You may not know my brother. Heck, I don't bother right now with page counts or address tracking, so I'm not even sure you know me.

Anyhow, a few details about him:

My baby brother's full name is Leroy August Krueger. On August 30, 2003, he will turn 23. It looks like he will be celebrating his birthday in Iraq - he'll have been there, then, for over 6 months. The latest news from Washington makes it look as if he'll be there for at least a year.

Have you ever sent a card or a note to a complete stranger, or maybe someone you know just a little? Now's a great opportunity! If you're interested in being a part of some good will, consider sending my brother a card or a note wishing him a happy birthday, and perhaps wishing him a speedy return home.

Correspondence can be sent to:

SPC Krueger, Leroy A
353rd Transportation Company, 2nd PLT
Apo AE 09366

Mail delivery seems to take between 2 weeks and a month, so if you send one now, it would get there about the right time!

Outside of that, if you're interested in seeing what life is like in sandy Iraq, one of the men in his unit has been periodically uploading pictures to http://www.crazyed.net.

Thank you to all of you who sent supportive emails. They really meant a lot to me.

Thank you also to those of you that have given me support off-line. I don't know what I would do without you. You help keep me sane.

---

On another note, work has been crazy today. There's still a bunch of stuff I want to get done within the next hour, so I'm going to get back to it.

Several years ago, one of my birds got loose in Minneapolis. I freaked out - posted signs offering a reward on almost every streetpole within several miles radius of where I lived, posted an ad in the paper, called around to all the local animal control and human society offices...

I cried myself to sleep every night. I didn't know if I would ever see her again, and actually went through a period of mourning her.

For all that, I actually got her back. Two weeks after she first got loose, I got a call from some man whose co-worker had seen my ad in the newspaper. He had found her shortly after she got out, wandering around a parking lot, and had taken her home meaning to keep her. The reward was enough to change his mind.

That bird was Cricket.

She was an amazing bird. She mothered about half the chicks I raised, back when I was still raising chicks. She's the only female bird I've ever had that sang, although she only sang when she wasn't around other birds. Females don't sing - it's just not done - and the few times she forgot that she was ostracized by the rest of the flock. Eventually she gave it up and learned to fit in. She would still sing just for me on rare occasions - alone with me on a car ride, perhaps - but that was it. Her song was much more muted than the male songs. Quiet, lilting melodies. Very sweet to listen to.

When she was a baby, Cricket was the sweetest, most trusting, affectionate bird. For a year or so after her big adventure in Minneapolis, she was a bit more jumpy. Wouldn't you be, if you'd gotten loose, been chased by crows, been put into a small cage in a strange man's house, and then finally returned home? This last year or two, however, she started mellowing out again. Utterly trusting, sweet, affectionate. Just wanted to be sociable, to be held, to have her neck scratched.

I miss her a lot already. I'm going to miss her.

Still sad, angry at myself, guilty, upset. Stuck at work, and don't really know what to do with myself or how to cope right now.

I can't stop crying.

I'm really angry at myself. I noticed, maybe two weeks ago, that Cricket wasn't feeling well. I made a mental note to pull her out, give her some extra attention, check up on her a little more often. And then with all the hubbub of starting a new job, I completely forgot about it.

And now she's dead.

I could have maybe done something about it - quarantined her, made sure she had extra food/water/warmpth - gotten her to a vet - but it all just slipped my mind. I'm so stupid.

And I'm at work, and can't even really deal with it. And I love the people at my house, but they don't sound like they're dealing with it very well. Mike and I were bickering a little on IM, but he cut it short and offered to run over to my place and take care of things once I told him what was going on. He's going to go at least get her out of the cage and take care of little details like that so that she isn't just sitting there decomposing.

I'm lucky that he's willing to do things like that. When we're not arguing, he can be incredibly good to me, and so helpful. Thank you, Mike, for helping out in a difficult pinch.

@#$%

I feel sad, angry, guilty. So angry at myself. I don't deserve to have pets.

One of my favorite birds died. I'm not even home to do anything about it, or to be able to mourn properly.

Poor, poor Cricket.

:(

I hate days like this.

I lost my hair-stylist again. Every so often I go through a 6-12 month period where I don't get my hair cut, for whatever reason. Add to this that my prefered stylist kept switching salons for a while, and now he's left the last salon I knew him to be at.

I don't trust many people to cut my hair. Too many bad haircuts over time have left me guarded and suspicious.

So what? I just don't cut my hair anymore? I could let it grow forever - eventually it would become a tangled, nasty mess of split ends and thus would self-regulate its own length. That sounds like a great idea. Trust someone new to go for the cut I'm looking for and hope they get it right? It's easier to cut off than it is to grow back.

Bah.

Damnit - I forgot the headphones.

SCO Sets Price For Linux Licenses: Linux users can buy protection against a lawsuit for $699 until Oct. 15; then the price jumps. Jerks.

To be read in a sing-song voice:

Ma-ry has a boy-friend. . .

That's what I hear from the peanut gallery at home, anyway. :)

Chris is walking my dog for me this morning, since I didn't have time to before I left for work. I love Chris. He rules.

Waiting, waiting, waiting... I hate waiting and being dependant on other people for being able to get my shit done.

I haven't been blogging too much today. That's because I was actually doing work. Strange, eh?

Well, I guess I did waste a little time reading news this morning. Read about The Episcopalian Vote on whether or not to ordain Gene Robinson (who is gay) being delayed due to last-minute allegations of inappropriate conduct, read more about Howard Dean, read some about John Kerry, read a bit about his crazy wife, signed Kerry's petition opposing a plan Bush administration is pushing through that would make it such that anyone making more than $22,100 a year could be denied overtime if they are classified as professional, administrative or executive employees, possibly affecting as many as eight million Americans, including fire fighters, police officers, paramedics, nurses, and store supervisors, and browsed around the Democratic National Committee website for a while.

And then I got back to work.