6/7/09 D-Day

It's always D-Day around here, but today, it really is D-Day. Or rather, the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion on the Normandy beaches.

Thanks to my GI troubles (that's GastroIntestinal, not General Issue), I got a lot of rest yesterday, and spent most of the evening zoning at the TV. A mostly unlikely thing happened though: the History Channel had a useful, in-depth, un-flashy, fact-based program (no UFO huntings) about Pearl Harbor. I guess a program about Pearl Harbor makes sense the day before D-Day, right? Maybe they'll air something about D-Day on December 6.

I'm no history buff. It was consistently my worst subject in school and I never had more than a passing interest in it. But for some reason, WWII history has recently compelled me, perhaps because it's old enough to be history but new enough to have footage and living memories. And now that I've actually seen a historical artifact up-front, it brings it all so much more to life. It makes it less "history" and more "something that really happened."

I really liked this program about Pearl Harbor. Most interestingly, there were many interviews with elderly Japanese pilots who attacked and survived it. I liked the practical little details, like that an important wire message was delayed in being delivered because the recipient at the Japanese embassy couldn't type well. Or that the Japanese pilots felt that a sneak attack was shameful.

OK, OK, boooo-ring, I know. What I'm leading up to is: now, I'm dying to go to Oahu (until last night it never occurred to me what island Pearl Harbor was on!) and see the USS Arizona memorial. I'm always dying to go to Hawaii, but now I have a slightly more legitimate excuse, if macabre gawking counts as legitimate.

I felt a lot better today, so spent a productive afternoon in the garage taking care of Things that always need taking care of, but are never more urgent than being annoying. I replaced the wheels on our ping-pong table, I notched the legs of an office cabinet so it'd just barely squeeze into a corner, I cut down the 30" legs of a barstool to 24", installed a robe hook, did more general cleanup and putting things away...very satisfying. I could spend weeks getting the house together, but it never works that way. There's only so much of this you can do at one time.

A photo from yesterday, just in from Sonia. This might well the be only shot in existence of us three!


6/7/09