Sunday Quiet

Coffee's on, the banana walnut muffins are fresh from the oven, life is good this morning. I'm enjoying a hot mug of Seattle's Best with vanilla nut creamer. The muffins are cooling.

Yesterday's lunch with my friend was excellent. Great girl time. We met at a favorite seafood restaurant and had a nice roomy booth to ourselves. We started with an appetizer of fried green tomatoes with our iced tea. They were the best I have ever eaten, right up there with the one's my mother in law has made in the past. Then I had the fried shrimp as this place makes the best fried shrimp in town, hands down. My friend enjoyed the crabmeat enchiladas.

My friend is much like me after all these years. As soon as we were seated in our booth she asked the wonderful little waitress we were blessed with to ask the bartender over at the sports bar section to switch one of the tv monitors to CNN! We were interested in glancing over to keep up with all the developments in the middle east. Her husband is working in Iraq, Baghdad to be specific, non-military. She speaks to him daily anyway and now with current developments in the region, he keeps her up to date about what he is hearing on the ground there. So, we kept an occasional eye on the monitor while stuffing our faces and catching up on the latest stories and gossip we had for each other. Does it get any better?

The situation is so bad in the middle east. Those who are encouraging Israel to answer attacks in a restrained way, like the European appeasement monkeys, are shown again to be on the wrong side of history. Germany, by the way, is on our wavelength in this one. They have new leadership, a very smart woman leader now and it shows. Our Marines, called upon once again, are beginning to evacuate people stranded in Lebanon. I have heard from two different types of Americans stranded there via the news. One was a woman who was there on vacation with three other women. She was all torqued off that the American embassy there had not evacuated her by now. She was irritated that the embassy took her name and told her they would call when plans were firm. What an idiot, expecting the embassy to get her spoiled ass out of there. The embassies are set up to register people and know who is there and where they are and to keep them informed. Not to actually rescue them. I guarantee you she will be on all the chat shows here when she is back home complaining about the administration as if it is yet another thing to blame on the president. The other side was an American student at the American University in Beirut on a summer study program, who was speaking from a dorm. She was totally calm and said she was kept current on plans for evacuation and all was calm there. She is there with Lebanese students as well as American.

When Americans travel abroad, especially to troubled regions in the world, most completely understand it can be risky. If you are not willing to accept responsibility for yourself and your personal travel, then stay home. If an American is working overseas his or her employer will usually provide for evacuation strategies. This was the case when my husband was evacuated from the drilling rig site in Bolivia a few months back. Do you think my husband would show up at an American embassy in a foreign country and expect them to be responsible for his safety? The answer is no.

It is good to see most talking heads in this country, from both sides of the aisle, speaking in one voice. Israel has the right to respond to attack. This is not a partsian issue. This is an American issue. I truly hope Israel can get the job down now and take out Hezbollah. That would be a step in the right direction. Lebanon was seeing the beginning of a fledgling form of democracy under new leadership after Hezbollah was kicked out two years ago. They are riddled with massive debt and it will take time.

We enjoyed the night at the community theatre last night. That place is a wonderful showcase for local talent. We were treated to lots of local talent in "Dreamgirls". My guys, who initially kind of poo-pooed it as a chick show, were pleasantly surprised and just as happy as I was about the show. Sitting behind us were parents of a girl in the cast and next to them was a man from New Orleans who was here for the weekend to catch his friend's performance. That man has returned to New Orleans after evacuating for Katrina and is giving the city one more year to get it together. He is in the entertainment community there, a theatre director mainly, and is also a teacher with many years experience. He is teaching at a KIPP charter school this year, he said. KIPP is an excellent program, it is here in Houston with a couple of schools and began in New York City and then to Washington D.C. before coming here. It is heartening to hear New Orleans will gets her foot in the door with this school. The city sure needs it.

I'm ready for a muffin.