My taxpaying self is outraged.

I booked flights for my parents to come visit us in January.  2 tickets from Chicago O’Hare to Barcelona and then on to Sevilla.  Round trip.

Plus we’ll even include the cost of 6 round trip tickets from Jerez to Paris during that time, which is the cost of my parents plus the four of us flying out for a long weekend.

All of that comes to under $1500.  Total.  For 2 round trip cross-continental flights and 12 inter-Europe (one-way) flights.

For me to fly from Jerez to Naples, Italy for 4 days (for a 3 hour trial) will cost $2,169.

I just shake my head at the cost of contracted services with the military sometimes.  It’s outrageous.

As the end of October is here, I’m realizing that the end of 2007 is quickly approaching.  And I’ve been thinking already about next year, about what I hope for next year.  I already have a short list in my head of things I’d like to do next year, of things I want to force myself to do next year.

I’m really not enjoying Spain.  Fortunately, I have company with B who shares my feelings on this place.  We both enjoy the base, have a great neighborhood, fun neighbors, the kids have lots of friends, we enjoy living in a house where we don’t have to worry about the neighbors on the floor below us complaining about the noise made by our kids just having fun.  But Spain?  Not so much.  I think we’ve both really enjoyed the places we’ve visited while we’ve been here, but the day-to-day is not my cup of tea.

I’m completely uninspired to take pictures, which is more than a little bit depressing.  Especially considering I have the camera of my dreams and absolutely zero inspiration to take pictures.

I wish we still lived in Seattle.  I wish I still lived close to Niki, close enough to travel home for Christmas, close to places that I loved going.  But we don’t.

So now I’m trying to figure out a plan for next year, somehow to enjoy the rest of our time here.  A few of the things I’ve got for now are…

- 365 days of photos
- design a book of photos
- take (and pass) a couple of college courses
- travel outside of Spain - Paris or Rome or Amsterdam or Belgium, something
- Have a few dinner parties

Any more suggestions?

I am crying.

The other day, I got off work early because the kids had an early release day from school. We were having a nice afternoon; Isak was out playing with his friends and Anja was sitting at the dining room table engaged in her favorite at-home pastime, making books. I was swinging serenely on my porch swing, reading my new book. B was sitting at the computer shopping for another frilly pink apron and recipes for quiche.

When what, to my wondering ears would appear but a piercing scream out of the quiet. I hear a lot of screams from Anja so that I can identify when she’s fighting with her brother, when she’s mad at us, when she’s hurt but not badly, and when there is something seriously wrong. This scream was one that fell under the category of “when there is something seriously wrong.”

I ran inside and saw her next to B with her finger out and wobbling on her knees jerking her finger back to her body. In the three steps from the door to B, I saw that there was a staple - in her finger. Like, IN. HER. FINGER. She had been stapling a book together and ran out of staples and went to put more staples in the stapler. Apparently, when she opened it, she put her finger under the output part and somehow managed to staple her finger.

We were able to calm her down but she would not let us touch her finger. We could look at it at a distance, say like maybe if we looked at her from down the hall. Anything closer than that sent her into a panic. B knew he could take it out without any problem but she wouldn’t have any of it. He couldn’t even hold her arm to steady her to be able to see how bad it was without her starting to panic again. We knew - obviously - we needed to get it out but this was posing a problem, with her panicking every time we came anywhere close to her. After a few minutes, she was able to be calm with it in to where I could actually talk to her, but again, any advance toward touching her sent her into a panic.

After close to an hour of it sitting in her finger, I finally gave her two options: let Pabbi take it out or we have to go to the hospital.

To the hospital we went. Where we walked in, she sat down, the nurse walked up and popped it out and we were on our way after a thorough handwashing, some gauze and a colorful makes-everything-better sticker.

During that hour, I had to take a picture for historical purposes - of course. And because it’s the kind of picture that might make some people squeamish, I won’t post it directly on here, but if you’re feeling brave, you can click here to see the picture.

One question that we think about a lot is where do we live after the Navy? Yes, yes, I know I still have a looooong time before I get out but I thought it’d be interesting to take this quiz and find out where we’d be best suited to live when we get out. I thought the results were really interesting!

I was surprised by the results! There are a lot of places - even just general areas - I would never have considered. Arkansas/West Virginia/Louisiana mostly - I just can’t imagine living in any of those states! Lots of Wisconsin and Oregon answers…neither surprised me too much! I was surprised there was nothing in Washington listed.

So there I was.  Sitting on the couch.  Isak was reading in bed.  Anja was reading in bed.  B was watching TV in bed.  I was watching a very nice episode of Oprah, where her guest was the author of Eat, Pray, Love.  I’m really enjoying the silence, and Ms. Gilbert is talking about meditating in India and I’m really into this idea of meditating, silently, in India.

And then a giant crash. A very giant crash.  A very big giant crash.

Warily, I called, “Aaaaaanja?” and heard back from her room, “Yeeeeahhh?”

“Iiiiiisak?”  “Yeeeeeaaahhhhh?”

So I checked out the kitchen, and mysteriously, a cabinet in the kitchen is wide open and our Euro jar is shattered, with money scattered all over the counter and floor, glass everywhere.  And laying very inconspicuously in the hallway is a little black kitty, playing it very calm but totally giving himself away with his ears glued flat against his head.

This little turd of a cat jumped up and opened the cabinet, pulled out the bag of dried fish, and managed to pull the jar of Euro change as he dragged it out from the back.

And as soon as I started clearing the floor, he came back, yelling at me to pleeeease give him some fish, pleeeease, because how can you say no to this face?