real men wear kilts

I had a great night last night. Val was performing at an open mike at an Irish pub in Annapolis (her first time!) so a group of us headed down there to cheer her on and be her crazed groupies. It was so fun, and the scene was pretty eclectic. The highlight of the night (other than Val, who rocked) was the old man wearing a “Real Men Wear Kilts” T-shirt who played the bagpipes for 15 minutes. While he was playing, Val leaned over to me and said, “You just know his wife begs him to get out of the house to play that thing.” It was so loud; it would definitely drive her and the neighbors crazy.

Recently, I have been absolutely obsessed with the blog the Christian Science Monitor has been running with articles from Jill Carroll about her time in captivity with the insurgents in Iraq. It’s interesting; when she was released in March, I remember thinking “Wow, she was lucky”, but there is so much more to the story. She wasn’t lucky, she was smart. From the very beginning, everything to her was a strategy about staying alive. The paper and her parents, and the foreign media in Iraq all took steps to try to ensure that she would stay alive. Jill, in turn, worked very hard at befriending her captors and trying to ensure her safety. She also talks briefly about family structure in the insurgency and the role of women. It’s all very interesting, people should read it!

Work has been busier this week and last. Finally, I have things to do! It’s great, if not totally fulfilling; but it’s a lot better than it was. Other than that, not much else is going on.