Merry Christmas (cow)

For some reason, the cows come out at Christmas. No one understands, but we all go with it.

No, not real cows. It’s still the 100 Acre Sandbox. But someone, a long time ago and perhaps in a galaxy far, far away, someone (or someones) thought it would be funny to build plywood cows and place them strategically across out the Sandbox. This happened last time I was here, too, so, although I have no idea how long they’ve been here, it’s been at least 3-4 years.

I’m not positive how many they are because they get separated quickly. There are at least three: a live-size grayish one, and a black and white one about the same size and one smaller one that looks like it might be a calf. One’s grazing. There may be more, but I can definitely think of three.

They appear, as if they’ve migrated, around Thanksgiving and last through the holidays. (Until this year anyway – more on that soon.) Since we get bored here and create our own entertainment, there are people (or possibly gremlins) who relocate the cows when no one’s watching.

I’ll write it off as testosterone, a thing that I don’t understand, because I just don’t get it, but people seem to enjoy moving the cows from one pasture from another. Of course, we don’t have pastures, so people make do. They wind up all over the place: on the one field we have, the tennis course, on a bunker somewhere and then in a bunker somewhere else.

It becomes a thing, and people try to get cute. Although I missed it this year, someone put one on a roof; the fire department had to pull it down because they were worried it might topple over and hurt someone. I heard one appeared way up on a tower that very few people have access to and some have been sneaked into people’s beds while they were away. Last year, one somehow got into the ambassador’s office.

They make me hungry. Dating back to the last time I was posted to the Sandbox, every time I saw the spotted cows, it made me hanker for Chick-Fil-A. Man, I miss Chick. We have lots of chicken, but it’s not the same. And oh, my kingdom for some waffle fries or mac and cheese.

Finally, I decided to make a Chick sign for a cow, which was a lot harder than it sounds. I sacrificed a shipping box and rigged up a rope made from plastic bags. I had to get the proper cow spelling and etch it out, but the hardest part was finding the darn cow.

One particular group of people commandeered two cows. Another cow, a smaller one, somehow was rendered headless. It was found on the volleyball court. I noticed it, but didn’t immediately realize it didn’t have a head; it was lying on its side and I just figured people had started cow tipping. Yes, we have some Wisconsin residents in our midst.

The one group of people swore they hadn’t beheaded the one cow, but they were guilty of some shenanigans with the other two, hiding them (or so I heard) in their areas and putting them in each other’s beds. (Testosterone, I’m telling you.) No one else had access to them for awhile, and the silly sign sat on my desk for a couple of days before someone dropped a hint where I might could find one.

Finally, I was able to baptize one of the cows as a Chick-Fil-A cow. I’d hoped for the black-and-white one, but even though I was able to find both that and the gray, the black-and-white one was in a grazing position and its head was waaaaaay too big for the rope I’d made.

Somehow, I was – I think – able to get the sign on without being seen, and I surreptitiously slipped away. But then, I didn’t see the cow for a couple more days.

It appeared in a parade! We do a little Christmas parade with our little golf carts, which was last weekend. As an aside, holy cow, what an insane weekend that was. We did our party for one of the larger teams that works in 12-hour shifts. It’s one party, two shifts – an AM and a PM. I worked both, doing organization, serving food, setting up, taking down. It was seven solid hours in my feet – three starting at 7 a.m. and four starting at 4 p.m. and I managed to get in 16k steps without even going to the gym.

The parade was after that, and even though it meant standing for another hour, I wanted to see it and boy, was I totally taken aback to see my sign around the neck of a cow one of the offices had tied to the top of a golf cart! They were drafting off my wind – taking credit for my sign. (Which I, of course, ripped off from Chick.) One of the guys with the “float” was a friend so I ribbed him a little about it. It was just kinda funny.

Now we’ve had a couple of days with rain and the sign is falling apart, but I managed to sneak a photo of it. I didn’t think about how weird it would look straight on. The cows are pieces of slotted plywood that slide together and the horns are one piece and the face another. If I can get another photo, I’ll add, but if not, just trust that the cow does have a head.

