Samira's Vida

Adopting a Rescue Dog – The absolute wrong way to do it

2011-08-02T13:34:00.000-04:00

What not to do:

~Profess your undying love and devotion for a dog you’ve never met

~Send emails filled with entreaties to God to protect the dog to the rescue volunteers ensuring said dog travels across four states

~Tell the dog through email how much you adore him and are ready to save him (dogs can’t read, and if they could, this one still didn’t have Internet access)

~Generally come across like one of those crazy, pet-obsessed people to the volunteers

~Have the dog less than a week and decide to put it to sleep

~Email the volunteers who have been helping that “someone” needs to “step up and commit” or the dog will die in an hour

Especially those last two parts…we really don’t like those parts.

Three weekends ago now, I spent a Saturday afternoon driving 250 miles roundtrip to meet Buddy, a shepherd who had been surrendered to his vet. The family was unable to keep their three dogs so the trio had been handed over to the vet while a rescue organization started looking for homes for the dogs. The two girls were moved relatively quickly to a new foster home, but Buddy was left at the vet. I went out to meet him and take some photos, hoping that a more personal evaluation of the dog would facilitate his adoption.

Happily, only a couple days later, we got news of someone who wanted to adopt Buddy. The new family lived in northern Ohio and Buddy was stuck in west-central Missouri, so it took considerable coordination to get him transported, but the volunteer network kicked in and we made it happen…with only four days’ notice, to boot!

Buddy was in my SUV for hours that next Saturday – he was excited to be out of the kennel he had been living in at the vet’s office, happy to sniff something new, and completely ready to jump into the back of the vehicle for his next adventure. He rode well and was quiet for the most part. He’d whine for pets every once in a while, but for the most part, he lay quietly in the back with his face in front of the portable fan that helped combat the insane heat of summer.

I dropped him off with the woman who was driving him on the second leg of his trip on Sunday. We stayed for about an hour to be sure he was okay and he exhibited no issues. It didn’t take him long to find the water bowl and he raced through the backyard chasing toys we’d throw. He made himself at home by pulling toys out of the toy box and flopping onto the floor at our feet.

The new family got him on Sunday and he was introduced to his new home. The first email we received said that they were so happy to have Buddy, he was beautiful, they loved him very much.

Then on Thursday night we received an email saying that he had “gone after” their vet (I’m not sure if he actually bit the vet or just struck out at him) and got into a fight with one of their other four dogs. The family was afraid for the safety of their other dogs and grandchildren and didn’t know what to do with Buddy. The rescue network kicked in again and on Friday morning we were notified that the family had been offered information and tips from a well-respected member of our community.

Friday afternoon we were informed that the dog was scheduled to be destroyed at 4:30pm.

I literally read the email and yelled, “What the fuck?!” at my computer screen.

I don’t have all the information I’d like about this whole situation. I’ve formed my opinion about Buddy’s new family strictly through the emails I’ve read and one phone call with the wife. I have no idea if he’s bitten fifteen people over the past five days or if he lunged at the vet once or if he’s attacked their other four dogs consistently every day. I can’t make an informed statement about any of this because I simply don’t know everything.

I know that the dog I met twice and who rode in my car for hours through Missouri was an excitable boy who really needed a good long walk. He bonded extremely fast with new people. He was intact still at 7 years old. The vet I picked him up from let me know that he was territorial and he hadn’t been loose around other animals since he got there, so they didn’t know how he would react to new dogs or cats. The vet tech who passed me his leash said he was her favorite of the three dogs that were originally placed in their care and if she didn’t already have so many pets at home, she would have taken home with her.

So, here are my assumptions. I do think the new family is one of those crazy, pet-obsessed ones that Victoria and Cesar constantly shake their heads at. Dogs are not babies, they are animals and must be treated as such – you can’t reason with a dog. I think they believed that sweet Buddy would be so grateful and happy to have a “real” home again that he would love them and their other dogs just as much as they loved him before they even met him.

However, Buddy didn’t understand what was going on – Buddy knew that he had lost his family and he made some friends at the vet office, though he suddenly had much smaller living quarters. Then he met a stranger who put him in the car for a very long and hot ride. And then he stayed the night with a new stranger whose house smelled like other dogs, but he couldn’t find them to introduce himself (they were kenneled elsewhere that night for his sake), so he drank their water and played with their toys and waited to see what happened. Finally, after another day stuck in a car with strangers, he was introduced to a new dog and two new people and he drove for a very long time with them.

And all of a sudden, he was in a new house that he didn’t recognize, being fed and cuddled by people he didn’t know, and he was surrounded by dogs he had never met though he was clearly in their territory now.

I think this family had good intentions, but they really had no idea what they were getting themselves into. My new cat was locked into a room by himself for the first three days we had him. He was allowed to sniff around the house on his own only when the dogs were locked into a separate room. I can just imagine the chaos if I had tried to bring Buddy in the house with only my two dogs, let alone four.

It’s sad and honestly maddening that the family’s first, last and only cry for help to all of us centered on putting the dog to sleep after less than a week. I suggested putting Buddy into a training program where he would stay with the trainer until he completed the program as well as getting him neutered. Another person stated that it wasn’t uncommon for a rescue dog to need weeks to integrate into the family.

Like I said, I don’t have all the information. Maybe they have been searching desperately for suggestions on how to work with Buddy. But I do know that Buddy has lived with them for less than a week and they planned on killing him. I know that Buddy doesn’t deserve that.

Luckily, one of the volunteers has taken this to heart and has arranged to take Buddy. She’s found a trainer who is willing to work with him – really work with him – and hopefully I’ll have a wonderful update on him in a few more weeks.

This is absolutely how you don’t adopt a dog.

Wanna know how to do it right? Read this very informative article series from our friends at Dogs For Defense K-9.

More Cable Company Shenanigans

2011-07-26T16:56:00.004-04:00

I suppose if I'm ever going to return to my lovely blog, I should make it another rant about horrible customer service. So here we go...

Thank you, TimeWarner Cable, for ensuring I will never purchase your services again. I appreciate the fact that you have made this decision so simple for me. I don't even need the $1M quoted in an article I read today about giving up the Internet - I would refuse your Internet services for free. And tell all my friends to do the same. You're welcome :)

I called to schedule a disconnect more than two weeks before we moved out of the NY house on 1 July. I was told that it was too soon to schedule, so I should just return the equipment whenever I was done with it and my service would be terminated at that time.

The final payment for services of $136.88 paid on 21 June to cover cable and internet from 12 June through 11 July.

On 28 June, Pirate returned the cable box. And TWC apparently downgraded us to Basic cable at that point. Because, clearly, with no cable box, I am happy to continue paying for Basic cable access.

On 1 July, Pirate returned the internet modem and we left the state of NY.

On 5 July, I was notified that a technician would be at the house to physically disconnect the line and a representative confirmed that I would get a refund for July 2-11 since we turned in our equipment.

On 21 July, TWC paid itself for another month of cable and internet service. At the original price, I might add, so the rep today who told me we were downgraded to Basic, apparently missed the part where we were upgraded again since this payment was the same as the June one and all the monthly bills prior.

I called Customer Service, angry, but promising not to take it out on the representative. The first person I spoke with made sure to disconnect service - since that had never been done - and then was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to speak with Billing about a refund.

Yes, please.

Billing looked at the account and said, "Oh yes, you will be refunded $93.68."

"How can that be," I asked, "when service was disconnected on July 1st? I'm owed for 10 days of service that I didn't use (approximately $45) in July as well as the $136.88 that just paid on 21 July."

Some more computing, and she came back with "$141."

Again, that doesn't calculate. If one day of service averages to $4 and I cancelled ten days prior to the end of the billing period for which I paid in advance, how is that only a change of $5 from the entire month I was incorrectly billed for plus the ten days I'm owed?

Some more computing, which I've now realized she's not very good at.

And her final answer was that $166.30 will be refunded. By mailed check. In 4-6 weeks.

It was within $20 of what I think we're owed, so I stopped arguing.

She also told me that because *I* didn't personally return the equipment as the account holder, TWC couldn't disconnect the service. Even if the person who was listed as a secondary on the account gave back the equipment. And I guess TWC doesn't call their customers to find out if burglars have invaded their home to steal then return cable equipment when the not-primary-account-holder hands them a box and modem. And I guess that first representative I spoke with on 5 July also didn't see that my service had been disconnected when she verified my service had been disconnected and let me know a tech was headed to the house to disconnect the lines and confirmed that I would get a refund for disconnecting service before the end of the billing period.

And what about that downgrade to Basic cable you mentioned when the not-primary-account-holder returned the cable box?

Yes, TWC, you have made this one of the easiest decisions of my entire life.

And, oh by the way, the cable connection and service was horrendous throughout the two years I had cable. Buttons on my remote didn't work because "updates" weren't sent to the cable box on time. The DVR service I paid additional for wasn't accessible. Channels froze. The guide froze. The guide completely stopped working so I had to access it online rather than through the TV. And each time I called to complain, I was told it was because I had old batteries in the remote.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Why Do We Have to Pay and Feed You?

2011-02-19T08:31:00.002-05:00

I'm planning a wedding. Well, to be completely honest, Pirate and I are planning our wedding and he's happily and motivatedly involved in most aspects of this shindig, including my dress and hair. Bet you didn't expect that from a dude, huh?

For the most part, planning everything has been pretty easy even though we live approximately 640 miles from the wedding location and Pirate is still deployed to the 'Ghan. The internet has been an FSMsend throughout as we can use vendor websites and wedding review sites to peruse and book just about every detail. I even contacted a wedding planner that has done so little work for us that she hasn't charged me.

Here's the one thing I have to complain about so far. Why do bands expect to be fed? We've booked a swing band and they will play for all of three hours - maximum. In that three hours, I'm sure there will be at least two breaks.

In a normal job where you work 40 hours a week, you aren't entitled to a single 15 minute break if you only work three hours. Yet the band is getting two breaks. Now I understand their break schedule - especially if you're singing or blowing a horn for 45 minutes straight, I certainly agree that you deserve a break.

But why the hell do I have to feed you??? I'm paying you to do your job. For three short hours. Can you not spend three hours of your life without food when you're not booked for a gig?

We're feeding the photographers, but they've booked out their entire day to spend with us - from getting ready in the morning until whenever we say, "okay, that's it, the party is over, no more photos, go home," however many hours later everything is wrapped up. I don't mind feeding them. They are at my beck and call for a minimum of six hours. If they were only staying three hours, I'd bitch about paying for their food too.

Now, I will admit that I like this particular band's food and beverage requirement more than I liked the first band we talked to. This band wants sandwiches, dessert and soft drinks before they start playing. (My practical side tells me to add $7 per band member to their contracted rate and tell them to hit Mickey D's on the way in, but I know that won't fly.) The first band wanted to be able to scrounge the buffet line after the guests were done eating, but with a 16-piece swing band, obviously we'd have to add some servings to ensure there was anything left for them at all. I was okay with that (well, as okay as I could be with feeding them in the first place). My biggest issue with them is that they wanted alcohol privileges as well. They didn't explicitly ask to be included in an open bar if we had one, but the band leader did say that some of his players liked to have a drink or two.

No.

I know that I can be a bit prudish when it comes to the alkeehol. But if I'm paying you to perform a professional service for three hours in the early afternoon, I am completely and totally uncool with you drinking on the job. This isn't a concert where people come to see you, this is a job where you're a hired vendor. The photographers aren't drinking, the hall manager isn't drinking, the chef isn't drinking (I hope), you don't drink either. Luckily, the venue manager was awesome and agreed with my prudishness and told me that if we booked that particular band, she'd tell them that they couldn't drink while they were there to perform.

We didn't end up booking them, so that's not an issue now.

And honestly, feeding the band isn't a huge problem for me. I don't like it and I think it's ridiculous that we are expected to do it, but it's certainly not so important that I'd even consider telling Pirate, "No, I refuse to get a band because they want to be fed." It's just something that I want to bitch about every once in awhile.

So thanks for letting me whine! (And if you'd like to leave a comment agreeing with my annoyance, that's cool too.)

Green Mountain Iron Dog Competition - 2010

2010-10-09T21:40:00.004-04:00

Since Chris posted about our trip and her fantabulous second place running of the Iron Dog, I suppose I should add Max's story as well.

Max and I met up with our trainer, Chris, and her Malinois, Ronja, a couple weeks ago for the four hour drive to Colchester, Vermont. Each year the Vermont State Police sponsor the Iron Dog for law enforcement and civilian teams with proceeds going to great causes like Lacey's Fund, which provides funds to help defray medical costs for families who adopt retired police dogs. The competition was held on a YMCA Camp property right on Lake Champlain, so we were invited to stay overnight in the cabins with the dogs. Other than squeaky beds, panting and roaming dogs, and the constant (loud!) wind through the trees, we slept relatively well until the dogs started barking at someone walking around the cabin at 6:30 the next morning.

The weather held for us too, luckily. It was cool, windy and sunny this morning, then sunny and cool toward noon, then cooler and really windy, then just cool again. There was no rain, that was the important part!

The competition track was a mile and a half. From the starting point, we jogged downhill (whee!) to the lake and waded through shoe-sucking mud and water to the end of the pier to grab a pencil as proof we went all the way out.

(Photos are completely out of order because Blogger is being a snot about moving them around. This particular photo was taken by Chris Crawford.)

Fortunately, the water was only about calf deep, so no swimming was involved.

The trail then led through the woods and Max and I walked and jogged. He manages to injure me at every event we do, so I wasn't taking a chance on sprinting through the woods with him and breaking an ankle or smacking face first into a tree!

Through the woods and we ended up at the Evil Hill of Exhaustion (despair!) where I tried to convince Max to pull me up it. In his mind, that meant let me take two steps, then lunge forward and jerk me another two steps. By the time we got to the top, my very out of shape thighs were burning and he was just getting warmed up. About that time, we were passed by the team who had started after us. Since I wasn't worried about the competition aspect and we were just there for fun, I waved and smiled and caught my breath as they jogged by.

More trotting through the woods and we had to climb through a horse paddock fence, then walk

through a barn and memorize the license plate number of a "suspicious" vehicle parked near it. It turned out that if you didn't recite the plate number correctly at the end of the trial, you were disqualified. We were disqualified for many things, but certainly not a lack in my memory skillz!

Out of the barn and down another trail where we had to climb through a wire fence that simulated barbed wire. Then we entered the "smoke house," which was a YMCA cabin full of smoke (vegetable oil-based) with the smoke alarm going off. Max did great and seemed to neither notice the smoke nor care about the alarm. Out of the house and a quick sprint to a camo net tied low to the ground between two trees that we both had to crawl under. Max couldn't figure out why I insisted he crawl under it with me when it was obvious we could simply go around the tree and save effort and time. I often wonder just how crazy our dogs think we are.

Next we both clambered through a large culvert and I wished I had a longer leash.

He was in front of me and the leash is pretty short, so I ended up on all fours myself with my head against his furry butt. He quickly learned that he could take two steps, then I had to take two steps for him to get enough slack in the leash to take another two steps. There was a second culvert farther down the trail and by the time we got to it, he knew the pattern.

Out of the first culvert and we jogged to the shooting station, where he conveniently plopped into a down-stay without a word from me (it was shady and he was tired) while I shot two "bad guys" with a little pellet pistol.

We completely skipped the obstacle course because we haven't worked on anything like that. But it contained a tall A-frame, a ramp and walk across a board about 4 feet high, a jump through a window, and a jump over a wall. (We did go back to practice those later and finally got him to go over the wall with four slats in it [six was too high] and through the window.)

After the obstacle course, was another jaunt through muddy woods, the second culvert, and more mud. Mud was definitely a big part of our day!

Our next station was "tactical obedience," which we didn't do so well at. The goal was to down-stay your dog behind the "cover" of a barrel while you moved to the next covered position in the trees. Again, being tired, he down-stayed very well. We were supposed to move from tree to tree like that and stop at four of them. I called him to me at the first tree, and he sprinted right past me to the last tree. Since we had already skipped 7 obstacles and been overtaken by two other teams, I wasn't really worried about properly completing each station, as long as we made

it through the whole course unscathed, so we picked up our two items of evidence, a leash and a frisbee, and headed to the finish line. We went through one more short culvert and walked around another road barrier he was supposed to jump.

Then came the moment I'd been dreading for weeks. You had to carry your dog the last 30 feet or so from the wall to the finish line. I can carry Max, I cannot pick up Max. He's long, he weighs 95 pounds, and he flails maniacally because he doesn't want to be picked up, all of which combine to make lifting him off the ground an impossibility for me. If I have him up higher, like on a picnic bench or if I could have gotten him on top of the barrier, I can grab him and go from there. But directly from the ground...not so much. I tried one grasp and he wiggled out. I tried a second hold and got him up off the ground then managed to stumble about four steps before I conceded. We weren't getting a trophy, so there was no reason to traumatize him and slip fifteen disks in

my own back. He happily jogged over the finish line with a slow 24 minute time. But we finished!

We also did a 100 yard dash and he clocked in at 20 mph. He wasn't really motivated, and it

wasn't too long after the trail run, so I think he would have been a little faster had he been able to run it fresh.
(Photo by Chris Crawford)

Of course, he made a ton of new friends as everyone wanted to know about the shepherd that was so much bigger than the police dogs. He got a free massage from a licensed small animal massuese and I even relented and shared my hamburger with him for lunch.
(Photo by Chris Crawford)

All in all, we had a great time. And we have a lot of work to do (like hill sprints for me and A-Frames for Max) before next year's event!

Welcome Home!

2010-07-03T21:07:00.003-04:00

So I've pretty much ignored my poor blog for the past 8 months. I'm sorry, blog! But it's been busy. Pirate went to war and I've been finishing my Master's degree (and have waited a week for my final grade!!! Grrrrr, get on it, prof!) and the boys have kept me busy for the 28 minutes per night that I haven't been stuck working overtime.

I promise to stop ignoring you, blog.

But I'm sleepy tonight, so you may have to wait for more attention until tomorrow.

~Samira, who's getting back to her vida.

From Erudite to Crazy

2009-10-29T16:53:00.001-04:00

And then I received this response from the guy below. I don't like him as much any longer...

I do sincierely apologise for not having paid sufficient attention to the true nature of your recruitment policie. As a liberated freelancer, I generically respond to adverts beliving to honesty as the key arbiter making my world go round. Frankly if you chose the title of your job description as " mercinaries wanted ", then I truly wouldn't have responded. From my perspective, I wouldn't even wish to be American citizen. A nation living under constant fear of death. Gun culture is prevalent as every adult American lives with the ominous shaddow of being gunned down by the person next to him. For all the wealth in the world, when you feel insecure, you don't live. I do genuinely feel sorry for the ordinary Americans, they are suffering just because some gangsters believe in fire powers for ruling the world including Americans.

kind regards.

Purple prose much?

2009-10-28T13:29:00.003-04:00

This is the most erudite response to an email I have ever received. I posted a job for interpreters/translators that requires US citizenship and this was one reply...

I was convinced the merit of eligibility for cooperation was based on the generic applications of our knowledge apptitudes not the obsolete notion of geographical boundaries unless of course such ominous constraints were imposed by government regulations. Plus this is an international platform encouraging shared universal values as the paramount arbiters.

Let's hope for the more integrated future cooperations.

Wow. I know me some big words and syntax, but I certainly don't know big words like that in a second language!

Mon Chou's Peanut Butter Cookies (that really taste like peanut butter!)

2009-10-15T16:43:00.002-04:00

If you remember Trippy from my trip to Paris in 2008, these cookies are courtesy of her. They are called Mon Chou Peanut Butter cookies because, while in Paris, we learned that “mon chou” is an endearment that literally translates to “my cabbage” and we decided that was the best pet name ever.

Now, please beware – these PB cookies honestly taste like peanut butter. They aren’t those thin, crunchy ones that you get at Subway. I don’t like those. However, I will eat these till I get sick.

Trippy, if you read this, I’ve modified the recipe a bit, but I hope it made them even better!

Ingredients:
1 (18.5-oz.) pkg. yellow cake mix
1 cup (or more) creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 glop of sweetened condensed milk (I glop in about 1/3 of the can but don’t actually measure it)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons water
½ (or a whole) bag Reese’s peanut butter chips
I’ve also been known to add chocolate chips or actual chunks of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Saucer/bowl of white sugar (I don’t do this, but Trippy likes ‘em this way)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Using mixer on low to medium speed, mix peanut butter, oil, eggs, s/c milk and water until blended. Add in cake mix and continue mixing. Once well blended, using spatula, fold in Reese’s chips. Make 1” balls and roll lightly in sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. If you want, slightly flatten with fork in crisscross pattern (I tend to do some this way and some not) or flatten a little with the palm of your hand. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until golden brown and kind of cracked on top (you know how cookie stuff sometimes does this). Cool on sheet for a couple minutes to harden then move to rack to completely cool.

Silly, silly people who want jobs - Round Two

2009-09-16T16:57:00.003-04:00

Can you submit my resume as is, in place of filling out the other template?It might take me a day or so to fill out the other template.

Sure, I can do that. I have nothing better to do during my workday than to reformat your resume for a job that you want.

Email addresses: meluv2fuc and xxxrated.infamous

Really? That’s the email you use for professional correspondence?

Responsibilities: Manage the daily activities of 11 former SOF operators with a lot of personality. If you are a dynamic, out of the box thinker with really strong leadership skills balanced by a level of tolerance for the mundane I am interested in your skill sets.

“A lot of personality” was my favorite line in this job ad. And it's so very accurate.

I appreciate,and accept,but am obliged toshare that if my Bulgarian is on the needed level,same is on my sincere view to level of responsibility,probably not as I am accustomed to duties.....You may even a s t h o n i s h some how,but better so!!!,then later...Certainly prefer no to take responsibility for others....In any case some workable interview in s i t u...c o u l,d avoid my excessive critical attitude against my self...

Non-native speakers of English who use Google to translate their emails are my favoritist!

One candidate was awarded an...
• Army Accomendation Medal

Not an Army Achievement Medal (AAM) and not an Army Commendation Medal (ARCOM), but apparently a mixture of the two

And lastly...

If you write a bestselling book in which you tell the world how much you hate the Iraqis and don’t care whether they live or die, don’t then turn around and apply for a job in Iraq and send me a resume that promotes your “I hate Iraqis” book because I’m probably not going to be real keen on hiring you for a position where you will be working with and around people for whom you hold absolutely no regard or empathy.

How to Glue Your Dog's Ears Together (Trial and Error Method)

2009-08-06T08:29:00.002-04:00

1. Read the flyer that came with your new puppy describing how to glue his ears up if it seems they are not standing on their own by around ten or eleven weeks of age.

2. Gaze fondly upon the cute little puppy in the photo on the flyer who poses so nicely with his ears glued.

3. Walk to the drugstore across the street and pick up some treats that look like they will take awhile to chew through and some fabric glue.

4. Back at home, lure the puppy to you with a long lasting treat, then, when he's in mastication heaven, sit down beside him and delicately yet surgically place drops of fabric glue on the inside edges of his ears.

5. Realize there may be more than one reason that you're not a surgeon.

6. Smoosh the gluey ears together until he finishes the not-so-long-lasting-as-you-had-hoped treat.

7. Watch the puppy get up and wander off shaking his head, thus deconnecting his ears and smearing more glue on his head.

8. Disheartened, go to bed thinking about what an awful dog mom you are with a gluey-headed and floppy-eared Shepherd.

9. Wake up the next morning with a new zeal for life and fabric glue.

10. Spend fifteen minutes sitting on the floor at Jo-Ann fabrics combing intently through the glue section to find the perfect adhesive - quick drying and non-toxic.'

11. Enter the house with a purpose, knowing that you will succeed this time, because giver-uppers never win.

12. Sit down on the kitchen floor with a bowl of puppy chow, the not-so-long-lasting treat bag and two more longer-lasting treats.

13. Constantly push away the big red dog that wants to know why the new puppy that annoys him gets all the treats.

14. Unsurgically dot the puppy's ears with glue again and learn that it really is quick-drying as you stick your fingers to themselves and the puppy.

15. Hold the puppy's ears together.

16. Shove a treat in his face when he finishes the bowl of food.

17. Hold the puppy's ears together.

18. Make sure the treat doesn't get out of mouth reach so the puppy doesn't have to get up and follow his treat.

19. Hold his ears together.

20. Repeat this process through two more treats, giving in enough to give the big red dog another treat because, really, it does seem mean.

21. When you've come to the crossroad of "give another treat and possibly make my puppy obese and give him a poopy butt" and "release him and pray to Anubis that his ears stay together," make the choice that best fits your personality.

22. When you've released him and he begins to do nothing but scratch at his ears and shake his head, immediately decide that you need to take him on a long walk.

23. Ignore the fact that you are only in flip flops.

24. Quickly cinch him into his harness and pull him out the door for an exciting walk that will prevent him from scratching his ears and hopefully tire him out enough that he will pass out when you get home, thus yet preventing ear scratching even longer.

25. Walk all over the damn neighboorhood as the sun goes down.

26. Meet a nice old gentleman who is the first to recognize the admittedly un-Shepherd-looking puppy as a Shepherd.

27. Realize you forgot to bring any bags when he stops to poop in someone's yard.

28. Wait for him to finish, looking around furtively and hoping no one notices that you're an irresponsible dog owner.

29. Get him back to the house and immediately put him in the car to go back and clean up after him because you really are not an irresponsible dog owner, you were just in a hurry and he never goes potty in anyone else's yard anyway!

30. Put him in his crate because even though it's only 8:30 and not bedtime yet, you hope he'll go to sleep and forget about his ears.

31. Take pictures of him sleeping sprawled out and trying to get cool.

32. Do some chores in the bedroom then lay down to read before going to sleep.

33. Remind yourself not to walk two miles in flippy-floppies when your feet and calves start to cramp so badly that you have to get up and walk around.

34. Remind yourself of this four more times. Ow, ow ow!

35. Wake up in the morning amazed that his ears are still stuck togther and hope you don't have to do this all over again.

Frozen Semen For Sale - NOT SPAM!

2009-07-21T13:08:00.002-04:00

So with this new puppy, I'm now on a couple Yahoo groups dealing with Shiloh Shepherds. For the most part, it's people talking about new litters of puppies, dog shows, stuff like that.

Today I received a message titled, "So-and-so-Breeder of This-n-that-Kennel offering frozen semen for sale."

As I often get spam emails titled "Obama's anal virginity" or "pile drive her ham wallet," this message was initially disconcerting.

But apparently it's legit. And you can buy a vial of frozen dog semen for the low, low price of only $1500. But wait, act now, and you'll receive two vials for the price of one! (Just pay shipping and handling on the second vial of dog spooge.)

We gots our new puppy!

2009-07-20T12:00:00.006-04:00

The new puppy arrived on Saturday evening - a day early!

