I don’t really get all the hoopla about the Chinese New Year.  Frankly, I don’t care much about our own New Year’s celebrations either.

I don’t stay UP to watch the ball drop any more, and watching Dick Clark breaks my heart.

Plus, the music sucks, and the ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest is wearing a tad thin on me.

But, the other day, a friend of mine said, “Happy Tet!” on the way out the door.

Really, Happy Tet.

I’ll pass.

When I hear Tet, which is the Vietnamese celebration of the new year, I think of one thing:

The Tet Offensive.

The US was caught with their pants down on this one.

Tet Nguyen Dan is the celebration of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, and usually coincides with the Chinese New Year.

On January 30, 1968, after a mutually agreed cease-fire, the forces of the People’s Army of Viet Nam launched a surprise attack against the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and the United States.

Its purpose was to use the element of surprise to attack civilian and military commands in South Viet Nam.

We, the allied forces of the United States of America and South Viet Nam, were not ready.  The National Liberation Front, aka Viet Cong, launched an attack of 80,000 communist soldiers, striking more than 100 towns and cities.  It was well planned, well thought out, and well executed.

In the city of Hue alone, more than 2,000 civilians are still listed as missing.  Thousands – THOUSANDS – were killed there by the Viet Cong and the National Liberation Front.

The initial attacks stunned the Allied forces of the South and did major damage to command, life, and the South’s cause. The world and most importantly, America realized that North Viet Nam could launch a devastating attack, and could possibly…and eventually…win the war.

Technically, it ended in a defeat for the Viet Cong, but it changed the American Psyche, turned the tide of public opinion of the war in the United States.

In the offensive, there were 45,850 casualties:  9,078 killed, 35,212 wounded, and 1,530 missing.

Some of those are still missing.

Today, the Tet Offensive is barely mentioned in the US.  Oh, they study it in school, there’s a paragraph or two about it in the US History books, and it’s mentioned in passing.

Frankly, we should remember it more often.

So, forgive me if I pass on the Happy Tet thing.  I don’t remember it as happy at all.

Yeah, I’ll pass.

An open letter to Emily of http://momminitup.com/ .

Oddly enough, I have no pictures to go with this post!

Gilda was our first.  We got her six months after we were married, the day before we moved 400 miles away to Tennessee .  She rode in the car with me all the way, spent most of the time whining her box and some between my neck and the car seat head-rest.  She was a cutie.  Eleven ounces and six weeks old when we got her, she actually fit in the inside coat pocket of my old Navy Pea Coat.

We took her everywhere.

She chewed up everything, would not sleep in her bed, wound up in ours, and woke me up everyday like clock work once she was house broken.

But we loved her.

Eight years later, when our daughter was born, Gilda had to go.  She was jealous, snippy, and snappy.  I really didn’t want to A. permanently scar my child’s face; and B. Explain all that to the Department of Children’s Services.  I hear they can be picky.

After child number 2 came along, grew to walking stage, wiping his own butt stage (hallelujah, one of the greatest days of all time and a whole ‘nother blog), we all felt the ‘call of dog’.  Many feel the call of God, but alas, we felt the call of dog.

Then came Lacy.  A blonde Cocker Spaniel that was obviously more inbred than I, had the IQ of a lawn chair, and came with her own IEP.

She would dig one hole under the fence to get out and another one to get back in.  After a while it looked like it was warped, and the neighbors would point and shake their heads as they walked by.

One day she disappeared.  Really, just gone.  I had nothing to do with it, though I was accused, glared at and repeatedly questioned.  The lie detector test was “inconclusive”.  But alas, another one gone.  (Remarkably, my Sister-in-law’s dog, who was Lacy’s litter mate vanished the same week.  My brother-in-law survived the questioning much better than I.)  We never found either of them.  I was not sad.

Again, the dog conversation started.  I hedged, said no, fought, and as all of us do, gave in…just as you will Emily.

That was Dagy, or Dagmar.  Pure bred, black as coal, sweet as sugar and the most wonderful companion ever.  She met me at the door every night.    When every one else was mad, she loved me, when every one else was out, she was at the door.

