Our weather has been nice. Actually, it has been down-right beautiful! It seems to be hovering in the mid 70s with bright sunny days. They are those kinds of days that cause sunburn easily especially when coupled with malaria preventative medications which make your skin more susceptible to the sun’s rays. It’s been very hard to stay indoors when it is so nice outside. This is the kind of weather I truly enjoy. I hope it doesn’t get any warmer.
Dobbie has left this little slice of heaven and has gone to Iraq. It only took a couple of attempts to get him out of here. I guess the weather has been so wonderful the Air Force hasn’t really been making scheduled flights very often, opting to stay and catch some Afghan rays. This delay in getting CD out of here meant we had multiple impromptu farewell activities over a couple of days. And as you can imagine, the first farewell was simple and easy while the successive ones developed into longer, complicated affairs. It’s definitely a good thing he finally made it out as we probably would have had a difficult time making it to work.
We had an earthquake and it was not your garden variety seven-second shake. No, this one hit weakly at first and graduated into a full-fledged earth mover replete with duration, noise, and scariness. I was in my room getting ready for another sun-soaked day when it hit. I immediately knew what it was and with the reactions of a Mongoose, dove the 17 inches for my M.I.T. approved TV / DVD player stand. I did not want my TV and DVD to somehow be cast from their perch and onto my bed as I feared potential damage to my bed (my Chinese TV may be simple, but that 20” flat screen weighs more than Anna-Nicole Smith), and ignored the peril of my I.D. card and partially consumed water bottle as they crashed to the floor from my night stand (which is another design wonder). I could hear Ed yelling something indescribable from his room. I was not sure if he was giving himself last rites or running crazily away from those small biting flies. In any case, 23 seconds of delirium and the whole thing was over. Ed came down afterward and told me he thought I was shaking his room and was yelling at me to stop. I know I have been working out and I appreciate the fact that Ed has noticed, but I have yet to be able to move and shake buildings with that kind of force.
Although a strong showing by Mother Nature, this quake did not measure up to the 7.2 I experienced in Japan on my birthday in 1989. This quake was measured at 6.2 by Afghan scientists who no doubt use the latest in Richter scale measuring devices here. My guess is a stick with a water bottle attached by a string and some local who eye-balls the movement of the bottle with relation to the stick. No serious damage to report, although the Air Force was concerned with cracks in the new $60M runway. You would think part of that cash was spent on a runway capable of surviving vibration and pounding.
Ed acquired a pocket-full of hard boiled eggs one morning from the DFAC and brought them down to our office to make deviled eggs. I have no idea why this wasn’t thought of before, but I love those things. Sure, we didn’t have all the ingredients that are stocked in my fridge and pantry back home, but we were able to use items similar to mayonnaise, mustard, and paprika to come up with our gastric treat. Since that first attempt, we have acquired mayo and mustard (the DFAC was giving away bottles of this stuff, well kind of), but have yet to get paprika and have continued to use Tabasco and Johnny’s seasoning. I’m not sure we will want to use paprika when we finally get it as our current flavor sensation more than compensates for the taste of the locally produced eggs that come from locally grown and fed chickens. Regardless, we have now made a few batches of deviled eggs.
I have finally given up with growing my hair long. I just cannot stand the length and went to the barber (local hair butcher) and had him cut me short. The great thing about the shorter hair is it takes less time to grow in which better hides the lack of skill in hair couture these hacks employ. My Russian-speaking, ugly, Chinese-looking, woman who gave me decent hair cuts and was teaching me Russian has moved on. Sorry to digress, but with the warmer weather and my two-decade, military-inspired hair requirements has caused me to revert back to my comfort zone and discard the rock-and-roll halcyon look I was going for.
Kristine sent me another box of goodies recently and one of the items included was a Decaffeinated Spiced Chai Tea by Bigelow. I have added this to my Tea Snobbery chart and will send out another scintillating update when a few more additions have been made. In any case, did I mention she sent Decaf tea?! And not only decaf tea, the stuff was terrible. Yeah I know, I volunteered to taste teas and report back and this is the cost for me in offering this service, however none of you out there are drinking this stuff, are you? I’m not sure what spices are inclusive of this medley, but this tea tastes like bits of straw, bark, and petrified wood were thrown into a bag just after being kissed by the dew from a daffodil and sent post haste to me for my taste bud travesty. My recommendation is to forego this brand of tea and review my list for much better tasting varieties.