Pirate had duty on Friday night, so he was awake from Friday morning at 5:30am when he got up to go workout till 9:30am Saturday morning when he got off duty and got home. We spent the day in Syracuse test driving cars and having lunch at IHOP, which meant he only slept for an hour on the drive down there and an hour on the drive back. I was pretty sleepy myself on the way back up, so I laid down with him to take a nap when we got home. The doorbell rang a little later and Wendy, our fantastic breeder, was on the doorstep asking if we wanted the little guy a day early. She and her husband had driven eight hours from western Ontario (near Detroit) and were excited to have a road trip to themselves without their three kids.

She had tried to call me several times to let us know they were on their way, but my sleepy self never heard the phone ring!

Max was exactly eight weeks old on Saturday and already weighs 20 pounds. He's a big fluffball of grey fur and sharp little puppy teeth and claws. Shisma is highly displeased with the new addition and lets Max know whenever the puppy is "too close" by barking, growling, or just groaning when we've told him to stop growling. Max seems to be as smart as people have told us Shilohs are - he figured out his name in about 12 hours and is quickly learning "no." He at least doesn't chew on the same item after he's been scolded the first time. Well, other than us. He still chews on us no matter how often we say "no bite!" And being banned from one table leg doesn't necessarily exclude all table legs in his doggy mind. But we're getting there. He also does great on the leash already - we paraded him around Petco yesterday and he didn't once try to back out of his collar or drag us anywhere.

Saturday night was the first test - I used baby gates and furniture to block him and Shisma into a corner where they could sleep in our room. The point was to keep the puppy contained so if he pottied we at least didn't have to look all over the place for it. Max decided he didn't want to be locked in with that crabby dog that keeps groaning at him, so he shimmied under the bed and used his hard head to shove big Rubbermaid storage boxes full of clothes out of the way so he could wiggle through the maze and out of his cage.

Pirate sat up in bed, looked over the footboard, and announced at 12:30am, "He Steve McQueen'ed it."

Max was very proud of himself and his fluffy little butt wiggled at full speed.

Next we rearranged it so that he couldn't get under the bed at all. It took him a few tries, but he finally ended up climbing the baby gate like a ladder and falling face first onto the floor. At that point, it seemed easier to keep Shisma locked in his bed, where he was happy and puppyless, and Max on the hardwood where he could move around and find cool spots all night long. No accidents when he woke us up at 6am!

The crate we ordered should arrive today or tomorrow, so we'll see how that works out. I foresee lots of wailing after a couple nights free.

A Moment of Silence

2009-07-13T09:47:00.001-04:00

Staff Sergeant John Beale, know that you are cherished.

Silly, silly people who want jobs

2009-07-02T16:57:00.004-04:00

I'm a recruiter. As such, I communicate with people all over the world. And often they make me frown a bit and cock my head like a confused dog. Here's why...

Actual resume quotes:

Graduated the Military's top secret intelligence analyst course - Really? Is that the name of the course? Top Secret Intelligence Analysis? No, that's not the name. And the military has many intelligence analysis courses. Maybe you could tell us exactly which one(s) you completed.

led to the kill/capture of 3 major IED facilitators - Wow, um, you really don't need to tell me that you got people killed. I mean, yeah, I was in the Army and my job may have led to the death of bad guys, but I'd rather not focus on that part of it.

Team took the third Longest Shot in the history of Afghanistan War, 7.62mm
Cover of Soldier of Fortune Magazine Feb/2007 - Um, again, not so sure I want your sniper qualifications. I don't recruit snipers. That responsibility falls to another recruiting team. At another company. Maybe you could rewrite your resume to match the position and company you're applying for.

Education: I have not had ample time to focus nor complete a civilian education because of the Nations War efforts and economy. - Funny, lots of other soldiers have been involved in the Nation's War efforts (you forgot an apostrophe and there's really no reason to capitalize those words) and take online classes at the same time.

OBJECTIVE: I can give you the same dissembling hyperbole that you've undoubtedly read on countless other resumes, about how I'm an "energetic worker who thrives on high-pressure situations", or how I'm "eager to expand my professional horizons in a challanging and fast-paced environment", but time is valuable so let me come directly to the point: I want a job and I am very good at what I do. So, if you have a technology-related position that you want done correctly by a dependable, competent and experienced technologist, you'd be wise to hire me. - Yes, please come directly to the point. I don't need all that dissembling hyperbole. I like that you're so direct.

Assassinate General Manager - I really hope you meant Assistant.

I am a journalist: one who brings words to life. - Not with this sentence, you didn't.

Certifications: Crimes Against Old People - Ha! You're certified to commit criminal acts against septuagenarians? I want to go to that school!

Stay tuned for more!

We's Gettin' a Puppy!

2009-06-08T14:26:00.001-04:00

Ours is the little, wobbly one :)

Risotto Improvisato

2009-05-21T12:30:00.002-04:00

TOP SECRET/NinjaDisco

Since I’m moving in a couple weeks, I’m trying not to go to the grocery store and just eat what I already have in the kitchen so that I can pack fewer boxes. Since I just moved this past weekend and accidentally left the box marked “Kitchen – Spices and boxed goods” in the storage unit, my choices were even slimmer than I had anticipated when it came to lunch yesterday.

Picking through Pirate’s not-as-heartily-stocked-as-mine-were cabinets, I found some Arborio rice. Mmmmmm, risotto is yummy. So I pulled that bag from the cupboard only to discover there was all of half a cup of rice left. Jasmine rice is pretty good too, so I grabbed that as well. I searched for a can of mushrooms, but then remembered I had thrown them all away before moving since Pirate doesn’t like mushrooms. A can of peas did the veggie trick. His spices were limited to powdered onion, seasoned salt, regular salt and pepper, and thyme.

Stock…yeah, um, we gots no chicken stock. But I do have cream of chicken soup. Which is chickeny like stock. And if you mix it with enough warm water, it’s watery like stock. That works.

In the fridge I found a hunk of Parmesan that was purchased in December and was whiter and fuzzier than Parmesan probably should be – it went into the trash. I also found a glass jar of grated Parmesan, that kind that lasts for years and years and often comes in a green cylinder. Bingo! The tub of butter had an eat-by date of February and looked dry and flaky, so it followed the block of cheese. Sticks of butter were fresher. And for the crowning glory, my garlic-less Italian rice will be accented with a single tub of garlic-butter crust dip from Papa Johns.

So, on to the how to:

Put 2 tablespoons of butter into a large saucepan and heat to medium.

Add whatever spices you find in the cupboard that would taste good with creamy but not really cheesy yet quite chickeny rice – I used seasoned salt, onion powder, black pepper and just a dash of thyme 'cause I don’t really like it.

Once the butter is melted, pour in about a cup of whatever combination of rices were available (Arborio is best, but I’m all about some improvisation). Stir it around to get it buttery and brown it just a tad.

Mush your cream of chicken soup into a cup or so of warm water so there are no chunks left.

Stirring constantly, add a cup of soup and half a cup of warm water to the rice and let it cook down.

Alternating between the soup and the warm water, keep adding liquid (up to 5-7 cups) and letting it cook out until the rice is creamy – at least 20 minutes, but feel free to cook longer.

When the rice is super-saturated enough, or you’re just bored with standing at the stove and stirring, pour the last 1/25th of a cup of Parmesan you found into the rice along with the drained can of peas and the mini-tub of Papa John's dipping sauce.

Stir, serve, eat, yum.

TOP SECRET/NinjaDisco

Simple Happiness

2009-05-13T09:20:00.003-04:00

This just makes me smile...

:)

Segregation - thank you, sir, may I have another?

2009-04-21T20:27:00.001-04:00

Segregation is really starting to bother me. And it’s probably a type of segregation that you wouldn’t normally think of having a great impact on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But, it kinda does affect those things.

I’m talking about the segregation between military enlisted and officer personnel.

“Samira, what kind of dissenting craziness are you spouting over there?” may be your first question. Well, let me explain.

I am well aware of the fact that there is a very definite line that separates the enlisted ranks from the officer corps and it is also a very necessary line. They have different responsibilities and never the twain shall meet (though they do sort of smoosh together as warrant officers in the Army and Marine Corps). In fact, so explicit is this line that marriage is downright illegal between officers and enlisted.

The basic breakdown is this – enlisted are the worker bees, officers are the managers. There’s a lot more to it than that, but we’ll keep this simple.

My handsome Pirate and I have differing views on this division. His point of view comes from the fact that he was raised in a career officer household and joined the military as an officer. I speak from the experiences I had as an enlisted soldier. He says that officers are simply a different breed of people. They join the military because they have the desire to lead and to take responsibility for and authority over actions and personnel. I believe it’s a matter of indoctrination – once you’re accepted as an officer, you are taught what your responsibilities are and what expectations people have of you. To be a good officer, you learn to be the person the military expects.

We often debate why enlisted personnel are the ones to get in trouble and act like jackasses so much more often than officers do. I maintain it’s because they are never forced to take responsibility for their actions, combined with the fact that no one expects them to be better, to work smarter, to do the right thing or think before they act. I mean, yeah, they’re told to, but there aren’t a whole lot of consequences for being stupid that (especially young) soldiers take seriously.

Anyway, this is a mini-rant and off my main subject. There is segregation. I realize that, I accept that, I even agree with that. Fraternization can definitely cause problems.

Here is my main issue: civilian companies requiring (well, I don’t think they can legally “require” so being adamant about candidates having) a specific rank in the military to be considered for a civilian position. I’m currently recruiting for a Program Manager and was told today about a few resumes I had presented, “but all of these candidates were enlisted.”

So what?

If they spent twenty years in the military, then they’ve got some management experience, I promise. And if they’ve spent the last 5-10 years as a program manager with other companies and their resumes meet all the other requirements, then who cares if they were E-8s or O-5s when they retired? Especially considering that one specific candidate that received the “but he’s an NCO” comment has been a program manager with another defense contractor for a few years now.

The same thing vaguely happened to me. Back when my Arabic skillz were slightly better than they are now, I was given a job as a civilian linguist in Iraq. I overheard one of the Program Managers in the main office say, “All of our site managers need to have been at least an E-6, though I would really prefer E-7s or higher.”

I didn’t worry about it at the time, but I still remember that comment. Just because I was an E-4 didn’t mean I didn’t have the experience or skills necessary to fulfill a management position. In fact, three months later, I was a site manager with that same company.

I hate it when a person’s abilities or experiences are summarily disregarded simply because they didn’t hold the “proper” rank in the military. Look at the person, not the rank! If you look at my rank, I was simply an Army specialist. However, I was in charge of over 300 linguists in Iraq. You find me a First Sergeant with a company of 300 soldiers – and, oh by the way, they’re all stationed at different Army posts. Not gonna happen.

Segregation – it’s okay for the military, but not so much once you are a civilian again.

Heroine? Bernie Madoff? Homicide? No, just milk.

2009-03-27T08:59:00.004-04:00

"[L]ate last year an Ohio raw milk co-op was raided at gunpoint by sheriffs' deputies."

Did you seriously just say that a milk farm was raided at gunpoint? And not because it was a transfer point in the Colombian drug trade, or because 100 illegal immigrants were hiding in the basement, or because there was counterfeit money production scheme being run out of empty stall #37, or because bin Laden was disguised as a cow?

A milk farm was raided at gunpoint for distributing raw milk.

You despicable, vile sinner. I'm surprised you haven't rid the planet of your worthless, shameful self already. A pox on you, raw milk distributor. A pox on you.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/living-green/articlegreenchan.aspx?cp-documentid=18708415&gt1=45002

Who raids a milk farm at gunpoint?!?!?!?!!?

GI Film Festival - Washington DC

2009-03-19T09:42:00.002-04:00

(Reprinted with permission)

Whatever happened to military films where American GI’s are the good guys? You know…the movies where our guys are actually wearing the white hats? You can find them at the GI Film Festival, which is held each May in Washington DC.

This year's event takes place May 13-17, 2009 at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC.

The GI Film Festival is the first and only film festival in the country dedicated to the American military. For five days we bring Hollywood and the military together to screen movies that portray American GIs in a positive light.

GI Film Festival Success Stories: In a very short period of time, the GI Film Festival has established itself as the “go to” festival for military films. In our very first year, one GI Film Festival premier received an Emmy Award as well as an Academy Award nomination for “Best Feature Documentary” and received theatrical distribution (Operation Homecoming). In 2008, the GI Film Festival’s “Best Feature Documentary” award winner, Brothers at War, received a theatrical distribution deal with the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Films.

GI Film Festival Funding: If you think the GI Film Festival is important; if you want to see the GI Film Festival remain on the cultural landscape to counter the thousands of other film festivals that screen films denigrating our men and women in uniform, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. We depend on the generosity of those who believe in our mission to run the festival. No amount is too small! Thank you.

http://www.gifilmfestival.com/individualdonations
(Note the GI Film Festival is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. All donations to the GI Film Festival are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.)

http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egifilmfestival%2Ecom&urlhash=KQ3L&_t=disc_detail_link

Temper Tantrums - An analysis (well, a list really) of causes

2009-03-08T14:22:00.008-04:00

1. If you are driving a van full of elderly people to the mall for their daily outing and you need to make a left turn onto a two lane street, maybe you should turn tight enough to stay in the inside lane, rather than cross all the way over into my outside lane, forcing me to slam on my brakes to keep from hitting you. Then, instead of coasting at 15 mph under the speed limit in front of me, maybe you could drive at the proper speed. And finally, if you were going to make a left at the next block in the first place, why was it necessary to ever drive in the right lane at all?

2. I'm assuming that as a driver for Super Shuttle you have some type of professional driver's license and some experience driving vans on freeways. Therefore, when getting onto the freeway, why would you decide to come to a complete stop instead of merging into traffic?

3. If you don't want me to hit your brand new Jaguar, and if you don't want my not-brand-new-Nissan to be incorporated into your brand new Jaguar by the semi truck traveling at high speeds behind both of us, maybe you, like the Super Shuttle driver, should merge into traffic on the interstate rather than waiting until the merge lane disappears before you decide to come to a complete stop.

4. And if you're the truck driver who has a clear view of the Nissan that is now sandwiched between you and the brand new Jaguar in front of it, maybe you could be nice enough to downshift, or brake, or change lanes, or even just take your foot off the gas pedal when you realize the asshole in the brand new Jaguar doesn't know how to properly enter the freeway and that the poor Nissan really has no ability to resolve the situation at this point. But hey, if you feel the need to fill my rearview mirror with your grille to demonstrate your opinion of my driving, then I guess that's what you'll do. Thank goodness you were there to teach me a lesson.

5. If you know that the PRC-O3 who has final approval authority on all resumes won't accept a candidate that does not have 6 years of specific intelligence analysis experience and a Bachelor's degree, why are you submitting candidates with 2 BAs and 2 years of experience, or 5 years of collection experience, or a candidate who obviously didn't do all the things his resume brags about?

6. If you're the Program Manager who is supposed to review all resumes for qualifications before you send them to the PRC-O3 for approval, why are you bitching at the recruiting team when you get bitched at from the PRC-O3? Maybe if you do your job, and review the resumes before you send them forward, you can pull out the ones you know won't qualify so the PRC-O3 doesn't yell at you.

7. And if you're the candidate who wrote the resume that attempts to convince recruiters of your ultimate coolness, maybe you should know what you're talking about before you try to sell it to others who just might have more experience than you. Your job title was not "Special Operations Sergeant." How do I know this? Because nothing in the training background you provided listed so much as a qualification course, let alone a Military Occupational Speciality related to special operations. Special Operations is a field; Sergeant is a rank - neither of those is a title. Your title is probably something more like "motor transport operator" or "personnel administration." And regarding the group you call "Special Operations Forces Delta," for whom you apparently worked as a Special Operations Sergeant...well, I'm pretty sure we all know what you're trying to say here, but if you're going to put such (potentially) legally incriminating information on your resume, maybe you should at least get the title of the group correct so that when you go to jail and lose your clearance, at least it's for being stupid, not stupid and wrong.

8. If you're the Program Manager on a contract for which you have never given me an official job description - though I've asked repeatedly - maybe you shouldn't send me an email with a new candidate courtesy copied on the message that says, "Samira, please send Joe-Bob a copy of the position description."

9. If you have a security clearance you intend to keep and you're currently working for a foreign media enterprise, you probably shouldn't send me a resume with so much detailed information about your intelligence analysis background that I am forced to take it to my Director of Security and tell him, "I think there's classified information in this resume." But if you are looking for a way to lose your clearance, coolies, 'cause I just made it happen a little bit faster for ya.

10. If you're a Program Manager, please don't suddenly forward me 37 emails dating back as far as last September an hour after the office has closed the night before you're supposed to leave for Afghanistan without sending me a little note explaining why you're sending me those emails.

This was all during a single ten-hour period.

On Thursday, I threw a temper tantrum. Sitting in my spinny/rolly chair at work, I stomped (not stamped, my feet are simply too big for such a delicate word as 'stamped') my feet and waved my arms, and made a gritty-toothed face, and shook my head, and quietly screamed nonsensical noises that didn't carry much more than two or three cubicles away.

It definitely helped. I might start throwing tantrums more often.

Then today I got the final feedback on a psychological profile of Ernesto "Che" Guevara I wrote for class last week. The paper was pure shite. It required 18-20 pages of "paper," not including the title page or notes or bibliography. I turned in 14 pages total. I had an off day last Sunday and was unable to concentrate on finishing the paper so that by the time I turned it in online at midnight-thirty, I had given up and only cared that the professor would follow the grading rubric and have to give me full points for grammar and spelling.

Here is his feedback:
Essay Score: 188 out of 200
Essay Feedback: I am pleasantly surprised. Why are you pleasantly surprised? You told me earlier in the class that you really liked my writing style and that I seemed to easily grasp the main concept without the fluff, unlike some other students. Great job, Samira. You gave very good definitions for everything. I sure did, that's pretty much all you got. Luckily you gave us enough terms to define that I could take up about eight pages with them. Although you applied some facts and some analysis to everything, really, I didn't, but it's great that you think I did I think you could have significantly improved the quantity and quality of this part. Without a doubt I could have. I'm surprised you gave me more than 100 points for only turning in about half a paper. This could have filled out the other 6 pages you needed to meet the minimum page requirement of 18-20 pages. ;o) Why are giving me a smiley for not following direction?!?!?!?!

Your prediction was rather credible and based in your profile. Good. You could have filled this part out more, as well. Yep, sure could have. Thank God I rambled on about six or eight topics in the prediction rather than the three you required. Finally, your transitions could have been much better. You seemed to jump from one concept to the other without any logical link. Yeah, that's because I basically wrote a bunch of definitions then added a paragraph about Che after each one and didn't try to transition to the next concept. Funny how that becomes so obvious in writing.

Still, very well done. Are you serious? Are you on drugs? Is this not really a Master's course, but for my Associates? Where in that paper did you see anything "well done" beyond the spelling?

I've bitched about school before. In fact, you can read it here. To sum it up, I get pissed that y'all taxpayers are financing my education and that I've given up my entire life outside of 9-10 hours I spend at work every day for two classes over the past two months and yet the professor doesn't do his part of the job. If I do crappy on a paper, then give me a crappy grade. Don't grade on a curve, don't grade based on whether you like the student or not, grade on the damn rubric that you published in the syllabus. I'll argue the point if I think I deserve a better grade. But it will upset me even more if you call it in as a professor.

I have much more respect for the professor that told me, "Your paper is generally well written, but needs better structure. You should clearly identify a strong introduction that states your thesis and where you are going in the paper. The Summary or Conclusion should logically follow from your discussion and confidently state your conclusions." I know I suck at the thesis statement and my closing is always horrible because by the time I've written 20 pages I just want the paper to be over so I cut it off as quickly as possible - in this case, I think it was just one paragraph. I got a solid grade of 92% on that paper and have no reason to argue with or bitch at the prof.

I'm not at temper tantrum level for the school thing, after all, it was only one grade, not ten of them all in one day. But it's just another annoyance for me to complain to you about.

Have a lovely spring!

Boo to the Freakin' Yah!!!!!

2008-12-13T21:02:00.001-05:00

7200 words...exactly...and I got it done more than 24 hours before it was due.

I so totally rock ;)

And am so glad this damn thing is done!

Hello there!

2008-12-13T11:33:00.002-05:00

Hi! You know me, I'm Samira, the psuedonymed woman who writes this blog (I usually refer to myself as a chick or girl, even though I'm 30, but 'woman' seemed a bit more formal and appropriate for my introduction).

Anyway, you know me, but I probably don't know you.

If you read my blog, I was just hoping you could leave a quick comment and say hi. Feel free to tell me your favorite food, leave a link to your blog, or tell me to screw off. I just wanted to invite you in to my world and give you chance to say hi back.

I know, no one will really leave a comment, but I wanted to put the invite out there regardless.

Happy holidays!
~SMIR?

A Challenge, You Say?

2008-12-07T19:50:00.002-05:00

1 paper on the roots of terrorism in Europe.

7 days to research and complete it (oops, guess I should have read ahead for this assignment).

2 research and writing style books.

18 library books covering everything from the Crusades and William Wallace to the French Revolution and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

30 pages.

Wait, what? You said "one long or two short essays" in the syllabus. 30 freaking pages??????

Yes. Apparently you consider 15 pages short. Okay then.

7200 words minimum.

Aight.

Bring it on.

I'm'a rock this bitch.

Please Don't Hate Me

2008-11-30T15:18:00.003-05:00

Read it and weep...literally.

Though whether you are weeping from hilarity or disgust is entirely up to you.

http://www.lulu.com/content/4956212

Welcome to Samira's Dreamland

2008-11-26T09:58:00.002-05:00

(This won't always flow coherently because my dreams switch around with no warning, so if it seems like I'm missing something or it doesn't make sense, it's just the way the dream went)

The dream started out at night at my grandparent's house near San Francisco. My Iraqi friend Ahmed was living with me, as were my friend Amy (who I was in the Army with both times) and her husband Rich. She just had a baby about two months ago, but I think in the dream she was still pregnant. Ahmed and I and someone else were up pretty late talking and Amy had gone to bed earlier. Her room faced the kitchen where we were sitting, and she came out at one point and told us to be quiet because she couldn't sleep. She was pretty rude about it. Then she started to babble about stuff and Rich came out, kind of shook his head at her, and gently pulled her into their room. It seemed to be something he was used to, like she would talk in her sleep and not make any sense (like I do).

Ahmed and I moved to the living room to watch TV. There was a show on about the war in Iraq and some enemy snipers that the media had been in contact with, but that the military had never been able to find. One of them was a tall Hindi guy (or from somewhere in that area, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc). While Ahmed and I were watching TV, this Hindi guy suddenly appears on the couch. I was sitting on the floor beside the couch and he was on his knees against the back of the couch. He wasn't wearing socks and shoes, so at first all I could see was his bare foot and the bottom of his light blue jeans. When I looked up, he was wearing a white polo shirt as well. I saw that he had an old pistol pointed out the window and was aiming at soldiers. I pulled at his jeans to make him stop shooting. He kicked away and kept targeting something out the window. I sat on the floor for a minute before I decided I really needed to stop him because I didn't want him to kill any more soldiers.

I stood up and wrapped my arms around him to pull him away from the window. He tried to aim the weapon at me and we struggled. I kept trying to push his finger against the trigger, because I knew there was only one round in it and I wanted that to go off so I didn't have to worry about the weapon any longer. I finally got the gun out of his hand by flipping it against the bend of his wrist. Then I pulled his head off of his shoulders.

Where the TV had been on, lights on and Ahmed in the living room with me, suddenly it was dark and early morning, the lights were off and Ahmed wasn't there. I had the gun in one hand and his head gripped by the hair in the other. I wasn't upset about it, more annoyed that I had pulled his head off and now there would be a big investigation. I walked through the house and knocked on the door to Rich and Amy's room with my elbow (since my hands were full). I figured Rich would be the first person to tell since he was a Ranger in Afghanistan and probably the person that would stay calm with me. When he opened the door, I stood against it with the gun behind my back and the head hidden behind the door. I nodded my head toward the bathroom and he followed me in there. I showed him both and he said he would stay with them while I called the cops. I set them on the tile floor and walked out to call 911.

The 911 line was busy and I was able to listen to the other calls that were in queue in front of mine. People were calling because of: a man dressed as a deer, a calf in the front lawn, a turkey in the front lawn, a man dressed as a turkey, an old woman lost her peanut... There were about seven things listed, but I don't remember all of them. I paced the dark house and then outside into the front yard while I waited for someone to answer my call. I finally received a recording saying that someone would call me back in the order my call was received if I wanted to hang up and wait.

I dialed 411, trying to get the number for the Military Police at Ft. Drum, NY. I connected to someone and I asked for the Officer in Charge. I was next connected to an Arabic speaker. A Kuwaiti officer walked past me and up the front steps because Joe (one of the screeners I worked with in Kirkuk) was inside starting the investigation and had made a courtesy call to the Kuwaitis as the Hindi guy somehow connected to them. Another guy walked in with the Kuwaiti. The guy on the other line kept speaking to me in Arabic and I ignored him as a group of my old US interpreters walked up the street and asked me how I was doing. I told the guy on the phone that I needed to speak with an American soldier. The interpreters asked me what was going on and I said that someone had broken into the house earlier. I made sure not to say that I murdered someone because I didn't want to implicate myself in a later investigation.

I walked back into the house and went into the master bedroom where there were three forensic evidence people in green polo shirts swabbing and collecting and doing their thing. One lady had about fifty medium-sized safety pins stuck to her shirt, as though she needed them all the time in her work and they were there for easy access. Another lady had small scissor clamps stuck to her shirt the same way.

I mentioned to them that I couldn't get through to the local police, and they said that was normal and not to worry about it. They had everything started anyway.

I walked back into the living room and the Kuwaiti officer and his companion followed me. I heard very strange noises coming from a heating vent in the wall at about six feet from the floor. I saw the vent start to move and it scared me, wondering what was coming into the house now. I started to run to another room when a seal popped out and onto the floor. It waddled toward me and got tangled in my legs, so we fumbled about for a minute. I heard more noises and looked up and saw a tiger come sliding down the vent from its opening in the roof. A large green parrot and a white siberian tiger cub watched it slide down. It hit the floor with a growl and I moved away from it before I realized it was small enough that it couldn't do me too much damage. I picked it up and sent it out the front door, herding the seal out at the same time. When I turned to come back in the house, the parrot was right behind me with an open wing span of about seven feet.

It was light now and I needed to call my supervisor Renee and let her know I wouldn't be in to work that day. I called her number but was connected to a hospital switchboard. I said I needed to speak with Renee and they transferred me, but the call dropped. I called her personal number and she appeared beside me on the street outside. We chatted for a minute, then I told her I wouldn't be in until at least after noon because someone had broken into the house (again, being sure not to admit to anything).