Thankful for free stuff and accommodating mules

The 50-Acre Sandbox scores

Happy Thanksgiving from the 100-Acre Sandbox! We have a continual revolving door of people here, and there’s a limited amount of stuff we can take with us. As a result, when people leave, they tend to unload stuff. Many of the people come who come in with a whole bunch of food and stuff never wind up eating it because the cafeteria has so much. Since we’re not allowed to pack out food, a lot of it winds up on the free table. There’s one of those on each floor of each apartment building.

The free table’s not limited to food, but anything a person might want to unload. Beyond food, the most common items are books and cleaning supplies. I scored three bottles of Clorox bathroom cleaner and a couple James Patterson books recently. I’ve also scored a cooler, a couple big storage bins and an amazing drying rack. The latter’s been an awesome find and I really hope I can take it with me when I leave, but I suspect the reason it was left on the free table was that it doesn’t fit in the shipping containers.

One of my teammates left a couple weeks ago and I grabbed a bag of stuffing and French’s Onion Crisps  to put on top of green bean casserole. I knew Thanksgiving was coming up and for whatever warped reason, I thought I might use them. That was stupid because our cafeteria makes an awesome Thanksgiving meal. Fortunately, I recognized a couple days ago that I wasn’t going to use the stuff. I figured I’d give it away.

On Tuesday, I was at work and sent a note to a friend in our 50-Acre Sandbox a little farther north. They don’t have a cafeteria there and put on a potluck instead. During my first tour, I spent Christmas up there and made mashed potatoes, so I figured they’d be doing something fun. In messaging my friend, I mentioned that I’d thought about cooking and even had the crispy onions that go on top of the green bean casserole. She responded that she’s been shopping and had been unable to find them and their potluck was going to be crispy onion-less.

Well, we can’t have that! We have a regular flight between the sandboxes, and I know where to get the list of people taking that flight. I didn’t know any of them, but we’re all colleagues, so I picked one (there weren’t many!) and sent a note asking if I could send a little package through him. All I can say is we have awesome people here because he agreed. My friend had showed me a list of things they couldn’t find up there, and cranberry sauce was on it. Before I dropped off the package to the nice mule, I ran by the store and grabbed two cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.

The community potluck in the 50-Acre Sandbox is no doubt thankful for their windfall, just as I am every time I find fun stuff on the free table.

I’m also thankful that I had an amazing Thanksgiving meal and didn’t have to cook or clean up. The cafeteria here, which seems to have its own supply from French’s and Ocean Spray, puts on quite an amazing spread. My Turkey Day lunch was salmon, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and, of course, turkey. So much that I didn’t even bother with the desserts, which, as I understand it, involved chocolate-covered strawberries. I’m debating going back for round two for dinner, but unless I get ravenously hungry in the next two hours, it’s not going to happen.

The only downside of having an amazing cafeteria to cook and serve food to you and then clean up is that there are no leftovers. Friday is the day for turkey sandwiches, but that doesn’t happen here. It’s a small price to pay, though, for all the good stuff we have.

Never ever have I been to Camp Lejeune

It’s almost three weeks since I returned to The 100-Acre Sandbox, and my countdown has officially begun. I am doing two tours here and arrived on September 15 last year, but because I took home leave in the middle (which I didn’t have to), I returned in late October. We have to say a full calendar year, but, because of transportation considerations, I did not leave right on that anniversary date. The next ride home was September 26 and that “bonus time” doesn’t count towards the second year, which instead begins the day I return. Then, those transportation considerations mean that although I touched down in the sandbox on October 19, 2022, I won’t leave until October 30, 2023. So now that we’ve made it into November, I’m officially down to less than a year. Considering I really never thought I’d be here for two years in the first place, it seems weird.

Most people who stay here for two years don’t like the second year as much as the first, for any one (or combination) of a variety of reasons. My plan is to buck the system and have a great year, but in some ways at the mercy of the sandbox gods on that. So far, though, all has gone according to plan. While I didn’t really think I’d finish two whole tours here – that was based on my experience from last time, not a desire to bounce out early – my first year was fantastic and the obstacles towards my next step are falling away. I got promoted, which made landing my hoped-for next post attainable and then I landed it. Can’t ask for more.

But you know what? Stuff I haven’t asked for is also falling my way. My onward is set now – I am going to Antananarivo, Madagascar to work in the HR section. This was the long-term plan set while I was in Minsk – I went to grad school (again) to get the degree so I’d be qualified to do it. That paid off, and, as an aside, I might not be paying it off: I took out a student loan to do it, knowing I would qualify for my employer’s tuition reimbursement program. By taking a rough post and promising to stay in my job for another three years, Uncle Sam promised to contribute $10k towards my tuition. I’d just gotten the note that was official when Biden also threw out his promise to cancel up to $20k in loans. My entire loan was only $13k, so if his plan gets through Congress, my remaining $3k should be covered. Too bad I can’t get the time back, too, but I’ll take the money.

While I will still need to go to the HR training my employer runs, it looks like it will time nicely for when I leave here, as in starting the very next week. Since I will also need to take French, starting the “tradecraft” classes before my home leave can set it up to where I can take a long break before starting French in February 2024 or so.  It is a long time in the future, and I am signing on for three years in Madagascar. Right now – on paper anyway – I know where I am supposed to be for the next five years. In this gig, that’s unreal.

Where I plan on being for the next year, at least when not at work, is on the pickleball court. We finally have both indoor and outdoor courts and a lot of people have come out to play, from all over the place. We have a lot of people from several different hiring mechanisms, like multiple federal agencies, security contracts, administrative contracts, facility-type contracts – and people from all come out to play. And different levels, too. We have cafeteria workers lining up against the ambassador. We’re all over the place.

One guy has spearheaded it. (Though it helps a lot that both the ambassador and the No. 2 are totally into it – and very good.) The guy organized our first tournament last weekend and we had 40 people participate as players and then we also had volunteer line judges. Others just came out to watch, too. It was really a fun night. I’m pretty bad as a player and my team didn’t win any of the four games we played, but it was wholly fun.

I had tried to sharpen my skills while on home leave, playing at the senior center with Zippy. That’s $2 well spent, that is for sure. I came close to buying my own paddle while there but held back, mostly because last time I was in the sandbox, I did a lot of boxing and subsequently bought boxing gloves, which have not been touched since I left here last time. I probably have a better chance of using a pickleball paddle again so I should look into that.

Home leave was mostly medical visits, but I also was able to attend my cousin’s wedding at the Biltmore. It was in a giant atrium and the colors were changing so it was beautiful. Bonus – I got to try on a Stanley Cup ring! My cousin’s new father-in-law had one from the Bruins’ 2011 championship. I asked how he’d gotten it and he said, “I made them a lot of money.”

So that (meaning the wedding, not just the Stanley Cup ring) capped a highlight of home leave. Another was visiting Latitude Margaritaville in Watersound, where I’ve been considering buying/building for retirement.

The other home leave theme seemed to be Camp Lejeune. Seriously, what is up with this lawsuit, or whatever it is? I have no idea what TV station Zippy watches – the one with Gunsmoke, I guess – but I swear every half hour, there was a voice coming over asking me if I’d been in Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1987. What the heck is this? I mean, ALL the time. And I had never heard of it.

Now that I am back, I am STILL getting hit with this stuff. My Microsoft email populates with an ad asking me the same thing – was I at Camp Lejeune? They’re not quite as annoying as election ads, but they are certainly as constant.

No, I was not at Camp Lejeune before 1987. I was at the Biltmore in Asheville in 2022, though. Now please stop annoying me!

Helo again. It’s been awhile

Back from a break, though it wasn’t a break at all. Just been super busy at the office, what with the regular summer transition. Probably 75 percent of the staff in my little section turned over. It’s a weird thing about this job: there’s constant turnover. The larger the section, the more people come and go.

It can be sad, but at some point, you get used to it. It’s a gig where everything is temporary. In Baghdad, it’s more intense because at normal posts, people stay 2-3 years, but in Baghdad it’s 1-2. With my timing – most of the turnover is early in the summer and I arrived in late September – I’m on target to work for three bosses in two years, which, due to my weird timing, should turn out to be 26 months.

 

With the new bosses, though, comes new introductions to everything. Not just people, but procedures. And since, in Baghdad, we don’t get out much but the security people need to know the area, getting familiar with the lay of the land includes a helicopter tour of what’s known as the International Zone.

Since we’re the federal government, we go big. It’s never just one person, so we took two groups of people in a helicopter tour, and I got lucky and got a ride.

I totally love helicopters. I did the first one in Alaska, and I remember thinking I would film the takeoff and when I went to take a shot through the see-through floor, I realized we’d already taken off. It was an amazing sensation, just lifting into the air.

For this tour, I was all-in! We did about 20 minutes, and I had “coms” – headphones the pilots use to talk to each other. I – and three other people – could listen, but not talk.  It was hard to hear, but I eventually figured out when to expect “maneuvers” – we did some fun moves to get around radio towers and things.

 

One of the big things to see in Baghdad is the “Crossed Swords” monument, and there was some kind of armed forces photo op going on. There was a camera drone around somewhere and I could hear the pilots talking about it. (Obviously, we didn’t want to ruin anyone’s pictures.) Those guys were good – I never saw the thing.

Baghdad is huge. We only went over the International Zone, but there were white buildings as far as I could see. The pilot pointed out things like Route Irish and some of the sites of the presidential palaces (yes, plural). To me, it was just amazing to look down and see the Tigris, the same one that flowed in Adam and Eve’s time. I swear, I love this part of the country.

And helicopters. It was so much fun. We had two legs going and when the first group got off they were all smiles and thumbs down, saying, oh, it was awful – you don’t want to do it. I’ll take your spot. Definitely my Baghdad highlight.

I told the new boss all I need now is a photo op for me in front of Crossed Swords and I can leave! Kidding, of course, but since I don’t have a prayer of making it to the zoo and have already seen Saddam’s swinging site, Crossed Swords is my last realistic (somewhat, anyway) bucket list item.

It was a great way to wrap up my first year in Baghdad. Technically, my anniversary was September 15, but because I left for home leave on the charter flight yesterday, I had two weeks of “bonus Baghdad time.” My second year doesn’t start until I return, which is due to be October 18.

Now I’m in DC, getting ready to head to Florida just when everyone else is trying to get out. I’m due in tomorrow at 1 and have a lab appointment at 2:30 and then possibly a dentist appointment; that was scheduled for Thursday at 8 a.m. but apparently they called me this morning to reschedule. I hope I can; I need a crown.

 

My big home leave trip this time is not taking Zippy to a softball game, though; instead I’m driving her to see her brother at his son/her nephew/my cousin’s wedding. It’s in Asheville, which is cool because I’ve never been.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to drive. No helos.

 

Back from a galaxy far, far away

 Been back two weeks from my R&R and it’s very much like I never left. Par for the course, I guess, but it does get tiring. Now I am planning for my home leave, which is a few short weeks in America. As usual, there are doctor appointments that need to happen. Trying to get a referral from here without going to see a primary doctor there is about as hard as taking out the Death Star, but hopefully things are lining up. Unfortunately, I got the added wallop of a toothache and it looks like I’ll have to get another crown, which will probably make my home leave more expensive than the whole trip to Star Wars land. 

Tunisia was really cool, thought. Hot, but cool. August isn’t the time to go to a desert, but I knew that in advance; I couldn’t go any other time. It was about 10-15 degrees cooler than it is in the sandbox, but it’s also – at least on the beach part – more humid.

My private group tour wasn’t all about Star Wars; basically, I saw the whole country, culture and traditional and all. Kairouan, for example, has the oldest mosque in north Africa. (And, before the tour, I discovered that Tunis has an American cemetery, the only one in Africa. Soldiers who died during the world wars are buried there. I had no idea America had cemeteries overseas).

But the Star Wars scenes were highlights, even though there’s big movie magic involved. Luke Skywalker’s house, for example, was incredibly tiny. It steps down to the ground, yes, but inside, it’s not more than 8 feet across. There is no way that Luke, Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen lived in that tiny place. Mos Epsa, one of the backdrops from the prequels, had raw wooden beams holding up the little round housing structures and the droids in the courtyard were made from wood.

 Here's Smithsonian’s take on the Mos Epsa site, which is surrounded by gorgeous dunes. We took a 4x4 out there and did some dune bashing, which was a lot of fun. The guide said there used to be another site about 5 kilometers away but has, in the 40 years since filming, has been taken over by nature.

 “It's only a short drive from the oasis of Tozeur, but the abandoned set of Mos Espa spaceport on the Chott el-Gharsa salt flat feels something like the end of the earth. Familiar landmarks of the fictional town have withstood weather and time, including the spaceport gate, podracing area, Watto’s shop and the café of famed podracer Sebulba, whom Anakin defeats to win his freedom. Moisture vaporators and other props also remain, posing a stark contrast to the desert landscape and mustard-colored set. Only the first stories of buildings were constructed for the prequels, leaving computer-generated imagery to design the rest. The crew of the prequel triology spent close to five months at the location, forging the now well-beaten road to the Nefta-Tozeur highway.” 

