My mom had the following to say about my last post:

31. How did you get to be this old?

It doesn’t matter, to your mother you’re still 5 and heading off to your first day of school, or you’re 17 and going to your prom, or you’re 9 and having the “fly-up” ceremony from Brownies to Girl Scouts, or maybe you’re 21 and graduating from college, or you’re 16 and taking your driving test in the January 20th Inaugural Day storm or you’re 15 and going to Southcenter on the bus with Stacey.

How did you get to be this old? It doesn’t matter…your mother is still 39.95 (plus shipping and handling.)

Love you kid.

I guess to our parents, we'll always be children, but in a good way. I'm not sure how we're going to explain it in a few years when I become older than my mother, but I guess we have some time to figure out a good story.

Love you too, Mom.

I was driving to work yesterday morning, and found myself rocking out to a song on the radio.

Then I realized that song was Huey Lewis's "Hip to be Square."

And I was horrified.

I know I turned 31 yesterday and all, but really.

Then I flashed back to the days of KING 5's "Almost Live" and the High Fivin' White Guys and I got a good laugh.

31. How did I get to be this old?!

And before I forget, tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Shiver yer timbers and dig out the parrot and eyepatch - it's your one chance a year! You can visit the Official Site for yourself.

What on earth do these two things have in common? No, it's not Ashton Kutcher. Stick with me and I'll explain it all.

On Saturday, Bryan and I met up with our friend Jasmine (she's a former Coastie and her husband, John, is on a high endurance cutter down here) at the Miramar base for a preview screening of The Guardian. Much to my surprise, it was actually pretty good. The Guardian is a film about the Coast Guard's rescue swimmer program. The mere presence of Ashton Kutcher sort of put me off the whole thing, but to be totally fair, he did a good job. The story moved pretty well, and the filmmakers get big props for using actual Coasties in a lot of the minor roles. Bryan recognized the girl from the Ops Center scenes because she used to be on the Petrel, his sister ship. The credits listed a lot of Coasties, and I thought that was great. The filmmakers get even bigger props for dedicating the film to the men and women of the US Coast Guard at the end. Yeah, Bryan and Jasmine said they got a few things wrong, but overall, we all liked it, and the audience (folks from most branches of the military, not just USCG) responded well, with applause at the end.

Which brings me to the public breastage. After the movie, we went down to the Cheescake Factory in Fashion Valley. It was about 9:30-10 at night. I ran into my friend Gavin's doppelganger as we were waiting for our table. The resemblence was uncanny - it was Gavin in a black leather jacket with heavy stubble. Anyway, in due course we were seated outside (love that San Diego weather, even at night!) on the patio. As we were waiting for our entrees to arrive, I noticed the woman at the table across from me was breastfeeding her child in public. Now, before the La Leche League stages a breastfeed-in on my front lawn, let me say that I totally support breastfeeding, I think it's wonderful, natural, etc. I just don't want to be forced to watch it in public while I'm trying to eat my dinner. I could totally see her breast, for crying out loud!

The Wild start their pre-season tomorrow. It won't be on TV, so I'll have to rely on Wild.com for my info. We need to order our NHL Center Ice from the cable company. My ticket broker people called to say my home opener tickets have shipped and will be arriving this week. Woohooo!

It's hard to believe it's been five years since the attacks on the World Trade Centers. In some ways, it feels like only a year or so, and in other ways, it seems like a lifetime has gone by.

The morning of September 11, 2001, I was awakened by my clock radio shortly after the first plane had hit. I remember wondering what kind of navigation software error had caused the plane to crash into a skyscraper. Then there was news of the second plane, and before I'd even gotten out of bed, I turned on CNN - everyone's source of news in a crisis. They had footage of the second plane, and now there was discussion about it being intentional. I called my parents to find out where my dad was - he travels for work frequently, and I didn't know if he was at home or in the air. Thankfully, he was on the ground at home, although if I remember right, he had been scheduled to fly somewhere later that afternoon.

I got dressed and went to work, where we got a radio up and running to try to keep up with any new information. I carried my cell phone with me while I saw patients (which I never do) because I have several family members who live and work in New York City. I don't think I breathed again until I got the phone calls that confirmed that everyone was okay and accounted for.

I watched nothing but news coverage for days.

I cried when I saw footage of the towers collapsing. I cried when the Ironworkers marched in and volunteered to do anything they could to help, even if it was just hauling buckets of debris. I cried when I heard about police and firefighters who wouldn't take more than 20 minutes to rest. Like everyone else in the country, I waited eagerly to hear stories of amazing rescues, of survivors. But survivors were few and far between.

