the one in which my godchildren and their parents and their parents and grandparents before them were born. That’s more than a century of place, something I’ve longed for all my life, but D shakes his head when I vocalize these thoughts. “That town is where I grew up, where my family and friends are, but that’s not home. My home is in me, wherever I go. My home is with you.”

Nothing is what we possess. Nothing is what we came in with and nothing is that with which we will leave. Things aren’t people, thank goodness; the people in our lives count the most and we now know and have the ones who came through for us, as we’ve done and would for them. They don’t belong to us, either, but are our most cherished, our mirrors, sometimes merging into our own selves. I was able to start Life #2 with my family intact and Life #2b with my D. Should Life #3 ever become a reality, nothing I have right now would be necessary but the love of family and friends. I must try to remember this when scrambling to pack up everything that will fit in the truck before the next evacuation.

We hope to alleviate one another’s despair. We hope to care enough to stand there and take the punches from our wounded brothers and sisters that are not really meant for us but for “them.” And, in our loneliness, we pray that we will manage to be there to reach out to one another and help hold each other up.

Until the end.

According to John, Man Dies From Battle Dancing is currently the big story on CNN Headline News. America is at war, people are starving and the first named Atlantic tropical disturbance gyrates off the coast of Georgia three months prematurely, but “apparently it’s newsworthy that if you do acrobatic moves and fall on your head on a hard surface, you can injure or kill yourself.”

Where was CNN when I proved at the age of 1, and in a most spectacular fashion, that conducting acrobatic maneuvers off hard surfaces and falling on your head is hazardous to one’s health?  I invented battle dancing before it even had a poser name, y’eard? Follow.

Start of memory. Nadia Elena Comaneci was all the rage in the Summer Olympics of 1976 and I was her #1 Fan. So much so that I followed along with the Romanian wonder’s every move, pirouetting, twisting and writhing with a lot more precision and force than that crappy hurricane out there right now. During one competition, Nadia prepared for her final dismount from the balance beam. As my poor, unsuspecting parents glued their eyes to our television set, I launched into an aerial cartwheel off the dining table and caught some interesting views of the interior of the dining room for a split second (too young to have life flash before eyes). Except that I didn’t land on my feet but on my head, and simply lay there with a dazed look on my face. To the thunderous sounds of applause for Nadia’s Perfect 10 performance, my parents screamed in horror, scooped me off the floor and rushed me to the emergency room. End of memory.

Thus was born the sport of battle dancing. Where were CNN and the cameras then, I ask you? I was robbed.

Last night, I exited the grocery store while D animatedly bemoaned our house’s distinct lack of indoor plant life.  “Bring your planter back from work and let’s refresh it with fresh bamboo stalks.  What about palms?  I want more greenery around.”

Barely audible, I replied, “Ever since Katrina and the flood, I’ve refrained from loading up on plants and overfilling the refrigerator.  What if we have to evacuate and stay away for a month or so again this season?  The bare minimum of perishables, please.”

Undaunted, D went on, “Everything dies, Maitri, including humans, plants and pets.  What about your dad’s garden in Kuwait?  It died during the unexpected Iraqi invasion.  I’m not going to let my life be dictated by the odds of another Katrina type event occurring here.  Besides, the chances are higher that we get hit head-on in which case the whole house goes or that nothing happens.  All we’re going to experience this time is another Ivan, if that.”

From his mouth to god’s ears.  “Yeah, everything does die, D.  But, at least the humans and pets don’t die unless they’re left behind like the garden, houseplants and refrigerator.”

That’s when I lost it.  Travelling down beautiful Prytania Avenue, hot, inexplicable tears rolled down my cheeks and my chest heaved and sank, heaved and sank.  The same way it did on August 28th 2005 as we headed to Texas and Katrina prepared to make landfall.  It hasn’t gone away, has it, that acquired fear of premature impermanence?  Now do you know why I seized my independence so vigorously after 1990, mom and dad?  To the rest of the world, now are you aware why most New Orleanians still celebrate Mardi Gras, Jazzfest, the Saints and every recent party like there’s no tomorrow?  Because New Orleans is unusual and it may not have a tomorrow, so we carpe the bloody diem NOW.  Oh, am I wrong?  Do I not have faith?

The failure to build New Orleans-area hurricane levees and levee walls as part of an integrated, well-fortified system doomed the region during Katrina and remains the key finding of a revised report released Monday by an investigation team sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers.

… The task force still must complete a chapter on risk that will include one set of detailed maps of the New Orleans area that explain the risk faced by residents and businesses once repairs on the levee system are completed. A second set of maps will outline the reliability of the existing levee system: mainly, its ability to withstand future hurricanes.

Bailing is not an option now, but I’m scared, like everyone’s scared.  We have but one life to live, but when that life starts to resemble bits of unrelated movies hastily spliced together, it becomes a hard thing for the mind and heart to reconcile.  It’s not easy to just pick up and move, much less “move the city” as some have suggested.  Not knowing, however, is the hardest part.

A South American friend, let’s call him B, recently moved to the States and informs us that what he finds the most astounding about this country is its plethora of options.  Having recently mastered English (in his own mind), B visited an American grocery store for the first time.  At the checkout counter, the cashier asked the customary, “Paper or plastic?”  “Cash,” B replied proudly.  Embarassed on learning that he was being asked what kind of bag he wanted, B skulked away to dinner.

At dinner, B was asked how he wanted his steak done.  “Why, cooked, of course,” B said with astonishment.  “No, no, do you want it rare, medium rare, medium, medium well or well done?”  Exasperated and amazed, B took the medium option.

