Got to bed last night at midnight after a fifteen hour day working on next year’s Exchange filing plan. My son then woke up at 1:30 in the morning and would not get back to sleep until 4:40 as he had one of those spurts of putting things together for the first time as he started on three and four world sentences that cracked him up. And today looks like another sixteen hour day.
Fuck!
JPL
Well that just sucks! Hopefully, you can catch up on your sleep this weekend.
aimai
Oh! How well I remember those nighttime excitements and learning spurts. We had a fussy new baby and a toddler and were all sleeping in the same room stiflingly hot, damp, room on a holiday and the toddler was just UP like she’d been doing cocaine and kept demonstrating for us that she could “fly” her little stuffed penguin at us all night long.
Baud
I blame Obama.
MomSense
Cheer up, in 15-16 years you can stay up all night waiting for a kid to come home. He really really really wanted to call, but his cell phone died.
Betty Cracker
“Go the Fuck to Sleep” is a masterpiece, and only Samuel L. Jackson could do it justice.
raven
@MomSense: And when you get to be my age you won’t give a shit.
Poopyman
@MomSense: In 15-16 years Richard can send his self-driving car to bring the kid home.
At least I got 5 hrs sleep between commutes. OTOH, you have a son. Seems like more than fair enough trade.
Poopyman
@Betty Cracker: There’s a lullaby in there somewhere.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: My parents were just happy I came home. At least then they knew I was still alive.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: My parents were glad the Army took me so I couldn’t come home!
MomSense
@raven:
My mom still calls me to find out if I am home safely!
Baud
Via Twitter, it appears DougJ just learned of David Brooks’s latest column.
Villago Delenda Est
That’s what at least partially got you into this mess in the first place.
MomSense
@Poopyman:
I’m imagining the conversations parents will have with their kids about back in the day we had to drive our cars, kinda like explaining rotary phones on a party line.
Poopyman
@MomSense: “Back in my day, we didn’t have cars that could home in on your chip implant and scoop you up! We had to hoof it on our own! Eh? ‘What’s a hoof?’ “
raven
@MomSense: God, at the 84 Olympics I was 35 and my brother was 25. I lived in Illinois and he was in law school in NORCAL We went out to events and ended up partying all night. We got back an my mom raised hell!
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly: @raven:
Have you seen the photos from Normandy today? I visited a little over 25 years ago but I still tear up when I think about it.
raven
@MomSense: Oh yea, I got up at 4:30 to watch. It was really nice to see the vets and Obama chat and shake hands after his speech.
MomSense
@raven:
She sounds just like someone I know who of course I am nothing like and not becoming more like every day.
GregB
@raven:
They weren’t all spitting on him? Traitors!
raven
@MomSense: Yea, she’s been gone for some time now. That was interesting because we were basically separated when I was 11 so that was her chance to mommy me.
NotMax
@Poopyman
“In the snow.”
“What’s snow?”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
ObOpenThread.
Recently we were talking about how worthless NPR is in many cases. Yesterday’s “All Things Considered” had a segment that was an exception.
Larua Sullivan: Paroled From Life Sentences, Aging Ex-Cons Find World That Didn’t Wait. It’s well worth a listen (12:40). (The link has a transcript.)
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: On the eve of my leaving to spend a season in Canada on my Aunt and Uncle’s fishing and hunting camp with my reprobate cousin (he really was), my old man said to my mother, “If you think he’s bad now, just wait until he comes back!”
sharl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Yeah, that WAS good. They do have their moments.
the Conster
@raven:
I rely on your “I watch Mornin’ Village Hos so you don’t have to” insight. Was it pre-empted today?
rikyrah
Sorry about the lack of sleep.
Samuel L. Jackson and this were made for one another.
R-Jud
Sunrise here is about 4:45 AM at the moment, and the Bean has been up with the birds. I’ve had to coax her into lying back down from 6-7:30 so she doesn’t dissolve during the school day. And so I don’t collapse into a heap myself right before lunch.