Ed is a master of micro-surgery. If I had not known of his background over these last 16 or 17 years, I would swear that he is an accomplished vascular surgeon. I bring this up to you because while working on one of our cars, I summoned a piece of previously broken car window into my thumb while performing extraction techniques. You can obviously determine the amount of force conjured upon that glass to imbed itself securely and deeply into my flesh through my iron clad work gloves. Later, when I could not remove the shard of glass myself, I asked Doctor Ed for assistance. I am not sure why, but Ed always seems to have a scalpel handy (or in this case an X-acto knife), but he does. He came into my room with all necessary surgical equipment and began the operation while I was chatting with Kris over VOIP. I never became alarmed even when Ed used Strawberry Gatorade as disinfectant. Nor did I raise an eyebrow when Ed determined the depth of the imbedded glass by bouncing the knife off my bone. No, I am confident in his abilities and knew he would triumph even if it meant surgically removing my left thumb. Fortunately for me, my father-in-law provided me with a vessel of his personal Cosmopolitan mix and I began consuming this at a feverish pace. After 22 harrowing minutes, Ed succeeded in removing the piece of glass from my thumb. Amazingly, with all the time, digging, and skin removal, I only required six stitches. I thanked Ed profusely and offered payment, but he refused and left my room happily glowing with self pride at a job well done.
You know, Ed’s surgery on my thumb was short-lived. We were trying to remove a side impact bar from one of the car doors two days later when fate came into play. I was not wearing my super gauntlet of protection on my left hand (because it rubbed on my surgically repaired thumb) when employing our gargantuan pry bar. As Ed held the cut-open door, I began a prying technique developed by the Romans a few millennia ago in which the pry bar will naturally slip. It did and the force of nature took over propelling my left thumb into the path of the pry bar end. Thankfully my thumb nail was there to prevent the pry bar from separating all of the skin off my thumb. After a few choice words clearly and well spoken, liberal amounts of Saudi Arabian water, and reconstruction via Band-Aids, I was back to work. Remember, we are professional repairers and can fix anything.
The other day when Kris and I were chatting, we got on the topic of showering. I was making a half-hearted statement about the showering conditions here in paradise and the longing for the opportunity to shower in something akin to privacy and true American standards. My wife, not feeling the slightest bit sorry for me began to tell me about her new shower radio she has purchased and the gobs of easily temperature-controlled water. She continued her discourse with the amount of room in our shower at home and the fact that she did not have to carry her shampoo, soap, and scrubbie with her every time she wanted to shower. Finally she articulated the amount of privacy, with the exception of a small child bursting in on occasion with exasperations of pending doom because they cannot find a video game or their shoes. Privacy is not really something I have as I must employ a waltz-like movement in and around others to make it to an enclosed showerhead with my cleansing accoutrements.
The Norwegians are here, the Norwegians are here! This week, we observed THE and I do mean THE Special Forces unit of the Norwegian Army arrive in force. They rolled into Bagram in their armored vehicles complete with painted Norwegian flags on the sides and stern looking soldiers perched atop the cupolas sporting Oakley sunglasses and helmets resembling something a California surfer-dude would wear. They are here to kick butt and take names, Norwegian-style! I have yet to go by and visit their camp here, but intend to do that soon. As part of NATO, they are here to support and assist the NATO faithful and spend an undetermined amount of time here showing the rest of us how it’s done. I sure hope they start with the Egyptians as those guys find it difficult just to get up in the morning, let alone do something in a fierce manner. Yeah, the Egyptians do cut in line at the espresso stand and DFAC, so maybe there is hope for them yet.
Kris has recently started a blog titled: “The One” which she has been placing my weeklies into. She has more additions to make, but at the time of this writing it is current through Week 18. Why “The One”? Well, when the movie, ‘The Matrix’ came out, I was a Battalion S-1 (Personnel Officer) on staff. Everyone referred to me as ‘The 1’, just like the S-2 (Intelligence Officer) was referred to as ‘The 2’, etcetera. The movie heightened my informal reference and when I was moved to Brigade, being ‘The One’ truly meant that I had to bend time and space to effectively perform my job, hence ‘The One’ stuck with me. Kris evidently felt that was an appropriate title for the blog. Anyway, you can access the blog and review weeklies past and present complete with pictures. The address is: http://w-theone.blogspot.com/. How’s that for a hyperlink?! If that doesn’t work, let Kris or I know and we’ll get you on the right track.
Well, I have decided to send all you all a picture of our most recent and best deviled eggs in celebration of Easter. Yes, that is real Tabasco on them. As you probably notice, there are an odd number of egg halves on that tray. I’m sure you have surmised we disposed of some of them prior to snapping this picture.
OK, it’s that time to “Shut ‘er down” and “Get ‘er out”! Next week I’ll amaze you with the on-goings of the GWOT Trot, mouth-watering excerpts about barbequing steaks on an open grill, and my new social-climbing status as a chef.
Craig
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