We finally finished our project at work, an ongoing effort to get everyone involved for this video. When all was said and done, we laughed so hard we nearly peed ourselves.
I present to you: Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Task Force 134-style.
Hi everybody, Happy belated Thanksgiving! I had intended to make a few phone calls yesterday, but that ended up not working out so well. A recap of my Baghdad Thanksgiving:
0500 – Wake up, there was a distinguished visitor coming at 7 for breakfast with the Navy and a re-enlistment. I did not have an iron (the iron of death was covered with black goop when it was returned to me, so there went that $30 iron) so I was waking up early so I could go to the PX and buy an iron to iron my uniform to make myself look respectable.
0505 – Realize I don’t have a credit card and $3 in Pogs (plastic covered paper coins they use here as currency) won’t buy me a new iron.
0506 – Ask roommate if she has any money I can borrow til lunchtime. She doesn’t.
0507 – Meditate as to how to solve this situation.
0650 – End meditation session suddenly with a big “Oh, shit!”…and an un-pressed uniform.
0700 – Get to DFAC (dining facility). Wait for distinguished visitor to arrive.
0720 – Secretary of the Navy arrives. My Chief tells me I am the official unofficial photographer. Cool, except that my batteries are dead. Chief hands me keys and tells me to find that car which is in a general direction but I’m not exactly sure where.
0722 – Running, the first PT I’ve done in the 5 months I’ve been here
0724 – Still running, and no idea where this car is
0726 – Locate car. Locate batteries. Unfortunately, there were only 2 batteries and I needed 4.
0727 – Running again. See a person coming out of a building. Nearly run him down, ask if he has any double A batteries, that the secretary of the navy is at the DFAC and is going to be re-enlisting my chief, and I only have 2 batteries. Except this comes out sounding more like “You, batteries, have, 4, double A, secnav, my, chief, will, kill, me.”
0730 – Run back to the DFAC with 6 batteries.
0731 – Make it just in time for the re-enlistment. Try to find a place to take a picture because EVERYONE HAS A CAMERA. Including the official official photographer, the guy I work with who elbowed me out of the way, the 3 other people I work with, and the 26 other people with cameras trying to get a spot in the front.
0745 – Meet the Secretary of the Navy, thank him for coming out here, hey, while you’re here, do you happen to have a coin?
0746 – Gloat, gloat, gloat
0800 – Back to work. Work work work, yadda yadda yadda.
1300 – Hail and farewell ceremony for the group of us that are leaving soon. Finally! I am leaving soon! Receive award, get 2 more coins (one on behalf of the deputy commanding general, one from the commanding officer), stumble through something trying not to sound like an idiot and cut it short while I’m ahead. Though I’m really not far ahead, so I guess it probably didn’t matter.
1400 – Off for thanksgiving dinner.
1430 – As I’m walking through the chow hall with my tray of food, my M16 falls off of me. It just unravels and falls to the ground. This, of course, would happen to me on the busiest day of the year in the chow hall.
1500 – I’m off for the day.
1510 - Run into my Chief and try not to cry as she’s leaving in a few days. She gives me a coin, dries my tears right up. Just kidding.
1512 – Wally and me stand on the corner talking to Chief. She tries to pimp us for $120, but we had no takers. Tsk.
1515 – Realize it’s kind of odd to be standing on the corner, doing nothing, with no plans. Wally and I make plans to go do nothing.
1530 - Wally comes over. We take pictures of various things, such as Spongebob coming from the sky to kill me, Wally giving a cow an exam of its rear cavities, my roommate’s glasses coming to attack Wally and subsequently taking over his face, and a bunch of blocks.
1600 – Get laundry. Power is out, so the laundry place is lit by a flashlight strapped to an M4. Take more pictures.
1630 – Get more batteries so we can take more pictures on Saturday (the day that I get the entire! day! off!)
1700 – Go back home. Get Christina. Have Thanksgiving dinner again. See a sign in the DFAC wishing us a “Happy Tnanksgiving”. Thanksgiving is now known as Tnanksgiving, and that just never gets old with us.