So many picks.  Options.  Choices.  The land of the free offers so much variety … take a little, leave a little.  However, many forget that there is a vast difference between excess and freedom.  What use is a gilded cage, especially one we build up around ourselves? 

Of late, the United Arab Emirates is exploding with so much money they don’t know what to do with it.  Forget the amazing Burj Al-Arab, get a load of

• * the Louvre opening a branch in Abu Dhabi,
• * the Palm Jumeirah, and
• * Halliburton moves global HQ from Houston to Dubai

The game is certainly afoot in the United Arab Emirates, it is “the place to be,” but at what cost?  A 2003 Human Rights Watch report cites that 90% of the Emirates’ workers are migrant labor and are paid poorly to work in hazardous settings.  Additionally, a State Department memo reports human rights abuses related to these workers, specifically those working as domestic help.

The first fifteen years of my life were spent in Kuwait, where I witnessed first-hand the treatment of highly-educated and dedicated foreign nationals at the nouveau-riche egos of their bosses.  My ultra-competent mother, who singlehandedly ran her division and represented Kuwait at UN meetings, would never make top banana because she was a) a woman and b) an Indian woman.  Yes, we lived and did extremely well in Kuwait, but would I want my parents to swallow that crap again, just to ensure good lives, educations and options for their children and respective families back in the Old Country?  No.  Will I ever live in a misogynist religious oligarchy again?  No.  Not for all the money in the world.  There is lifestyle and then there is life.

And that’s the difference between freedom and excess.  Freedom is equal rights for men, women and foreigners, the fair treatment and compensation of all labor, and political and religious freedom – it is choice, in the purest sense of the term.  Excess is the product of that labor held up above all else.   The hope of true freedom is what keeps me an American.

“Excess ain’t rebellion.”

And my various and wacky Bonifacian trinkets with it.

While PH Fred finds it hard to survive New Orleans and others the city and world over suffer in a similar fashion and differently, I am thankful and content to have pulled my intact tree and ornaments out of storage and put them up, albeit after two long years.

As a Hindu child growing up in Muslim Kuwait, I didn’t have the opportunity to open presents under the warm glow of corded lights and glass baubles once every year.  Each Christmas, however, my parents ushered me to parties at the homes of Christian family friends and colleagues, where I would stand before the tree and compare its ornaments with the personality of the one who put it up.  Not once did I fathom living in America with my own personal fir … nor did I care with fresh fruitcake on the line, lovingly baked by my pediatrician (Dr. Sara Mathews, whom I refer to as Dr. Aunty to this day) and Mom’s friend, Ansa.  Yes, Virginia, there is a Fruitcake Junkie, and she is me.

Kuwait.  India.  The Midwest.  New Orleans.  Houston.  New Orleans.  It sure brings back memories.  All of the beautiful heirlooms my mother and her friends lost in Kuwait to the war, the Christmas tree that Sharon will never put up again, the blue Christmas tree R shared with me last year, friends lost and gained over the years.  (Just in case you think I’m all weepy, remember that a sense of humor balances out the tears every time).

All of the things I have remind me that this is a time for giving more than we normally do in post-Katrina New Orleans.  The season also turns me into a utilitarian Martha Stewart – I clean house with a rabid zeal, get rid of things no longer required and combine disparate objects and find a use for them.  For example, I unearthed a corkboard and a bolt of raw silk, which I turned into a display pallet for necklaces.  Dangerblond and I ought to star in our own local cable access TV show, along the lines of Mission: Organization.  I’ll tackle the insides, while she works her magic on the yards and gardens.

Boxes and boxes of clothes and shoes were taken to Covenant House, while strictly following my new rule for personal purchases – for each new piece of clothing I buy, one piece of existing clothing goes to charity or a friend.  We collect so many things and much crap over the years; living in this city shows how much we can and cannot afford, and what we are to prioritize.  Not replaceable things, but people.

There is one thing I saved from a trash pile in destroyed Lakeview.  How could I pass up a cute monkey?  Doesn’t he look adorable in his new home holding up the Christmas coconut tree?  Happy season, y’all.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already.

P.S. Where will I be this Christmas, you ask?  Bien sur, at the last Packer home game of the season.  Favre will never leave the Pack, but on the off chance that he retires after this year, I’d like to be there for the last home game of The Best Quarterback Ever.  Besides, what’s more fun than taking on the ViQueens?

In Swimming To Work, Michael Homan writes of “travelling” in New Orleans a few days after the levees broke.

A year ago today I swam from my flooded house to Xavier University. It’s not something I would recommend. I saw several dead bodies and the scenes still sort of haunt me. I wrote a note about my name, address, and contact info for my parents in Nebraska, and put it in a plastic bag and duct taped it around a string that I wore around my neck. Looking back on it I wish I had brought my camera … Sometimes people would shine a flashlight on me from their house, just to see if I was a troublemaker or whatever. It was pretty scary. Today I’m in Omaha, visiting my mother.

Michael’s recollection reminds me of my father’s final days as a prisoner in a makeshift camp after the Iraqis invaded Kuwait in 1990.  Twitching in pain as stomach ulcers flared, Dad wrote out a will on his undershirt, and remained in that shirt until he made it out to safety 24 days after he was first incarcerated. 

Love is such a strange thing.  Even when faced with great personal peril, the brain’s instinct is to communicate to those closest to you.  That your fate is known to a loved one, that personal matters are taken care of, that closure is achieved. 

If my name is upon my chest,
Tell my mama I’ve done my best

This makes me think of our boys and girls in Iraq, too.

I’m incredibly thankful that my father and Michael are still here with us today.  Life cuts both ways.