I was in my old maroon F-150 (my first car in high school) when I heard the voices of my stepsisters and stepmom returning to the house. I crawled out of the truck because they were entering the house through the basement and I wanted to warn them of the investigation upstairs before they walked into it without knowing anything.

Then I woke up.

The Paradox that is Samira

2008-10-16T19:30:00.005-04:00

I just wanted to give you all a glimpse into my refrigerator. On the one hand, I am a complete bachelor.

You see what's in there? Beer, condiments, dog food, batteries, yogurt and soy milk. That's about as chick-bachelor as you can get. And that's the normal amount of stuff I keep in there.

But then you look at the freezer.

And you would think I was a domestic goddess (with an admittedly small freezer). Meat, fish, veggies, tortillas, homemade soup, chili and shepherd's pie, and even fresh ice.

Don't worry, even I don't understand it.

S'mores Brownies...kind of...flambe optional

2008-10-09T18:16:00.002-04:00

TOP SECRET/NinjaDisco

KC and I made brownies this weekend. I found the recipe on FoodNetwork.com when looking up random things like Osso Buco, Coq au Vin and Shepherd's Pie. Like I said, random. Anyway, they turned out pretty freaking great, even if we didn't follow the recipe to the letter.

First of all, decide if you want a graham cracker crust. I personally could care less about it. And truthfully, I'm gonna work on a peanut butter cookie crust, because that sounds much better. Maybe Nutter Butters instead of graham crackers...

If you want the graham cracker crust, smash up 1 and 1/2 cups of graham crackers, then mix in 6 tablespoons of melted butter and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Layer this in the bottom of a glass baking dish lined with lightly buttered foil. Bake at 325 for 20 min.

Pull the crust out of the oven. FoodNetwork was all homey with their recipe, but I just used a boxed brownie recipe. Follow the box directions, then pour the brownie mix onto the crust. Bake as directed on the box.

Here is where my next attempt will actually follow the website instructions.

According to FoodNetwork, preheat the oven on low and lower the top rack to about 6 inches below the top of the oven. Layer four cups of jumbo marshmallows onto the top of the cooked brownies. Slide the brownies back into the oven for about 2 minutes, long enough to just toast the top of the marshmallows.

Now, if you don't follow the instructions correctly, you can turn the broiler itself on. Slide the marshmallow-goodness topped brownies just beneath the flames of the broiler and watch through the oven door window for about 30 seconds. Turn to wash your hands in the sink, then hurry to the smoke detector with two pot holders when it begins to scream. Wonder aloud to KC why the smoke alarm is going off when there's no smoke. Spin around quickly when KC opens the oven door and squeaks, "The brownies are on fire!"

Tell KC to close the oven and go get a towel, then convince her that you will put out the fire while she keeps fanning the smoke (apparently from your flambeing brownies) away from the screaming detector. Open the oven door, see the pretty blue flames licking delicately at the top of the oven while charring your marshmallow goodness. Pull the dish out of the oven, all the while hoping you don't light yourself or anything else on fire. Watch as the flames eat up the last of the marshmallow, then put themselves out with nothing else to feed on.

Turn off the oven that, for some reason, keeps beeping and flashing lights at you. Like it realizes that you tried to light it on fire. Bah!

Dejectedly throw yourselves onto the couch and sigh over the lost brownies. Then realize that people eat charred marshmallows from the campfire all the time. Head back into the kitchen and stare at your black, crispy s'mores brownies.

Improvise, adapt and overcome.

Using a paring knife and spatula, surgically remove the carcinegenous layer from your brownies, revealing soft, pure, cottony white marshmallow below the cancer.

Because brownies always taste better after time to cool, leave them alone and don't pick at them for an hour or so while you watch "What Happens in Vegas."

Cut, eat and enjoy.

TOP SECRET/NinjaDisco

Barky Bark and the Donkey Bunch

2008-10-05T17:26:00.002-04:00

BWAHAHAHAHHAHA! My favorite skit since Justin Timberlake's "Cup of Soup."

2008-08-23T13:01:00.002-04:00

TOP SECRET – NinjaDisco/Pegasus

Here’s another top secret, incredibly difficult to make, to-die-for (literally if you’re being chased by Latvian spies) recipe.

Fruit Dip

Unwrap one block of cream cheese and put it in a bowl.
Add one jar of Marshmallow Fluff to the bowl.
Microwave for one minute.
Stir till everything is smooth (in real cooking terms, they call this “incorporate,” but I like stir) and there are no cheese lumps left.

You’re done.

If you want to get jiggy wit it, splash in some lemon extract. Scoop up a fingertipful and add more lemon extract till you reach the point of creamy, lemony goodness.

TOP SECRET – NinjaDisco/Pegasus

BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...(sigh)...MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

2008-08-16T14:09:00.001-04:00

Oh. My. God.

So. Freaking. High-larious.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com

eOpinion

2008-07-30T19:13:00.003-04:00

Dear Population of the Webernets,

Check out the website below and let me know if:

a: This is a horrible situation that doesn't get nearly enough attention in the media and parents across the world should be educated to the dangers

or

b: It's one of the best satires ever and I can crack the hell up at it without going to hell

www.downwithpinatas.com

Tetris is My Life

2008-07-28T20:20:00.008-04:00

You remember Tetris, right? On your Gameboy in 1990? You had to spin the little Lego pieces around so they fit in a straight line across the bottom of the screen, but those stupid inverted 'z' shaped ones would always fall too fast and jack up your little wall of bricks.

Well, I've been living Tetris for the past two months. I recently moved from the West Coast to the East, and the semi-truck that carried everything I owned (minus the car, the dog and a suitcase) arrived at my new townhouse in late May. That first weekend I unpacked and unpacked and unpacked and you get the picture. And only got through about 1/3 of my belongings.
Damn, I need to get rid of some stuff.
The next weekend I unpacked and unpacked and unpacked and realized that though I was unpacking, I was simply moving stuff from one place to another, rearranging as I went to make things fit, but never changing the amount of space I had, nor the amount of stuff I had to fill the space.
Kinda like Tetris. At least, the rearranging part.
So I kept unpacking, and rearranging boxes and stuff, and still it seemed as though I was getting nowhere.

First of all, how did I end up owning so much stuff??? For a girl who moves, on average, every 18 months I certainly shouldn't own so many things. I probably shouldn't own a neurotic dog and subject him to moving every 18 months along with me, but hey, we all have our vices.
I would unpack stuff, but then needed somewhere to stack the boxes. Pretty soon, the entryway seemed like a good place for empty boxes. Until I had to leave the house. And it wasn't trash day yet...

And then I realized that not only could I not get out the front door, I couldn't get to the living room either...Or upstairs to my bedroom...

Somehow, though the living room wasn't that full when the movers left, it quickly gluttoned itself on electronics and boxes.

But eventually, I learned there really was a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel was longer than the two weeks I had expected, but I would get there. Before 2009. Hopefully.

The boxes were still at the front door, but now they patiently waited for trash day and stood in line like good little soldiers. Of course, they blocked the coat closet and the bathroom, but it's summer and you can use the potty upstairs.

Is there a picture of my couch that doesn't include a lazy dog sleeping on it???

And so maybe there was one day that the lazy dog couldn't get out the dog door to potty. But it was only a day. And he doesn't like the dog door anyway.What are we at now? Week 6? That's not too bad, right? Especially considering that my household goods were delivered two weeks after I started a job on Thursday and was told Friday that I would need to work "just 5 or 6 hours" on Saturday and Sunday as well.Little by little, weekend by weekend, I worked my way into having a home once more.

There's amazingly no lazy, couch-hogging dog in the photo below.

Eight weeks later, it's not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Uganda knows me...is that worrisome?

2008-07-16T20:30:00.004-04:00

This is supposed to be about Uganda and why it knows me, but I just had to mention that I love Burn Notice. Sam needs to work on his dialogue timing, Fi needs to eat a brownie (though she looks hot shooting out the window of a moving car) and Michael is just the damn sarcastic coolest. Yay for the USA network and yay for a new season of Burn Notice.

As a recruiter, I now attend quite a few job fairs. There was one in Arlington on Tuesday for cleared personnel. And since my job is fun enough to require only cleared personnel, those are the fairs I get to attend.

I was supposed to have a buddy there with me. He didn't know where he was going though, so he spent 42 minutes (he clocked it) circling Crystal City. Finally, he pulled in next to the curb and asked a jogging Asian woman if she would like to be a hero, a savior, nay, a legend, and help direct him to a hotel. Unfortunately, he didn't know the name of the hotel where the fair was being held, so she wasn't really any help. But it wasn't her fault. Luckily I sent him a text right about then that said "Sheraton" and the jogging lady was nice enough to get in the car with a stranger and give him driving directions to the hotel.

I'm not sure how good her directions were, though, since he ended up parking at the Marriott a block away.

But hey, it was closer than 42 minutes of circling.

While waiting for Buddy to kidnap a woman off the street and not release her until he had driven three miles, I met a woman at the career fair.

"Hi!" she said brightly as she handed me her resume. "I worked at the American Embassy in Uganda..." and about then she glanced down at my business card.

"And I have your name listed as a point of contact at the Embassy."

I'm sorry? Can you repeat that? I've never been to Africa. Why does the Embassy know me? Beyond that, why does a random employee at the Embassy know me well enough to recognize my name from a business card???

I may talk a mad story, but I'm really not that cool.

The boring end to this conundrum is that in 2004, while working in Iraq, I sent an interpreter on a mission to Uganda and he probably put my email address down as the POC. Is that really the answer? I have no idea, but it's logical and less worrisome than the thought that the American Embassy in Uganda is spying on me.

Top Secret Chicken Recipe - TS/ND/PID (SCI and TK allowed on a case-by-case basis)

2008-06-26T20:03:00.002-04:00

TOP SECRET

Usually I make people sign an NDA 312 and indoctrinate them into a SAP for this family recipe handed down through generations of my kin. However, for the select and properly cleared personnel privy to this blog, I will grant special access to the SCIF that is my kitchen. Consider yourself read on.

(I'm an asshole, too, because if you don't know what any of these terms mean, I'm not explaining them because I'm in a contrary mood right now)

On to the fabulous chicken recipe:

Take ginormous chicken breasts out to thaw 24 hours before you plan to cook them and let them sit in the fridge for a day.

When ready to cook, peel the half-defrosted chicken boobage out of the package, then pry the still-frozen mammaries apart from each other.

Drop them into a glass baking dish that you figured should be coated with cooking spray just in case.

Dump a bunch of cheap honey BBQ sauce all over the breasticles.

Layer on some precooked bacon.

Top with Provolone and Cheddar. Because cheese makes everything better. And if cheese can't make it better, chocolate will.

Seriously, think about it. Is there some food out there that cannot be enhanced with the addition of some type of cheese or chocolate? No, there isn't. So don't even try to change my mind, because you're simply mistaken.

(This is my new favorite way to say "you're wrong" without sounding so mean about it)

Anyway, back to the classified chicken.

Put the chicken in the oven at 350...'cause that's the temp you cook chicken at, right? Verify that on FoodNetwork.com real quick...yep, 350 works.

Cook it until it smells good.

Cut one of the hen boobs in half to make sure you're not giving yourself or your preggers dinner guest salmonella.

Bake it another 15 minutes just to be sure. And since you put some crescent rolls in there to keep the chicken company, go ahead and up the temp to 375.

Voila! You have the completely homemade, most deliciousest-ever chicken dinner.

Debrief and go home.

TOP SECRET

Customer Service (or) Fuck American Express and that $#&! from T-Mobile

2008-05-28T20:38:00.002-04:00

Yes, the title is a bit harsh. And vulgar. But it's much nicer than what I'm really thinking right now.

Let's start with American Express. I don't usually run around announcing my financial background to the world, but I'm pissed off right now. I've had my AmEx card for 10 years. I logged on to check my account this morning and thought it was funny that my credit limit only allowed me another $250 when yesterday it allowed me $22,000. So I called customer service to see what was up. According to customer service, because in the last three years I've had three late payments to other companies due to moving and, oh, being in Iraq and because, according to Experian, I hold a balance of more than 50% of the available credit limit on two credit cards and my car loan (seriously??? who considers a car loan in something like this????) AmEx decided that I was no longer a good bet, credit-wise. Apparently someone forgot to take into account that I have a credit score of 700 and that I paid AmEx $26,000 last month and that I've never had a late payment to them and that I've held the account in good standing for a decade...since I was 19. Yes. At 19 I had an American Express card. When I escalated the call to a supervisor and explained to him the salary I made this past year, which should show that I can pay my bill, I was told, "then you should be able to pay down your balance." Dude! I did! A month ago. I sent you the equivalent of a new Nissan sedan and had a balance of 12 cents left on the account. But, since Experian hadn't updated my credit report to show AmEx that I had paid off AmEx, AmEx didn't believe me. Once I pay down my balance (do I really need to repeat myself?) and dispute the delinquencies on my other accounts because I was in Iraq AmEx will be more than happy to review my account again and decide if I deserve a higher credit limit. Until that time, I should be happy with the 75% reduction in credit and complete lack of notice thereof they allow me.

Fuck them. The account will be paid off in 15 days and closed. Forever. A nice Fight Club scenario sounds good right now.

And then there's T-Mobile. While I was in Iraq, I could never get the auto-pay feature to set up. You know? Where they just automatically debit your credit card each month for your cell bill so you can be completely lazy and forget to pay it without reaping the consequences. I had to log on and pay it every month. Not a big deal. Until I got home last month and auto-pay decided to reinstate itself without warning me. I paid the $360 bill with my credit card, and T-Mobile took the $360 bill from my checking account. Since I would rather have $360 in my checking account than to not pay a bill for the next three months, I called T-Mobile and asked them to refund one of the $360 payments to my checking account. T-Mobile guy said it wouldn't be a problem and processed my request.

(In case you're wondering, my bill is not usually that high. I was in Europe and making calls to the US and Iraq, which can get expensive)

I was checking my account online this morning (see, that's my problem. If I would just stop being so conscientious about my money, I wouldn't have to deal with crappy customer service) and noticed that I couldn't access two past billing periods, but I could access billing periods before those. So I called to find out what the problem might be.

In the course of the conversation, Veronica, henceforth referred to with the 'see you next Tuesday' word (because I'm really unhappy right now), told me that I had no refund due. She said that the original payment from my checking account was denied by my bank and that my credit card payment had to go through to make up for the denied charge. She told me that three times when I told her she was wrong. She also got bitchy with me when I told her that I wanted to see the bill from 25 Mar through 25 April and said that I needed to click on "current charges" to see that information. Funny, as it's May 29, I'm pretty sure that "current charges" isn't going to show me information from six weeks ago. You stupid whore.

I called T-Mobile back tonight, got a very nice lady named Debbie, and she explained that the refund was sent on Monday and should process back into my checking account by Friday. Thank you, Debbie :)

Comcast. Because, yes, there's more. I had Comcast cable and internet set up this weekend. Oh, wait, let's backtrack. I had an appointment for Comcast to show up between 12 and 3 on Friday. They didn't. According to the Comcast cable-hooker-upper guy, he not only came to the door and knocked to no avail, he even left a note on the door saying what time he had come. Funny enough, my mom, her friend, and my big red dog were all in the house, downstairs in fact, during the entire three hour timeframe, waiting for cable dude to show up. There are only two rooms downstairs, the kitchen and the living room, and there isn't a wall between them. So, taking into account the very open first floor of my townhouse, the front door that was standing open the whole afternoon, and my very big red dog who barks deeply when someone knocks...I'm pretty sure the Comcast cable-hooker-upper guy was a big fat liar. After countless phone calls that Mom and I both made, Comcast oh-so-graciously rescheduled my hooker-upper guy for Sunday between 12 and 3.

On Sunday, at 4:30, I called to ask where dude was. "He's running late, he should be there in an hour." At 5:30, "he's still running late. He should be there in an hour." Okay, what's the latest he can get here? 9pm. Great, why don't you just go ahead waive my installation fee, because at this point, we've been waiting for a Comcast cable-hooker-upper guy for more than 8 hours. He showed up at 8pm. He was a nice guy. He gave me interwebs and cable and I didn't pay for installation or the CAT5 he left me for my lappy since I don't have a wireless router yet. However, I didn't yet have a TV either, and that's where my next customer service issue comes in.

While very nicely telling AmEx how shoddy their customer service was, I was also in an online chat session with a Comcast tech about the fact that my new Comcast remote will turn my new Sharp TV on and off, but will do nothing with my new Comcast cable box. To change the cable channel, I have to push the button on the side of the box. When the first 30 channels are local community and college channels, that really sucks. And I have no access to the menu or program guide. So I logged on to Comcast.com to try and find some support.

Welcome to the chat session. Did you change the batteries? Brand new. Did you clean the sensor? Just wiped it on my sweatshirt. Take it back to the company, I can't help you. Wow, thanks, Comcast tech-support-chatter-dude!

I've worked customer service. In fact, I've worked call center customer service and been the supervisor that angry customers get escalated to. So I know the kind of angry customer that I preffered to deal with, and I try to be that angry customer. I don't yell at the representative because, for the most part (the dumb cow from T-Mobile notwithstanding) whatever the problem is, it's not the rep's fault. I stay calm, I don't blame the rep, I try to succintly explain my problem and offer a solution if one is available in my mind. I always hated it when people would go into long, drawn out stories, trying to win my sympathy, or berate me into their way of thinking. Both of those avenues cause me to shut down and care even less than I did in the first place about your problem.

You have a problem. I will do what I can to fix it if you remain rational and calm. But honestly, if I don't know you, I don't care. Someone in your family died? That's horrible for you. It plays no part in my life though other than you think telling me that will get you your way. You're a fifty year old menopausal woman who hasn't slept in two days (I use that one because my mom used it when on the phone with Comcast customer service the first day the cable dude didn't show up)? Fuck you. I don't care what your problems are beyond those that directly involve me. Don't give me backstory. I don't care.

I really don't care.

So, with that in mind, I try to be the rational adult who doesn't attempt to justify everything. I state my case, offer you my question, and that's it.

And yet, all day long, I've talked to assholes who I really want to punch in the face. With a mace. Or a two-by-four.

Debbie from T-Mobile was great. The first lady at AmEx was great (before the sup who told me that I had to pay down my balance that I paid down last month). The two reps at my bank were great.

The rest of you...you suck at life.

Embrace the Fire Drill

2008-05-08T16:20:00.018-04:00

Instead of going into great detail about my trip like I did with the last vacay, this time I'm just gonna give you the highlights...and some pics, of course. We always need photos. This is going to be completely random, so if you're cool with that...read on!

So...let's begin with Paris. I've never had a great desire to go to Paris. I lived in Germany for 18 months and went to Italy four times, but never France. I even took French my senior year in high school, but I was also finishing four years of Spanish, and when I was given the choice of a senior trip to Spain or France, I chose sunny Espana without a second thought. Paris has always been in the back of my mind, but never on the top ten or even top twenty list of places I wanted to see. It was more of an obligation as an avid traveler to visit the city than a true need to immerse myself in croissants and wine and guttural r's. However, when the time, money and travel gods all came into alignment it worked out pretty great.

Arc de Triomphe...

I met two Army buddies there, we'll call them Trippy-- I love her dearly, but elevation changes in the asphalt caught her multiple times a day -- and Super Genius -- because, well, he is. SG had gone to school in Paris for three years and still spoke French pretty damn fluently (along with 37 other languages, I'm telling you, dude's a super genius) and Trippy had never been to France and had vacation the same time I planned on going. It worked out beautifully.

Sacre Coeur church...

Hm, what to say about gay Paree. I was locked into the airport baggage claim area with 300 other travelers and a yapping dog in a crate while the Parisian po-lice tried unsuccesfully to locate a couple who had left their bag at the airport. When they couldn't find the owners, they destroyed the bag then charged the couple for the time and explosives it took to blow their belongings. I thought I had gotten away from explosions when I left Iraq, but this one was pretty funny so I was okay with it. April, though pretty, is still pretty chilly and you should probably bring more than just a leather jacket. I loved the Saint Michel area near Notre Dame. But I prefered Sacre Coeur church to the more famous Our Lady.

Notre Dame...

Okay, random linguistics lesson here. SG explained that the little 2/3 triangle ^ over the 'o' in Notre Dame was actually a replacement from when there used to be an 's' following that letter. So in older French, a Latin based language, it was orginally Nostre Dame. SG explained that one afternoon after I asked what the little ^ was for anyway because I knew he would know. At midnight that same evening, after the three of us had lain down to go to sleep in our shared hotel room, it popped into my little language-oriented brain that, "Hey, Nostradamus was named 'our lady!'" SG just laughed at me, but I'm pretty sure Trippy wanted to hit me for waking her up right after falling asleep with that announcement.

Me and the Eiffel Tower...

At Notre Dame the guide told us that the stained glass in some of the Rose windows was the original from the 1200s. I was beyond skeptical that the glass had survived that long and remained that brightly colored until SG reminded me that they don't play baseball in Paris. Good point.

A statue outside the Louvre that I prefer to call "Cuidado - Piso Mojado"...

A restaurant in Montmartre (where the movie 'Amelie' was set) called Refuge du Fondu (yeah, the grammar prolly isn't perfect there, but you get the point) had a menu that consisted of fondue cheese with bread, meat and either red or white wine to drink. That was it. I was scoffed at for asking for water and tea and didn't get it anyway.

Me and Ms. Mona Lisa herself...

Other great food choices included Quick Burger which makes the most deliciously vanillay vanilla milkshake ever and a chain Italian restaurant (I totally suck, I can't remember the name) that serves all you can eat chocolate mousse for 6 euros.

A pretty little garden...

And then there was the tea...Mariage Freres. This place is a tea mecca. Check out the website at http://www.mariagefreres.com/ and if you like tea, welcome to paradise. I sniffed about 60 varieties before I picked out four I wanted to get as souvenirs, but there are literally walls of tea available at this shop.

I never considered myself a huge fan of French food since, though I do loves me some cheese, I'm not so big on wine, butter and the various ~aise sauces. But we ate constantly, literally five or six times a day, and I never once tasted anything I didn't completely enjoy. Crepes and croissants and pasta and lamb and steak and French fries...everything was fabulous.

I don't think I would have enjoyed Paris as much had we been there purely as tourists without SG as a local tour guide. He really made the trip enjoyable and I would like to go back and poke around St. Michel some more.

England was England and I am definitely an Anglophile. Not only is London my favourite city, I just love the whole little island. Cream tea in the afternoon because biscuits and jam are tasty...okay, fine, scones and jam are nice. I adore the history, the very civilized countryside, the tea, the shops (I always spend entirely too much money on things I really don't need while in England), the accents, the abundance of banoffee pie, the very Englishness of it all. The only thing I've never really liked are the prices. Prices for just about everything in the UK are honestly twice what we pay in the States.

In London, Trippy and I spent a couple frigidly sunny hours on an open-top tour bus. At 4am we were rudely pulled from our beds...for the second time this trip...for a fire drill. In Paris, when the alarm went off at 6am, Trippy called the front desk and was politely informed that the alarm was an accident and would be shut off presently. In England the front desk told us to run for our lives. So, with much bitching and whinging and muttering, we dressed warmly and I repacked my big purse with the essentials...chocolate, tea, money, credit cards, a book to read, camera and video camera. The only thing I forgot was my passport. We traipsed down the emergency exit stairs with all the other guests and stepped into the cold London morning to see a single ladder truck outside with some fireman-looking types milling about quite unhurriedly. Apparently we hadn't really needed to run for our lives. Some of the poor guests had taken the front desk at their word and were shivering in boxers and t-shirts. Silly people. If I can't smell the smoke, I will take the time to put on clothes. Luckily they let us back in ten minutes later.

The 4am fire drill...

Sweden and Denmark turned out to be...amusing. SG is going to university in Sweden -- majoring in Physics -- so I flew up to the great white north to visit a country I had never really thought about seeing before.

The entirety of my knowledge about flowers consists of they're pretty, like these ones...

I learned some things about the Swedish while I was there: wow, they really like to drink. Apparently binge drinking is such a huge problem that if you go to the state liquor store to buy some alkihol, you get the squinty-eyed look from the old person behind the counter because you're one of those people.

Apparently children like candy shaped like luggage?...

Girls yell a lot. Seriously, every time we went anywhere, some girl was yelling at a guy across the street, another girl down the block, or simply because she was drunk. I began to refer to it as caroling. I really noticed it when no one yelled at each other in Denmark, but as soon as we crossed the bay back to Sweden, the yelling resumed.

Hamlet's Castle, Denmark...

Even if you are the only person in the bakery, you still have to take a number and wait until the person behind the counter calls your number.

Hamlet's Castle...

They celebrate Waffle Day. That's the coolest. The story I was told was that Waffle Day used to be the day of Ascencion in Catholicism. After the country went Lutheran, it just so happened that the "virgin" of Virgin Mary Day sounded similar to "waffle" and Mary was kicked out of the calendar and waffles were rejoiced. After having a Swedish waffle for breaky one morning with jam and cream, I would celebrate them too.

The bottle was fuzzy...

There are 7-11s in Sweden.

Translated by SG and not well remembered by me, this sign posted in a house window reads something to the effect of "Wanted: Woman with a yacht and Rolls Royce"...

Everyone rides a bike and speaks English.

Elevator button, because I am a 12 year old boy...

Midgets are considered just as funny in Sweden as they are in the States...and even funnier when you mix midgets with gambling, Scottish games and the alkihol.

Final destination sign, because I am also a 16 year old boy...

The only bad part of the trip was when I caught a cold the day I left! SG had warned me that a Swedish cold was nothing to sneeze at (pathetic pun completely intentional) but as I had had my first cold in years and years this past December, I didn't think I'd have another one for at least a decade. I was wrong. Lemme tell you, a twenty billion hour flight from Copenhagen to Atlanta then Atlanta (by the way, do you remember how much I despise ATL? This trip just cemented the hatred even more) to Los Angeles with a cold is pure hell.

The little buttons make red lights glow on the map, the big white one turns off the lights...in the whole museum (why would they put that button there if they didn't want me to press it???)...

But I finally got home and my roommate, though out for the evening, had left the front door unlocked so I didn't have to dig for my keys and the lights on for me, along with a lovely welcome home sign...

Dear Hollywood,

2008-01-29T02:05:00.000-05:00

Please stop using the phrases “Go, go, go!” “Set up a perimeter” and “I need a medic!” while filming your military sequences. You seem to think that those three phrases are the only things a soldier knows how to say. Or maybe you think your audience is so dumb that even with an actor in uniform, the watcher will not understand unless you use one of those three. Or maybe you have crappy writers.

