Ginny Otte

To all the people my son encountered on his way home on holiday leave; for all of you, who all treated him like a rock star, especially to the handicapped woman who needed a wheelchair to board the plane, yet stood up when the plane landed to ask the other passengers to allow my son to disembark first:

THANK YOU. I love you!

My son actually loves me. I swear.

Thinking about my son today, as he's hunkered down for Gustav on base. Recently, he sent me these photos to reassure me that when he climbs those 60 foot towers, he's safe. Funny, it didn't reassure me all that much...but then again, I'm his mother.

I've been hearing on the email list for military parents that some of their sons and daughters who are at my son's base are being evacuated to other bases in anticipation of the coming hurricane.

The Boy, however, is still on base. He says worst-case scenario, he holes up in a hurricane-proof room with a bunch of guys and eats MREs for a day or so. He says this, like it's no big deal...but then again, he's never encountered a Gulf hurricane before. Keep your fingers crossed for him!

My son told me to watch this video. He says they play it in the chapel he goes to when he goes to services on Sunday, and it brings a tear to the eye of every soldier in there. Well, it made me a lil' weepy, too.

Here I am, surrounded by enough testosterone to stop an army:



The one in the camos is my son, due to return to base tomorrow. The Marine, as you may recall, called my cell phone the night my son left for the Air Force, in an attempt to recruit him; he went on to begin dating my daughter. So in a way...we're definitely a military family these days.

The Marine can pack down ribs like they're going out of style, BTW. I think he ate and entire hog about two hours ago.

I really, really love my son. Keep reminding me of that. I let him use my laptop earlier today (because his computer is at his base) and when he returned it, it had/has some kind of virus or worm in it,that I am trying to find and eradicate. I'm >this close< to saying screw it, and hosing my entire computer.

What it does now, is use the Windows security program to inform me that my computer is infected with a virus. When I click on the helpful little balloon to "fix" the problem I get dumped out into a third-party web site that wants me to cough up a credit card for some fly-by-night spyware remover. When I click the screen away...I get rebooted.

To add to this fun, my power supply is now loose, and because of whatever is on my laptop screwing with all of my windows settings...I don't know I'm running on battery until the battery goes dead. I literally have my power supply duct-taped into my fucking computer right now.

I swear, the kid only had my laptop for an hour.

Remind me again: I love my son. I love my son. I love my son.

My son posted this picture to his Myspace of his room:



It looks like a hotel room. ...A hotel room with no maid service. It is a million times nicer than the dorm he had at Basic Training though!

He's getting quite the tan down there in Mississippi, too!

My son is trying to get permission to take a trip home for the 4th of July, since we're not exactly close enough to take advantage of the "family day" the base is having that weekend and he'll have a whopping 4 days off.

If he does get it...let's just say that would be AWESOME. I miss The Boy.

...so does the lawnmower. But I won't tell him that. (grin)

I was IMing my son today on AIM, and mentioned the horrible day I was having. When I told him I've been called for jury duty, he answered simply:

"God have mercy on whatever soul is on trial."

Yeah, he knows me very, very well.