This is Walter, again!  Did you folks miss me? 

I went to lunch today with Wally and Jocelyn and I had this great idea to make a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.  I’ve done this before and with great results.  Today, something was telling me that it was all going to go very very wrong but me being me…  I didn’t listen.  I get my two chicken tenders and hamburger bun then go in search of Texas Pete.  I’ve made these great creations before with Texas Pete and Texas Pete is what yields the best results.  Much to my dismay there is no Texas Pete so I’ve got to settle for plain ol’ Tabasco Sauce.  Now, I’m from Maryland so you must pardon me if I’m not the great Hot-Sauce connoisseur that (((most))) people from the South are.  I’m thinking it’s the same thing…  This will work out just right.  WRONG.  I douse my chicken tenders in Tabasco Sauce.  I’m talking totally covered them which is the same thing I do with Texas Pete.  I pour my Ranch Dressing (fat-free of course) over the top and strategically place my lettuce in places where they’re the least likely to fall off…  Then comes the first bite… 

“HOLY CRAP!” Is the first thought that ran through my head.  “Don’t let Jocelyn or Wally see you be a huge wuss!” was the second thought.  I powered my way through the sandwich while taking frequent sips of water, even though I know it doesn’t help, and trying to hold my tears back from my lunch dates.  Once I got done to the last couple bites I dumped the rest of my ranch onto my place and covered the little piece of chicken that I had left.  

This isn’t the worst of my story. What happened next is something of legendary stupidity.   

I took off my glasses. They’re dirty and they’ve got dried hairspray on them from the gallons that I have to use to keep my hair in a neat and professional appearance.  Every time I take my glasses off my eyes start to itch because I’m so used to wearing them.  Naturally, when my eye starts to itch I give it a little rub in hopes that the itch will go away. 

I think you can see where this is going. I rubbed my eye with one finger.  My index finger.  My eye continues to itch.  “Hmm, that’s strange,” I thought, “my eye doesn’t normally itch this…  HOLY MOTHER OF TABASCO SAUCE!  Why is my eye burning?”  Oh Yeah.  I had some excess Tabasco Sauce left on my finger and it was now burning a hole through my eye socket.  

I tried to be discreet and walk to the sinks without causing a scene.  It’s hard not to cause a scene when you’re crying out and holding your eye while run/walking through a line of hungry military men.  I get to the sinks and do my best not to look like a puss while I washed my hands very carefully, twice then try to rinse out my eye.  There was a Marine next to me who said something remotely funny and I snorted.  He looked at me and said, “The last person that laughed at me is taking a dirt nap.”  I was in too much pain (and frankly, too scared) to say anything else to him.  I washed out my eye the best I could and that didn’t work. I was on the verge of trying to find some Ranch Dressing to pour in my eye.  It worked to make the chicken not so hot…  why wouldn’t it work for my eye???

As I sat today on the balcony outside of our building located in the vicinity of three helicopter landing pads, one particular helicopter came zooming toward me - very, very fast and quite low.  And I thought to myself, “Man, that helicopter is really flying!”

Hussein trial resumes without defense team

Some of you probably don’t know a lick of what I do here.  I work at Detainee Operations - a very interesting office.  One of our offices (I don’t work there but it’s still part of our office) is CCCI, or the Central Criminal Court of Iraq - the court that is taking Saddam to trial. 

I wonder a lot about the defense team - who could defend Saddam Hussein?

I find this article very disheartening.

Last night started Ramadan, the Islamic holy month. 

We’ve been warned that this is a time of increased violence in the region.  This does nothing to mollify my anxiety.  I really, honestly, didn’t think I would be affected so much here.  This is not something that has started with the onset of Ramadan; it is something that’s been going on for a while now and really is the reason I haven’t been posting very much.  I have found it difficult to post because a lot of what occupies my mind on a daily basis is not fun and upbeat but rather depressing and anxiety-inducing.  I am aware that a lot of you who read this know me and worry about me, and I don’t want to aggravate that, but at the same time, you’re the same ones waiting to hear from me and checking every day to see if I’ve written anything new.  So - with that said, I will try to write more and you all can feel free to disregard anything that makes you uncomfortable. 

According to Wikipedia,

During Ramadan, Muslims are also expected to put more effort into following the teachings of Islam by refraining from sexual intercourse (during fasting), violence, anger, envy, greed, lust, angry and sarcastic retorts, and gossip.  People are meant to try to get along with each other better than they normally might.

I think, though, that the people here missed the part about refraining from violence and anger.

I remember last year, before coming here was even on the radar, reading in the news about the violence during Ramadan.  I had put it out of my head since then until now.

Now it’s in the forefront of my mind.  It started last night as we were preparing for our Saturday evening barbeque.  We see smoke on the horizon pretty frequently, but this was enough that everyone came out of the building - this was easily the closest plume of smoke I’ve seen in the time I’ve been here. 

…And this was not the car bomb that made headlines yesterday; that one was early in the day while this one was at dusk (I believe Ramadan begins at sundown).  The smoke was a lot thicker than it’s showing in this picture - you can see the reflection in the lake that shows how black and cloudy it was. 

I just found this article about that particular explosion.  Warning to sensitive readers - you might want to skip the article. 

We had movie night after our barbeque and as we watched 40 Year Old Virgin, we heard two mortars hit close enough that I think everyone felt a little uncomfortable (I felt uncomfortable enough to put on my shoes and think about where the nearest duck and cover bunker was.)  I don’t know if everyone just hides it really well, but I seem to be the most anxious person I know when it comes to that kind of stuff.  I’ve been very on edge and on multiple occasions have reacted in a way that surprised myself - I’m grateful that I’m to the halfway point here and am finally closer to leaving than I am of arriving.

While flying back to Baghdad via Balad (Iraq) via Ali Al Salem (Kuwait) via Al Asad (Iraq) via Al Udeid (Qatar), Supercuban Wonderboy made an interesting observation: People sleeping next to each other tended to sleep in the same position. I’d noticed it once before, not on this flight, but when he pointed it out it was not just one or two sets of people. We even watched as people shifted positions at the same time to the same position.

Observe:

And these two…they might as well just spoon. They take sharing sleeping styles to the next level. I present to you, Stitch and The Stripper, two lovely gentlemen that provided entertainment all the way through the flight home. Click to download the short video: