The other night I spent an hour on the phone with my sister and we talked about this and that, but one thing we talked about was the military, the war(s), and the troops. I won’t rehash it all here but I can summarize it by saying that after the discussion I agreed with her viewpoint that whether we like it or not, sometimes war is a necessity. I ended with the fact that I’ve always wholeheartedly agreed with the concept of “hate the war, but support the troops”.

The thing is, whether I like war or not, and I think most of us do not – even those fighting in them, the fact that we are all here and living in a world where we can hold that opinion is because someone, somewhere, at some point in time fought for our rights, fought for our country, and fought for our freedom.

My grandfather, Alan Osborne? He was one of them. He fought in World War II. He went overseas as a signalman. At some point while he was there, he was shot in the arm and sent to an army hospital to recover. He came back home shortly afterwards. Because he fought for what he believed in, our world was a better place. Because he came home safely, my father was born, and as a result so was I.

I still remember my grandmother telling me how he would write her letters and tell her what was going on in a roundabout way. He’d mention a relative or family friend that would tip her off as to his general location. Clearly he couldn’t say, “we’re in such-and-such a location” but he could say, “I couldn’t help but think of Marjorie today” and she would know more or less where he was because of that. He would sometimes write, “it was raining yesterday and it rained all night. I think it may rain today too” and it wasn’t that it was raining. That was their code for enemy fire, for bombs.

I can’t imagine that world. I can’t imagine being my grandfather and living through gunfire and planes dropping bombs, then calmly writing that it was “raining”. I can’t imagine being my grandmother and sitting by the window, waiting for the mail, only to have it arrive with words that would only cause me to worry more.

I can’t imagine wondering when or if he would ever come home.

But he did it – and she did it too – for freedom and for what was right. They did it for the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t fight. They did it for me and for you and for our kids.

And so today, on Remembrance Day, when I took my two minutes of silence to think of everyone in the middle of a battlefield today in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries like the Congo, when I thought of those who fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, I also stopped to look up and say a thank you to my grandfather who risked his life.

Who did you think of today?

Apparently I raised some curiosity the other day when I mentioned having written some Harry Potter fan fiction. I got one comment and three emails from people wanting to know if they could read it, if I wrote anything else, and if I could suggest anything really good.

Yes, of course you can read it. I have two Harry Potter fics over here. It should be noted that “Rivalry” is incomplete, and due to a lot of changes in the real story I will never be able to finish it, which is unfortunate. “The Long Wait” is still one of my favorite things that I’ve ever written even if the story is practically impossible after books six and seven were released.

I’ve also written one CSI fic over here, which pairs up Greg and Sara, a pairing that was a bit weird for me since I always saw her with Grissom (which is why I was so happy they finally got together on the show, and I’m still distraught that she’s gone; to be honest I stopped watching as regularly after Sara left the show).

I wrote one fic for Criminal Minds as well, which is here. It pairs up Gideon and Elle, but I should really try to write something with Hotch and Emily some day.

Did I mention I’m a geek? I love fanfic. Really. There’s a lot of really bad stuff out there, and most of it lives on fanfiction.net but if you look around you can find some real gems sometimes. I find most of the good stuff on Livejournal or on forums. I discovered fanfic back around the late 90s when I stumbled across some that was dedicated to Buffy. That’s why, although I will always be a Buffy/Spike fan, I still have a love of Buffy/Giles fic. True story.

One of the best Harry Potter fanfics I have ever read is The Room of Lost Dreams. I am a huge fan of Hermione/Snape pairings (HUGE!) and this is the best one to date. The author managed to take the end of the series and spin it into this story and made it work. I absolutely love it.

If you’re into Criminal Minds, this is a great one to read, The 5 Ways Aaron Hotchner’s Marriage Ended.

And uh, there you go! If you have a favorite fic, please let me know!

I am not ready for my kids to grow up just yet. As it is, they’ve been growing way too quickly. I still can’t believe Hayley is six, and Breanna will be three on the 20th of this month. It’s crazy.

On the other hand, I do look forward to an age when the kids are more capable of entertaining themselves without any help for long periods of time so that I can spend a day like today, a chilly and dreary Sunday, stretched out on the couch with a book and a cup of tea. As it is, they’re slowly getting better at playing together without constant fighting and that’s nice to see, but there’s still enough bickering and bossing around that reading is best done at night for me, since I’d be interrupted too frequently and my tea would likely get cold.

Still, that’s what I’d like to be doing today. How’s your Sunday?

Saturday nights don’t have the same meaning they used to once upon a lifetime. My plans for tonight involved a glass (or two) of red wine, a chapter or so in my book (I’m on Eclipse now, the third Twilight book), and a movie with George in the living room. Definitely a nice evening but nothing out of the ordinary.

