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Only part of me is glad that the Balloon Boy’s parents were found out. This is the part of me that wants a full investigation, including dissection if necessary, into Mayumi’s claims that she and her husband are descended from extraterrestrial aliens. And since my brother-in-law has been saying for a few years now that the aliens are living in deep underground chambers and tunnels dug through stone with a machine that melts stone, I am hoping the Heenes can shed light on the movements within the bowels of Mother Earth.

The other part of me that is not happy about the secret being revealed is the Exploitive Parent in me. My Exploitive Parent’s cover has been blown and she is so upset, she put my Inner Child in a cardboard box in the attic for hours.

My Exploitive Parent needs public attention to get where she wants to go with her writing career. My children often get in the way of getting to where I want to be by consuming what should be time to write with their flues and homework and play dates and softball games that need scorekeeping and their incessant demands to play with my Inner Child. Not to mention the ability children have to swallow whole in one swallow any and all disposable income faster than a blue whale swallows all of the tiny organisms in the ocean. Forget going to that writing conference and pitching my novel, my child needs fastpitch coaching lessons!

See, it would be so simple to exploit my child and bring myself some much needed public attention. For instance, I could put my nine year old on a subway train in the heart of a large inner city, say Detroit or New York, and hope that she found her way home. If my child made it home and wasn’t abducted, like that little girl was just the other day walking home from school with a group of other children, it would bring me instant fame and publishing success. I would secure a spot on Oprah, a regular column or maybe even two in Funny Times and other publications, and I could start my own organization to attract other Exploitive Parents to read my new book about how children should be independent so we parents can stop wasting all of our time and money on them. “Children are an inconvenience!” I could shout from the rooftops, “Let them find their own way home!”

My guess is the Heenes became involved in the Independent Child organization run by the now famous published author that wasn’t famous before, and came up with the idea of using their child to bring them the public attention they desperately needed to pitch their reality TV show idea. My Exploitive Parent thinks this was a brilliant idea with the balloon flying through the air and the newscasters full of anxiety thinking the Heenes were so stupid as to let their boy climb into that thing. Please! He was eating Doritoes in his bedroom and playing Legos.

And they almost pulled it off. Which brings me back to the anger I feel at being exposed. For this was my plan, we have a lot of woods in our back yard. I could call up the News station and say my daughter was out playing in the woods and she didn’t return when I rang the dinner bell. Dogs would be called out. My neighbors would come over and help search. Helicopters would fly overhead and police would show up in hordes. I could cry and scream and yell and since it would get dark quickly, being autumn, the flashlights would be streaming everywhere. Every time Wolf Blitzer spoke with me, I could say, “These are the very woods for the setting in my not-yet published novel – I should know them like the back of the book’s cover.”

Then after a couple of hours, I could call my daughter on her cell phone and have her walk out of our woods, already appropriately disheveled, burrs caught on her clothes, her eyes “red” from crying. She would do this for a couple of Webkinz. We could run into each other’s arms and then spend the rest of the night being on television and then get up early and spend the entire day on television and I could start an organization: Let Kids Enjoy Nature! Everyone would want to publish my novel and magazines would ask me to write weekly columns.

That is until the Heenes blew it for all of us Exploitive Parents. I think this is because they are part alien. Not quite smart enough to pull it off.

If you get a chance, make sure you watch the new HBO Movie Taking Chance starring Kevin Bacon as the Colonel who escorts PFC Chance Phelps home after his death in Iraq.

It is a deeply moving story and accurate in its portrayal of everyday Americans caring deeply about our men and women military personnel that lose their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I always admire the men and women that are willing to sacrifice their lives in service to our country.

I always think of the families who have given their loved one in service to our country.

The Colonel reads the Killed in Action lists on his computer at night and feels compelled to volunteer his services as an escort for twenty-year-old Pfc. Phelps. The movie follows in painstaking detail, Pfc. Phelps departure from Iraq and how tenderly-cared for he is along every step of the way. His body is prepared, a uniform is made, he is never left alone and honored by all who tend to him. We must face the family and their grief. We must bury him and recognize the loss to all of us, another young person just beginning his life, taken suddenly and violently.

The movie made me dwell again on what has happened to my country. We have lost so much recently, here and abroad.

New Amsterdam was on Fox again last night. John Amsterdam is an immortal NY City detective and he’s been living in New York since the 1600’s. A Native American Shaman made him immortal when he saved her life and now he has to find his true love and their souls must become entwined in order for him to grow old and die.

We love this show. And that makes me worried. Often, the shows we love do not last long. Take Invasion, for instance, the one set in Florida about the aliens taking over people. A good creepy exciting family show. But cancelled none the less.

Nikolaj Coster Waldau plays John Amsterdam. A hottie for all ages. But John Amsterdam has not been a complacent victim waiting for his true love over these last four centuries. No, he’s lived out life to the fullest, over and over and over, giving him an enviable storehouse of information and expertise. So, there is the crime to solve in each episode, the search for the true love (who might be the married woman he just met), and the piecing together of his past lives and what has he been up to and how many children has he had? The flashbacks to these past lives are some of the best scenes.

And one of the most interesting twists to me, but logical all the same, is that John Amsterdam is completely honest and forthright with his loved ones about his situation. He can talk to his senior citizen son about his eternal dilemma. He hangs out with his young great-grandson and starts to clue him in on it. This makes the scenes seem refreshingly realistic.

Check out New Amsterdam and let me know what you think.