phone call from Iraq, and other Saturday doings

[Interior, midday Saturday]

PHONE: jingle, jangle

LISA (picking up phone and holding it to head): "Hello?"

. . . and it's my friend in Iraq, sounding pretty much like she's next door, except there's a slight delay, and it's about 9 p.m. where she is. How about that? As I told her, I often feel silly using a satellite to call people when I'm sitting right next to the regular phone, just cuz the long distance is free. It seems a bit more justified to have gotten help from something circling the planet in order to talk to somebody as far away as she is.

And Iraq feels farther away than Japan or Australia or China---cuz it seems like she's in a place about as damned different from this one as you can get. They've just come off another mission, so she sounded pretty "up," but you know it's got to wear on a girl after a while. It was great to get to chat with her. I actually hadn't talked to her live in years, come to think of it. (We knew her in Kansas, and she was one of those people you really like and want to get to know better but somehow don't get to spend enough time hangin' out with, even when you're living in the same town---but then you don't want to give up when you move away, just cuz it's harder.) We got cut off at one point, and that may well have been because the monitors didn't like the way the conversation was going. But she called back & we wrapped it up ourselves.

It's been a very difficult year for me, but I think she's got me beat. She's got at least another 7 1/2 months to go on this tour of duty.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So I just logged on to tell of my first phone call from Iraq, and then I got my first e-mailed picture from a cell phone. It's "morning in ballston" by sprig5; it shows two buildings and the morning sky in between.

It reminds me of confessing to B. last night how my lesbian eye saw his drawing (pastel? what would you call it?) (can something be a pastel if it's got some bright colors?) of the photo of the Capitol building, with its suggestive angle of vision on the wings of the buildings. (I'll leave that to your imaginations.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Beautiful cool but sunny day today. I doubt I'll get out into the yard---more house stuff planned. Maybe tomorrow. Chester sure is likin' all the open windows, and my company---he seems to pick a window in the room I'm working in most of the time. Every once in a while he climbs down into the regular house & I warm up his chilly little ears.

I'll stick a Chet picture ( behind here )

---what the heck.

phone call from Iraq, and other Saturday doings

[Interior, midday Saturday]

PHONE: jingle, jangle

LISA (picking up phone and holding it to head): "Hello?"

. . . and it's my friend in Iraq, sounding pretty much like she's next door, except there's a slight delay, and it's about 9 p.m. where she is. How about that? As I told her, I often feel silly using a satellite to call people when I'm sitting right next to the regular phone, just cuz the long distance is free. It seems a bit more justified to have gotten help from something circling the planet in order to talk to somebody as far away as she is.

And Iraq feels farther away than Japan or Australia or China---cuz it seems like she's in a place about as damned different from this one as you can get. They've just come off another mission, so she sounded pretty "up," but you know it's got to wear on a girl after a while. It was great to get to chat with her. I actually hadn't talked to her live in years, come to think of it. (We knew her in Kansas, and she was one of those people you really like and want to get to know better but somehow don't get to spend enough time hangin' out with, even when you're living in the same town---but then you don't want to give up when you move away, just cuz it's harder.) We got cut off at one point, and that may well have been because the monitors didn't like the way the conversation was going. But she called back & we wrapped it up ourselves.

It's been a very difficult year for me, but I think she's got me beat. She's got at least another 7 1/2 months to go on this tour of duty.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So I just logged on to tell of my first phone call from Iraq, and then I got my first e-mailed picture from a cell phone. It's "morning in ballston" by sprig5; it shows two buildings and the morning sky in between.

It reminds me of confessing to B. last night how my lesbian eye saw his drawing (pastel? what would you call it?) (can something be a pastel if it's got some bright colors?) of the photo of the Capitol building, with its suggestive angle of vision on the wings of the buildings. (I'll leave that to your imaginations.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Beautiful cool but sunny day today. I doubt I'll get out into the yard---more house stuff planned. Maybe tomorrow. Chester sure is likin' all the open windows, and my company---he seems to pick a window in the room I'm working in most of the time. Every once in a while he climbs down into the regular house & I warm up his chilly little ears.

I'll stick a Chet picture ( behind here )

---what the heck.