Want to know how I really feel?

Here's a letter I wrote to my sister:

Dear German Family,

I'm healthy as ever. Losing weight. My computer's been munching down adware and viruses, though. I cringe every time I see the little modem icon light up.

Laurie's been having wild swings of blood pressure. She's being tested for that.

Rosie can read pretty well now. Her first reading group was apparently for kids whose parents taught them to read when they were three. The word lists for spelling were unbelieveably counterintuitive. But she's in the right group now. Rosie likes being read to, and she seems to enjoy doing it herself - she figures out words you wouldn't imagine her getting, though she doesn't necessarily remember them or learn to spell them. She reads cereal boxes pretty well. She'll probably teach Aliina to read by the time she's three.

Aliina is stunningly beautiful and cheerful. She's also big. Off the scale. Rosie was, and is, at the top of her size charts for her age, but Aliina's bigger than she was. We're afraid to let Rosie hold her. The measurements don't seem all that impressive when we take her to the doctor, but somehow she just looks huge. She hates shots, and we hate to make her go through them, but diphtheria, tetanus and polio are far worse. A couple of times, after her first set of shots, she woke up in the middle of the night screaming just like she did when she got them. And this last time, she was Happy Baby until she saw the needles on the table. Laurie had to leave.
The nurse did a real good job though and maybe I was good at holding her steady (I knew the consequences of failing at that, Laurie held her last time [not to place blame ] and she was sore for a week). She was a little tender the next day, but she seemed perfectly well two days later. What's the feminine form of Captain America?

Who to vote for? Bush. As a Libertarian, I hate to say that, but our guy isn't better on the War on Terror. Actually, I don't like that term. Terror is an emotion, which is a part of each individual. It should be the War on Terrorists. I'm afraid we have to find them and kill them, and I believe Bush is showing great determination and strategic skill at that. Terrorist attacks were down last year. They had camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now they don't. Qaddafi appears to have lost heart for that kind of warfare. The killers are stupid enough to go fight our troups in Iraq and they're getting slaughtered. Criminals are almost always people who were too stupid to live the right way; they're people who refuse to listen to their teachers and learn to be constructive, and for the most part, that's what we're up against. I think Osama bin Laden is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I say Bush shows strategic skill because he's not just bombing the crud out of all the Muslim countries, he's using the minimum of force necessary. He wants the vast majority of the people there to become productive citizens of their own countries. Remember, we still have bigger weapons in reserve, if it comes down to that. Maybe somebody should tell our enemies that.

This is not a quagmire. Vietnam was much worse, and remember, on the tiny atoll of Tarawa, in World War II, we lost 1100 marines just getting on the beach. In twenty four hours. Not to mention Normandy (D-Day).

These thoughts probably wouldn't go over big in Germany these days, so, as a missionary, mind your "ps and qs," but remember them at voting time.

Love, Alan.

Here's her answer:

Dear Alen,
Thanks for the advice on who to vote for. It was a good letter. I hope to write more later.

Note the typo. Cue Rodney, "I don't get no respect."