Man, what a mess I've made of my daily routine! 7:00PM and I'm sitting down to blog a bit, while the kids are getting some dinner, wife in the shower. Me, I got back from a run at about 5:00. This is all wrong. See what happens when all the phones ring at once at 8:00AM?

Messed with me, it did. We have FIVE phones in the house, by the way, if you count the fax machine. Seven, actually, since two of the phones have handsets on opposite floors, and yes, they both ring with every call, dammit. So they all rang at once this morning, freaking everyone just plain OUT and me especially, since the bulk of them were announcing that that delivery we were expecting 30 miles away was arriving at the job site about 4 hours early. And then the second call a half hour later saying, no, it's arriving 4 and a half hours early. So, yes: messed.

But I got through it, guilty the whole time that I have been neglecting the poor blog. And all of you won't stop emailing me, asking if I'm okay -thank you for your concern! I am not under a refrigerator. Anyway, it all amounted to me getting home early and my running running late in the day, for a change. Felt great!

It's 9/11, so I bring in the flag, which I fly all summer, beginning Memorial Day. I don't know why I do this, take it down on 9/12, but I do. I like the flag. I love the country. I love summer. But there's something off to me about running up the colors all year, all the livelong day, at your residence. I don't know. I just don't want it neglected. It gets faded enough as the summer wears on and eventually the neighbors see it like they see the paint on your house. (They don't.)

So it comes down tonight. I'll pull it out for Veteran's Day, Election Day, Thanksgiving, Pearl Harbor Day, Christmas, Presidents Day, and whatever else appropriate thing I can remember. Maybe even Easter, just to drive all the secular progressives on my block nutz. (Did you watch the president's speech the other night? Did you see what it said on the wall behind him in the House of Representatives? Sorry, but this is clearly not a secular nation.) Anyway, I'm feeling ornery. Must be the time of the day. Or the day. Or the wine. (Wineblogger, would be a good blog title, for someone so inclined, it suddenly occurs to me.)

It is 9/11. I watched some news today, just a few minutes worth, and I started to get choked up. It all seems a stunning memory, but like a remembered dream. I fear most of us truly have forgotten, as we promised we never would on 9/12, like some note in our senior yearbook (BFF '88!). They don't show them anymore, but the images are still every bit as shocking, and today play with the addition of a ghostly, eerie sense. (Check out Lileks' video.) I know it sounds crazy, but, we should all thank our troops, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, among others, for keeping us safe for the past 8 years. I know many people think of other things when they consider those names. Would you recommend thanking someone else? Or would you call 9/11 a fluke? A lucky shot? So, times have changed. Anyway, who knows what the future brings? If you had told me that night, back on 9/11/01, what I'd be doing 8 years hence, I would have told you to go cram it. (Glad I was wrong.)

Furthermore. If you are standing at the podium in the House of Reps, giving a speech about war or health care or something, with that quote behind you, do you know what you are looking at, on the wall behind all of your country's congressmen? There are other images, but they are in profile. This is the one in the middle, looking directly at you:



Have a blessed weekend!

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