D-Day-related: Here’s a picture of my great-uncle Gino, who landed on Omaha Beach, back in high school after the war. He was a small, slight, shy man, not more than 5’6″, and I can’t tell what’s bugging him more: the photographer or the girls all around him making goo-goo eyes. I guess it could be the algebra, too.
low-tech cyclist
@Betty Cracker:
True on both counts!
raven
@the Conster: No, Brokaw, Mitchell and Barnicle were at Normandy starting a 4 then the rest of them were on at 6.
raven
@R-Jud: What a great shot and an great man!
“Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Merli was the son of a coal miner. He entered service in the United States Army from Peckville in July 1943[1] and served with the 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. With his division, he went ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 and participated in the Battle of the Bulge in December of the same year.
On the evening of September 4, 1944, near Sars-la-Bruyère in Belgium (now a deelgemeente of Frameries), his company was attacked by a superior German force. Their position was overwhelmed, but PFC Merli stayed with his machine gun covering their retreat. When his position was overrun, he feigned death while German soldiers prodded him with their bayonets, only to rise and confront the enemy when they withdrew. Twice he fooled German soldiers into believing he was no longer a threat, only to attack them again when they left him for dead. In the morning, a counterattack forced the Germans to ask for a truce. The negotiating party found Merli still at his gun.
For his heroism, PFC Gino Merli received the Medal of Honor from President Truman on June 15, 1945. In addition, he received two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star, the Battle of the Bulge Medal, and the Humanitarian Award of the Chapel of Four Chaplains for his actions during World War II.
In civilian life, Merli took it upon himself to serve fellow veterans. He was an adjudication officer for the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Plains Township, Pennsylvania. He traveled to the Normandy beaches in 1984 in the company of Tom Brokaw and was a source of inspiration for Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation.”
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s what the green machine did for me!
NotMax
@raven
Can’t shake the mental image of Scarborough in a French cafe, asking if the pot-au-feu comes with a side of grits.
rikyrah
BLS-Labor Statistics ✔ @BLS_gov
Payroll employment rises by 217,000 in May; unemployment rate unchanged at 6.3% http://go.usa.gov/vrK #JobsReport #BLSdata
Now, what would it be if we didn’t have one political party that chose to commit ECONOMIC TREASON against this country beginning January 20, 2009?
MomSense
@R-Jud:
Wow, to have his experiences and then go back to high school. He was a great man and handsome too. I can see why the girls liked him.
R-Jud
@raven: He was a sweet, sweet guy. He never had any ambitions to use his celebrity for anything other than calling attention to the needs of veterans. I didn’t get to know him all that well– that branch of the family never left Scranton, ever– but I do remember helping him weed the garden and pick seeds out of sunflowers when I was small.
My grandfather, his older brother, spent the entire war at Fort Dix serving as an interpreter for Italian POWs. One of the prisoners actually made him a set of bocce balls; my Dad still has it and uses it.
Grandpa used his GI Bill benefits to go get an MA in History at the University of Pennsylvania. He was in the library one night when a co-ed sauntered up to him and asked him if he wanted to go see the Phillies play the Yankees the next day.
“Why, do you have tickets?”
“No, but you could buy us some!”
Turned out this babe was also a vet; she’d served as a psychiatric nurse in Hawaii. Also, she outranked him: grandpa had finished the war as a sergeant, and she had been a lieutenant. And for the next 45 years of their life together, she never let him forget it.
WaterGirl
@R-Jud: What a sweet story, and well told.
raven
@R-Jud: Great story. Did they have any kids that went to West Point? MOH children get priority.
raven
@R-Jud: It’s so good to know firsthand how “regular” so many of these folks are.
JPL
@R-Jud: Thank you for sharing a bit of your family history with us. I have goose bumps after reading the article about your great uncle.
Elizabelle
C-Span 2 covering today’s DDay anniversary ceremonies live. You can watch it without press corpse yokels yakking over it.
President Obama arrived a few minutes ago to enthusiastic cheers and applause. Escorted by two young children, he greeted a line of DDay vets, thanking them for their service, good to see you, etc.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Three score and ten years ago…
R-Jud
@raven: Gino had two sons and a daughter. His older son is a doctor and a college professor in Philadelphia. The other son served in the Army, but I’m not sure if he went to West Point. I know he’s younger than my dad, so he would have been too young to serve in Vietnam.
