YAHOO!

It's Friday afternoon and I'm being lame as usual. I've already spent a half hour traipsing through the woods taking pictures of dying roses in the snow (I've suddenly become interested in pictures without models. Odd... maybe I'm stretching myself as a photographer. I digress.) and now I'm sprawled across the futon reading 'The Last Sin Eater' in a frantic attempt to get it done before Monday. The tv is playing an old Shirley Temple film.

I'm going home to the place where I belong
And your love has always-
Dad's ringtone.

I pause the movie.
"Hello?"
Nothing. I growl in frustration. No service again.
"You'll have to call my room!" I grumble, and toss the cell on the floor where it skitters across the carpet mournfully. It didn't mean to fail me.
"Not your fault." I soothe. And then realize I'm talking to my phone.

SCREECH. SCREECH.
(okay, that should be ring, ring, but our phone actually sounds like a screech, not a ring)
"Hello?"
It's my dad.
"So... your little yellow car has an illegal sticker on the front."
First thought: How does he know this?
Second thought: How can a sticker be illegal?
"Um.... okay." I'll bite. "Why?"
"It has a bird and it should have a star on it."*
Pause. I'm starting to comprehend in bits and pieces. Puzzle pieces are gravitating to their correct placement. I frown at my cell phone but he's no help. Typical boy (sorry, couldn't resist)
Suddenly it hits me. "Are you-Did you make General?!"**
"Yep! Just found out yesterday."
Well, I think that's what he said. I was too busy screeching and laughing.
"You made General! I'm a General's daughter!"
(Of course I made it about me! I'm a Romine! *grins*)

The rest of the conversation is a blur of congratulations and squealing and being ridiculously proud of my father who is now a General in the United States Air Force. And man, does he deserve it. He works his butt off, above and beyond what he has to.

Congratulations, daddy!

*A bird is the Colonel's symbol, a star is the General's.
**An Air Force General