I don’t care what the reason is, stop using them so much. The lexicon of military terminology is a living language with plenty of cool “this proves I’m military” phrases that can be used.

Another one that really gets me, “Sarge.” I gotta tell ya, no one in today’s Army (yes, I capitalize Army because I love my boys and they deserve it) uses the term “sarge.” In fact, they don’t even say “sergeant.” It’s “sarn” or “sarnt” -- regardless, the ‘g’ is dropped. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to an E5 (who is no longer referred to as a “buck”) or the Sergeant Major, you drop the ‘g.’ And an E4 is not a Spec 4. The only specialist rank is specialist/E4 who is called Specialist.

Thank you for your consideration of my rant.

Very respectfully,
Samira
(who, now that Blogger is available in Arabic, can now sign her name in al arabi!)

Let the Chucktatorship Reign and Crown the Governator as the High Lord Chancellor of Irakistan

2008-01-12T07:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, so it's pretty obvious by now that we aren't winning this whole Iraq war thing. Yeah, the Marines kicked all of the bad guys out of Anbar Province in the west, and then the surge shoved them out of Baghdad, but now they are all heading north and shooting at me and I don't like that.

Fortunately, being the super-genius strategerian that I am, I have formulated a fool-proof plan to win this war.

What is this fantastic enterprise, you may ask?

Well, not only will it save us literally billions of dollars, it will actually make money for America in the end. My answer to the GWOT is...

(this is so obvious, I'm surprised no one came up with it before)

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Sylvester Stallone
Chuck Norris
Bruce Willis
with cameo appearances by Steven Seagal and Sarah Michelle Gellar

Oh yeah, baby. That's right. Samira just ended the Global War on Terrorism.

Think about it. These four guys have saved the world (or at least a country or two) several times. Between them they have decades worth of Special Operations experience, martial arts and combatives training, the ability to speak multiple languages, guerilla warfare tactics, specialized military weaponry and vehicle training and thousands of cheesy lines to add some humor to the mix.

Throw in a couple camera crews, maybe have the Scott brothers agree to direct, pay each of the actors $10 million, get Trent Reznor to score the film and holy Allah in jenna, you've got a blockbuster just waiting to happen!

The money that flows in internationally to watch al Qaeda (because according to the US government, all terrorists are part of AQ now, even the Unabomber and John Wilkes Booth) get the beatdown from NYPD officer John McLane will not only pay off the astronomical debt we have incurred since 2001, it will also be enough to give the entire US military another raise, which they so very greatly deserve.

Let me hear a w00t w00t!

Drowning in a churning sea of deployment bachelors

2007-12-06T06:59:00.000-05:00

I don't know exactly what happens, or when it happens, but when boyz get out here, they go crazy. I've seen it happen countless times over the past 11 years of deployments to the Middle East.

TDY rules are in full effect here ~ what goes TDY, stays TDY, just like Vegas. Which means that every man out here is single as long as he is at least 500 miles away from his significant other.

I know that the deployment goggles are part of the problem too. Y'all know what beer goggles are; well, imagine wearing beer goggles at three times the strength for about a year. As a female, I am automatically promoted to princess when I step off the airplane into Iraq. As a civilian female, I am advanced to queen.

Unfortunately, many females don't know about this phenonmenon and they receive a cruel beat down by reality when they return home at the end of their deployment. The cute guy at the bar on Main St, USA doesn't wear deployment goggles, and suddenly you aren't the hottest piece of ass in the area any longer.

Luckily, I know all about the goggles. And I know my queendom is fickle at best.

For some reason though, when the boyz are wearing their goggles, not only do I become the most beautiful woman on the earth (in their eyes), but they become the most desirable men on earth (in their eyes) as well. If they like me, I obviously must like them.

Yeah, not so much.

I offer you three classic examples.

1. Right around my birthday, I met a man who I would be working with off and on for the next few months. He came into my office, introduced himself and invited me out for coffee. Now, it's not like the social scene is all that interesting out here, so I took him up on the coffee date. Later that day, my co-worker returned to the office with a plastic bag from the local bazaar.

"Here, this is from Guy. He says 'Happy Birthday.'"

Well, that was sweet. I guess. From a guy I had just met. Inside the bag was a stuffed ram that I promptly named Clyde and pretty silver jewelry box.

I realized that maybe Guy was looking for a bit more than just coffee. Fate intervened and as I was walking to the coffee shop that evening, another friend called and invited me for pizza. I convinced my friend to be my "protector" for the evening since I wasn't sure I wanted to hang out with Guy all that long. Friend agreed.

When Guy showed up at the coffee shop, Friend and I already had pizza and I explained that Friend was leaving the next day and had asked to buy me dinner for my birthday. The explanantion seemed to work.

We all sat together for a bit before Guy said, "Hey, walk with me for a minute, I want to show you something."

What, like your etchings? Seriously, we're at the PX in a war zone, so it's not like there's anything interesting to see. I've been on this FOB for 8 months now. I know the inventory of the stores as well as the store managers.

But I followed him over to the rug store anyway. We walked in and he had the store employee pull down two silk rugs. When they were both laid out on the floor, he asked my opinion about which one I prefered.

I didn't have a preference and told him that, especially since it was his rug and he should buy something that he liked.

"No, the rug is for you. It's your birthday present."

I'm sorry? I know a little bit about rugs, and the ones he was looking at cost $1600. Each.

"You already bought me a present," I told him. "Plus, I don't know you well enough to accept a present like this from you."

He didn't understand my reluctance to accept a gift from a man I met 24 hours before that cost in excess of my monthly paycheck when I lived in Arizona two years ago.

He also didn't like it when I told him that, "I'll never know you well enough to accept a gift like this."

"What if you fall in love?" was his counter offer.

I'm not the most romantic woman around, and he might know that if he had spent more than 23 minutes in my presence. I don't fall in love easily. I certainly don't fall in love with men twenty years older than I am and for whom I feel no attraction. I didn't say it quite that harshly, but I think he got my point.

Of course, it took me half an hour to convince him that I wasn't going to fall in love with him, since apparently he was attracted to me so the opposite must be true.

2. Sergeant met me when he came to ask about internet service. I have a satellite for internet and run lines for the soldiers that live around me. Sergeant decided he wanted a line, but he lived too far away for me to run it, plus he wanted a price discount for no other reason than he thought he deserved one.

After realizing I wouldn't be able to provide internet access for him, Sergeant would still search me out at the chow hall or around the living areas just to say hi and waste my time.

Happily for me, Sergeant got transferred to another location. Unhappily for me, I am at that location a couple times a month, so Sergeant still invites himself to my table at the chow hall.

One day I was sitting at the passenger terminal, waiting for a flight to take me to Location, when my neighbor, who works at the terminal and with Sergeant before he transferred, came up and told me that Sergeant was on the phone for me.

Seriously? I don't want to talk to him. And Neighbor knows it. Sergeant told all of them how good of friends we are, apparently.

So with a big sigh I got up to go take the phone call.

Neighbor laughed and waved me back to my seat. "I'm just kidding!" he swore. Jerk. I told him if he ever did that again I would kick his ass.

Not five minutes later, Neighbor was back, saying that Sergeant was on the phone and asking for me. I didn't believe him. He persisted. I told him to tell Sergeant I was in the bathroom.

Why would he call me at the airport????

Two minutes after that, Neighbor was back. "I'm serious this time. He really wants to talk to you. About interpreters."

Heaving another sigh, I got up to take the call.

(My job, if you didn't know it, is Interpreter Manager)

Sergeant told me that he had to fire one of his interpreters and needed a replacement for that one.

"Okay," I said. "Do you know where the interpreter office is on Location?"

"Yeah, we had to take the interpreter over there to fill out paperwork when he was fired."

"Go back to that office," I instructed, "and let them know you need a new interpreter."

Wow, that was a really thin reason for the phone call.

3. Dude followed me around the Pax Terminal on another evening when I was waiting for a flight. He says that we had met previously, but honestly, I travel so much and meet so many people and have been out here so long, that I don't remember a quarter of the people I meet. (In fact, at the coffee shop today, I had a ten minute conversation with a woman who said "I was just thinking of you the other day" and I have no clue where or when I met this lady.)

In the hour and a half that followed, while I studiously ignored him and he continued to talk, Dude proceeded to tell me about his Kuwaiti wife that was killed by a drunk driver and thus Dude had $8 million after the lawsuit settlement. He had seven kids. His ex-wife's family (the first wife was American) liked him so much that they gave him property, on which he built a 3500 square foot house. His ex-wife's sister was hot, but the actual ex was a fat bitch. He owned a mansion in the Phillipines. He wasn't out here because of the money (since he had $8 million in the bank). He spoke Arabic. He was a Ranger. He worked with Special Forces. He worked in Intelligence. He worked in Security. He had lost 40 pounds.

I don't like people who ask for attention, and he was the king of their kind.

Dude is a nice enough guy, but there's just too much self-aggrandizing. I really don't care. He gave me a ride from work to my living area the other day and, surprisingly respectfully, let me know that he was attracted to me and that if anything changed between me and my boyfriend at Ft. Benning, he would like to see me.

Yeah, um, not so much. Not even for $8 million dollars.

Holidays on Deployment

2007-11-22T06:36:00.000-05:00

The holiday season is a bit different out here in the sandbox than it is back home. First of all, there isn’t a big lead up to the day, ‘cause it’s not like you’re getting any time off. For example, today is Thanksgiving. The only real reason you know it’s Thanksgiving is because the chow hall is decorated and the line was longer than usual. So, everyone takes a longer lunch, but the workday continues. Later tonight, the Patriots’ Cheerleaders will perform…woohoo. Of course, it is a male dominated military, so I won’t begrudge them their scintillations and dancing girls.

We’ll start with my soapbox from yesterday. One of the military guys I work with came in to reschedule a meeting we had planned for this morning. He was told by his commander that he would be having breakfast this morning with a Senator from Georgia. Why? Because the soldier is from Georgia and politicians like to talk to their consti’tiency.

Soapbox: Why the fuck do politicians come out here and ruin our holidays???? Do they think we care? (I’m speaking as a former soldier here) Are we supposed to be grateful they left their families for a week to come have a crappy Thanksgiving dinner with us, before they fly back to their warm, expensive homes and Mercedes sedans and lack of mortar fire and communal bathrooms and 12 hour work days 7 days a week? We’re not grateful. All they do is fuck up the rotation. They fly in, force soldiers to sit and eat with them and tell them all about what it’s “really” like before they fly home again and forget the name of the PFC they had to ask for the salt shaker. Why don’t they come in July, maybe? When it’s 115 degrees before the sun reflects off the asphalt and the sand and makes it feel 125? Why don’t they spend a week or three with the soldiers, riding along on convoys, sitting on guard duty, slopping through the January mud or the August sandstorms with an additional 50 pounds of “protective gear” in case they get shot.

I would rather watch the Patriots’ Cheerleaders shake their groove thangs every day than to have a single meal with a politician. At least I get some kind of entertainment out of dancing girls, I get nothing from chow hall breakfast with a senator.

Deep breath…woosah…woosah…

Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t bad today. I piled the food onto my plate and ate enough for three meals. I had one piece each of prime rib, turkey and ham. I’m not a big fan of ham, but it was actually the best. I had mashed potatoes with yummy turkey gravy – they actually made it from turkey drippings rather than pouring it out of the four gallon tin can. Sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, a salad I never touched, apple pie with caramel sauce and punkin pie with no Cool-Whip. That made me sad. Cool-Whip is half the dessert! All in all, not bad for DFAC standards.

However, they had a guy playing live music. His name is Johnnie Holiday and he travels to military bases playing his trumpet over other people’s music tracks. Half the stuff he plays should never include a trumpet in the first place. Case in point, he did “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” I wanted to stab him in the throat with my fork. Not only can you not trumpetize classic Charlie Daniels, but he changed the words to fit a trumpet player instead of a fiddle player. “Johnnie, polish up that horn, and play that trumpet hard.” Seriously?

“I done told you once, you sonofabitch, quit fucking up my song!” is what I think Mr. Daniels would say if he was here today. I would certainly back him up, my fork at the ready.

One of the locals I work with told me that last year a female soldier - American - asked him if they celebrated Thanksgiving in Iraq too. He laughed at her, thinking she was making a joke, then just stared at her when she said she was serious.

He had to explain to her that giving thanks for the appropriation of land in return for beads and trinkets and genocide by small pox infested blankets was customary only to North America. Okay, so the appropriation and genocide comments are mine, but he did tell her that for the past 20 years or so she had been giving thanks for Indians, Pilgrims and turkeys and that Iraq had nothing to do with it, so they didn’t celebrate.

Other than that, Thanksgiving hasn’t been bad. The weather is cool, in the mid-60s, and the sky is sunny. If I get bored tonight there are always Cheerleaders and shakin' groove thangs to watch. Invitations are already being put out (on the DL, mind you, in case alcohol shows up) for Christmas parties, so maybe I’ll have something else to talk about in a month. Other than ranting at politicians ;)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, no matter where you are. Spend time with friends, family, both, neither, a good movie, a solitary walk, whatever gives you a bit of solace, happiness and peace this weekend.

100 Things

2007-10-31T03:24:00.000-04:00

I got this idea from desertphnx who got it from BlondeSagacity and I liked it. So here are 100 things about me, in no particular order but that in which they entered my mind...

1. I'm tall
2. I have really big feet...srsly, I wear a women's 12, a men's 11 and a 44 in Europe
3. I have been a blonde, a redhead and a brunette...but I'm really a brunette at heart
4. I love well-spiced foods...Mexican-good, French-not-so-good
5. But cheese freaking rocks and the French are pretty good at cheese
6. I hate paying a ridiculous price to read a single book on a single subject that someone else believes is the correct perspective just so I can be considered an "educated" adult by a piece of paper that will ultimately get me a better salary because I'm good at bullshitting my through a research paper
7. I write too much when I don't need to, and can't write enough when there is a minimum requirement
8. I love big dogs and I'm learning to like little dogs
9. My world has little black or white in it and the miniscule amount that is there is defined by my personal morality, not society's
10. I have been known to skip a credit card bill payment to save cash for a vacation the next month
11. I'm an accomplished liar
12. I'm more of a rule-follower than many people think
13. I hate it when people don't take responsibility for their actions and choices
14. Most of my pictures are landscapes...I never take enough photos of friends
15. I like myself
16. The strings are my favorite part of an orchestra
17. My thumbs and toes are double jointed
18. Though I can communicate in Arabic, Spanish and German, I still feel like the "asshole American" when I go to a country where I don't speak the language
19. My life usually revolves around my next vacation...everything else is secondary
20. Nora Roberts told me, "I think you suck in a very good way."
21. I love Nora Roberts
22. I don't go anywhere without a book or my camera
23. Math is the only thing on this planet guaranteed to make me cry
24. I like romance novels but not movies, action movies but not books
25. I have traveled to more than 20 countries in the past ten years and don't see myself slowing down in the near furutre
26. I have light brown eyes, and one of them has a splotch of darker brown in it
27. I dig tigers
28. I know how to type
29. I don't think I'm as funny as my friends think I am
30. I upgrade my Gateway every two years
31. I keep in touch with only one friend from high school
32. Cardamom is great
33. I took rodeo lessons as a teen
34. Animals like me
35. Though I'm incredibly lazy, I've accomplished quite a bit in my (still relatively short) lifetime
36. I will be a published author
37. I am a published photographer (regardless that it was one photo in 'Easy Rider' motorcycle magazine when I was 13)
38. I like my parents
39. I look like my mom, act like my dad, and get most of my true personality from my grandfather
40. I've had 3 step-parents and five step-siblings, but I'm an only child
41. Pistachio baklava is better than walnut
42. I'm divorced
43. I have had a charmed life, but I believe that is because I have a positive outlook
44. I kidnapped an Army Ranger once (see earlier blog Suck v. Rock)
45. I love easily, but have never fallen in love
46. I'm still learning to speak my mind and stand up for myself
47. My favorite cities are London and San Francisco
48. My favorite places are Tahoe/Donner and Monterey
49. 6 is my favorite number
50. I like to drive and I'm pretty good at it...the offensive driving course helped
51. I move an average of every 18 months
52. I want to go to Greenland
53. I have no desire to raise children in our current society
54. I have worked under an alias for the United States Government before
55. I have a Ninja-Disco clearance with a Pegasus identifier
56. Jon Stewart is the greatest
57. I've known my best friend for 9 years and we've lived within driving distance of each other for a total of about 12 months
58. I used to travel with a canned ham named Dak
59. Blue is my favorite color
60. At the age of 4, I was tall enough to ride the "big kid" rides at places like Disneyland
61. I took swimming lessons twice and still don't know how to do the breast-stroke
62. I gave my dog a MySpace account for awhile, then I realized that was stupid and deleted it
63. I love to learn
64. I have yet to find a job that I truly enjoy and that keeps me engaged, but I keep looking (and my resume shows that)
65. I'm sometimes careless in my upkeep of friendships
66. I would never want to be a celebrity, I'm too private a person
67. I would like to have a celebrity paycheck so I can travel at will
68. I think it's nice to be fashionable until I see the prices...then I drive to Target
69. My gutter humor makes me laugh at this number
70. I hate the gym more than I hate the fat
71. I would like to go back in time and travel west from Missouri for the California gold rush
72. I paid $200 for my last hair cut and color...and that was waaaaaayyyyyy too much money!
73. I don't particularly care for tomatoes, but if you cover them with buffalo mozzarella and sprinkle some balsamic vinegar on them, I'll eat them for days
74. I pick up the dialect and mannerisms of the people I'm around
75. I find the typos in books
76. My grandfather was the greatest man I've ever met
77. I don't like hippies
78. I check my email every day, but it often takes me three months to reply to a message
79. Obviously, I'm a professional procrastinator
80. Alcohol is yucky
81. I believe in possibilities, not a specific deity or way of life
82. I don't believe people when they tell me I'm beautiful...I think I'm okay
83. The greatest compliment I ever received was one evening at the gas station: A random man told me, "Smile, you're beautiful," before he got in his car and drove away. It wasn't skeevy, it wasn't said in any attempt to hook up or get a booty call. He said it as though he was telling me my shoe was untied. When he said it, I believed him.
84. Talladega Nights makes me giggle
85. I have clear memories of being two and three years old
86. I have a very slow temper, and a very long memory
87. I listen to music as much as I possibly can
88. My biological clock, if I even have one, is nowhere near ready to start ticking yet
89. This is a really long list...are you even still reading? If so, I hate running so much that I got out of the Army because of it. Twice.
90. I'm a loner and have no problem eating, traveling or going to the movies alone. In fact, sometimes I prefer it
91. I'm very self-aware, but I learn more about myself all the time
92. I don't like being a manager
93. Caramel and toffee are better than chocolate
94. Chicago has never held any interest for me
95. I don't like coffee
96. I have found no food that cannot be made tastier with the addition of either chocolate or cheese
97. I've learned to live my life for myself and no one else
98. I don't regret anything I've done, but there are a few things I might change if I had the chance to go back and do it all again
99. I re-read my favorite books so much that the pages fall out and I have to buy new copies
100. I can listen to Jason Mraz and Linkin Park over and over and over again

Chapter 4: Istanbul ~ the other side of Ramadan

2007-10-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

JFK was kind enough to allow me to hate it with little effort. As I neared the end of my thus far fantabulous vacation, I flew from Colorado Springs to JFK for my connecting flight to Istanbul. I had scheduled my flights with just over a three hour lay over to be sure I had plenty of time for delays, terminal changes and international check-in. I arrived and retrieved my baggage with no problem. I asked the very nice Delta representative where I needed to go to catch a Turkish Airlines flight and he directed to me Terminal 1. He even told me how to get to the tram outside.

I found the tram with no problem and confirmed with the airport employee there that the train would, in fact, take me from my current location at Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. As four trains passed by, all bound for New York proper, I began to doubt the guy. Finally a train came by that said “All Terminals.” Yay!

I stepped on and rode around the circular style airport. LAX has the same design and that is probably my most hated airport on the planet. Yeah, ATL pisses me off because it’s always insanely busy and they don’t have signs for the T gates, but I have a deep and abiding hatred for LAX. I get confused there by everything from parking lot exits to bathroom locations. JFK is now #2 on that list.

I rode the tram from Terminal 2/3 to Terminal 4 to Terminal 5/6 to Terminal 7 to Terminal 8/9. At 8/9 I gathered my belongings closer since Terminal 1 should have been the next stop when the circuit began all over again. Nope. The train then reversed direction so I rode the thing from Terminal 8/9 to Terminal 7 to Terminal 5/6 to Terminal 4 to Terminal 2/3 and finally to Terminal 1. It would have been faster for me to have walked from 3 to 1. Or even to have low-crawled. Backwards. Unfortunately I didn’t know that when I first headed to the tram.

The International Terminal wasn’t that bad. At first. The line for Turkish Airlines check-in moved rather quickly. When I got to the counter the lady informed me there were no window seats. Sadness, ‘cause those are my favorite. I don’t potty often on a plane, and I like to sleep with my head resting against the wall, so the window is perfect. I asked about an upgrade, but wasn’t willing to part with the $2600 necessary for it. So I settled for an aisle seat on a 2-4-2 seating configuration…at least I only had one row partner to worry about getting up for the restroom.

Then I learned to hate JFK more. I filed my way through security with the intention of grabbing something to eat and getting some cash once inside the gate area. That turned out to be a big no go. There were no ATMs, though there was a money exchange. There were stores like Cartier and Mont Blanc who most assuredly would not sell me anything to eat. There was a hot dog cart selling dogs for $4 each. I don’t like hot dogs enough to pay $4 for one. And there was a sandwich bar. So I trudged my way back out to the main terminal and headed upstairs for a double cheeseburger and fries from Mickey D’s, my first, last and only foray there during my vacation. I found an ATM and pulled $100, figuring I would exchange $40 worth into Turkish lira. I knew the entrance visa for Turkey could be purchased at the airport for USD$20, but I wasn’t sure if the visa desk would accept dollars or if I had to pay it in lira.

I filed back through security again and stepped up to the money exchange desk. Of course they exchanged every currency on the planet except Turkish. Great!

Then I wandered the gates looking for a single computer terminal that worked so I could send an email to the hotel I had booked and let them know I was still on schedule for arrival the next day. The hotel had said they would send a driver for me, I just needed to confirm my arrival. Since I had left my brother’s house at 0445 that morning, I hadn’t really had a chance to send an email yet. Of course, in its never-ending quest to gain my dislike, not a single computer terminal worked.

But then I left JFK and all was right in the world again. Turkish Airlines put me on a very nice airplane. Their color scheme had the seats upholstered in a pretty aqua blue that made the cabin appear much larger than normal, with pastel pink accents like the pillows and scarves the flight attendants wore. I got my own TV screen, one of my favorite things about long flights. I like the ones on Delta that allow you to play trivia with other passengers; I don’t like the ones that expect you to pay to watch TV. That’s just petty, in my opinion. I’m already paying $500 to fly with you and now you want to charge me to watch a frickin’ movie?!?!

Okay, soapbox, sorry.

Anyway, Turkish was great and I took a couple Tylenol PM and slept until about an hour before arrival in Istanbul the next day. I, of course, woke up just in time for breakfast.

The airport was easy to navigate. All the signs were in English, so I had no problem there. As an American I walked up to the clearly signed visa desk, handed over my passport and $20US and had an entrance visa in three seconds after a cursory glance at my passport from the visa lady. She did do a double take at my Afghani entrance visa, but everyone does ‘cause the damn thing is a colorful sticker that takes up a whole page rather than just a stamp like other countries give you.

It was still Ramadan, but I was pleased to see that restaurants were open in the airport when I came out of Immigration. I hoped the rest of Istanbul followed suit because I really didn’t want to spend three days eating Pringles and sleeping till 1pm since everything was closed during the day anyway (see earlier trip to Ramadanian Kuwait).

I turned on my phone and called the hotel. Mehmet, who answered the phone, promised he would send someone right away. My voicemail jingled when I hung up and I called to check my messages.

It was my roommate. My dog had managed to find yet another medical disability to throw himself into with great enthusiasm. I’ll go off subject a bit and tell you about my dog. First of all, he’s neurotic. I bought him when he was a year and a half old from his very nice breeder. Only problem was she was quite old and her husband had had a stroke years ago and they didn’t go out much or have many visitors. But that meant that her dogs weren’t greatly socialized either. When I got “Buddy,” as she called him, he was a young dog who was very curious in me as a visitor in the house and walked on a leash pretty well when I took him around the backyard. Problems started about three hours later when I tried to get him in my SUV for the drive to his new home. He had been taught by his mom not to get into cars with strangers and he was fighting me with all he was worth. I got him home and slept on the floor in the living room with him the first night because he did nothing but pace. For hours. In the two weeks I had him at my mom’s house in Ohio before moving to Phoenix he got pretty used to the two of us, but when anyone else would make eye contact with him he would scurry out of the room.

I took him to the vet and got him chipped so if he ever ran away the person who found him could take him to the vet and the vet could run a grocery store scanner over his neck and find out who he belonged to. Then the medical stuff began. I had to take him in for an ear infection. Oh, he loves it when I corner him and flip his ears up and squirt gunk down into them then squish it around even deeper. Yeah, that’s his favorite. He gets ear infections about twice a year.

For a year in PHX he was fine. Well, he was still neurotic, but that was getting better week by week as he grew more accustomed to new people and places all the time.

Then we moved to California. Our backyard backs up to a mountain and within about a week of moving in he managed to pull a shoulder muscle running about and down its steep banks. I took him to the vet for that; it cost $120 for doggy aspirin. Two weeks later he and my roomie’s dog were digging like bad dogs and found a nasty bug they were kind enough to drag inside the house. In the process of digging up the nasty bug, he managed to attract a spider that ate a big hole out of his armpit. Roomie and I went out to run errands that day and when we got back he was covered in welts from his face to his feet from the spider. Another flying trip to vet and this one cost me $180.

Then I took this job and was gone for about two weeks when roomie had to take both dogs in for eating plastic and giving themselves stomach infections. And then this spring he had a tumor growing on top his head for a few weeks. So when I checked my voicemail in Istanbul and learned that my dog now has epilepsy, it didn’t really surprise me.

Enough of the epileptic, tumorlicious wonder…back to Istanbul.

I stayed at the Apricot Hotel in the Sultanahmet district. I liked the area a lot. Little tiny streets mazed through the old city where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia stand sentinel. The neighborhood is filled with bars, restaurants, hotels and shops, so there was always plenty to keep me busy.

As a white girl touring alone, I expect to be accosted, harassed and harangued by local shop keepers. But after awhile it really does become bothersome. So, as I was walking past a small store and the fiftieth Istanbullian guy called out, “Hey American, where are you from?” I skipped around, shrugged, and said (in my not horrible Mexican accent), “Lo siento, pero no hablo ingles.”