Elizabelle
I love that our vets fought to push back Hitler and his allies, and we now have the ability to discuss their service on a thread called “I need to go the fuck to sleep.” It’s fitting, somehow. I think a lot of those young soldiers would laugh.
Elizabelle
@R-Jud:
Great story.
I’d love to hear more about the Italian POWs grandfather too.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
Now if only I could figure out how to mute the interpreter.
Elizabelle
@MomSense:
Oui!
JPL
@MomSense:
Since we saved their butts, Hollande should give his address in English.
(I’m practicing how it feels to be a wingnut)
JPL
@MomSense: The feed is awful.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@JPL: Nous voila, Lafayette
Elizabelle
@JPL:
What channel you watching? And where is everybody?
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Bonjour.
Dee Loralei
@Elizabelle: I left you a message yesterday. We’re staying in Alexandria on King Street, so we’ll be near King Street station and old town Alexandria. I do hope you still want to meet for drinks. Next Wed and Thursday.
Elizabelle
@Dee Loralei:
Thank you Dee. Let’s make it happen. Do you have a preference on which day?
Maybe Anne Laurie or DougJ can put up a thread for us DC-ists, so we can organize a meet-up. Would be fun! I wish we could have the weather we’ve got in DC area today. It’s clear and warm but not humid.
So glad you are visiting.
Elizabelle
How French.
JPL
@Elizabelle: nbcnews.com has a feed.
MomSense
@JPL:
Yes, but the interpretive dance. Magnifique!
Only the French would think to do this!!
BAtFFAP's phone
This may not be the time, then, to bring up the fact that for the 2nd straight night, my 8 week old has slept through the night? (I know it won’t last. But this morning we don’t care.)
Elizabelle
This is very effective. Video, dance, history. A surreally calm beach behind all.
JPL
@MomSense: Yes it is.
the Conster
@MomSense:
I guess interpretive dance is in the French tradition. Parisians doing an interpretive dance against same sex marriage. Nothing says anti-gay quite like a silver lame bodysuit.
scav
@JPL: Any true Wingnut would say the same to the BB-bloody-C.
Speaking of which, D-day news reworked from there.
Ben Cisco
OT, but it appears the Mothership has landed…at the Smithsonian?
Elizabelle
C-Span 2 is the place to be for this dance ceremony.
They’ve not shown many insets of Angela Merkel; some of Putin, and PBO (chewing gum) and QE2. Footage of her as a young British patriot earlier.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Ben Cisco: Did they tear the roof off the mother sucker to get it in there?
Dee Loralei
@Elizabelle: Let’s do Wednesday, so y’all can tell me the can’t miss places and maybe we can get to them on Thursday. It won’t do me any good telling me what I missed Thursday evening when I won’t have the opportunity to get to the recommended places, LOL. My father wants to eat at Legal Seafood, he loves their Cioppino. After we eat, I’ll hustle him back to the hotel and we can meet. Luckily he likes to eat earlyish around 6 or so. So then Coop and I will have the entire night free.
Any place you all decide is fine with me. We’re pretty easy going as long as the beer is cold and the drinks are strong. I am so looking forward to this.
Mnemosyne
In the kids are alright news, here’s a guy quitting his crappy hotel job with the help of his marching band friends.
(If you expand down, he explains about the crappy working conditions and union-busting going on at the hotel.)
Elizabelle
Take that, holocaust deniers.
Mnemosyne
Can I please be freed from moderation? Looks like FYWP doesn’t like YouTube links today.
scav
oh I lucked out catching the live feed. That was an effective turn.
Elizabelle
How moving for the vets in attendance, to be reminded, artfully, elegantly, of what they achieved in their youth. I am so glad they can be there, and think a lot of vets and their loved ones are watching worldwide.
ETA: Although not on MSNBC, hmmm? Back to discussing Bergdahl.
And CNN’s at commercial. A dog cleaning its teeth with a dog treat.
Scamp Dog
that’s impressive! Or should we be waiting for first world sentences?
Elizabelle
Betty Cracker’s put up a D-Day thread.
JPL
Wow.
Richard Mayhew
@BAtFFAP’s phone: Congrats — enjoy the long periods once you stop worrying that the Spawn is sleeping through the night and might not be OK