Greenville On Monday, Charlotte On Tuesday ...
Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 06:44PM 
... Columbia today. To stay for a few weeks. I hope.
What butterflies are to blossoms, yours truly has been to the Carolinas of late. Flitting from place to place, never in one location for very long.
On Monday many members of our family converged on Greenville, South Carolina, where we assembled at the home of my mother. There we celebrated Labor Day in fine style thanks to Mom's gracious hospitality and excellent cooking. Stephanie and Joel were there, the babies were there, Audrey and Erica were there ... we missed our Andrew, who is away at school, but my nephew Michael and his lovely bride, Marie, joined us. They recently moved to Greenville from Colorado.
Back to Columbia we trooped on Monday evening, with Stephanie's family in tow. After settling in, we all enjoyed a refreshing swim. Melanie didn't care for the temperature of the pool when she visited a few weeks ago, but this time the water was a degree or two warmer and if her bright eyes and giggles were any indication, she was cool with it. Allissa, chilling in her carrier and noshing contentedly on her Binky, watched the activities from poolside.
Self-portrait of Mamaw and Allissa ... I could only manage to get three-fourths of my face and her forehead from the eyebrows up ... oh well ... bad aim, but at least it got me close to her. Click it to see more (and better) photos if you care to!
Later, giving busy mom Stephanie more time to splash around, Erica bravely volunteered to bathe-and-jammie both of the girls. Or maybe she got snookered into it; I honestly can't remember the details. Either way I believe The Boo has lately gained a more profound appreciation for the rigors of motherhood.
Stephanie and Joel headed home to Lenoir, North Carolina, after lunch on Tuesday. I missed them even before their car disappeared around the bend of our street. Erica and I weren't far behind, however. We merged onto I-77 North ourselves a few hours later because I was due in depositions early the next day in Charlotte. If I'd slept at home Tuesday night, the alarm would have intruded on my slumber at five o'clock Wednesday morning. Hitting the snooze button would not have been an option.
Let his skewed perception ripen into unmistakable reality.
(It takes at least ninety minutes to reach Charlotte from Columbia. Tack on an extra thirty for rush-hour traffic, high-rise parking, and negotiating post-9/11 security hurdles at the Bank of America Corporate Center.)
And I would have had to wake up first. And prepare the remains for viewing. Not a happy prospect.
So, around dinnertime on Tuesday, Erica and I checked in at Four Points by Sheraton in Charlotte. We secured takeout and piled up in our comfy multi-pillowed and plushly-duveted beds to watch TV until we got sleepy. Mostly we watched the RNC. I adore Fred Dalton Thompson.
Up and at 'em by six on Wednesday morning. Well before nine I was setting up my reporting equipment at one end of a 30-foot table in a 42nd-floor conference room of chandelier law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided a breathtaking view to the north. Past the airpot full of fresh coffee I saw the airport (Charlotte Douglas International) towards which, throughout the day, an endless stream of incoming commercial jetliners would gently float.
Despite the minutiae attendant upon taking eight hours of technical testimony and my role in that process, I did a lot of thinking about those planes yesterday. We were situated in the top third of the 76th-tallest building in the world. The tallest building between Philadelphia and Atlanta, if one can believe Wikipedia. It was a beautiful September day. The kind of day you'd rather be playing than working, yet you thank God you have a good job.
(If you're me, you also thank God for the health and strength to do that job, and a loving family who support you, and a nice car to drive to the job, and nice clothes to wear to the job. You're thankful for an unselfish grown daughter who is willing to go with you so you won't have to do everything alone. You're grateful for the kind people at the offices you're visiting for the day, who are so very thoughtful of your comfort. You're thankful for the box lunch they provided from Dean & Deluca. Mercy, that was good. The cookie! The cookie was the size of a frisbee! You're grateful for traveling mercies back home when the day's work is done, and for your own comfy multi-pillowed bed.)
One week from today will mark the seven-year anniversary of the clear blue September day on which four terrorist-controlled planes decimated the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a lonely field in Pennsylvania. So many dreams died that day. So many Americans were cut down in their most productive years, their families left to grieve for what might have been. They died excruciating deaths. I watched the planes in the sky over Charlotte and tried to imagine the horror of one -- or two -- of them turning towards the Bank of America Corporate Center, bent on hellish destruction. Nothing in my experience or imagination gave me the ability to truly assimilate it. I still find it difficult to believe that it really happened in New York City on September 11, 2001. But I know that it did.
