Have Hurt My Damnedest [sic]

New Car Stamps Yea! These are wonderful and they are due out on Saturday- hope I remember to order.

Well, Ralphie is now back on the mainland in the SF aeropuerto waiting for the plane to bring him home. I am SO pissed, the thunderstorms last night brought the temperature right back to the 70's **just for him**. This man has more fookin luck that anyone I have ever known. He can pull right up to a theater with a hit show and a parking place becomes available at the front door. He can step out a door and a cab is dislodging a previous passenger and he can immediately hop in. He can call Delta and get UPgrades on FF miles- when I call I can't even use the damn things and I have about 2 million just sitting there. And now a Ralph story:

His uncle was 18 when he was killed in India in WWII and his father didn't want the body sent home, as was common back then, so he was buried in a military cemetery (National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific) somewhere in Honolulu. No member of the family has ever visited the grave until this week when Ralph did an internet search and found the site. He took a dozen roses, one for each one of Aphrem's nieces and nephews (now mostly in their 50's, born after he died) and left them there. Ralph is named after him and is the oldest of the cousins.

The family story was that he was a cryptographer working for intelligence and was pushed off a platform and hit by a train (a story I think was probably built up in family legend to justify him being hit by a train instead of killed in battle). A few years ago we were at a wedding and met an old man by accident who had trained and served with Aphrem back then- he was shocked when introduced to Ralph and heard his name and the two of them talked the rest of the wedding (while I twiddled my hair in boredom). He later sent Ralph a dogtag and some photos of Aphrem, but dispelled the family story and said he was just a kid who was jostled off the platform at an unfortunate moment.

So, he will be home tonight and Molly will be so happy- she loves his dirty clothes.