Nice Topic, but funny

My topic today is vomit. I recently re-acquainted myself with this topic when my 8 year old son vomited all over our bed in the middle of the night. He came into our bedroom late one night (not an usual occurrence) and got under the covers. Then the usual part occurred when he said, my stomach hurts.

Now lets stop right here and let me mention that I, a father of two youngins, have a very active vomit detector. Any time a child burps or complains about tummy trouble, whether my child or not, I immediately suspect vomit.

So when my son sat up in our bed a 1;20 am and said his stomach hurt, my vomit detector sounded a red alert (even from a deep sleep, I might add), but it was too late as this vomit specialist will tell you. Once they verbalize gastrointestinal discomfort, it's too late.

Before my bare feet hit the cold floor, half the bed was covered with pizza and candy-filled vomit.

My first reaction, of course, was to beat the child for befoulingng the master's bed, but cooler heads prevailed (mainly my wife's materal instincts) and the boy was told he would be fine and ushered into the bathroom and subsequently the shower for motherly cleaning and caring.

I, naked, cold, and afraid, was left to survey the damage and clean up the mess.

All I can say is thank god for the invention of plastic-line mattress covers. We didn't have one at the time, but it's still a good invention. Luckily, seepage with held to a minimum-the mattress was spared.

Meanwhile, the boy, under the care of his resourceful mother, was cleaned, in fresh PJs, and under warm covers of his own clean bed before I figure out how to...um...corral the mess in into a shallow, lump-filled lake using a bundle of besmirched sheets. A parents work is never done.

And of course, the dog had to get his whiff, had to stick his nose into the lake with paws on the bed upsetting the dubious pool to get a sniffs. Yes, Oreo, that is vomit, now get away from me, dog." He got the message. Dogs are usually low man on the totem pole in crisis situations.

Thanks also for the invention of the wife. I, being the aveage silver-backed male, accomplished nearly nothing by the time my wife returned from putting a little tiger to bed. She surveyed the scene looked at me in the special way, and told me to get the boy some water. I complied and by the time I returned, the fouled bedding was in a pile, new bedding was applied, and my wife was crawling in.

Well, that is my vomit story and I'm sticking to it. We got up five more times that night. Poor kid, there was nothing left at the end except a large pile of laundry.

Years from now on a trip to the Grand Canyon, I'll hear from the back on the mini van, "daddy, tell us the vomit story." And I will, gladly.

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You Say Al Queda, They say Saddam....

There is more of the intelligence tug-of-war between the CIA and the Admin (neocons) as a memo has surfaced citing 50 links between Saddam and Al Queda. Here is a weekly Standard article citing the memo.

Hell, what am I supposed to believe?

Its a tug-of-war over intelligence credibility? And I think the CIA is losing.

I'm a staunch Liberal and democrat, so I naturally want to think the worst of the neocons and the Admin. But the memo is clearly a continuation the indictment of the CIA and how it interprets data about terrorists. And with all the howling going on at the CIA, me thinks they doth protest too much.

These are facts that I witnessed in CNN. The CIA missed 9/11, the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the Cole, and the Embassies Africa. These lapse didn't escape the neocons either. The clear message to the CIA is, "you are not getting the job done so we are taking over."

Every now and then, I get on my high horse about Iraq, WMD, Saddam-Al Queda, but when I watch those towers fall, I realize that Iraq/Afghanistan are the desperate acts of men in our own government trying to deal with the killing and destruction of our own people...on their watch.

Iraq is not a conspiracy to get oil or to gain political points but rather a futile attempt to doing something about terrorism. For that, I can't judge the admin or (gulp) the neocons too harshly. Maybe they have bungled or diverted resources to the wrong war, but I believe they have American's best interests in mind, however wrong-headed it seems.

I certainly won't vote for Bush/neocons. He is an international embarrassment, but there in lies the difference. He is not part of a vast right wing conspiracy, but simply the wrong man for the job and I can change that by voting.