wonderful day

i had a good afternoon yesterday. it started with me picking Kalel up from his preschool at about 4:30 PM. i had a relatively peaceful drive home. Kalel is very vocal about what he wants to listen to on the ride home and well i did not have the correct music. (anything from the "cars" soundtrack). almost like clockwork he was out before i jumped on the freeway though and so i get to lose myself in the sounds of MY music. yesterdays choice was : all elvis all the time (satellite radio). i am not kidding about getting lost in the soulful sound of "the king". i guess it's because it really does make me think about living in another time. i've heard my grand parents and even my parents tell me of much simpler times. i've been going through and dealing with quite a bit lately and so it was a welcomed peace and i could feel it slipping away as i exited the freeway and went back to the stop and go which is street traffic. Kalel began to stir and resumes his argument and disagreement almost as if he never fell asleep. i was determined to not lose the peace and told him of the great afternoon we were going to have. he could not have been any more excited. basically i had told him that he was about to have an afternoon of breaking any rule ever placed on him. run around barefoot outside, throw caution to the wind and wet everything he could think of. (code for forget we're in a drought) all while drinking soda, and eating ice cream and ice cones and anything else the street vendors could think to sell us. we did all that and more. when he was done wetting everything to include me he turned the hose on himself which in definitely proved to be playground suicide. the sun had set at that point and we personally added to the city's water shortage. i decided he had enough and that a nice cool bath before bedtime would suit him well. after breaking his heart by explaining that now that he was wet he needed to go inside for a bath he decided all it meant was more water play and horsing around except indoors. after drying everything after the storm that hit the bathroom it was time for him to go to bed. he was of course exhausted and i've never had an easier time putting him to bed. he was gone the moment his head hit the pillow. it was a little past nine and i was still very hot and needed to cool down, i jumped in the shower not to late after that and then grabbed a book i'm still trying to get through and sat on the porch under the half burnt out porch lights. as i read "the gamble" a story of the political machine behind the later stages of the iraqi war effort. i was taken back to a much hotter day just about 6 years before, as i mounted some vehicles departing from baghdad. after a few moments of sheer anxiety which is usually the initial reaction when i think of my time in the desert. even as i sit here telling you of my afternoon it sends chills up my spine, i suppose it's not just the memories of things done or seen but because of the realization of everything that could have been. when thinking of that experience in contrast with the afternoon i just lived today i could not be any happier and i guess that is how i happen to deal with the stress that even thinking about Iraq brings to many of my friends and thousands of other service members day in and day out. i couldn't read anymore (part of the reason it's taking so long to read this particular book) anyone who knows me knows how fast i speed read through things. i went back inside just before my date with leno, i think late night is great. besides the TV had quite a rest with no disney channel on at all for Kalel. I can't wait to do it all again tomorrow. Today I have class, the beginning to the next chapter in my life.