I am tired of Americans who hate America criticizing President Bush for having the courage to go after the terrorists. What, no WMD's, you say? I quote my astute and politically savvy husband when I say, Saddam Hussein WAS HIMSELF a weapon of mass destruction. He brutally murdered tens of thousands of his own people. Our enlisted men and women in all branches of the military have volunteered -- and are still volunteering -- to lay it all on the line for the war against terror. Which America is winning, by the way, and will win if politicos such as Barack Hussein Obama -- not to mention John Sidney McCain -- do not bollix up the righteous endeavor.
Please God, do not allow these great Americans to have died in vain.
Just one more thing. Well ... maybe two.
Don Fowler's asinine airborne assertion that Hurricane Gustav's threat to pummel New Orleans on opening day of the RNC "just demonstrates God's on our side" is one of the most heartless and sickening things I have heard in a long time. The fact that a human being -- on either side of the aisle -- could chortle with glee at the prospect of other human beings suffering in that manner, just to score a nebulous political point, is downright diabolical. Fowler should have been lashed to a telephone pole directly in the path of Gustav's fiercest fury for that stupid remark. Let his skewed perception ripen into unmistakable reality.
Allow me to point something out, folks. God is not "on the side" of any political party. God is God, and He is holy, and He is sovereign. It is up to us as created beings to forsake our sinful shenanigans -- such as wholesale slaughter of the unborn in abortion mills more insatiable than the bloodiest abattoir and the deepest, darkest grave -- and get over on HIS side, and the sooner the better ... For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (Romans 14:11-12 King James).
I do hope that God allows the tens of millions of murdered unborn children -- their souls safe in Heaven now, their tiny tortured and torn bodies once again whole -- to witness the spectacle as B. Hussein Obama and his ilk give an account to Almighty God concerning the reasons why having the moral fortitude -- not to mention basic humanity -- to admit that life begins at conception (which it does) was above their pay grade.
I'd better quit before I get riled.
So for the time being I've imposed a personal moratorium on Carolina-trotting. The typing is piling up, after all; I reported three depositions last week and they impatiently front the queue. A rainy day would be nice because I don't plan to budge from home until Sunday. TS Hanna, if you're coming, come on girl. I'm prepared. Battening down the hatches as we speak.
God Bless America.
Reader Comments (15)
Word up, Jenny.
Welcome back to the wonderful world of Blogging! I see you've brought with you your two awesome fists of fury (The Word of God and common sense). Excellent. :-)
Sounds like you had a great time with your family, especially the wee ones!
Thank you for pointing out that God is not on the side of any one political party, that it is us to each of us to choose to be on HIS side, or not.
Great post Ma! You know I agree on all points. Very well done, I loved what you said about the politics...how very true.
Love it, love it, love it...
@ WD ... much obliged, my friend.
@ Kev ... I don't know much about my own common sense but you can't do any better than the Word of God!
@ Jay ... God does indeed give us free will to choose, while entreating us to come unto Him.
@ Audrey ... thank you darling!
@ Joonie ... thanks luv ... I knew you'd agree!
Amen, sister!
Wow - from family, to work, to 9/11, to Iraq, to the election, to abortion - did I miss anything? Where does one begin. You have a lovely family, an interesting job, and 9/11 was a horror that we should thank our leaders and our God has not been repeated on our soil. The surge in Iraq is said to be working, John McCain and Sarah Palin did Fantastic!!! at the convention and they are both solidly on the side of life. Not forgetting the past, I think the future is looking up!
@ Angi ... right on, girl.
@ Tracie ... I know ... I was all over the map on this one, both literally and figuratively. So many opinions, so little time! As always, thanks for reading. The future is looking up indeed. Kudos to Sarah Palin!
Wow! This was an action packed post! I love your grateful paragraph ("If you're me..."). How important it is to realize these very important things.
As for the politics - what you say is so true. I'm quite tired of those who criticize this great country. We have so much to be thankful for!
And finally, anyone who thinks God takes sides, well you know what they are...stupers (short for those unrelentingly stupid persons)!
Um, I'll stick to the Charlotte part. I visited there once. Loved the city. Loved the mall. It was a great place to meet my GA sister for a weekend.
Be well!
I came a across this blog : http://www.thedeppeffect.com/
Since you share your Johnny Dep fandom, I thought you might enjoy the blog!
@ Keli ... stupers indeed.
@ Cheryl ... thanks luv. You be well too.
@ LL ... girl, Jay at The Depp Effect is one of my dear Johnny friends and faithfully comments on my blog, as I do on hers. I'm glad you discovered her, and thanks so much for thinking of me. I need to drop by your blog as I've been so busy, I haven't had time. I'll do that later on today.
I looked further and realized it's not really about Johnny Depp at all. Sorry!
LL ... that's okay. Jay's blog is inspired by Johnny! She writes about all sorts of things.