Then her back went out.  $600.00 and several days at the vet’s later, we had to let her go.  On my 50^th birthday.  Yeah, happy freakin’ birthday.

I swore off dogs, again.

Forever.

But, again, I heard the call of dog.  So I bought two at the same time.  Don’t ever do this.  They won’t learn their own names, they will both come when you call one, they will not train, they will not stop chewing, and they encourage each other to mischief.

After I cam home from my quadruple bypass surgery (I promise to talk about that at length some day),  I was actually afraid they would jump up on me and open up every slice and dice the doctors had done.  Thank goodness for rescue sites.  They were both gone in 2 days.

Then one day, Mugly (short for my ugly dog, ‘cause she was clock stopping hideous – I mean, seriously, “cover your watch!”) showed up.  Really, she just arrived in the yard, decided she liked the place and stayed…for exactly a year.  Then she moved on.

Oh, I looked for her.  I put UP post-it notes advertising “lost dog” on telephone poles, canvassed the neighborhood…all ten houses…but alas, we never found her.  Until I went walking a week later and there she was, dead on the side of the road.  She wasn’t hit; she just went off to die.  I was sad, and swore off dogs, once again.

Then there was Lola.  Lola was my son’s dog.  She had feet the size of hams when she was born.  Now, the biggest dog I had weighed in at about 18 pounds.  This one was 40 at six months.

She was part yellow lab and part idiot.  She was a chewer, a whiner, a barker, a digger, just like all the others.

She had to go.

I bided my time.

Well, the boy decides to go to college.  (I’m happy about that.) He left his dog at home.

Error!

Duh!  Working two jobs and napping got in the way of play time with Lola, so she had to go.

Napping is important.

It just wasn’t fair to her.

One add on kijiji.com and 8 hours later.  I was runnin’ through the house singing “Dog Free” and praising Jesus.

This dog, the last dog, didn’t die.  She went to a nice family with four kids and big fenced yard.  She could have been a science project at UGA and I’d have lost no sleep!

She was the last dog…well, for now.

Seriously, Em, get that bunch under control!  Heed not the Call of Dog!

Well, I wasn’t, but Sydney Spies is.

Sydney Spies, a Colorado Senior High School student is all UPset because those popular kids on the yearbook staff think her senior picture is too sexy for publication.

Yearbook pictures have changed since I graduated in 1970.

And, I wasn’t too sexy for anything…but, that’s a whole ‘nother Springer Show.

The Colorado Coed and her mother are all UP in arms about this, and are threatening legal action.

The popular kids on the yearbook staff are riled because their yearbooks have been award winners – I didn’t know there were awards for yearbooks – in the past, and they want to keep UP the tradition and not do anything to lower their standards.

Sydney, her mother, Miki (shocker) and a handful of high school students staged a protest because Sydney was “being denied her freedom of expression.”

The school officials say the outfit violates dress code, well – let’s hope so!

Here’s a tip, Sydney.  Your grandchildren are going to look at that yearbook and say, “Wow, Granny dressed like a ho!”

So, let it go.  Move on.  Hit the mall, and buy a top…a whole top!

…it’s never happened before.  But, I could have been mistaken about God not watching football.

Back in the day when Timmy was merely a Florida Gator and not a professional ball player, he put a Bible verse on his eye-black.

John 3:16 as a matter of fact.

The practice has since been banned by the NCAA, who are apparently Godless infidels worried that it might offend some of their contributors and cost them some cash someone out there.

As a Baptist Preacher’s kid, that was probably the first Bible verse I memorized.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

It is the cornerstone verse of the Baptist faith.

Well, Sunday night while Tim was quarterbacking his backside off for the Broncos, there were some interesting stats.

He had 316 passing yards.

The average yards per pass was 31.6.

The final quarter hour TV rating was, that’s right, 31.6.

So, as shocking as it seems, maybe God does like Football, and if so, He’s a Broncos fan!