And damned if he didn’t come back immediately with, “Hablo espanol! De donde eres?”

Well, that obviously didn’t work to my advantage. So I ignored him and continued on my way.

History fascinates me. Walking through Sultanahmet and seeing buildings still standing today that were build in the sixth century absolutely astounds me. We have nothing like that here in the States, our little infant country. Even Leif Erikson wasn’t here that long ago when you compare it to places like Istanbul, Rome and even London. And the fact that these buildings were erected so long ago yet still stand, strong and steady, is simply awe-inspiring to me. I can’t consistently do long division correctly (seriously, I really suck at math) and yet these engineers and builders and craftsmen more than a millennium ago created something so perfect that it still serves its original purpose and sees thousands of visitors every day.

The city was cool and humid as I walked around, though I noticed that as I got closer to the Bosphorus river or the bay it cold and windy. I always like to take a bus tour in any city that has them. It’s usually the big red double-decker bus that has a recorded commentary or a live person giving the tour highlights. I like the one in London so much that I’ve taken it at least three times, maybe four, because I learn something new on each trip. And usually the live commentators are going to school for theater or acting, so they make the tour fun.

Anyway, the bus tour was scheduled to leave at 11, so I had a good hour to kill before I had to buy my ticket and board. I don’t like going into mosques as a tourist because I know that non-Muslims really aren’t supposed to poke around in there. The Blue Mosque was beautiful from the outside and I was satisfied to take a picture or two.

Directly across a grassy square, that contained life-size but crazily painted cow statues (was anyone in DC during the summer of 2004 when all the panda bears throughout town were painted? That’s what these three cows were like, but I don’t know why they were painted.), stood Hagia Sofia. If I remember correctly, the structure was originally built as a church, then converted to a mosque and finally became a museum. I bought my $10 entrance ticket and had to push through the throng of locals offering tours. Once I got in, I had to push my way through throngs of tour groups chattering away in Japanese, Turkish, English, Spanish and who knows what else.

I made a quick run-through of the main building since I wanted to be sure and meet my tour bus on time. It was old and cool and dark inside with a photographic display upstairs of some of the hidden treasures of the old church. I tried to take some pictures but it was a bit too dark and I didn’t have a tripod for my camera so they came out fuzzy. Sadness.

Back outside I took the 90 minute bus tour through the European side of Istanbul. If you didn’t know, Istanbulites market their residence as the only city built on two continents; not-Constantinople spans Europe and Asia.

This wasn’t the greatest bus tour, and I had been warned by the guy at the hotel about it, but the tour is a good way to get your bearings and figure what you want to see and what you don’t. The commentary was recorded and as we passed each interesting place there was one or two sentences about it before the recording went back to some music until we passed another interesting place.

Back at Sultanahmet I headed toward Topkapi Palace, just behind Hagia Sofia. The Palace used to house the sultan and I wanted to see the fabled harem, but I was meeting a friend for dinner across town and didn’t have time to do the tour, so I decided to put it off till the next day. I did walk through the gardens, which were pretty in the fall afternoon. Little concrete paths snaked all around the grounds and I meandered through woods that whispered and murmured at me with the breeze. People sat on benches everywhere, making out, reading the newspaper, making out, chatting, making out, napping, making out, just chilling or making out. Dude, seriously, I saw tons of teenagers making out. It’s like the park has magical powers that prohibit God/Allah and your parents from knowing what you are doing while you there.

I liked the garden so much because not once was I called “American lady” or badgered by some market owner to come and see the fabulous wares of his shop that were just like the shops on either side of him. I sat down on a bench to take some notes about my trip so far, since I had no one to make out with, and a boy in his late teens came up to ask the time. He didn’t use the wrist gesture to ask, but luckily the word for time in Turkish is the same as in Arabic so I understood what he wanted. I showed him my watch and he thanked me and walked on.

After my little sojourn there I walked back up the hill toward the Basilica Cistern and spent my favorite 10 lira in Istanbul, not Constantinople, on the entrance fee. The Cistern was built a long, long, long time ago (yeah, forgot to take a note about that detail and the internet is down so I can’t look it up right now) as a water storage tank, basically. Water was run from the forests outside of town into the cistern to be sure that the Istanbulese never suffered a drought. More than a story below ground is this huge chamber, softly lit in gold and supported by great, round columns, filled with water. Classical music plays quietly and the air is cool and wet. I loved this place. I wanted to hang out there all day. I never wanted to leave.

Fish swam in the water held there and I learned that if you flashed your camera light at them, they would swim toward the light. One flash to attract them, then the second flash actually took the picture. Some of the fish were little darting minnows, but some of them were catfish as long and fat as footballs.

Istanbul has a lot of cats too. I know Rome and Athens are known for their feline population, but not-Constantinople should be on that list too.

I took a taxi from my hotel across town to meet my friend in Ortakoy. The taxi driver spoke about six words of English, but of course wanted to carry on a conversation with me. He called the other drivers on the road “soup air man yaks” which I finally translated to “super maniacs.” Anyone he didn’t like he called George Bush or Texas, anyone he did like he called Bill Clinton and gave them a big thumbs up. He drove 80kph in a 30 zone, would cross three lanes of traffic in rush hour for no perceived reason – and yell “George Bush!!!” at the super maniacs he cut off who honked at him – then would immediately cross back.

I arrived intact, but I think we might have lost the back bumper along the way plus all the tread on the tires.

I met my friend at the Radisson hotel, an easy landmark, and we went for coffee then dinner. The restaurant was called Picante and advertised Mexican food.

I’m wary of Mexican food when I’m not in Mexico or the western United States. I adore Mexican food, it and Italian are my two favorite styles. I lived in Germany for a year and a half and I gave up on trying to find anything good. There was one Mexican place in Mainz, which was 5 or 6 hours from where I lived. But the owner was from San Antonio, so he knew what he was doing. Otherwise, a “green burrito,” which to me means yummy pork stewed in tomatillo sauce or other such goodness, turns into a tortilla filled with spinach. Ew. Ya know the bag of frozen mixed veggies you can get at the grocery store with the peas and little square carrot pieces and corn nuggets? Yeah, I cut open a burrito one time and those things fell out. If I can’t say the word in Spanish, and I don’t know ‘peas’ and often forget ‘carrots,’ then it should not be in my Mexican food!

But I was willing to try Picante. It wasn’t bad. Wasn’t Mexican, but wasn’t bad if I pretended it wasn’t supposed to be Mexican. The menu even stated that the restaurant owners were trying to bring Mexican food to Istanbulos, but with a Turkish twist. My burrito had cheese, beef, beans and mushrooms in it and was pretty tasty.

At one point, walking toward the taxi stand with my friend, I had to ask why there were so many dudes standing around with a table that had a box and a rabbit or three on it. Apparently the rabbit can tell your future. You pay bunny-dude however much he decided to jack you out of, and then he drops a few pieces of paper on the table, kinda like Confucius is nice enough to stuff into fortune cookies, and whichever slip of paper the rabbit eats first is the prediction for your future.

After dinner I headed back to the hotel, only to be dragged back out, kicking and screaming of course, for a night on the town by the front desk guy, Mehmet. He was nice and spoke English well and promised to show me around nighttime not-Constantinople. We went first to a bar in Sultanahmet where I had a glass of Raki. Raki is Arq is Ouzo is Sambuca is Pastis, an anise-infused liqueur that will kick your ass and burn holes in your esophagus if you’re not careful. Mehmet swore I had to have mine mixed with water, which makes the clear liquid turn a cloudy white. I don’t like it mixed with water because then there is more to drink. If you take it undiluted, it’s just a shot you throw back and get it over with. Mixed with water it becomes a drink you have to sip. I don’t like to sip, I want to shoot it and get it over with.

Next we went to the neighborhood of Taksim and Istiklal Street. This is a pedestrianized street lined with department stores, music shops, restaurants and all manner of places to spend money you shouldn’t really be spending. It’s very European and at night, especially during Ramadan, is loud and busy with bars, clubs and restaurants. We went to a “secret” bar that was on the fifth floor of a building and had no sign to advertise it where the drinks were cheap. After that we headed to the Line Bar to listen to a live band who very proudly named themselves Pyjamas.

Pyjamas was good and they played lots of different music. They began the first set with Cake, moved on to AC/DC, threw in a little “Sex Bomb” and “La Bamba,” then slid into rocking versions of traditional Turkish music and what sounded like German drinking songs. There was even a song in English that asked the listener to “start to wear purple” that everyone in the bar knew and sang along to with great gusto. Mehmet was astounded I had never heard the song before.

We got back to the hotel around 2am. My plans for the next morning were to bound out of bed at 7am, head to Topkapi Palace to take the tour and see the harem, then meet my friend for lunch at 12.

When the alarm went off at 7 I turned it off and went back to sleep till 11:18. Check out was 11:30, so I rushed my shower and stuffed everything back into my suitcase. I was at the check out desk at 11:42. Not bad. And since I had only had the one Raki the night before and stuck with Coke for the rest of the evening, I didn’t even have a hangover.

I met my friend for lunch, which we shared with two cats, then headed to the Grand Bazaar for souvenirs. The Grand Bazaar is another crazy old building that houses something like 3000 shops inside. The ceiling is domed like a huge honeycomb and each of the shops is only about the size of a bathroom. Wares are stacked high on top of each other and artfully tumbled into the walkways to get the attention of purchasers. I found the perfect patchwork quilt for myself, plus painted tiles and refrigerator magnets for my family. Everything is available there, cheap tshirts and silken scarves, handmade quilts and gold, antiques and cheesy picture frames. It’s a souvenir fantasyland. There are even small restaurants and hookah cafes throughout for when you need a break. It was busy, but much less chaotic than I had expected.

We walked through the local shopping district on the way toward the water and the Egyptian, or Spice Bazaar. My friend kept warning me to keep a strong hand on my purse as we jostled through a surging crowd of families out shopping before the end of Ramadan feast. Most women here wore colorful head coverings, whereas in other areas of Istanbul they didn’t, and my friend explained that this was a poorer section of the city, therefore the people were more religion-oriented and not as Westernized. Swarms of children filled the street with parents calling out to hurry up or slow down.

We shoved our way through that crowd to the Spice Bazaar, which was more like I had imagined the Grand Bazaar would be. As soon as we entered, there was a stall on the left that sold nuts. My friend had to push her way to the front of the line to get any attention and the crowd there was definitely chaotic. People yelling, waving little white bags of pistachios, money changing hands left and right, pushing and shoving and that hand still clutching my bag to my chest in defense against pick pockets.

The Spice Bazaar had the same set-up with stalls packed in and prettily painted domed ceilings. It was more like a grocery store, or dry goods shop. Spices were for sale, of course, but also nuts, pastries and sweets, vitamins, cheese, tea and even some gold and souvenir shops. This was more a local shopping destination than the touristy Grand Bazaar.

We walked straight through since I was there only to see things and didn’t have any more money to spend. Once outside in the fresh breeze, we were going to take the “funicular,” a walking tunnel under the river, to the other side and back to Taksim district where I had been the night before.

Holy God, we started down the stairs into the funicular and about six steps into it, smooshed chest to back and side to side, I saw the horde of people inside the tunnel. I have literally never in my life seen such a mass of humanity in one space. I think half the population of Istanbul was in that tunnel; it was nothing but a slow moving sea of heads with no space between anyone. We immediately spun around and, like salmon, fought the current back up the stairs to daylight once again.

We took the bus to Taksim and spent the rest of the afternoon shopping before I had to fly back to Kuwait and then on to Iraq.

All in all Istanbul was nothing like I had imagined. I started this trip in Kuwait, which is very Islamic, at least in theory and public practice. Istanbul was extremely Westernized for being the largest city in a country 99% Muslim. Nothing seemed to close for Ramazan, as the Istanbulagos spell it, but everything was on sale for the holiday. There were additional bazaars throughout town and nightly street fairs and activities.

Drivers weren’t as crazy as I had expected; the accepted driving speed was usually twice the posted limit, but people were courteous and horns didn’t blow excessively. Many of the streets were tiny and maze-like and obviously ancient, often still laid in brick or cobblestones.

Vendors along the tourist or shopping areas usually offered popcorn, corn on the cob or roasted chestnuts (which plummeted from trees at killing speeds when the winds picked up!). Stores advertised prices in Turkish lira, Euro and US dollars. There was even an HSBC ATM on Istiklal Street that offered cash in all three currencies.

And everybody spoke English. I am really uncomfortable going to a country where I don’t know even the basics of a language, and this was the first time I had done so alone, so I felt even more like the “asshole American.” It doesn’t seem to matter than I can communicate well in Arabic and Spanish, okay in German and enough to stumble by in French and Italian – I feel like an asshole when I expect someone else to speak English to me. I know I will never be able to speak the language of every country I want to see, but that doesn’t matter to my traveling self who apologizes for not knowing Greek or Turkish or any of the Asian languages for my cruise in 2009.

I’m extremely glad I took the two day layover in Istanbul and had the chance to explore a city I might have never seen otherwise.

Chapter 3: Colorado ~ familial terrorism

2007-10-23T13:35:00.000-04:00

The flight out of St. Lucia was cold. Apparently the airplane people figured that anyone in St. Lucia was from and accustomed to the weather in, oh, say, Nome, Alaska so they set the air conditioning to the Frost setting on the plane. Literally. I know that I am pretty used to some crazy hot temperatures at this point, but the plane was ridiculous. I was wearing a tank top with a light-weight hoodie and had to put on my cable knit sweater for the flight.

It was cold.

Atlanta airport pissed me off. ATL is likely to do this in a normal situation since it is the busiest airport in the world and I don’t like big crowds of people. I would love to blame it on PTSD or some other factor of my current employment, but alas, I’m just kinda anti-social. I’ve never had a desire to see Carnivale or Mardi Gras or the ball drop in Times Square. Everyone milling around after a Brigade formation used to piss me off, so you can imagine what a crowd of noisy civilians with no purpose would do to me.

Anyway, it was worse this time. I had to travel from Terminal E, through Customs, on the little tram thingy, and over to Terminal T to catch my connecting flight to Denver. Immigration pulled me out of line and made me wait in a back room while they ran my passport. The guy at the Immigration desk apologized profusely and checked his manual three times before sending me over there; apparently anyone coming out of Iraq had to go the back room. That probably didn’t include US citizens with Department of Defense Common Access Cards (DoD ID card), but, hey, Big Brother and I are friends and I loves me some security. If he wants the back room Homeland Security people to run my passport before letting me loose in the country, I’m cool with that. That means he’s doing his job, maybe going above and beyond. He’s following the rules to the letter and that’s okay.

I was only in the back room for a minute or three, but while I was there a family of Mexicans trooped in (our flight arrived at the same time as a flight from Mexico City, that’s how I know they were Mexican – I’m not just stereotyping all Latinos) and my favorite…a dude of about 28 came in with a girl of 16. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to enter the country with a minor female to whom he wasn’t related, especially considering he was an American citizen and she was not. In fact, she didn’t even speak English (though I don’t think she was Mexican either. I’m not sure which flight they came off of.). I didn’t get to stay for the end of that little soap opera. The back room DHS guy barely looked at my passport before he told me I could go and I didn’t want to hang around and chance getting myself thrown in prison just to see what happened with dude and the girl.

Then the trouble began. I took the tram to what the little running message bar promised was the T gates. T gates were also the stop for A gates. I got off the tram, saw a sign that said “T gates this way” and followed it. As I walked farther and farther, with no more signs, I saw a couple who turned around and overheard the guy say, “I think it has to be back this way.” Yeah, I ignored that clue.

I kept going the way the sign had said, went up an escalator, and, drum roll please, found baggage claim and the main entrance to ATL. Great! Let’s not forget that I had less than two hours between flights and had already been held up at Immigration and Customs. So I asked the nice TSA man at the doorway, “Where are the T gates?”

He shook his head. “You’re the about the tenth person to ask me that this evening. They’re behind you. You’ll have to go back through security, and they’re on your right.”

Hmmm, maybe if ten people have asked you the same question, there could be a missing sign somewhere along the way between the tram and the exit. That other couple had it right; they turned around and headed back the opposite direction to find some signage before hitting the exit and the TSA man who wouldn’t let you back the way you came without being re-screened.

The eleventh person asked the same question a nanosecond after me. TSA man said "follow her."

The line for screening was literally eight deep, wrapped around countless of those portable “make-a-line” posts that connect with canvas pull-y belts. Luckily, the eight deep was actually two separate lines that intermingled and security only took about half an hour. I was almost at boarding time when I finally snaked my way through.

I found the T gates and learned that they are numbered backwards. I really wanted something to eat since it was, by then, after 7 pm and I hadn’t had lunch (I was saving my last $5 Eastern Caribbean bill as a souvenir for my mom and hadn’t wanted to put $20 on my credit card just to make the minimum credit card purchase for some Pringles and a candy bar at the airport in St. Lucia). So, I was all happy about flying out of gate 3 when I realized that gate 3 was actually at the end of the T gate hallway. And I had to pee. So I jogged down the hall, found the bathroom closest to my gate, which was now boarding, used the facilities and jogged back to the Starbucks across from the gate. They were out of sandwiches, chips and anything made at the espresso machine, which meant my idea of a panini and chai latte went right out the window. I ended up with an espresso brownie (I don’t like coffee, but it was honestly the only thing left in the case) and a bottle of orange juice and boarded the flight about three minutes before they closed the door.

My dad met me at Denver for the drive back to Colorado Springs. I rocked my new pink straw cowboy hat (my souvenir from St. Lucia) so he could see me from miles away through the crowds, and maybe to embarrass him just a little bit because it’s fun.

(yeah, I don't know why the picture is all crazy, but there's the hat nonetheless)

We grabbed my bags and were on our way. The night was crisp and cool in the high 40s and I loved it. The A/C on the plane out of St. Lucia made me shiver, but the fresh air in Colorado invigorated me after hours of being cooped up.

Dad mentioned that he had been waiting for me for about two hours. Now, you have to understand, my father lives in a separate reality. This is true. You can ask anyone in the family. I had called him from ATL to let him know the flight was still on time. He had a copy of my flight itinerary and knew that I was due in to Denver at eleven pm. I told him to time it so he would get to the airport just after I landed, which meant that by the time I got my bags, he would’ve circled maybe once and I could just jump in the car and off we’d go. Dad says he asked my brother what time he should leave Colorado Springs to make it to Denver on time for the flight and that little brother said “leave now!” at about 7:45.

Of course, when later asked, little brother says he told Dad to leave between 9 and 9:30, knowing that the drive would take about 90 minutes if you were doing the speed limit.

Well, Dad was out the door by 8 and waiting for me at the airport around 9:30. He kept himself entertained by reading all the maps and photos and other assorted random stuff that usually line the walls in airports worldwide.

We did, in fact, drive the speed limit back to the Springs because Dad was sure that his California license plates would get him a speeding ticket if he did more than 3 miles over the posted limit. “The Colonies,” as he refers to anything outside the California state border or southern Oregon, don’t like Californians and love to give us tickets, apparently. I’ve never gotten a ticket for being from California; I usually get tickets for breaking the law, but that’s just me.

I get my anti-socialality from Dad. As we drove into the Springs at 1:30 in the morning, the streets completely dead, Dad told me that he would never want to live in such a big city. What?! The Springs are pretty spread out, so there are a lot of people, but they aren’t living on top of each other. About 400,000 according to the 2005 census. Of course, Dad has lived for the past twenty years on a mountain in Tahoe National Forest within no city limit, where the closest place of business is the post office/quickie mart/gas station/Burger King three miles up the highway then another fifteen miles down the interstate.

Colorado was great. I got to live normal life again…well, as normal as it gets with my family involved. Dad and Stepmom had driven from California to spend the week at Stepbrother’s house. Wait, let me backtrack. First of all, the dude I call “brother” is actually my “stepbrother,” but we like each other, and we don’t like his sisters, so we claim each other as family but not the two girls. So he’s my brother.

When I was first planning this vacation earlier this spring, I had no intention of going back to the States. I wanted to do a week in the Caribbean, then maybe a week in England with some friends. But, Brother and his wife were expecting their first baby at the same time that I was taking vacation, so after a good month of him begging me to come home for the baby, I finally relented and bought tickets to Colorado. Well, then we had to connive a way to get Dad (his stepdad) out there. Stepmom (his mom) would obviously be there since it was her grandbaby, but Dad doesn’t like to travel and is very uncomfortable flying (we would never use the term “afraid”). He could be on Air Force One and he would refer to it as “GooneyBird Airlines” and flap his arms as though we had strapped him to a pelican for the flight. Sooo, I came up with the idea that Dad and Stepmom could drive out to Colorado together, thus being able to see the grandbaby and me at the same time, and keeping Dad on terra firma. Then I would drive back to Reno with Dad at the end of the week, where I would fly to NYC for my connecting flight to Istanbul (not Constantinople {next chapter}).

Dad agreed. By the time I actually bought my tix, Dad “convinced” me that it was stupid for me to drive back to California with him just to jump on an international flight. Either Stepmom would go home with him, or he’d do the 16 hour drive by himself. Perfect!

Baby Niece arrived about four days before I got there, so I didn’t have to proclaim a squishy, red, shrunken potato-looking thing as “cute.” She really was cute by the time I saw her.

And Sis-in-Law, damn, did girl lose weight fast. She had gained about 70 pounds with the baby and Niece finally had to be taken C-section since Sis wouldn’t dialate enough. With the water retention after the surgery and birth, poor Sis looked like a balloon and had an ass for the first time in her life. She wasn’t too happy with that part of the whole ordeal. But every morning when she would get up, I could physically see the difference as the water and weight melted away. It was amazing. She lost 30 pounds in four days!

The poor thing…at one point her size 7 foot was so swollen she had to wear my size 12 flip-flops to go to the doctor.

Anyway, it was nice just to hang out. Stepmom and I hit the mall, I spent hours at the bookstore, I had a nice quiet lunch alone with a Mary Balogh novel at Macaroni Grill, and Dad, Stepmom and I had our first (and possibly) last family outing. Now I don’t mean this to sound as though we don’t like each other, but between Dad’s separate reality, Stepmom’s quick temper and my sarcasm…yeah, things can get hairy. I’ve traveled with both of them separately before, but I realized on this trip that never have the three of us, in twenty years!, played tourist together. And it may never happen again.

We even took a cruise to Mexico last December, and Dad, Stepmom and I never fell into the same group. Usually Bro, Sis and I would go do cool stuff, while Dad, Stepmom and their friends would get suckered into a “tour” of the local slums and sewage treatment plant. Dad always swore he was staying with me so I could be his Spanish translator, and he would always peel off in another direction as soon as I stated what I thought would be fun. Bro, Sis and I had a great tour of Acapulco for $30, saw the cliff divers at La Quebrada, watched the sunset over the ocean, had drinks at Hard Rock Café and got the best chicken tacos ever delivered to our umbrella on the beach with cold beer and a smile. Dad, on the other hand, was lured into the city and out of the touristy areas, a place the tall, bald gringo doesn’t need to hang out, and taken to a local flea market where he swears he had to step over needles, condoms and poo to get out.

But Dad never listens. Especially to me.

One day we decided to go see the town of Canon City, where my paternal grandfather and the most wonderful man this planet has ever seen lived for most of his childhood and early adulthood before moving to California. I asked if he wanted me to print directions off the Internet before we left, but he reminded me that was a silly idea and that men didn’t need directions. We were going to follow what Sis told us before we left. Only problem with that was Sis had told us about four different places we were interested in seeing and all the highways to get to those places. How he thought he would remember the one to Canon City, I have no clue.

I scrunched myself into the backseat of Stepmom’s Wrangler and we were off. We headed west into the Rockies and passed some adorable towns. I fell in love with Manitou Springs and Woodland Park. WP, especially, reminded me of Truckee, CA, though bigger. And Truckee is one of my favorite places.

On the drive into the mountain, we encountered many curious things. There was a Ferris wheel sitting off to one side, kind of obscured by the trees. It didn’t look like there was a fair anywhere close, just a lonesome Ferris wheel. We passed the North Pole and Santa’s Workshop in an incredibly short amount of time since I always thought that Santa lived on the actual North Pole, not in Colorado. The town of Bust proclaimed its population as a hearty 2 and boasted an oriental massage where I’m pretty sure the happy ending wasn’t all the expensive by the look of the exterior. Woodland Park even has a store, which I learned later was one of a chain, called HoochieMama Mountaineering.

I mentioned being hungry for lunch around 11.

We turned off the highway around Divide, Colorado and headed south toward Cripple Creek. Stepmom loves a slot machine, and she wanted to hit the casinos there on our way. Plus, Dad realized that we were on the wrong highway to get to Canon City and he had to turn somewhere before we ended up in Utah. South toward Cripple Creek seemed like as good a place as any.

The scenery was gorgeous. The road curved through mountains that were blanketed with aspens in full golden glory. It was peak color and everywhere we looked the leaves shimmered with warm light. Turn-outs and sharp corners brought us vistas that made me want to buy some acreage, get some cows, and let my big red dog run free.

At Cripple Creek, we drove through the main street of town, checking out the Victorian buildings that had been refurbished as casinos and gift shops. There wasn’t a lot to the town. Dad needed gas, but he didn’t ask anyone where the gas station was. Instead, he decided to drive on to Victor, hoping there was one there.

I mentioned lunch again, but received no response. Stepmom didn’t get her slot machine either.

We drove another 15 minutes down the road into Victor. Talk about a dead city. The post office was open, but that was the only business we saw in town with people in it. Dad went in to find out about a gas station and was told he had to drive back to Cripple Creek. It was on the way out of town on the road headed west.

I didn’t mention lunch since at that point it would have consisted as road kill.

We drove back to Cripple Creek, found the gas station and filled up. Driving back through town for the fourth time, I mentioned lunch again. There was a café that looked good.

To no avail. Ditto for the slot machine.

We headed again to Victor, where the highway turned into a county road. A dirt county road.

It was a long, dirt, county road. We basically drove to the bottom of the Rocky Mountains and back up, on a one lane road, with a cliff on one side and a mountain face on the other. Every once in a while we would pass a ranch. At one point a red and white cow came sliding off the mountain. I figured if she didn’t catch her footing in time, she’d hit the Jeep and bowl us over into the canyon and the river a billion miles below. Luckily, she fell off the mountainside behind us rather than on top of us. We had to stop to allow oncoming vehicles to pass us, though there weren’t that many. We stopped to take pictures at a wide spot in the road and a Buick passed us. But then I think he wanted us to run into oncoming traffic first, ‘cause he pulled over and let us pass a bit farther on, but stayed right behind us for most of the drive.

