It has been 4,207,680 minutes since 9:59am on September 11, 2001.  It was on that clear, crisp, perfectly blue skied Tuesday September morning where blood from all nations was spilled on American soil for the first time in 60 years, since the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.  My city, our nation, and everyone’s world was irrevocably changed.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-Thomas Jefferson

For me, the heralds of that change was the sound through the dust cloud that had consumed me of American fighter jets above the city skies.  To others that change was evident by what they saw on television, or maybe the longer security checkpoints at airports, or perhaps it was the so called political scare tactics they were subjected to attempting to justify the limiting of civil liberties, or even hugging their loved ones goodbye to fight the proverbial “war on terror” that has resulted in the spilling of more blood than I think anyone had ever expected.

That’s not what today is about.  Today is not about remembering the evil that a person is capable of, the inconvenience of air travel, politicians we elected not preserving or rights and freedoms, or the debates about right and wrong in the quest for security of the homeland.  You have 364 other days for all that.

Today is about remembering the conscious sacrifice made by one for another in their greatest time of need.  Today is about remembering that while all sacrificed some… there are those who sacrificed all.  I ask that you remember this today and leave everything else for another time.

It has been 4,207,680 minutes since the South Tower of the World Trade Center at Liberty Street and West Street collapsed. I ask that you specifically remember the following nine Emergency Medical Service Responders who perished in that collapse:

Have you ever seen The Real Housewives Of New York City on Bravo?  To be honest, the women it follows are a bunch of snobby bitches who in no way represent a real New York City housewife.  The absolute worst of them all is LuAnn de Lesseps.

LuAnn married Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, who’s family happens to have built and leased the land of the modern Suez Canal.  So because of this, she considers herself to be an actual Countess.  She LOVES this title, mentions it every chance she gets, and has even used it in her upcoming book Class with the Countess: How to Live with Elegance and Flair.  Some of the book’s highlights includes tips on dressing with style, good manners, and the ”Art of Seduction”.

Now that’s all well and good I suppose… until the actual Count decided to dump her for a younger woman.  Hopefully they’ll be able to re-examine that ”Art of Seduction” chapter and get a ghost writer with a clue, since obviously her art needs a serious overhaul.

Of course, it’s easier to let go the man you’ve been married to for 16 years than the royal title he gave your commoner ass.  She has reportedly told her friends that no matter what, ”I will always be the countess.”

But is she REALLY still a countess?  While it is true that Diana kept the Princess of Whales title after her divorce from Prince Charles, she did so at the Queen‘s discretion.  When Andrew divorced Sarah, he of course kept the title of Prince and she was relegated to Sarah, Dutchess of York.  Different yet again, when the Sultan of Brunei divorced in 2003 he took away all his wife’s royal titles because she was born of no royal blood whatsoever… just like former Wilhemina model LuAnn.

So the truth is that while the Count himself will probably not care (because he’s too busy boinking the NEXT Countess) and she will undoubtedly claim otherwise, since LuAnn is not of actual royal lineage she is in fact probably no longer a Countess.  I didn’t know that being a royal imposter could be considered classy and elegant.

It is truly sad to see the empty things these people place value upon.

So now that Poppy is gainfully employed, weekends have taken on a new dimension for us.  Namely it means there is one activity on our schedule.  Errands.

The errands this weekend included dropping off my uniforms for dry cleaning, dropping off the laundry, getting a toaster, getting a crockpot, getting Poppy some new shoes, getting Poppy some new clothes for work, and food shopping.  For an item by item account, go see Poppy.  She’s good that way.  I instead have chosen to relate the horrible experience I had food shopping… or perhaps I should specify when I was checking out from food shopping.

The cupboards have been pretty bare this week.  We even ran low on Ramen noodles, of which the majority of our diet depends on due to the untimely nature of work.  Ramen are quick, easy, and cheap.  We got 24 packets (12 beef and 12 chicken) for a whopping $5.00.  We also got some ground beef, crackers, cheese, assorted produce, Texas Toast, nine grain bread, english muffins, chocolate pudding, some roach and ant traps, and a rotisserie style Bourbon Chicken for dinner that night.  There were a bunch of other things that ended up in the cart as well, but you get the idea, right?  The checkout line moved quickly, and soon our items were zipping through the scanner.  Beeping happily along, they slid down the conveyor belt where a bagger was placing them into plastic bags and into our cart.

Now there have been some issues lately here in New York City about the plastic shopping bags we get from just about every single store.  It turns out that Emperor Mayor Mike Bloomberg wants to charge consumers six cents per plastic bag used at the checkout.  Now there are already some stores that charge for bags (corporate mongering IKEA for one), and to a certain degree I can understand that because the cost of bags went up with the cost of oil.  However, out of that six cent charge, five cents will go to the city and one cent will go to the store.  To me, this is backwards.  The city is not taxing a product that is being sold nor is it taxing a service that is provided.  It is in fact taxing a convenience.  While citing the difficult economic times the city is also saying that this is a method of going “greener” that was in the plan for awhile.  I say give the five cents to the stores and give the city the one cent.

One of the things they raise about the bags is that they aren’t “recycled”.  I actually beg to differ.  I think it is extremely rare to find someone who just throws those plastic bags out into the trash.  For one thing, we use them when cleaning the litter box.  Alot of times, because the bags are so cheaply made, we need to double bag it so litter doesn’t just leak out onto the floor.  I’ve also used those plastic bags when packing for deployments (an old holdover from my Boy Scouting days was to pack everything into individual plastic bags, which saved me quite a few nights from sleeping in soaked clothing), when bringing lunch to work, and when working during inclement weather (another scouting holdover is placing my socked feet into bags and then into boots, keeping the feet nice and dry).  These bags have numerous uses in a residence and are far from the one hit wonders that the Emperor Mayor makes them out to be.

Back to the supermarket, as I’m paying the bill I notice that there are ALOT of bags in my cart.  Like, alot.  I didn’t think anything of it really until I got home.  Luckily we found the holy grail of parking spaces… right in front of our building.  This made the 6 flights up not as daunting with the packages.  Normally, I’m a 4 bag per hand guy.  On this night, I was able to do 7 bags per hand… but I still had to make two trips!  Why?  Because this bagging idiot put almost everything in it’s own bag.  The nine grain bread was in it’s own bag, the english muffins were in their own bag, the Ramen cases were each in their own bag, the Texas Toast was in its own bag, the cheese was in it’s own bag, and of course the Bourbon Chicken was placed in its own single bag but luckily Poppy double bagged that one because as Bourbon Chickens do… it leaked.  Wondering about the ground beef and produce?  Those got thrown into the SAME bag as the crackers, the roach traps, and the ant traps.

At the end of the night, when all was unpacked and put away, I counted the number of bags.  There were twenty-one plastic bags used by the supermarket bagger.  That means I would be paying $1.26 in plastic bag charges if this tax went into effect.  In reality, I should have had a maximum total of fourteen bags, including the individually bagged chicken.  The fourteen bags would have cost me $.84 cents.  The difference being $.42 cents… and over the course of one year equates to an extra $21.84.  I don’t know about you, about that’s a pretty hefty price to pay because the supermarket hires incompetent and bad baggers.  I think I’m going to have to file a lawsuit when I get poisoned from eating a hamburger that was in with insect poison because of their bad baggers.  Maybe that’ll teach them to hire baggers with more than one working brain cell.

Then again, who am I kidding?

They’ll just charge more for bags.