Mah craw. (aka: Do better ABC)

So tonight while watching meaningless sitcoms, I got something stuck in my craw. Big time.

Now, let me say this, I love Ugly Betty. I find it campy and funny and irreverent and a nice distraction for an hour or so once a week. But this week? I feel oddly insulted and thoroughly annoyed.

Let me set up the plot for y'all: Betty and her boyfriend are talking about a charity that does infrastructure work in Botswana. Her boyfriend is rich and writes a few fat checks to the group... then he visits their headquarters and feels like the money isn't enough so he volunteers to go on a six month trip with the group to do charitable deeds in a teensey town in Africa.

What does Betty do in the face of this news? Melt down. She whines about the status of their relationship during his time away, about how it isn't fair, about how this doesn't fit into her plan for their life together ... all the while she looks utterly crestfallen and on the verge of tears... solemnly and dramatically moping through the streets of New York.

Because her boyfriend is going to volunteer in a perfectly safe place for six months.

SERIOUSLY? This just shows me how utterly out of sync the American public (and media for that matter) is with our military families and way of life. I know I shouldn't be rallying about a silly TV show, but COME ON.

Try putting her boyfriend in ACU's for a change... send him to Iraq or Afghanistan. Try having him gone for a full year (or more), in grave danger, avoiding IEDs, RPGs and suicide bombers. Have him do it over and over again every 12-15 months. Have him loose a leg. Have him miss their first anniversary, have him miss Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years and the 4th of July and her birthday and every other important day in a given year. Have him only get one 15 minute call a day after waiting in line for 2 hours. Have him struggle to help her carry the burden of everything she's taking care of at home solely via e-mail and phone calls. Have them live our life... make him a soldier or a marine (et al)... make him wear the uniform... make her one of us.

That would give her something to cry about and that would be a story worth telling.

But instead we get weepy girlfriends over six month volunteer trips to Africa. Thanks ABC, you really are paying attention.

Happy Blogoversary to Me!*

So, I've managed to stick around for a year and not run out of inconsequential things to say. Go me!

And you've managed to stick around despite all the reasons I give you not to... Go you!!!

Thanks to all of you who have stopped by, encouraged me, laughed (at) with me, and helped me through this deployment so far. And even better, thank you to all my 'imaginary' friends who I have met in this great thing called the interwebz... y'all rock the cazbah.

Now, go eat some cake and/or ice cream and/or drink some bubbly. And you are welcome for the justification to eat bad-for-you food and drink booze. Consider it my present to you! Srsly!

*Technically my blog-o-versary was on the 27th, but I was too busy with my concert hangover to care. Sorry.