When we finally hit Canon City at 3 my stomach had eaten through itself and had moved on to my back muscles. Dad pulled into the parking lot for a Mexican restaurant under duress; because they had a banner advertising a “low carb menu,” he decided they couldn’t have good Mexican food. The food was great, he was proven wrong (the low carb menu was just all the meat they offered) and my stomach finally released my back muscles.

Then came the drive to the Royal Gorge Bridge. We wanted to see the bridge because 1.) we were playing tourist and it was the touristy thing to do and 2.) we’re pretty sure my grandpa (Dad’s dad) worked on the bridge when it was originally built in the 20’s.

We headed down the street and Dad saw a sign that said “Royal Gorge Bridge this way” or something to that effect. He followed the sign and ended up in a parking lot for a tourist train that would take you to the bridge. Dad swore the bridge couldn’t be far, only a mile or two out of town, because he remembered it from his last trip there.

When he was fifteen.

Forty-five years ago.

As we left the parking lot, I looked at the map and said “take a left.” Dad went right. Since a lot of cars had turned onto 9th St, which we had passed a couple blocks before, he believed that must be the way to the bridge. He drove toward 9th and I said again, “turn around, you have to stay on this road.” Remember the separate reality I mentioned? Welcome to it. I told him he had to go west on Highway 24, not east. He kept driving east. When I asked him where he was going, he said, “You told me to get back on Highway 24.”

He must not have heard me say “the other direction.”

I came to the conclusion on this trip that Dad believes that I, regardless of my Army training and worldwide travel, don’t know the difference between east and west on a map, nor can I even read the squiggly lines and colorful letters.

A few years ago, when I was engaged and planning my wedding for the upcoming year, my dad said he would give me $5000 to elope to Reno. When the Army sent me a letter a week later that said basically, “Join the Army again or go to jail,” I took my dad up on the offer and eloped to Reno. I’m still waiting for my $5000.

So, as we traveled farther and farther away from the Royal Gorge Bridge, and Dad muttered in the front that he “just knew” he was driving the wrong way, and Stepmom ignored both of us, I settled myself comfortably in the backseat and called out, “Dad, I bet you $100 that if you turn around and go west, we’ll hit Royal Gorge in about 15 miles. You can add that hundred to the five thousand you already owe me for Reno.”

Stepmom snorted. She remembered that offer.

Dad swerved into a parking lot and snatched the map away from me. It just so happened, serendipity one might say, that the song on the radio kept chanting, “That’s the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh!” I sang along very loud. I considered it the perfect soundtrack for me being right. Like usual. And did not hesitate to let Dad know that as he pulled back onto Hwy 24 and headed west. Finally.

The bridge was…a bridge. It’s a suspension bridge, and I suppose it’s pretty high. And if we’re right, it’s really cool to know that my grandfather helped to build it. But, after all is said and done, it’s just a bridge. Stepmom and I walked across it. Then back. Dad got about halfway across before he decided he wanted a refrigerator magnet – his souvenir of choice – and ran back to the gift shop before it closed.

And then we drove home.

When my brother and I get together, we get stupid-silly. Conversations that I would refuse to have with other people, I will carry beyond absurdity with him. We started talking about barbecue one night. Dad and Stepmom were watching the Food Network and Emeril was BBQ’ing some big, hacked off piece of dead cow or other delicious animal. I asked Brother if there was a good BBQ place in town. He said he thought there was, but he’d never been there.

“In fact, if we want good BBQ, why don’t we just go to Kansas City?” he asked.

I made him check the distance from Colorado Springs to KC. I wanted to be sure we could be there and back by morning since he had to work. It was a bit far. He MapQuested it. I think he said 13 hours. But we’d have to add in time for fuel stops too.

And hell, if we were going to KC for BBQ and he was going to miss work anyway, we might as well go down to N’Awlins and get some good Cajun too. So he MapQuested the distance from the Springs to KC and on to NOLA. It would be a good drive.

Road trip!

Sis asked us at one point what we were doing, and he told her quite seriously, “We want some BBQ, so I think we’re gonna go to Kansas City tonight and get some. Do you want anything?”

She shook her head and took Baby Niece off to another room, far away from the crazy vibes of the little girl’s father and aunt.

Another afternoon, all of us, along with another family that Brother was friends with while stationed at Fort Carson, headed back to Divide to see a wolf refuge. We were quite the little group, with seven adults, a two year old, a one year old and a two week old, tromping through the woods to look at wolves.

The sanctuary is run by a woman who survives on donations alone. She has about ten wolves, two coyotes and a little pack of foxes. Fox. Foxii. However you pluralize it. The animals live one to three per pen and each pen is about an acre in size, so the animals have plenty of space to play and hide from people and just lope about. People bring old meat from their freezers that they would have tossed out to feed to the wolves. Or roadkill if its less than two hours old. I know this because someone else on the tour specifically asked. The tour was $10 per person and I bought a stuffed animal wolf as a donation to her cause.

We started out at the fox pen and I had the feeling that my camera battery was going to die on the trip. This was actually fortuitous, because that meant I could weasel Dad’s camera away from him. Dad bought a ridiculously, astronomically, insanely expensive Canon for himself just before Christmas and I wanted to play with it.

Sometimes I truly believe I was brought onto this earth to terrorize my father. Probably for terrorizing his mother as a child. It’s karma.

Anyway, at the second pen, where three wolves lived, my camera died. Score!

"Hey, Dad, can I borrow your camera? Mine just died."

He handed it over reluctantly, with a raised eyebrow (well, that muscle raised, he really doesn't have eyebrows. They fell out along with his hair when he started going bald at 28.) and stayed very close to me. As soon as I stopped clicking the shutter button, he carefully removed the camera from my grasp.

But I had already formulated my plan of attack. At the third pen, I let him happily snap away.

At the fourth pen, I struck with such precision he had no chance in regaining his lost possession.

I walked up with the pouty face, oh very saddened by my dead camera, and he handed over his. I walked away a bit, to get a better angle, ya know. Our little troop had stayed at the rear of the little formation following the wolf lady around since we had kids to wrangle and didn’t want to get in anyone else’s way.

I somehow found better angles at the front of the line.

For the rest of the tour.

He grumbled a bit, but I never gave in. Dad always grumbles. I’ve grown pretty immune to it.

Chapter 2: St. Lucia ~ In which is revealed the white beast of scariness

2007-10-18T13:40:00.000-04:00

Getting off the plane in Vieux Fort, St. Lucia reminded me just how much I adore an absolute lack of humidity. After a summer in the desert, ten minutes in the Caribbean will suck all will to live out of a body.

After about 24 fun-filled hours on planes, I made it to St. Lucia. Customs was easy and soon I was sitting in the un-air-conditioned restaurant eating pizza, waiting three hours for my best friend to arrive. Holy God, the moisture in the air was like a curtain. I felt like a jackass…here it was only about 85 degrees, almost chilly by my current standards, but it was so humid I was literally dripping in sweat. Everywhere around me people glistened lightly while I was likely to drown small children standing beside me. People must have figured I had malaria.

Anyway, BFF showed up and the vacay officially began! We jumped into a van for the 90 minute ride up the entire island. Apparently the international airport is on the southern edge, but all the resorts are on the north side. However, it was a beautiful drive. Green. Wow, so much green I was transfixed. BFF prolly thought I wasn’t paying attention to a word she said as I pressed my face against the window while she caught me up on the events of her life. I did pay attention, I just never looked at her.

I’ve been to Ireland, where the green is wonderful. It’s bright and misty and soft and pure. Here, driving on mountainsides through jungle, the green was huge and overwhelming. I loved it.

The resort we stayed at was the BodyHoliday. I think it has the best deal on the island. The prices were equivalent to staying at one of the other all-inclusive resorts like Almond or Sandals. You pay one price for your stay and that includes your hotel room, food, drinks, alcohol and activities. However, BodyHoliday goes one step farther and, for the same price the others charge, you also get a 50 minute spa treatment each day. Woohoo for free spa time!!!!!

We arrived at the resort and were met at a small gazebo with a yummy Sprite drink and were taken directly to our room. Our okay room with the absolutely kickass view and balcony.

Here the humidity was a problem as well. The room had tile floors and unless you kept the air conditioning on Nuclear Winter setting, the floors stayed wet and slippery. But with the A/C on that low, only an Arctic fox would have been comfortable in the room. It was a dilemma. Also, we found that because of the constant moisture, the ceiling in the room had spots of mold. Not the happiest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in, but everything else made up for the humidity and its offspring.

The main restaurant had no walls, only flaps that could be unrolled for rainy days, and you could hear, see and smell the ocean at every meal. It was fabulous. The first morning BFF and I were laying out by 8:30am. And we got color that early! Pasty-white me had to be very careful not to burn every day.

The water was perfect. Perfect temperature, so salty that you could float standing up, no undertow and clear, clear, clear. For a girl who usually swims in the Pacific, I’m used to inciting hypothermia before my armpits hit the water and fighting against an undertow so strong it will carry you to Hawaii quicker than you could fly there on a 747. I don’t think I’ve seen the sand beyond the depth of my ankles in the Pacific. BFF and I could swim out to about ten feet deep and still see the ripples in the sand. I loved it.

The second day we were there an amazing thunderstorm rolled in. We got caught at the deli and watched the water sluice down like a showerhead with fantastic water pressure. So much rain fell from the heavens that buildings just down the walking path were obscured in grey. The thunder boomed so close to us that it shook the ground like a small earthquake. You could feel the concussion of it in your chest. Kind of like a mortar attack from a distance. Maybe I have a skewed perception of things at this point. Even the radio picked up the thunder. We were shopping at a little local stand a bit later and every time the thunder rolled on another part of the island, it sounded like gun shots being fired over the radio. I was worried that there were riots across the island until the shopkeeper assured me, as one might calmly and quietly comfort a crazy person, that it was just thunder and not weapons fire.

(I think it may be time for me to find another job)

We also took an afternoon to go shopping in the capital, a city named Castries. It’s a cruise ship port, and I gotta tell you…if you get off the ship here, go do some shore excursions. There’s not a lot to do in town if you only have a few hours. Much better to go on a zip-line jungle tour or hit the drive-through volcano (yes, there is one). But we hit town to do some laundry and browse the flea market. By this time I had pretty much adjusted to the humidity outside, but the flea market had me in the throes of malaria again. There are a few markets, each one with a slightly different product offering than the others, and they are huge open buildings with stalls set up inside. Once you leave that first open stall and wander into the interior…well, a woman gave me a free fan when she saw how soaked in sweat I was. Blech!

I got the requisite refrigerator magnets, jewelry and t-shirt souvenirs for friends and family. The shopkeepers all wanted US dollars rather than the local Eastern Caribbean currency, so dollars apparently get you a better price on items than EC. Too bad I was shopping in EC. I’m sure I got screwed on prices, but oh well. I was happy with what I got.

BFF and I were walking down the street at 3:30 when school let out. Suddenly we were in a riptide, stronger than any Pacific undertow, of little uniformed kids chattering away in their cute accents. I think it took us three blocks to fight our way out of the storm surge and back to the shopping district.

We stopped at a small café for lunch that advertised sandwiches. Panini is always good, so we headed in. It took ten minutes to order because, apparently, the sandwich shop had “shortages” of bread, cheese and meat.

I had never swum in the dark before, so BFF and I decided to hit the beach after dinner one night. I was kinda freaked out about getting in the ocean when I couldn’t see anything in the water, but didn’t want to look like a sissy when it was my idea in the first place, so I went racing into the water like it was something I did every day of my life. I found out later that BFF was kinda freaked out about getting in the ocean when she couldn’t see anything in the water as well, but didn’t want to look like a sissy when she had instantly agreed to my idea half an hour before.
This is how we get ourselves into situations…we are always willing to back up each other, even when the idea is patently stupid. We went swimming at dawn St. Patrick’s day weekend in Georgia once…it was crazy cold water, but neither one of us would let the other do something alone. We also raced up the billion stairs of a Washington DC Metro station just ‘cause one of us started running up and the other wouldn’t be out done. I don’t remember who started that one. I’m surprised we didn’t fall over in cardiac arrest by the time we reached street level (it was at Clarendon Station, which is pretty far down into the bowels of the earth).

But then the “white beast of scariness” jumped out of the water beyond the buoys of the swimming border and convinced BFF that a shark was about to swim over and chomp on us.

After the ocean we decided it might be cool to get in the pool for the first time. Yeah, not so much. There was no salt in the pool, and after a few days of bouncing around the ocean with no effort at all, I had to really work to stay afloat in the pool! We ended up sitting along the submerged edge and talking about relationships and sex and other fun girl stuff. I hope our voices didn’t echo up to the rooms, ‘cause those poor people would have learned way more about us than any of us really wanted them to know!

The fauna of the island was interesting. Something made a really loud noise like a squeaky wheel all night long. It was annoying enough the first night that BFF let iTunes play on her laptop all night to drown it out. After that, I think we pretty much got used to it. There were tiny little frogs the size of my thumb nail and the lizards were a pretty mottled olive and blue. I learned that BFF doesn’t like reptiles and amphibians, so I made sure to walk ahead of her and berate the creepy crawlies to keep them from attacking her like the white beast of scariness surely would have had we stayed in the water longer.

I was at the gift shop one day looking for post cards and decided I wanted a book to read. I picked up a Nora Roberts novel and was about to purchase it when I realized the paperback book was $22.50!!!! Holy monkey balls! I love La Nora, but I’m not paying twenty bucks for a paperback! Of course, there was a completely boring-sounding paperback by a local author that was only $9. Talk about price gouging.

I left BFF to her iso-reflexology-Latvian-haiku-aikido massage (or whatever…I’m not a massage girl, myself) and went horseback riding one afternoon. That was great! I had a very nice grey horse named Scarlet who only tried to brush me off against a fence pole once. We rode down to Cas en Bas bay, stripped both the horse and me of clothing, and I went bareback into the ocean. I’ve never ridden: 1.) truly bareback, 2.) in the ocean, 3.) in a bikini, so it was definitely an experience. I consider myself a pretty well-rounded rider…I’ve ridden English, trained for the rodeo and jumped on occasion (though never on purpose). But this was definitely a first! Other than constantly feeling as though I was gonna slide right off the horse, it was great. We splashed through the water for about twenty minutes before heading back to the beach to redress and head back.

BFF and I tried to take advantage of the activities included in our price, but we didn't do as much as we should have. We went tubing three times. That was fun! We'd go skimming across waves, bumping into each other's tube, so much salt water spraying up that we couldn't open our eyes to see what was happening. I ran my tube into her on purpose a few times. She swears that when she kicked me in the head it was an accident, but I think she was getting back at me for ramming her. We both laughed so hard that we couldn't breathe and our stomachs hurt when we got back to the beach.

We rented jet skis also and cruised the northern coast. I decided to channel my dog and when I saw a huge flock of birds floating around and looking for fish, I drove right into the middle of them and then chased them all over the ocean. I had fleeting and horrific visions of "The Birds," but none of them punctured my skull so all was well.

I managed to beat myself up on the last day, thank God. I went the entire week without getting a real sunburn. That morning I fried my front and dreaded a warm shower for the next four days. I also managed to fall off my towering, platform sandals on the way to dinner and scrape one knee all to hell like a seven year old boy. Good job me. Luckily my skirt folded over at the waist so I just unfolded it and let it drape a bit lower than the designers had intended.

Basically, what this whole blog is telling you is that I absolutely adored my trip to St. Lucia and want to go back as soon as possible. If you’re thinking of going, I definitely recommend it. I’d never been to the Caribbean before, and St. Lucia was a wonderful introduction. Now I’m kind of afraid that the other islands won’t live up to my first experience!

VACATION!!!!! Chapter 1 ~ On Leaving Iraq

2007-10-14T09:52:00.002-04:00

Wow…where to begin. I just took 23 days of fantabulous vacation. I will break this down into chapters so you aren’t overwhelmed, ‘cause this blog is gonna be crazy long…

Chapter 1 ~ On leaving Iraq

I left country in late September. I usually have outstanding luck, but I always try not to push it knowing that the one time I rely on luck to get me through, it will abandon me posthaste. I only had a couple days from when I left Iraq to fly to Kuwait, get my Kuwaiti visa, and fly from Kuwait International Airport to the Caribbean. Usually this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but the visa takes at least twelve hours to acquire and military flights are notorious for canceling at the last minute or diverting en route…it’s possible to board a flight for Baghdad and end up in Qatar.

I know this for a fact because I previously had a plane-load of local Iraqi interpreters who boarded a plane in Ramadi that was supposed to fly them to Balad. However, there were mechanical problems and the plane (for some reason) diverted to the gulf country of Qatar. My interpreters proceeded to get in trouble by both the US military and Qatari Customs officials for entering Qatar without the proper identification or paperwork. Of course, that was ridiculous as they had boarded a plane that was supposed to stay within Iraqi airspace and had no control over the pilot turning south. In the end, they spent a day on the military base in Qatar, sat by the pool and drank a couple beers, before being flown back to Iraq where they belonged.

Knowing this could be the case with me, I checked on flights the night before my scheduled departure. My good luck held; there were four flights listed for Kuwait for that day. Yay! That meant that even if I didn’t make the first flight due to mechanical problems, no passenger space, whatever, I still had three more chances.

I made the first flight.

In fact, I was the only person on the flight. I had the entire cargo area of a C-130 to my lonesome. So I spread out on the red canvas seats and went to sleep. About fifteen minutes later, the loadmaster tapped my foot to let me know that I had been invited to sit on the flight deck.

Coolness! I had never been up there before and was more than happy to accept the invitation. So, for the rest of the flight, I got to have a literal bird’s eye view of Iraq. Towns, highways, rivers, two landings and a take-off (we stopped once en route to Kuwait to pick up a load of soldiers who were headed home after their year-long tour), all of it I spied from the windows of the cockpit. It was great!

I was surprised how much the plane wobbles as it’s heading for the landing strip. You don’t see the wobble from a side window. You definitely see it when you’re staring at the horizon quickly approaching at a billion miles an hour.

Or maybe I just had a crappy pilot and it’s not supposed to wobble on approach.
Kuwait was…interesting. I arrived just in time to turn in my visa for the day’s run to the Customs office downtown. Visas are turned in and picked up there twice a day, so if you miss one run, it could be another 24 hours waiting for your passport to be returned. But again, I have great luck.

As a staff member, I was told that I didn’t have to stay on the military base, I was allowed to stay at a hotel downtown. More coolness. Furthermore, the company would deliver my passport to me when it was ready. Who could ask for more? So I jumped into a vehicle with another girl named Rudy and we headed for the Marina hotel in Kuwait City.

I was given a great room, a small suite with a mini-kitchen and huge bathroom and a balcony that overlooked the ocean only a block away. I could see the entire curve of the gulf from my balcony, from the south side all the way up to the three Kuwaiti towers. I was a parking lot away from Marina mall (the best and largest in Kuwait City) and only a street away from the main shopping district in the area.

The only bad point about this whole thing was that Ramadan was in full-swing, which meant that Muslims didn’t eat during the hours of sunlight, so nothing was open. We arrived at the hotel around 5:30pm and had to wait till 6:30pm for the restaurants across the street to open and begin serving dinner. I gluttoned myself on some delicious hummus before Rudy and I headed off to shop.

The good thing about Ramadan is, since everything is closed during the day, stores and restaurants usually stay open until between midnight and 3am to compensate. And let me tell you, Kuwaitis love to shop. We hit a couple little malls on our traipse down the road, and I have never seen so many shoe shops with so many crazy shoes in all my life. Kuwaitis apparently also love flashy things…shiny object syndrome is alive and well throughout the jewelry and shoe shops of the country. I saw four inch heels with mirrors glued to the tops of them; bright red fake jewels along the sandal straps that were as big as baby fists; gold lame sandals with bronze beading and topaz toes.

Honestly, they were all the ugliest shoes I have ever seen.

At one store Rudy wanted to buy a dress. It was an adorable dress with a crocheted bust and subdued floral design on the ankle-length skirt. She took the dress into the changing room and slid it on. Holy God, when it zipped up properly, Rudy had some boobage that a man could fall into and be lost in for days! I’m serious. She had a normal sized chest, but this dress gave her a stupendous rack!

A bit too stupendous. She was flying to Beirut the next day and figured if her mom picked her up at the airport while she was wearing that dress, she would be disowned on the spot. The woman running the shop on the other hand, a young, probably not Kuwait woman (since they are rich and don’t have to work) tried over and over to convince Rudy that she looked beautiful and that the dress fit perfectly.

This from a woman covered from head to toe in a large brown dress and brown floral scarf. She assured Rudy that the dress was supposed to fit so snugly in the bust and that it wasn’t indecent at all.

After shooing her out of the changing room to put her street clothes back on, Rudy muttered under her breath, “Why don’t you try showing some bangs before you have me running around with my nipples hanging out!”

Rudy didn’t end up buying the dress after all.

We ended the evening at the Marina Mall, which is just like any mall you’d see in the States. KC is so Americanized; as we walked through town, we passed Hardees, Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and the ubiquitous McDonalds. The malls had stores like Sunglass Hut, Swatch, Mango (which isn’t in America but damn well should be, I love their clothes) and Claire’s. There is even a Krispy Kreme at the Marina food court. I wanted to try a donut, but was still too full of yummy hummus.

The next day, when I finally crawled out of bed at 1pm, fully adjusted to Ramadan time (sleep all day, stay up all night) I found out a friend of mine was staying at the hotel as well. BJ and I met up and went to the little market next door to scrounge for lunch. Like I said, the entire country was closed for real food, so I got Pringles and a Lion Bar (one of my favorite candy bars, again not sold in the US. It’s got a caramel core surrounded by crispy rice and covered in chocolate.) plus a Mirinda orange soda for lunch. Then I waited with bated breath for the restaurants to open so I could get some more hummus.

While we waited for sunset, BJ and I watched the 3-D channel. Yep, Saudi Arabia has a channel that’s broadcast completely in 3-D so you and your family can sit around in some kickin’ blue and red, plastic 3-D shades and watch sharks swim at your head or dinosaurs rip apart each other as food. My favorite were the commercials that showed a very happy Saudi family, Dad in his white man-dress and mom rocking black from head to toe, wearing their very cool 3-D glasses that you could order by calling the number on your screen. Get yours today!

The sun went down and BJ and I went to a Lebanese restaurant where we ordered way too much fabulous food. He took it all back to the hotel in a doggy bag for the next day’s lunch.

One thing I love about Kuwait is that you have to assume that everyone speaks English. More than half the population of Kuwait is not Kuwaiti, they are all immigrants, many from the Philippines or around India. So, in many cases, if you see an employee at the mall or server at a restaurant, they speak English better than they do Arabic.

While I was awaiting my flight out of Kuwait, I was washing my hands in the bathroom. Two cleaning women, who looked to be Philippina, were sitting in there chatting. An Ethiopian woman came in with a little girl who needed to use the potty. The woman walked with the little girl into the stall, then yelled at her to hurry up. The little girl said she couldn’t go. The Ethiopian slammed out of the stall and began to berate the cleaning ladies in Arabic about the stall being dirt and smelling bad, so the girl couldn’t use it. The cleaning ladies said they had just cleaned it. The Ethiopian woman again complained that the stall wasn’t clean, then went back in to yell at the little girl some more. The little girl still couldn’t potty, probably because some crazy woman kept screaming at her to hurry up.

The Ethiopian woman spoke down to the cleaning ladies as though she was Kuwaiti and they were her servants. However, she was only a nanny to the little girl, which in fact meant that she was a servant to some Kuwaiti family.

I rolled my eyes at the bathroom stall containing the screaming Ethiopian as I left and the Philippina girls smiled and shrugged at me. They don’t care if some crazy foreigner yells at them, they keep their jobs regardless.

The next day was my flight to St. Lucia, and that will be Chapter 2.

If you don't sing along, you're gay!

2007-08-24T08:11:00.000-04:00

A couple days ago I got to take my first civilian convoy. Usually, when I travel around the country, I fly on either an airplane or a helicopter. Every once in a while I ride with a bunch Army guys in Humvees, which is cool since I get to actually see the city. This time, though, I got to ride with civilian guys in up-armored SUVs.

It was badass.

The three guys I rode with work for a company that trains the Iraqi Army and Police forces and are probably ex-military or ex-law enforcement back home. One was from Mississippi, one from Texas, and one was just riding along like me so we didn’t really know much about him. I was told before we even left the compound that I was riding in a truck full of “damn fools” and the driver, Mississippi, admitted that he drove pretty crazy. So I figured I was in for a fun ride.

I got a little rush as we headed out the gate. It was like being in a movie, when the soundtrack is rocking and the camera angles are perfect and you know that something or someone important is on the screen. This time, I was the important person. Okay, not me personally, but our little convoy of SUVs. We had a police escort, one lead and one trail vehicle of local policemen in full uniforms with their faces covered, that split traffic like Moses clearing the Red Sea.

As we rolled out the gate I was told, “I hope you like loud music, ‘cause driving through town, we gotta jam!” And so the soundtrack began. The first song was Korn’s kick-ass rendition of “Another Brick in the Wall” from Pink Floyd. As the police escort floored it on the main road, we sped through a crowded city. Vehicles were stopped for us at each intersection and roundabout, cars were waved out of the way when traffic backed up, and at one point the traffic jam was bad enough that we crossed the center divide and drove up the wrong side of the street at about 40 mph, honking and waving people over the whole way. By this time a punk version of “Black Betty” was thumping through the speakers. As we almost side-swiped five or six cars (sometimes on purpose to let them know not to fuck with the crazy Americans and their big-ass SUVs) the “bam a lam” chorus of the song seemed pretty appropriate.

Throughout the drive, Texas, in the passenger seat, constantly waved and smiled and babbled unintelligible sounds like the ubiquitous “dirka dirka” or “bubli kubli hubli” at little Nissan pickups full to the brim of Iraqi families. They grinned and waved back, never able to hear him through the bulletproof glass of the SUV’s windows. I figure he’s doing good for the whole “hearts and minds” operation.

When we were finally out of the maze of the city, Texas turned to the two of us in the back and announced, “If you don’t sing along, you’re gay!” The music ran the gamut from Amy Winehouse to Linkin Park to the Oakridge Boys to Big and Rich. For the next hour, we drove east through rolling hills that look a lot like central California in the summer with golden grasses and scrubby pines dotting the landscape.

At one point we passed what I was told was the Kurdish Highway Patrol: a penguin (a large Iraqi woman dressed in flowing black from head to toe, also known as a ‘ninja’) crossing the road with a cow. Apparently the “penguins” basically dare the Americans to hit them and they don’t stop and wait for us to speed past, they just lead their cow across the highway anyway. The penguin was the only object I felt Mississippi slow down for. Everything else he sped up and swerved closer to: dogs, ducks, people, cows, cars, motorcycles, donkeys.

It was definitely a fun trip and now my preferred means of travel. I didn’t have to wear a helmet, the radio was loud, the boys were fun and louder, the air conditioning worked great, and the trip took about half the time it does in the Humvee convoy.