Just before I turned the grill on to make souvlaki for supper, the dog started to whimper so I took her for a walk. After about 15 minutes I came back in and George told me that it’s our friend Dean’s birthday on Sunday and they had decided to have some friends over for a few drinks that evening. George called his parents to see if they could watch the kids for a few hours, we ate, dropped them off over there, and went to hang out with our friends.

It was a nice surprise to go from everyday plans to something a little more spontaneous. It’s also always great to spend some time talking like adults, just to get away from all the Disney talk.

We were only there for about two and a half hours or so, but it was fun and I had a good time. I had been going a little stir-crazy lately and getting out of the house – without the kids! – was definitely exactly what I needed.

And besides, it’s too late for the movie now but I can still squeeze in a chapter or three before I go to bed!

Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” is possibly my absolute song from the 80s ever. I’m not the dance-on-the-speakers kind of girl, really but I used to hang out in a goth bar that had an 80s night and every time they played that song, without fail you would find me on top of the nearest speaker dancing. I don’t know what it is, I just love the song.

I had never seen the video. Unfortunately YouTube has allowed me to see it and I think I’m traumatized just because that is one of the worst videos I have ever seen in my entire life. BAD.

But the song is still great. I’ll just never be able to get the video out of my head now when I hear it. I think it’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Enjoy!

It’s only 10:15 pm here, which is at least an hour before I normally even think about bed, but I’m so tired right now. Many late nights (U.S. election night in particular) followed by 6:15 am wake-ups have taken their toll on me, especially when you factor in the fact that I’m still coughing like someone with the plague. I need sleep but I’m trying to hang on to some hope that I’ll get a bit of rest on the weekend.

(Not likely, but a girl can dream, right?)

I finally managed to get the Halloween pictures off my camera and uploaded. I didn’t really take all that many because I was so busy with Breanna. While Hayley ran a little further ahead with our friends, I matched Breanna’s pace, walking with her to the doors and helping her hold her big bag open for candy.

However, I did get at least one good shot of Hayley and Breanna with one of their friends. Hayley was thrilled to be a spooky ghost (she was supposed to have some white face makeup on but it immediately made her itchy so we washed it off and settled for some of my dark brown eyeshadow rubbed in around her eyes), and Breanna was through the roof with her witch costume. She originally wanted to carry a broom but I vetoed that since I knew she’d never be able to carry that and her bag. Their friend made a very cute elephant – I love the jaunty trunk.

As for me, I felt a little bitchy, er witchy myself.

They got a lot of candy (which is good for me) and Breanna made me laugh because every time she got to someone’s door, she would say “Chick or treat!” and hold out her bag. She would then say thank you (or merci) and immediately turn to me and ask, “we get some more candy, Mommy?” Every single house. It was cute.

I love Halloween.

*******
When the first Harry Potter book came out, I ignored it at first. It barely even registered as a blip on my radar. Then, the second one came out and I heard a lot of buzz; I resisted them. A children’s book about a young boy who finds out he’s a wizard and goes to a special wizard school? LAME. No interest at all. The third one came out and I started to get a little curious. But mostly I still thought it sounded like a stupid story for anyone over the age of twelve.

Then the fourth one came out and while I did not see a single child reading it, I certainly saw an awful lot of adults with their nose buried in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I’m only human, I can only resist blatant marketing for so long. I went and bought the first book at the store.

I finished it in two days, went back to the store and immediately purchased the next three.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a “mild obsession” with the Harry Potter series (books, characters, and movies alike). If by “mild obsession” you mean “may need medication”. I’ve read them all at least twice if not more, I’ve seen all the movies multiple times, I’ve read fanfic, I’ve written my own fanfics, I know far more about the characters, spells, and timelines that anyone other than J.K. Rowling should, and I even have various electronic devices named after the series (my laptop is Severus Snape; my Fujifilm S700 camera is Lucius). Hell, if I had gotten a black lab instead of a Beagle, it would have been named Sirius Black.

So you’d think that I would stop trying to buck the trends all the time. But no, I still did it. I ignored and then resisted this whole “Twilight” saga. For a very long time, I refused to even pick the first book up. And then I saw the movie trailer and sat up a little straighter and asked myself, “why have I not read this yet?!” I read Twilight and am now almost a third of the way through New Moon. I’m hoping to finish that, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn as soon as possible.

What was I thinking? I have even less reason to have fought off the Twilight stories than I did with Harry Potter. I was never into the wizard thing before those books, so it was understandable. But vampires? I’ve loved vampire stories for as long as I can remember. I read vampire novels, I watch vampire movies – I’ll even watch BAD vampire movies. I nearly had an aneurysm while watching Van Helsing but watched it anyway. The Blade trilogy goes against a lot of vampire lore, but I love those movies. One of my favorite books is The Night Inside, a Canadian vampire novel I read so many times I had to buy a new copy when the spine finally broke.