1800 – Go outside and stand across from the DFAC and sing Tnanksgiving caroles. Just one – the Thanksgiving song from Adam Sandler.
1900 – We’re all in my room talking and hanging out. I fall asleep.
0200 – Wake up to take off my boots.
0400 – Wake up to the sound of one hella big explosion, the first that I’ve ever not slept through.
0401 – Fall back asleep.
0700 – Wake up to start my day with a nice, ice cold shower.
Sorry to my parents and brothers whom I neglected to call last night; I was thinking of you throughout the day and was thinking about how sad it was that there were no green bean casseroles or football games or brothers to pick on me.
Happy Tnanksgiving from Baghdad.
I do not come from a country where we have thanksgiving. I like it but really haven’t felt the true meaning of it exept eating turkey until you drop.
Today Anja was playing outside with girls in the neighbourhood wich she usually doesn’t play with and theyr parents were sitting outside and watching them. I didn’t know them, only seen them here and there. I decided to walk over and talk to them since our kids were playing. We started talking and short into the conversation the husband asks me, what are you doing tomorrow. I kind of didn’t know, I was kind of planning to go over to the galley here but wasn’t sure. Right away he invites me to come over tomorrow at two. I was taken of guard, I didn’t expect it. I accepted the offer. It was a nice feeling. So I am bringing a couple of sixpacks and maybe some wine and I am thinking about making caramel potatoes.
Now I get it.
B.
I just saw that when I was about to check my email and thought mmm, sushi.
I’ve had sushi a few times. Mostly just the rolled-rice-in-seaweed kind of sushi which isn’t really sushi, I know, but I like it. And wasabi. Yum. I’ve only been out for real sushi once, and that was when my friend Elizabeth took me with her family to her favorite sushi place in D.C. and we sat at the traditional style tables and ate a bunch of different kinds of sushi.
I think that even if I hadn’t liked the taste of the sushi, I would have liked it anyway, because of the whole experience.
Elizabeth is a different kind of friend. I would consider to be one of my handful of closest friends - kind of ironic considering we’ve known each other for about 7 years and have only met a handful of times in person. And yet when we meet up in person, there’s no feeling uncomfortable; I don’t think she’d allow it.
Since I’ve been here, she’s been in contact regularly through emails and snail mail. Whenever I get an email from her, it makes me feel so happy…in her own small way she brings some normalcy back to my life. I forget where I am when I read a letter from her. I feel like I’m living a block away and can go watch her son play a rapping Mako shark in his school’s musical.
And then I remember where I am. It’s always a bit jarring to come back to reality. And often, I find myself asking what reality is anymore. I’ve spent the last 4 years in such a constant state of motion. I wonder what I’m doing to my kids - how can they possibly come out of this unscathed when I know how I feel about it, and they are certainly affected by me? I only realized last night how little stability we’ve had as a family over these last years.
In October 2002, I left Iceland to go to school for my current career field. 2 months later, in December, the family joined up with me and in January (2003), we ended up in Whidbey Island. There for a year, just getting adjusted, we moved again in December of 2003 to Everett, and then in 9 months later in September of 2004 I went on the ship. Came back 5 months later in March of 2005 and 9 months after that we moved to Spain. 6 months later, off to Iraq for 6 more months of being gone.
Soon I go back. Will I get to stay in one place for the next 2 years? Will my number come up and they send me on another deployment? How is that going to affect me if I do have to go out again? And more importantly, how is that going to affect my family? Even barring any future deployments, how has the amount of stress of the last 4 years affected our strength? At what point does the tension cause the rubber band to break? Is it strong enough that even a ridiculous amount of tension may stretch it but won’t cause it to break? I want the magic crystal ball, I want to know if it will all be OK and I want to know how my kids will come out of this and how B will come out of this and how I will come out of this.
I got a great motivational, inspirational email in my inbox the other day that I printed out and carry with me. One of the lines is one that I’ve thought about more than most of the others.
Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
Follow the 3 R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; Responsibility for all your actions.
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
Spend some time alone every day.
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
Be gentle with the earth.
Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
If every day were like today, there would be absolutely no question which season I prefer. Although I woke up shivering (again), the weather today was fantastic. No clouds, a light breeze, perfect temperature. It was my half day today and I usually would sleep but I got so much sleep last night (I went to sleep at 8:30 last night!!) that I woke up with a pounding headache. I got moving and into the showers where I used the last of the lukewarm water and then got ready for…nothing! What a nice thing to have to do.
So I ended up going to the store, an event in its own right around here, and then to the coffee place where the better part of my group of friends had all coincidentally congregated and we sat around and drank coffee and killed flies (I did, at least - that was the most combat action I’ve seen in my 5 months here) and eventually had lunch at the Turkish cafeteria.
There are some things I never would have imagined before I came here, and that is one of them - I have a great friend here who is in the Turkish Air Force and shares his culture with us any chance he can get - we’ve had a huge spread of food one night, some traditional chi köfte (a special dish made of kneaded meat) another night, Turkish coffee, baklava, and today was a lunch of a stew made of meat and beans with rice pilaf and a tangy tomato spread. I’ve had such great experiences with them that I am so grateful to have had here.
Unfortunately, my Turkish friend is leaving soon…as are all the rest of my friends…and then me. To be honest, leaving is bittersweet. I’d heard before I came here that I would find unbelievably close friendships here, and that I have. I do not look forward to saying goodbye to everyone and not knowing if I’ll ever see them again. We’re scattered all over the world, from Turkey to Hawaii (well, soon to be Hawaii) and everywhere in between, and it’s hard to believe we’ll all get together again. Fortunately, the memories of my friendships - of our dinners, long nights at the cafe, conversations lasting to the wee hours of the morning, laughing, crying, singing, dancing - will stay with me always. I can say with certainty that I could not have done this without my friends.
Winter is finally upon us here in Baghdad and it has caused me pause to reflect on the differences between the seasons. There was no autumn, it just went from scorching hot to rainy and cold, so there went my favorite season (again).
I’ve been thinking about which is worse, summer or winter, so I’ve come up with a list to delineate some of the differences bewteen seasons.
Pros of summer:
Cons of summer:
Pros of winter:
Cons of winter:
Here’s something to make you think:
Today’s forecast for Baghdad, Iraq:
High: 69°F / Low: 51°F
Today’s forecast for Milwaukee, WI:
High: 63°F / Low: 48°F
An excerpt from an email in which we had been discussing Anja’s propensity for ending tiny animals’ lives with the very best of intentions. I’m sure most everyone still remembers Anja’s recent incident with the frog. She’s since gotten another frog that, as far as I know, is still alive and hopping. However, she recently stumbled on a goldmine of tadpoles and retrieved them for intensive scientific research in her laboratory, a.k.a. the cooler. The latest observations were that one of the tadpoles was growing legs, and I groaned to myself when I learned this because I know curiosity killed the frog, and there is not much in this world more curious than Anja with a new animal.
Sure enough, not long after the “Frog EMERGENCY!” (Anja’s words), I learned of the tadpole’s fate.
We don’t have an emergency anymore….Anja took the tadpole up and I guess she was too rough, the tadpole is on her way to the morgue…
Don’t worry, Anja has about 49 live tadpoles left in my cooler, hopefully one of them gets to adulthood..
I just came home from shopping with Anja, the girls went shopping. Got her two pairs of shoes…one of them high heels.She was SO happy to get them. Klonked all over the store when I was getting her socks and underwear. Then I got her a pair of pink sparkly Skechers.
The visual I get from watching B wander through the store getting 5 year old girls’ socks and underwear and then stopping at the shoe aisle and getting a pair of high heels and some pink sparkly Skechers…let’s just say I still have 41 days before I leave and I’m a little bit worried that when I get home, Betty Crocker will be living in my home.