Tales from a Pax Terminal

2007-07-31T05:34:00.000-04:00

I travel a lot with my job. A lot. I was on a helicopter or an airplane at least twice a week for about six weeks straight at one point this summer. And it’s not like I get to go to fun locales and exciting destinations, frolicking about at the beach or lazing the days away in a fabulous spa. No, I get to wear 75 pounds of protective gear and equipment and lug a week’s worth of clothing and a huge laptop around with me for a 24 hour trip just in case the return flight gets cancelled and I get stuck at some outlying FOB for four days.

There are some good points to all this travel though. I see some crazy stuff when soldiers get bored waiting for a flight.

First of all, you can walk into a normal passenger terminal, just like any one in a big airport in the States, with cold linoleum (or whatever it is) floors and rows of wide chairs to sit in facing big, flat screen TVs and you will see more soldiers racked out on the floor than sitting in the chairs. Why? you ask. Lots of reasons, the biggest one being sleep. If you see a sprawled camouflage uniform on the floor, chances are that soldier (sailor, airman or marine) is asleep, because a good nap is hard to come by out here. But they will also collapse where they stand and bring out a PSP or portable DVD player, sit four in a square and play Spades, read occasionally or…wrestle?

I’m still not sure how it all began. The conversation was originally about books being turned into movies. Then it slid over to Harry Potter versus Narnia. (HP apparently has “lots missing” and Narnia was “pretty good.”) The children’s movie turned into having fun with your kids, and one sergeant mentioned that his wife usually yelled at him when he choke-slammed his daughter onto the bed when they wrestled.

It wasn’t like she ever turned blue, though. And the kid liked it.

The next thing I knew, one guy jumped up, grabbed the feet of another prone soldier, did some twisty thing as he dropped to the floor, then commented to the crowd, “That was supposed to be a figure four.” However, since all he did was lie down, his legs intertwined with his buddy’s, it didn’t look like a very good wrestling move.

A figure four, according to Wikipedia (yes, I cite my sources when they’re not classified), is a leglock that, when performed correctly, “will apply pressure to the opponent’s crossed legs with his own.”

Dude jumped up to try again. He couldn’t get it right. So the guy on the floor, his intended victim, tried to talk him through it. Neither one of them could figure it out. Within minutes soldiers and civilians were calling out instructions, all to no avail.

It took ten minutes of falling on top of each other, legs tangling, voices grunting, before a female PFC asked, “Is this wrestling or gay porn?”

The next try they finally got it right. Then the victim grabbed the attacker by the collar of his uniform and dragged him across the slick floor toward the door. When someone else called out something about “pre-historic mating rituals” the wrestling started again with a new target.

Last week I was in the capital, waiting at the terminal for my flight for a fun-filled seven hours. (Really, it was loads of fun. Good times.) Anyway, there are picnic benches and tables set up outside under a roof so you can get some fresh (HOT) air without burning to a crisp. I sat at a table to read a book.

About an hour into my book, the shaded area was getting crowded and two specialists walked up and asked to share my table. Of course! Have a seat.

I’m not the most social person, but I’m not going to horde a whole table to myself. We said hi to each other and that was all the conversation I planned to have with these two gentlemen.

Until the older one pointed to the younger one and said, “This is my son-in-law.”

What?

Okay, let me ‘splain how rank works in the Army for those of you who may not know. Specialist is an automatic rank gained within the first few years of joining the Army. Unless you do something real bad, you get SPC automatically after three years (I think. And right now I’m too lazy to check the promotion reg to be sure, but it’s something like that.)

I looked at the older guy, who I thought to be in his late thirties and the younger guy I guessed in his early twenties. I’m obviously not that good at guessing ages.

Dad told me that he had been in the Army before, but out for years and years before his uncle bet him $5000 that he couldn’t make it through Basic Training again at the ripe old age of 40. So Dad took the bet, made the $5000, and decided he was going to find a nice Army boy for his 19 year old daughter. He got to his first duty station in Georgia, made friends with soon-to-be Son and invited the youngster home to Alabama with him for a long weekend. At the end of the weekend, soon-to-be Son asked permission to date Dad’s daughter and the rest is history. Daughter moved to Georgia to be with Dad and Son, Dad moved in with Daughter and Son when they got married and it’s just one big happy (deployed) family now.

Like I said, I see some weird shit.

The Week's Critiques aka I Ramble About the Reigning Queen of the South

2007-07-19T07:16:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know, it's been more than a week since I posted the last one. Shoosh. Let's see, what I have seen/read lately? (Remember, this isn't really about the book or movie, but more about my random reactions. So don't expect to get a synopsis of the plot or anything professional like that.)

High Noon by Nora Roberts. This one was a good choice, as opposed to the other one which I knew was a bad choice months before I finally gave in and bought it. High Noon is set in Savannah, one of my favorite places with lots of memories of nights on River Street and that dude that played the buckets in the tunnel, nights at the Zoo and Wet Willie's and that Irish pub up the block where the nice Irish bartender built your Guinness with the shamrock in it, nights dancing it up at Club One, nights passed out and sleeping on a bench on Tybee Island, nights at Denny's just off I-95, nights at my best friend's favorite restaurant Red Lobster with hijacked fruit and flirty bunny rabbits and bare asses hanging out of T-tops. In fact, it was very rare for me to see Savannah during the day, unless I was going to the mall or cruising through town on my way to Tybee Saturday and Sunday morning. Lots of authors are putting transvestites, cross-dressers, drag queens, whatever you want to call them, in their books after Midnight (in the Garden of Good and Evil if you haven't read it or seen the movie), but I wonder how many of those authors actually spent as much time in places like Club One as I did, or as much money on yummy drinks like Trailer Trash. I'm not a xvestite, but those ladies put on a damn good show. And sometimes the queens from Hotlanta would come down for a weekend. Hoowee! I'm totally off the subject of the book and remembering how freaking cool Savannah is.

Yeah, so read the book. It's good. And I've noticed that her single-title books are moving more to the mystery and a lot less to the sex, some less to the romantic relationship. But it's still Nora and she's still great.

God, I miss Savannah.

Aight, what else... I saw Flicka and couldn't keep my sarcastic mouth shut through it. It was a good movie, for its intended audience, I just saw too many little scenes to comment on when not watching it in the family environment that was its demographic. Like how a teenaged girl who grew up on a horse ranch would think that after coaxing friendship from a wild mustang with some apples she could simply mount up and ride away without getting thrown. Or how once convincing the wild horse with more apples that its okay to let people on your back, why she would think that she could open the gate and that the wild horse wouldn't run, well, wild with her back to its original home in the wild. I also had to call her on the essay she wrote for school about how people and horses had discovered North America together...yeah, not so much. Native Americans were here long before horses came over with the Spaniards in the 1500s. However, since the essay was for the American History class she failed, she obviously hadn't paid attention during that part of class. Maria Bello played a kick-ass mom though, I liked her role best. And the big brother was a freaking genius in family psychology.

I also watched Shooter. I really do prefer movies with hot guys where things blow up or get shot. Sometimes I make a horrible girl. A friend of mine was flipping through my DVDs a couple weeks ago and asked if I was really a female or not, since most of the movies were things like Snatch, Man on Fire, Monty Python's Holy Grail, The Hunt for Red October, etc. So I liked Shooter. Marky Mark is one of my fave actors 'cause he doesn't seem very Hollywood. I dig that. The chick in it looked a little like Jessica Simpson, but seemed smarter. And she wielded a sawed-off 12 gauge with magnificent results at one point. However, later on in the movie I was quite disappointed when she was standing on a frozen mountain showing off her muffin top. Hello, editing??? Fix that! Thank God for longer shirts this season. I made sarcastic comments throughout Shooter too, lots of them relating to Danny Glover being a 'lethal weapon' (hee hee hee, snicker, snicker). But they were made with a little taste of love. Really.

I'm going to Savannah. I really do like that city.

And that is my ramble for the day.

K-1 The Glorious

2007-07-09T02:04:00.000-04:00

I was forwarded this travel write-up from a friend and loved it. If you would like to see a travel video of other exotic locales in Iraq, check out FOB Cobra on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mu2ZoqJ6oE for Part One and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_yZQMlIOCg for Part Two. Each segment is about 10 minutes long.

For the weary combatant traveler, K-1 offers a stop like no other found in Iraq. The rising sun will reveal a picturesque landscape of rolling fields of burnt and dead vegetation, and gently climbing hills arching into the grey-brown smog perpetuated by the oil and petrochemical plant as it burns off the impurities from the crude oil it processes known as N.O.C. Ensuring an ever changing scene, the refuse tenderly blowing in the breeze serves to accentuate the oh-so-rare beauty and heighten the already bedazzled senses. The combatant traveler must make it a priority to visit the wild oil springs that seep from the very bowels of the Earth surrounding the perimeter of the resort and filling the entire region with an aromatic burnt-rubber scent. One will also note that the occupants of this desert paradise are in such a hurry to return to this truly wondrous Mecca of Arab joy that the weary traveler will often observe the denizens hastily escaping, just so they may return like conquering kings reigning triumphant in their paddy wagons of glory.

As the wandering soul navigates the expanse of warm sandy beaches, one will quickly realize that this resort is truly a place of wonder without any shoreline to befoul the qualities of this beach. The K-1 resort lays claim to the most exotic photo safaris in the world. As the traveler boards his luxurious all-terrain vehicle and departs the resort, the local country side will amaze and astound the senses from the native fireworks displays to the river of water that is so sacred that the natives protect it with a layer of oil 2 feet deep. The traveler, while enjoying his stay in pampered decadence, must take a moment to visit the physical fitness enhancement center (PFEC) located just outside the resort’s grounds. As the errant rounds from the jovial staff arch over the resort's fence line into the PFEC, slovenly-bodied people are reminded that to be fat and slow is the way to death. Naturally, the participants in the PFEC seem to be highly motivated in their goals to become physically fit.

Yes, K-1 is perhaps one of the most closely guarded secrets of the traveling world, with its magnificent repair facilities. Each garage boasts a full set of tools to include 2 Philips head screw drivers (one broken), 3 flathead screw drivers (two missing), 1 carpenter's claw hammer (the handle is bent), and a pneumatic bearing press (the air compressor is on back order). The resort’s aggressive and innovative hazardous waste recycling program is perhaps the most efficient in all the world as chief mechanic Ahmed say: “The oil came from the Earth, return it to the Earth…” as he tips over a 55 gallon drum of waste oil. Singing with a new-found joy in his heart the traveler will stare with dumbfounded amazement as he watches the resort’s groundbreaking catch-and-release program for solid waste. The game wardens will take the imprisoned flotsam and jetsam cruelly caught by the resort’s guests in black plastic bags and shred the bags, releasing the refuse back into the wilderness from which it came crying, “Be free, oh wild trash! Be free!”

The dining facilities are without peer. Where else in the world can you sit down to dine and be served authentic Iraqi cuisine with such an amazing variety of accoutrements like as e. coli, tuberculosis, typhoid, and many other secret dishes for which rival chefs and the CDC are still seeking the recipes. For the more timid at heart, fear not! In each pad of bungalows a fully stocked kitchen is available, complete with antique victuals reminiscent of the days of yesteryear. It is without a doubt that such rare and archaic fare could never be obtained anywhere else in the world.

Truly a visit to the resort of K-1 is a must, from the rustic living to the harrowing Waz rides, K-1 is a tantalizing, absolute must for every weary combatant traveler. Submit an AMR through your nearest travel agency and request the most unforgettable trip of a lifetime.

SEE K-1 NOW!

(Military and senior citizens reservist discounts are offered, but not permitted.)

Sunbathing ~ Iraqi Style

2007-07-04T06:52:00.000-04:00

Sunbathing in a war zone takes a concentrated (and sometimes coordinated) effort. The first time I was here, I lived in a mini-mansion on the bank of the Tigris in downtown Baghdad. Of the twenty or so of us who lived in the mini-mansion and its guest house, there were only two other females with me. When we wanted to lay out, we climbed up on the roof. No one ever went up there and the only boyz who could spy on us where helicopter pilots.

Now, it's a little different. I don't live in a mini-mansion any more, so I have to find a hidey hole that: 1) allows me to wear a bikini; 2) keeps said bikini away from prying eyes; 3) still gets sun light.

A combination of two is usually easy to achieve, three...not so much. We have a pool on base, which is great, but you gotta wear shorts and a t-shirt. Personally, I don't want to rock the farmer's tan when I go on vacation to the Caribbean this fall. Sooooo.....

Introducing, the private patio~
Our office has a walled patio that is already festively painted in Calypso Blue, Caribbean Turquoise and a lovely (not shown) Bright Sand Yellow.

1. Set up an Army cot to lie on

2. Find cheap, plastic sprinkler and hose

3. Place sprinkler on plastic lawn chair near Army cot

4. Turn on sprinkler and place bikini-clad body on cot

Bake for 15-30 minutes (depending on desired color: biscuit through walnut) on each side. Sprinkler will continually baste and cool baking body. You may wish to add an iPod with speakers or hot Greek dude to fan you and feed you seedless grapes. When finished, dust with sea salt and you are French-fried and ready to go!

Yeah, I know, I'm a fobbit. But I'm okay with that (for the most part).

Welcome to Not-A-Kebab, May I Take Your Order?

2007-06-25T07:56:00.000-04:00

I’m sick of Middle Eastern food. Two years ago I said, (quoting myself in a high-pitched, snarky tone) “If I never eat kebab again, it’ll be too soon.” Well, too soon only took about two years to find me.

I have a pretty great situation presently. I’m stuck in a war zone, which sucks, obviously. But we don’t get mortared too often, I like the people I work with, and best of all, we have a kitchen in our office. A bit later on, I’ll write a blog on combat chefery for you all.

There are basically four of us that use the kitchen, two native Americans (no, we’re not Indians), one Turkish girl who is now a US citizen, and one Iraqi guy who has been around Americans so much over the past years that I often forget he’s not one.

The meals we make are often a conglomerate of Turkish, Iraqi and hodge-podge American food. What that means, is that we always have bread and the salad usually doesn’t contain lettuce.

I’m not a huge bread fan. Bread’s good for sammiches and French toast. Or some thick Italian bread to dip in oil and balsamic vinegar…mmmm, like the foccacia they give you at Macaroni Grill when it’s salty and buttery and crusty and has a hint of rosemary in it. But that’s about it. Flat bread or not quite as flat Iraqi samoon is good every once in awhile as long as it’s still warm and chewy. However, we never get it warm and chewy because it takes too long to get from the breadery to our office.

And then there’s the kebab itself. True kebab, not the cosmopolitan kind we have in the States, is basically hamburger stuck on a metal skewer that has been greased with cow fat. You put on two hunks of hamburger, then a hunk of fat for taste, and repeat two or three times per skewer. Then lay it over the grill and let it cook.

Yeah, it’s good. I like meat. But I’m bored with it. It’s a big deal that we have a BBQ every week, and every week it turns out to be kebab with flat bread and lettuceless salad. I think I surprised one of my co-workers the other day when he asked if I wanted to throw in a couple dollars for the BBQ. I said sure, thinking we were gonna get steaks. When he told me it was kebab, I said no thanks and went hungry instead.

I want a steak that’s been marinating all afternoon. I want a fat-ass burger loaded with spices and topped with a slice of Velveeta cheese product that will glop off it and burn my fingers. I want barbequed chicken. Hell, I’ll take a hot dog at this point, and I don’t like hot dogs.

Fuck, light a cow on fire and toss some pepper on it as it runs around. I’ll eat it.

I like tomatoes…I suppose. I don’t like onions and I don’t like bell peppers. Therefore, when those are the three ingredients in my salad, I don’t eat it. When we get crazy, the salad also has cucumbers and sumac. Can we have some lettuce and carrots or olives, maybe? Dressing would be cool too.

So, in light of my boredom and distaste of kebab, I’m going to open a restaurant and call it Not-A-Kebab. What will we serve? Every damn thing but kebab. Cheeseburgers and chicken and dumplings and tortellini and gnocchi in a brown butter sage sauce and lamb shank braised in a blackberry red wine and coconut chicken with jasmine rice and cheesy knoedel and Singapore noodles and there will be a salad bar full of lettuce! Four kinds of lettuce! With other stuff like spinach and three kinds of olives and carrots and four types of mushrooms and shredded cheese and sunflower seeds and bacon bits and broccoli and cauliflower.

And on Friday and Saturday, it’ll be Nada Kebab ‘cause that’s Mexican night. Nada Kebab means ‘nothing kebab’ so it still fits my theme and both titles sound the same. Those nights we’ll rock Shakira and Daddy Yankee and the dance remixes of Enrique (without the remix, he’s just a whiner). I’ll serve margaritas and Corona and Del Sol and Dos Equis and burritos and nachos and green enchiladas and homemade chips and salsa and fried ice cream and sopapillas. Mmmmm, warm fluffy sopapillas with dark caramel to slather on top of them.

I can’t wait until Not-A-Kebab takes over the Middle East! It’ll be bigger than MacDonald’s.

Week's Critiques

2007-06-21T04:20:00.000-04:00

Okay, so this is more a month's worth of apparently bad entertainment choices on my part, but 'week' rhymes with 'critque' much better than month does.

Let's start with books. I've read two this week that were, well, you'll see...

(here be spoilers)

Dean Koontz's "The Husband." If you read the reviews on this, you'd think it was would be second only to the Bible in sales. Now I haven't read a lot of Koontz, and nothing by him in years. The last book of his I remember reading was about a girl with wings somewhere in Colorado. I think. So I bought this one 'cause the marketing and advertising people did their job quite well and convinced me it was OMG THE BEST BOOK EVER.

It was okay. Here's the breakdown...Mitch is a garderner who owns his own very small company--himself, one other employee and one truck. Mitch's wife Holly is currently a secretary but studying for her Real Estate license. Holly is kidnapped and the ransomers want $2 million for her, which of course, Mitch the garderner with only one company truck doesn't have.

In come all the clever plot twists. My favorite part of the whole book was probably the very end of Chapter 24. That's the only part of the book that me think, "Oh, snap! No he di'int!"

The writing seemed kind of pretentious to me at times. Mitch, though he apparently has an IQ of 600, is a regular dude and the narration randomly seemed a bit loftier that Mitch's personality. I think Koontz just had some kick-ass and complex imagery he wanted to use, so he shoved it in where he could. That's what it felt like to me.

It was an okay book. I like Nelson de Mille's work better, but I would recommend this one to people who enjoy mysteries or thrillers. It does read very fast...I finished it in one day. I like Mitch and Holly, which made it read easier than if I'd been bored or put off by them. I'd give it three outta five stars, if I had any kind of rating system, which I don't.

Second book...I don't know why I bought this. I know what I like and what I don't like. Again, it was those damn people in marketing and advertising.

Nora Roberts', "Morrigan's Cross." I love Nora. LOVE Nora. AM COMPLETELY INFATUATED WITH AND IN AWE OF NORA ROBERTS. But there are just some stories that I know won't interest me. Unfortunately, this series is one of them.

I'm not into time traveling forward, I think backward is way more fun. I'm not really into vampires anymore...Anita Blake turning into an indiscrimate horndog cured me of that. And I prefer Nora's longer, single-title books that are usually issued in hardback. Why did I purchase this one? Momentary apathy, I suppose. I was at the store and it was there with the magazines and I thought, hey, why not?

Honestly, I haven't even finished the book yet. It's Nora at her magickal, imageryish, fantastical best, but it's just not something I'm interested in. I'll finish it, but it'll prolly sit on the "middle of being read pile" for another week or three before I do.

Okay, on to movies...I've had really bad taste in movies lately. You already got the "Spidey 3" rant. Well, "Pirates 3" was almost as bad. It was confusing, long, ridiculous, long and ridiculous. There were funny parts, I laughed, but by the time the ships were swirling around in the storm, I just wanted it to be over. *sigh*

Last night I watched "The Illusionist." Yep, didn't like that one either. The characters were flat and creepy Ed Norton had the gayest accent ever. He's probably a completely nice man and I know he's immensely intelligent, but dude is just creepy to me. I liked him in "Fight Club" and "The Italian Job." I don't like him as the hero.

Jessica Biel was (I hate to admit) my favorite actor in the movie. Paul Giamatti would have rocked had he not stage-whispered half of his lines. Rufus Sewell was great, as always, but he was the bad guy like he is supposed to be so all was good there.

As for the movie itself...I didn't care when Duchess Fantasia, Orange Fanta, whatever the hell her name was, was found in the river, either as part of a grand illusion or just dead. Didn't care. And, hello? Pushing a man to suicide for something he hasn't done isn't all that heroic in the literary sense. Good job hero and heroine! At the end, I swear to God I expected Julie Andrews to start singing "The hills are aliiiiiiiiive, with the sound of muuuuuusiiiiiiiiiic." Hey Hollywood, take note, you can never set a movie in the Austrian Alps again. You should know better.

But there have been some movies that I really liked, which probably tells you quite a bit me if we've never met before.

Black Snake Moan was awesome. I loved it. The blues soundtrack was perfect, Christina Ricci plays an abused, shy, hardass, searching, vulnerable girl-woman perfectly. A lot of it prolly has to do with her huge eyes and tiny body. Sam Jackson is just the epitome of cool (I haven't seen "Snakes on a Plane" so my opinion has yet to be molested by that flick). And, ya know, I will admit that I like Justin Timberlake. He seems like a likeable enough guy in real life and I thought he played his character well. So there. And no, I'm not 20.

I also loved "Blades of Glory." Will Ferrell is a comedic god. Nothing else needs to be said.

How to Professionally (though unintentionally) Throw Yourself from a Moving Vehicle

2007-06-15T02:39:00.000-04:00

So there I was...first of all, the damn convoy almost left without me. It was around 0500 (that's butt crack o' dawn for you civilians) and the 103d Military Intelligence Batallion of Ft. Stewart, GA, was heading to the range for a day of shootin' guns. Unfortunately, the 103d often proved the oxymoron of military intelligence. But I digress...the convoy rolled out of the motor pool right after my squad leader sent me back to the company area for some maps. By the time I jogged to the office, grabbed the maps and got back to the MoPo, the last vehicle was pulling out of the gate. I guess they didn't need the maps after all. I flagged down the Humvee and jumped into the right-side backseat.

And so it began...

Girlie (I don't remember her name at this point, so 'Girlie' works) was driving, my platoon sergeant was in the passenger seat and BJ was sitting behind the driver across from me. No one seemed to think it was strange that my vehicle had left without me.

The first objective of our range day that sweltering, August morning, was maintaining a convoy of numerous vehicles in black-out mode. That means that the driver of each vehicle wears Night Vision Goggles, which turn the world into a black and green, depth-perceptionless, snowy TV show. But you can kinda see in the dark. Every Humvee that morning drove with a small white light about the strength of a dying cell phone that shone from above the driver's side headlight straight down to the ground, and three little red triangles that would flare weakly as brake lights.

Girlie, our driver, had never used NVGs before, so she kept complaining that she couldn't see anything. Platoon Sergeant, who after a year still didn't know my name, took the NVGs from Girlie and handed them back to me with the comment, "You were in Kuwait, you know how to use these," as though Kuwait was the necessary qualification to working NVGs. After inserting the batteries from my flashlight and turning them on, the NVGs worked just fine. Thank God there was a Kuwait-qualified soldier on hand to save the day.

Please remember that during this time, Girlie had been driving on dirt roads in the swamp with no light. I handed the NVGs back up to her and hoped that this was not foreshadowing to the rest of the day. Especially as we were off to shoot guns. Guns and MI geeks just don't always mix well.

As she drove, Girlie seemed to drift to the right side of the road quite often. Platoon Sergeant would let her go so far, then advise her to move to the center of the road again. There was a deep ditch on the right side that none of us wanted her to drive into.

She did anyway. Girlie drifted right, the passenger side of the Humvee dropped abruptly into the ditch and my door popped open. I felt my rifle, which had been resting between my right knee and the door, start to fall out of the truck. I reached right to grab it and, lo and behold, my seat belt unfastened and I felt myself roll right out of the truck.

Apparently I did so without making a sound because BJ said, a moment later, "I'm not sure, 'cause it's really dark, but I think SMIR? just fell out."

(Yes, SMIR? is an alias)

Back to me...I wish now that there had been a movie crew and four cameras taping my combat roll, because I know that it was the best combat roll ever performed. I snatched my rifle as I dropped out of the truck. I landed on my back in the sand of the ditch, somersaulted backward into a crouched position and was up and running toward the Humvee before I saw the glow of those six little triangles signalling the breaking of the vehicle.

I'm still not sure how it happened, but I know that was the best combat roll ever performed, and it was from the heart!

I jogged up to the Humvee and jumped back into my seat, carefully placing my rifle between BJ and me so it wouldn't fall out again, and triple checking my seatbelt.

After I was settled and we were driving once more, Platoon Sergeant turned in his seat to look at me and asked, "What was that all about?" as though I had purposely thrown myself from a moving vehicle. Before I could answer, he decided, "We aren't going to tell anyone about this."

Platoon Sergeant was a cracksmoker. I think the entire Batallion knew the story before we even got back to the company area that afternoon after shootin' our guns. I told everyone I knew and made sure they told everyone else.

The best combat roll ever was not a story to be supressed!

I bought my Bachelor's degree at Walmart.com

2007-06-09T03:21:00.000-04:00

I have been going to school online for about two years now. For the most part, it's an easy way to get my degree. However, there are times when I get so mad at the professors that I want to beat my professors about the head and shoulders!

One such example occurred this week. Class started Monday. One of my homework assignments was to define the term "safe house" in 250-500 words, citing my research sources properly.

I found three definitions for the term, all with slightly different connotations. I used all three in my assignment, cited properly, and even added an anecdote about a theme restaurant called The Safe House in Milwaukee. My word count came to about 460.

The professor gave me "Extra credit for setting a high standard for others to follow."

What?!?! I met the fucking standard!!!!!

I posted a definition of the term in more than 250 and fewer than 500 words written at a 12th grade level. That's it. And I inserted a funny little part about the restaurant because it added to my word length and made the assignment not quite so boring as reading the dictionary.

Why in name of sweet baby Jesus did I get extra credit for meeting the standard???

Is this an absolutely stupid reason to get mad at my professor? Yes, it is. However, for the past two years I have gotten kick-ass grades while turning in sub-par work. Some of my research papers are written at a 9th grade level ~ that means your 15 year old, PS2 and skateboard addicted nephew could write it ~ and yet I get notes from my professors like "amazing research" and "you write very well" and "OMG ur the awesomest!"

This has led me to believe one of two things:

1. I am obviously a supergenius.
or
2. Everyone else in my class is clinically retarded and I am the asshole jacking up the grading curve.

Now, I will admit that some of the assignments I see posted by other students certainly aren't written by English majors. But some of them are very well written and researched, and I learn quite a bit from the works of my peers.

I often feel as though I’m purchasing my Bachelor’s degree. And truthfully, I’m buying it, but the taxpayers are reimbursing me for it in the form of the GI Bill. I turn in assignments late and come up with varied and legitimate-sounding excuses for doing so. I write at a 9th grade level when I know I can get away with it. One time, I wanted to see if the professor actually read the homework I turned in or not, so I stopped typing the middle of the sentence, nowhere near the end of my paper, and he gave me full credit for it!

This is the kind of stuff that pisses me off. In every syllabus for every class there is a section about guidelines and scoring and such; yet, almost every professor I’ve had so far has completely ignored his own and the school’s regulations for assignments.

Well, if they’re (not their or there) going to let me get away with calling it in, then I will continue to do so.

So, thank you, American taxpayers, for buying me a free Bachelor’s degree that I will use to get better jobs and make more money and pay taxes for the next supergenius going through my program.

Cultural Education ~ Laundry

2007-06-04T08:15:00.000-04:00

This weekend I learned how to do laundry...Iraqi style!

1. Fill washtub with water from hose

2. Add clothing and detergent

3. Set Wash cycle to 9 min and watch the little disk in the bottom of the washtub gently swirl your clothes around for 9 min

4. Turn dial to Drain so all the water you hosed into the tub drains out

5. Refill tub with water from hose and set Rinse cycle for 3 min

6. Watch the little disk in the bottom of the tub gently swirl clothes for 3 min

7. Repeat steps 4-6 till you think your clothes are no longer soapy

8. Remove sopping clothes from washtub and place evenly into adjacent holey bucket

9. Close bucket lid, then washer lid, and set Spin cycle for 5 min

10. Watch as your clothes wobble about inside the little holey bucket for 5 min

11. Remove your not-quite sopping wet clothes and hang on line to finish drying

Wounded in Action ~ Herculean in Spirit

2007-05-29T07:12:00.001-04:00

When I accepted this new job in February I spent three weeks in Virginia for training before deploying. While there, I met not only other management staff who were being trained to work for my company, but also the civilian interpreters being hired to work overseas. One of the men I met, whose nickname is Joe, was a young man who had been in the Lebanese Army and had trained with American soldiers before moving to the US and applying for his citizenship. He wanted to take this position to be able to work with US forces as well as provide for his wife and two year old son and help bring some order to the Middle East.

Here is a conversation I had with Joe this morning on Messenger. His side is black, mine is blue:

samira, my friend, how r u? and how has things been going with u?
hey! i'm good. how are you doing???
i'm ok
are you still working with your sf boys?

When he got to Iraq, Joe was assigned to a Special Forces unit since he had prior military training, spoke English well and was very physically fit. It was something he prayed for before getting here and was ecstatic the day he found out that he was given his favorite assignment.

i'm in the states, for almost 23 days.
wow
is everything okay?
i was med evac’d

Notice that he didn’t mention anything until I asked. It’s not like he popped up on Messenger and said, “Hey, my life sucks right now ‘cause I was injured. Wanna hear the story?”

how are you now?
had a blast in my hum-v
ok. been hospitalised
are you still in the hospital?
they take pretty good care of men
that's good to hear
i hope you're recovering quickly
i hope so too
how's your family?
they're here, depressed and sad
i'm sure
are you in virginia?

He lived in VA, so I was hoping he was close to home so his family could easily visit.

yep
richmond
i wish you all the best!!!!!!!
thanx
you're welcome!
do you want to come back? or are you gonna stay home and chill out?
my hit is too bad , i dont think they will allow me to work there any more
wow...i'm so sorry!!!!
dont be , i'm not.. i took the package as a whole and this is a part of it,
i know, but it's still really bad luck if nothing else
that u can say again..
yeah, i'm sure
i swear to god , every time i look at the pictures with the guys i almost have a break down, wishing to be there with them doin what they r doin…
i lost my right leg, and my right arm needs a long time to function properly, my left foot is filled with holes, but they r working on making it 20-30 % functionable

What?!?! We’re this far into the conversation before he tells me that he lost his entire leg??? And he’s more worried about not working with his team than he is the loss of a limb.

holy shit! will you be able to get a prosthetic for your leg?
ya , its below the knee. but the left will never be normal, it will skid and drag
if there's ANYTHING i can do for you, just ask
i feel better telling u this, i hadnt the chance to speak with the people i knew in iraq
do you want me to contact anyone and let them know?
i just feel better talking thats all , but dont let me sense any kind of sympathy...
you won't, i promise
good, i wish i had more time to spend there, one thing would be that i would had a chance to see u again...
too bad we can never go back
i'm glad we traded email addresses!
u r a fun person to be around
thanks! you are too.
your personality and positive outlook will pull you through this easier than anything else
welll believe me, i never regretted nor felt sorry for what happened for a minute. i swear to god, i held my detached leg in my hand and said “shit shit shit, i cant walk on one leg,” and fired back at the dirties
good for you! fuckers blew you up, you should have shot back!!!!!
i dont have one little feeling of sorrow, except for losing the job and leaving the team, but i accepted the leg thing like u would accept forgetting a bottle of water at the px

This is fascinating to me. I think that he’s avoiding some of his feelings, but at the same time, it’s obvious he’s not obsessing over the fact that he’s gravely injured.

you're amazing. i'm proud to be friends with you
thanx , nothing in the world could be of greater value to me than the words u said!!!
it's true! you are an amazing man.
so hows ur dog doing back home?
is he being taken care of?

Is he really asking me about my dog? We probably had one conversation in which I mentioned having a dog. Yet Joe remembered it and he’s asking about him as though he really cares. We chatted a minute about my dog and he said he would like to get a puppy for his son.

Here is the close of our conversation…

u r a cool person and i was hoping i could get to know u better, and spend some time if the situation allowed, but i guess faith was faster than every thing... hope we meet again .got to go now , have a good night.
like i said, if you need anything, just email me
sure will, u too, if u want-need anything that i can help out with.. never hesitate.. buzzzz me right away..
i will, thanks!

I am astounded by the generosity, strength and selflessness of this man I barely knew. We would chat while we were on the bus on the way to lunch or waiting for various appointments. I saw him for about 2 days here in Iraq before he went to his work assignment, and we talked about the fact that he wanted to start a business. He had so many goals and plans and dreams for himself, his wife and his son. Now he has lost one leg, lost most of the use of the remaining one and had to type this with one hand because the other is currently unable. Yet he remained positive throughout our conversation. He asked me questions that proved he had listened to what I said months ago. He never once wailed against the unfairness of his injuries or the fact that his life is irrevocably changed.

Joe goes onto my short list of heroes. He personifies what the Army calls “Intestinal Fortitude:” courage, strength and the ability to see a positive future in the midst of a horrible situation.

What happened to Spidey?

2007-05-28T08:07:00.001-04:00

Spidey 3 sucks.

Now that my opening statement has possibly pissed you off, let me 'splain myself before you castigate me before Zeus himself. Unless you agree with me, then we are vindicated! I like the Spidey movies. I think it's great that Tobey Maguire plays nerdy Peter Parker who gets to be a superhero. I like to watch things explode and, though I'm still put off by CGI characters because they never move realistically to me, it's cool to see what kind of villains will manifest in each movie.

*sigh*

(Here be spoilers...)

*bigger sigh*

I just didn't like this one! First of all, it was way too emotional. Parker gets all teary-eyed at least three times in the movie. Come on! The dude has saved NYC so many times that he gets his own parade. Stop the waterworks, you sissy.

And Tobey Maguire just can't play the emo-gothy Trent Reznor lookalike character with black eyeliner. I'm sorry. Some actors are type-cast due to their abilities and some are type-cast due to their appearance. Maguire falls under the second category. I like Maguire, he seems like a nice, normal guy and he's had some great roles. However, due to his Kewpie doll mouth and obvious lack of a strong jawline, he just can't play the tough guy. It looks ridiculous and my disbelief suspension lines just aren't that strong. It's kind of like when Denise Richards played a nuclear scientist in "The World is Not Enough." Probably a nice girl, definitely hawt, but not a nuclear scientist. She had a much better role in "Wild Things."

And let's talk about foreshadowing. Best Frenemy 4-EVA Harry gets amnesia (ooh, that's a new plot line!) and swears to his nurse that he would give his life for Peter and Mary Jane. Wow, does that mean he may end up dying at the end???

Finally, how many damn plots do you really need in a movie? It's an action movie, not a volume of Shakespeare. Keep it simple. Blow a lot shit up. Don't confuse the watcher with multiple bad guys who don't know each other and friendships and engagements and alien goo and cheating and lying and vengeance and dead men speaking from the grave and new suspects in unsolved murders and...well, you get my point.

On the good side, Thomas Hayden Church was pretty good at sliding his character from CGI stiffness to real guy walking down the street stiffness. There were actually a couple scenes when I wasn't sure if the visual transition from CGI to actor had already happened or not. Good job, THC!

And ya know, I have to admit that even though Topher Grace turned into a screeching alien Spidey-cousin killer, I liked his character. He fully embraced the dark side, which gave him more depth and believability than emo-gothy Peter Parker. Plus, Topher Grace pulls off the geek with more snarky panache than Tobey Maguire. (I had a hard time deciding between 'panache' and 'elan' here.)

I let two friends borrow the movie after I had watched it. One said it was great, one wanted to stab his eyeballs out. I guess I fall in the middle of those two extremes of opinion.

It's okay to be jealous of my super-cool lifestyle ;)

2007-05-26T01:48:00.001-04:00

Last week I had to move sandbags. For those of you in the know, you may be wondering why in the world I, the vaunted contractor, was on sandbag detail. Well, I live in housing provided to the military and contractors by KBR (a Halliburton child). Apparently a message was put out five months ago that all of our CHUs (Combat Housing Unit) had to have the sandbags removed due to “vector infestation” – which in military speak means “bugs” – and the chance of flooding. Well, I wasn’t here 5 months ago, and the gentleman who lived in my room before me neglected to let any of us know about this memo before he moved 100 miles away.

So a couple weeks ago I got a letter taped to my door that said basically, “Remove the sandbags or we are going to kick you out of your trailer and you’ll live in a tent.” If given the choice, I prefer not to live in a tent. So I studied the seven foot wall of sandbags surrounding my CHU and had the predictable contractor thought of, “I need to hire some locals to move these sandbags for me.” No way in hell I was going to do it myself when I could throw money at Iraqis to do it for me.

Now mind you, the sandbags had to be removed due to vector infestation and flood. Iraq doesn’t flood all that much, and it certainly doesn’t flood between May and December. Someone else was told it was because the floors were rotting out, so KBR wanted to put the CHUs on concrete blocks (yes, I live in a true trailer park) to keep them off the sand. Vector infestation is a scary thing, I will admit, when you picture camel spiders and scorpions.

But let’s also remember that we are in a war zone and they like to shoot mortars and rockets at us every once in awhile. Personally, I would rather the wall of sandbags protect my sleeping self and have the possibility of a scorpion scuttling into my room to escape the heat. Mortar versus scorpion, I’ll always take the scorpion.

Apparently no one is worried about us getting mortared though.

I do apologize for my digression…back to the main point, which I haven’t even made yet. We’ll get to it, I promise.

On Monday I was told that if I didn’t have the sandbags removed by Tuesday morning at 0900, I would be evicted, the locks on the door changed and all my belongings placed outside the door. That kind of pissed me off since the letter taped to my door hadn’t given a suspense date on sandbag removal and now I had less than 24 hours.

So I hired seven locals to come in Tuesday morning and move my sandbags, plus those on the CHUs next to me. My neighbor finagled an LMTV (read: big ass flat-bed truck) for our use and I said I would stay with the locals all day while they pulled sandbags so my neighbors didn’t have to take any time off work.

We started at 7:45 and the first CHU was done in about two hours. Great job, locals!!! But then the sun came up and it got hot. The second CHU wasn’t done till after lunch. And then the sun was higher and the day hotter. Around noon-thirty, the guy who acquired the truck for me saw me backing it into place to begin another round of sandbag-loading and said, “I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be driving that.”

As an unlicensed civilian driving a military vehicle that requires special licensing and by base regulation also requires the wearing of a Kevlar helmet while driving, which I refused to do because my helmet was at work and it’s a stupid rule anyway, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t supposed to be driving it as well. However, since the truck hadn’t come equipped with a driver, I was the only one to do it and had already made three or four runs to the landfill to dump bags.

(By the by, you should have seen me when I climbed in and had to figure out how to turn the damned thing on. I had driven an LMTV exactly once in my life: it was in 1999 and I had driven it in one circle around a parking lot. The dash is full of buttons and there is no key to start it. I found a button that said “warm up-off-retard” that looked helpful so I pressed it {not sure, though, why the truck insisted on calling me a ‘retard’ when I was simply unfamiliar with it}. Then I detected a green button with a large, thin white Z that ended in arrows. That looked vaguely like electricity, so I pushed that one too. Then I encountered the yellow button with the red swirl that also ended in an arrow, and thought that one might be the power button since the other two obviously hadn’t started the engine. Apparently I pressed the buttons in the correct sequence, as the swirly button caused the engine to roar to life and me to “woo-hoo” in triumph. Of course, I forgot that military vehicles require that the headlights be on for the blinkers to work, so on the first run I didn’t have any turn signals. When I remembered to turn on the headlights, the nine-button headlight keypad so confused me that I said “fuck it” and drove another run without blinkers until a nice mechanic showed me I had just been pushing the headlight buttons in the wrong order.)

My neighbor called the sergeant he had borrowed the truck from and posed a hypothetical question to the effect of, “What if your LMTV was stopped by a Sergeant Major because a civilian was driving it?” The answer turned out to be that said civilian, namely me, should simply play dumb and apologize profusely for doing something she didn’t know was wrong.

That had been my plan in the first place, so the day continued unaffected.

The nice sergeant who lives across from me decided that instead of taking a three mile run for PT (physical training), he would help us with the sandbags and drive the truck for me for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks! Now I don’t have to play dumb.

Then our troubles started. At 2, the locals took a break to sit in the shade, drink cool water and eat some fruit that I had brought from the chow hall. As we all sat around and chatted, the leader of this little pack informed me that everyone was tired and it was very hot outside and they would prefer to return the next morning to finish the sandbags. It was quite hot out, in the mid-90s, and the boys had been working for hours, so I completely understood their complaint. However, I had hired them to complete a job which was only half finished and had even managed to obtain more than their asking price per person for the work.

Oh yeah, and if it wasn’t done, I would be living in a tent.

I argued and cajoled and basically refused to let them leave until the sandbags were finished. The nice sergeant from across the walkway said he would pitch in more, and trying to use cultural guilt in my favor, I said I would help with the bags as well. Usually, as the female, I’m not allowed to perform any physical labor in the presence of manly Iraqi men (some of whom I can bench press, these boys are so skinny). The guilt trip worked for the first hour. Sergeant Friendly (gotta protect the names of the innocent) pulled the bags away from the walls, the boys carted the bags to the truck, and I was on the flat bed arranging the bags to pack on as many as possible without accidentally killing pedestrians as we took a corner too fast and bags went a-flyin’.

I obtained a brilliant sunburn on the back of my neck and chest where they were exposed by my t-shirt, and my already tan arms and face turned even darker as specks of sand stuck to my sweaty body. The bags were damn heavy, anywhere from 20 to 40 pounds each depending on whether they were filled with rocks, dirt or sand.

At 3 the boys told me they needed to get home before 4 because…wait for it….wait…after 4 is when the terrorists come out. Apparently terrorists work swing shift in northern Iraq.

Yeah, that didn’t work either. We took lots of breaks and I provided lots of water and even poured some on a couple of the guys who looked like they were ready to pass out. I told them to work in shifts, half work while half rest.

Again, I simply refused to take them to the gate.

At 4 they told me that they had to leave immediately because it was impossible to get a taxi after 4. Maybe the terrorists book up all the taxis at 4, who knows. And they finally caught onto my game and turned the tables. They refused to work any more.

We had literally less than an hour of work left to do. We had to unload the sandbags from the truck, which took all of five minutes of kicking and pushing bags into a pile on three sides of the truck bed. The last load was small and would take nine of us working only about half an hour to load, then another five minutes to unload, and we were done. Of course, the rest of the sandbags that were left happened to be at my CHU. The other two were clear. This entire ordeal began because I was threatened with eviction, and somehow mine was the CHU left unfinished.

SGT Friendly began calling them women in Arabic and Kurdish, telling them that they complained more than any female he knew and pointing out that throughout the afternoon they only carried one sandbag for every seven that I had to arrange in the truck.

That didn’t work either.

So I told them I wouldn’t take them to the front gate until they at least unloaded truck. They went for that and I made sure that SGT Friendly drove very, very slowly to the landfill, and very, very slowly back to my vehicle. If the little bitches wanted to complain about not being at the gate by 4 o’clock, that was fine. I got them there at 4:45, spiteful hag that I am.

And on the way to the gate, they promised me that they weren’t tired, it was only that they had no way home after 4!!!! I wanted to stab me a local at that point, but figured I might get stopped at the ID window as I came through with copiously bleeding Iraqis. I managed to refrain…just barely.

When I got back to my CHU, SGT Friendly was still moving sandbags!!!! Holy crap, what a nice boy!!!! We pulled the bags away from the walls far enough that the trailer could be lifted onto blocks, and left them in a pile. Good enough.

All of this got me thinking about the things that I like about deployments and my job, since I really really really don’t like moving sandbags.

1. I meet some of the coolest people. This really is the best part of my job. I meet people that I can read about in current events books written by famous authors like Mark Bowden. I meet guys who swear to me that the names they used to introduce themselves are their real names, yet they have to check their ID card to be sure they spelled their last name right when writing it. I meet people who are parts of military units that don’t officially exist. I meet people who work for government agencies that don’t officially exist. I met a guy a couple weeks ago who trained military tactics to some of the actors in “Black Hawk Down.” I meet people who completely understand my sarcastic sense of humor and appreciate the ability to be an accomplished liar because they understand that such an quality can be greatly advantageous in various situations. I meet people who realize the true meaning of words like “acquire” and “liberate” isn’t really the same as stealing. Not at all. And, as I’m constantly surrounded by males in this military environment, I know that even when I’m a fat, ugly slob who hasn’t showered in three days and has mascara smeared from my eyelashes across my cheekbones, I will meet some boy who will give me the ego boost I need for the day if I simply smile at him in passing. I have met some of my closest, oldest and dearest friends while deployed.

2. I have been to some crazy places. Half of America doesn’t realize that Kyrgyzstan is even a country, yet not only have I visited the capital city of Bishkek, I have gambled at the casino and drunk yummy cosmopolitans at the bar, then had to walk a drunk Muslim back to the air base. The first day I arrived in country we were locked down on base because the government was going through some type of coup, or other such silliness. I once kidnapped a Ranger, yes an Army Ranger, and took him to Uzbekistan, another country that doesn’t even blip on most Americans’ radars. Once there, I convinced the base commander that even though civilians are not allowed to leave base, I had to go to a bank downtown to set up an account for my company. And I had to take the site manager from the base with me since he would be the one dealing with the bank from that point on. And I had to take the Ranger for my personal security. And I had to take a translator for obvious reasons. Once we had permission to leave base, we jumped into a taxi and drove two hours to Samarqand, a city listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, “Crossroads of Culture,” that was founded in the 7th century BC. Yes, before Christ. We have nothing in America that even comes close to that type of cultural history. My last three trips to London, my favorite city in the world, happened because I was in Southwest or Central Asia and it was easy to get there.

I know that there are showers in Terminal 4 of London Heathrow; I know that the travel gods smile down on me every once in awhile and I might just get upgraded to first class for a trans-Atlantic flight; I know that customs in Kuwait takes forever to get through and I don’t get the special girly treatment when I am there and have to wait in line just like everyone else; I know that you can park your yacht at the mall in Kuwait City; I know that when flying into Bishkek your baggage will be lost and British Airways will give you $100 and your bags will come in next week; I know that in places like Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan the people look Asian and speak a language that sounds like Russian and that really throws me off; I know of a carpet factory where 18 year old girls craft each and every carpet by hand; I know that you can smoke on an Ariana Airlines flight into Afghanistan; I know that sheep in Southwestern and Central Asia have this big flap of skin that hangs as a tail rather than a cute little waggy nub; I know how to say “white girl” in Urdu and “thank you” in Pashto and I understand more Iraqi dialect of Arabic than I do the people who speak proper Arabic on the news. I know that even though the media is filled with terrorism and kidnapping, that Iraqis are kind and generous and if they tell me I am safe within their village, I believe them. I may be attacked as soon as I cross that invisible town line, but while within the confines of the village, I am protected by a cultural hospitality as old as Mesopotamia herself.

3. I get to participate in some pretty rad stuff. During my deployments to Kuwait when I was still in the Army, I called in mortar fire, lazed targets (shot the target with a laser to tell the computer where to fire), drove tanks, translated for generals, showered with boys (yes, there’s another story there), was hog-tied, ate sheep brains and an eyeball, and played Jenga with Kuwaiti soldiers originally from Bengladesh while watching a DVD of “The Candyman” subtitled in Malay.

In Egypt I was the only translator a particularly curmudgeonly Major would work with, and for some reason he loved me. He would pull me away from my normal duties when he needed an interpreter because he didn’t “trust” the language skills of the rest of our unit. I saw the pyramids, licked one of them in fact, had my picture taken in front of the Sphinx, found a five-foot tall bong, was surreptitiously given pilfered finger cymbals by our Egyptian Mel Brooks lookalike tour guide, and decided that I will never attempt to drive a vehicle in Cairo. I rode in a Humvee with three crazy Marines that sped through the desert at approximately 90 miles per hour. I stood on the roof of a third floor building and if I squinted just so, I could see a line of blue that was the Mediterranean Sea. My twenty-first birthday was celebrated in the chow hall with the other folks from my unit and a box of sweets provided by our local translators. I was even offered to ride in first class on the chartered flight back to the US by the mean old Major who loved me, but his offer was nixed by the General who didn’t want a lowly Private First Class in his hallowed second deck of the plane. (I figured if my rank contained the phrase “first class” that I should be allowed to ride there, but the two-star didn’t share my opinion.) Instead, I sat quietly against the window for 15 hours while my sick friend used my lap as a pillow and slept away her flu bug.

Since becoming a contractor I’ve had a Ranger teach me to play foosball and a Special Forces NCO (noncommissioned officer) give me tips on how to more accurately fire a weapon. A Navy petty officer taught me to throw knives. I attended a school that instructed me on how to properly bash my car into the back quarter panel of a vehicle to make that vehicle go spinning off the road and kill its engine at the same time. I learned that I can take an orange cone slalom course on a wet road at 37 miles per hour, but 40 miles per hour will send my car into a flat spin through the fields. I was taught how to lock the brakes on a car, thus locking the steering as well, yet still steer through a turn. I was given my first professional instruction in using handguns, and though I’m still not as comfortable with them as my big ole M-16 rifle, I do like me a Sig .45 at the indoor range. I found out that I have magical abilities that allow me to sit in the driver’s seat of a car with my eyes squinched tightly shut and fire rounds through the windshield and (see magical abilities) blindly manage to shoot through the throat of my target with all nine bullets. I learned to trust the person training with me not to accidentally shoot me when five of us piled behind a vehicle only three people wide to shoot the aforementioned targets again. I discovered that the engine block really is the only place on a car that will stop a bullet, so if someone is shooting at you, don’t believe that even two doors will stop a round from finding you on the other side of the car. I drank a Styrofoam cup of straight Malibu on a dare from some SEALs and was sick the next morning from it. I have video of a big, bald, completely sober, 40 year old white dude in DCUs (desert camouflage uniform) break-dancing. In one of the most surreal experiences of my life, I went to a dance club in Baghdad. I went shopping in downtown Baghdad for fresh bread and vegetables and baklava without fear. I’ve been inside the Pentagon. I know that Saddam Hussein preferred pancakes or Corn Flakes cereal for breakfast. On the best day, my workday consumed 45 minutes of time and the rest of the day was mine to screw off however I chose; on the worst day, I was called in early because one of my interpreters had been killed.

4. And yeah, I’ll admit it, I make good money. My first foray to the Middle East was in 1998. I was a lowly PFC and in debt. Four months later, with some creative accounting by my mom, I was back home, out of debt, and had a $300 camera I had been lusting after for months. I paid off what bills I had again in 1999, when I went to Egypt, and again in 2000 on my second trip to Kuwait. When I was reactivated and sent to Germany, due to pay regulations and all kinds of wonderful and mostly hidden benefits for recalled soldiers, I made more than my commander and paid off the credit cards my husband and I had racked up. When I returned to the States in 2005 after a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, I took three months off to travel through Europe, see family and friends in the States, spend one memorable week in Las Vegas, and buy a dog about which I am still debating his worth versus his price. And I was still debt free. Yet here I am again. The money is great, it’s paying for the next three years of vacations, but it’s not everything.

So basically, what this long, rambling dissertation is trying to say is that even though many of you think I am a lunatic for being out here, just think of all the kick ass stories I’ll have for my grandkids. Or at least my niece.

It's a dry heat

2007-05-25T06:37:00.000-04:00

Holy adolescent Haysoos! Half an hour ago it was 108 degrees, according to Wunderground. We still have an hour to go before we hit the hottest part of the day. Why am I here again?!?! Do I really love my job this much???

I'll be hitting the pool this afternoon. I'll prolly burn to a lobstery crisp after about twelve seconds on the lounger, but I don't care. I can't wait for the overwhelming scent of chlorine.

On the good side, I applied for a promotion today. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

User-friendliness in Hindi

2007-05-23T09:40:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Blogger!

Okay, you all are supposed to welcome me, but since you prolly don't realize that I even exist yet, I'll let it go. Today. I better get a welcome tomorrow.

I looked at Blogger and LiveJournal and chose Blogger for two very specific reasons. 1.) I liked that all their buttons and graphics were slightly fat and round like the newer Windows versions. 2.) It sounds like Frogger and that just makes me laugh.

So here I am. I set up all my settings and profiled my profile and finally went to look at what y'all see when you click on my blog. And then I was trapped, because I couldn't find a button or link that would take me back to the magical land of inside my blog.

Hey Blogger dudes...give me a link from my "audience view" blog back to my "SMIR? view blog." Or anyone out there who has been on this site for more than the 15 minutes this has taken me can prolly point me in the right direction as well.

When I was finally ready to start writing to you all, everything went great until each letter I typed tranliterated itself into Hindi. Too bad that of the 18 languages I speak, Hindi isn't one of them.

I would like to thank the Smart Bitches for convincing me that Blogger was a good idea.

Thanx, Bitchiz!