So clearly I was a good audience for Twilight and its sequels. Even the teen factor shouldn’t matter. Between Buffy (which also combined teens and vamps and which remains my favorite show EVER), The O.C., Degrassi, and Beverly Hills 90210 – past and present – I love teen shows. I should have known a book about teens and vampires would totally work for me.

I’m a little slow to catch on sometimes, but I’m trying to make up for lost time (and the bonus is that I’ll only have to wait for the fifth book – at least I get to read the first four one after the other). And I really want to go see the movie now.

But seriously, the next time a huge wildfire hit presents itself in novel format, someone please force me to read it!

The first time I saw this commercial about a month ago, I nearly choked on my coffee from laughing.

Canadian police chase. Funny because it’s almost true.

I missed who said this, but I heard it on Canada A.M. while trying to wake up this morning. It may have been CTV news correspondent Tom Clark, or he may have been repeating what someone else said, but whomever said it, I love it:

“Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Barack Obama could run. Barack Obama ran so our children could fly.”

And despite being exhausted from staying up way too late to watch Obama’s speech and then getting woken up by the alarm clock far too early this morning to walk the dog and get Hayley ready for school, hearing that quote was such a great way to start the day.

Everyone on the news keeps using the word “historic” to describe the election results. Forget historic. Try epic.

I think I had something in mind to write about today but whatever it was, I don’t remember and I can’t anyway. That’s because despite the fact that I’m Canadian, I am completely glued to election coverage. I can’t get enough of it. George is watching NCIS but he flips over to CNN on the commercials. Since that’s not enough for me, I’m also keeping a close eye on CNN.com because their front page has the map showing projections (currently Obama has 207 vs. McCain’s 135 and Obama’s leading in what were typically Republican states, time for change indeed).

Of course, I’m also refreshing over on Twitter on a near-obsessive basis to see what people are talking about (I’m sherina over on Twitter if you feel like following me).

I need to go to sleep at a decent time because I’m so tired but I don’t know if I can because I need to keep watching to make sure McCain wins.

HA! Just kidding, I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. I’m way too left-wing die-hard Liberal up here to ever vote Republican even if I could vote below the border.

I felt like Obama was going to win but I was so nervous. And it’s not over yet but even the McCain camp is starting to say that it’s pretty much a mathematical impossibility at this point for him to win. Obama is *this close* to stepping up as the new leader of my neighbor and I’m ecstatic.

Yes, Canadians care about your American politics. To be honest I am more hyped up about this election than my own rather lackluster election up here last month.

Go Obama, go!

I am a strong supporter and advocate of public schooling. I realize that there are bad public school systems and I have been appalled to read horror stories about what has happened to some public schools, especially in the U.S. However, our school board and our school in particular are absolutely wonderful. I love the school. They took me seriously any time I had some things to discuss – when Hayley had trouble adjusting in her first year, they didn’t write me off as a hysterical first time school mom, nor did they blow me off when there were issues with another kid this year. The principal and the teachers are all incredible.

However, there is a huge drawback to having her go to school – ANY school. And that is the germ exposure. Oh my god. Hayley has been sick several times this school year and it’s only November. George has been sick for the past three weeks and I swear that in ten years together I have never seen him so sick in my life. Breanna went through almost a week of not sleeping well because she couldn’t breathe through her nose and the humidifier only did so much to help.

And now there is me. I’ve been in denial but I can feel it. I have a constant need to cough, and no matter how much I ignore it and don’t cough, that need doesn’t go away. When I do give in and cough, my chest hurts. Sometimes I feel like there must be an elephant sitting on my lungs. I’m tired beyond the usual I-went-to-bed-too-late tired. I know it’s coming and it’s coming fast. It worries me because I don’t have time to be sick. I have kids to take care of, housework to try to deal with, work to do… I have no time for illness of my own. I keep thinking about how George started with a cough too and now he’s on antibiotics that look like horse pills and could hardly get out of bed for a week straight.

Never mind the fact that I spoke to one of my friends outside the school today, and asked her if they had been sick since I hadn’t seen her or the two kids all of last week. The older boy had a horrible cough that kept him home all week and the younger one is still out for another full week because of pneumonia.

There are some serious germs going around our school and our community this year and they aren’t playing games with us. It sucks because I’m hoping to get a flu shot this year but I don’t want to get one while I’m under the weather.

Anyone have any good, strong chicken soup?

(I swear, I’ll get Halloween photos up soon!)