After the third or fourth day, I remember being desperate to watch something, anything on TV other than coverage of 9/11 because my brain felt fried, and numb and just wanted something lighthearted and pointless and sitcom-y to watch.

I remember the strange sound of no air traffic, and the momentary flash of panic when that silence was interrupted by the sound of military aircraft.

I remember the first anniversary of 9/11, and watching the footage of the attacks with Bryan and feeling sick to my stomach.

Bryan and I didn't know each other when 9/11 happened. He was on a high endurance cutter in the Bering Sea at the time. They had no TV out there, and he knew something must be up when the captain got on the PA system to make an announcement. The captain doesn't typically make the announcements. He told the crew that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and that the US was under attack. The crew was instructed to stay off the internet for security reasons. Bryan said they pulled into Dutch Harbor, AK (BFE on the Aleutian chain) a few days later, and were then diverted to Valdez. By the time they had access to TV coverage, most of it had settled down, so he didn't see the days and days of uninterrupted footage of Ground Zero.

This gave him a very different experience than most of us had, and so for him it was very interesting to see the coverage a year after the fact. It also means that his moment of history, so to speak, was wildly different from my own.

Thank you to my old roommate Teri, who had the forethought to stop at the store on her way home and pick up copies of the Extra Editions of the Seattle Times and Seattle PI, and was gracious enough to let me keep the Times copy you see above.  We watched a lot of CNN together during those days.

Thank you to all the police officers, firefighters, professional and civilian rescuers and the folks aboard United flight 93 for their part in the disaster. Thank you to those who gave their lives, and to those who put their lives in danger every day to help others, whether it's in the armed services, police force or as a firefighter.  You are an inspiration to us all. 

If you have a flag, please fly it today, and if you don't have one, please consider getting one. It was inspiring to see the country come together and recommit to what it means to be an American in the days after the tragedy. Let's try to remember that every day.

The heat has finally broken, and after a week of mid to upper 90 degree temperatures, today was a big relief, since it was only in the mid-80s (which is just about perfect down here). Unfortunately, after a week of being cooped up because of the heat and two weeks without dog daycare because of her gash, Bailey has been quite...energetic. She went to the vet this afternoon to get her staples out, and she'll be able to do normal activities (dog daycare, the dog park) after that. We're definitely going to Petco for a Bath 'N Go tomorrow morning!

I've procured Wild tickets for the home opener on 10/5 against the Avalanche. Trying to talk season ticket holders into getting tickets for us didn't pan out, so I went through a ticket broker. We didn't figure our chances would be good through Ticketmaster, since tickets go on sale at the Xcel box office three hours before they're available through Ticketmaster. So yeah, the prices were a little higher, but we have our tickets (some season ticket holder must sell them to the brokers) near the Wild penalty box, row 6. I can't wait!

Now, my thoughts on Derek Boogaard are well documented, so if anyone has heard about his recent run-in with the law, I'm just going to say let's wait until September 20th before passing any judgement. You really have to wonder what kind of idiot would go up against Boogaard, and how it all started. He has a reputation as an enforcer on the ice, but he's certainly not known as an instigator.

Much to my doctor's (and my) surprise, my bloodwork came back within normal limits last week. Neither of us expected my slacker parathyroids to really be up and running yet, but apparently they got the memo that vacation's over because my parathyroid hormone and calcium levels were normal. I've been using vitamin C serum (apparently vitamin C is the new vitamin E) and emu oil on my scar, and it's coming along nicely. It would help if I'd massage it a little more (as Dr. Keefe keeps reminding me), but to be honest, it's a combination of procrastination (I forget) and avoidance (it's still a little tender, and massaging it doesn't exactly feel fab).

So the big thing down here the past few days is the reporter who got attacked by this real estate whackjob and his wife. This is pretty crazy stuff - I mean, this guy and his psycho wife completely lost their grips and attacked this guy. And it was all caught on camera! These people are hitting away on this guy, and he's not resisting them, he's not fighting back, they're just whaling on him. They have no chance of getting out of this one in court, that's all I can say.

Bryan's been underway this week, and hopefully comes home on Sunday (although with the Coast Guard you never make plans until someone is actually there, in the house). Tonight I'm watching an old fave, "So I Married An Axe Murderer." I developed a particular fondness for this movie when I was going to grad school in Bellingham. I'm even more fond of a certain song by the La's on the soundtrack. (Cheers, Gav!)