Some of the sites were, inexplicably, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Once in a while, it made sense, like the area used for the pod racing in the first prequel. That site has a structure called “Camel’s Neck,” and it’s basically a dry lake of nothingness. I thought it was beautiful. We drove through another huge dry lake, too. Gosh, it was just forever of flat earth.

 We visited the Sand People’s digs, which was also used in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Sidhi Bouhlel was the place where the Sand People tried to attack Luke when Ben steps in. In Raiders, it’s the place where Indy aims the gun at the ark and the Nazis dare him to shoot it and then Indy winds up being drug under the truck.

 The Raiders scenes from Cairo also doubled as Star Wars sites. Who knew Anakin worked on his pod racer in the same place where Miriam was kidnapped? The ksars were beautiful and fascinating. Although, sadly, they’re run down and mostly vacant now, they have been in use for hundreds of years.  

 I should go back and watch the prequels again so I can try to visualize where I was, but that would mean I have to watch the prequels again. I’ve seen them once – they were horrible. But I went back and watched “The Rise of Skywalker” again, marveling at the movie making. At the final scene, Ray, shown outside Luke’s childhood home, buries the light saber in the sand. In reality, the site, smack in the middle of the dry lake, is surrounded by dirt, not sand. She wouldn’t have been able to do that.

 Tatooine doesn’t exist, but Tataouine does. Lucas and the crew set up there to film in nearby sites and liked the name so much he adopted it. We also went through a Chibika, and, although I didn’t see anything to lead me to believe he took that name, it certainly sounds like he did. The guide said “chibika” means “the place where the oasis meets the sand.”  

Another base the crews used way back then, Sidi Hotel Idriss, is still used and has a lot of memorabilia, but no souvenirs. I’m American – I was expecting commercialism everywhere, and it just didn’t exist. But that hotel – which was there the cast stayed during parts of filming – had an amazing room with 40-year-old photos and such. (None for sale.)

 The hotel part has little rooms in the courtyard and on the doors they have character names where the actors stayed. They showed me the Luke Skywalker room, where Mark Hamill crashed. It’s way out in the middle of nowhere and the rooms don’t even have bathrooms; those are down the hall.

Really, Tunisia wasn’t a bucket list location or anything; I just had a vacation to take and I didn’t want to go far. Our vacations start off in Amman, and the flight to Tunis was under 4 hours. It worked out really well. I guess the force was with me.

Tips from Tunisia

Wrapping up a couple of weeks in Tunisia, where, among other things, I took a Star Wars tour. Specifically, this one: https://www.tourradar.com/t/154446 through a company called Saraharansky, but more on that another day; just a few photos for now.

The tour covered quite a bit of the country, as the starting point is in the north and most filming locations are in the south. All told, it as six days and five nights and I had both a tour guide and a driver. The tour was billed as a group tour and the company told me it wouldn’t go unless there were at least two people. I wound up being the only one.

The dilemma became what to do about a tip. Americans are the biggest tippers in the world; for now 20 percent is minimum, but I’m not in America, or even a place frequented by American tourists. (When it becomes clear I speak no French, more times than not, I’m asked if I’m German.) Tipping 20 percent on a tour package is a freaking huge number, and it’s never clear if it’s that amount total or that amount for the guide and the driver.

In other parts of the world, tipping just isn’t done or is minimal, like if your taxi ride costs 19.80 taxi ride, you’d give a 20 and leave the change. I really didn’t know where Tunisia stood on the whole tipping thing, so I turned to internet searches. It didn’t help.

Here’s an example of the information out there. It’s from one site under the heading “Should you tip your tour guide?” Under it, there’s a huge headline that says “Don’t tip,” then there’s the following:

“Hotels and professional travel organisations arrange group tours for all tastes tipping tour guides is unnecessary. If, on the other hand, you’re the adventurous type and you want to hire your own driver come tour guide, then you’re going to have to negotiate prices directly. Your hotel is a good resource for estimates regarding what a particular trip might cost and, if all goes well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t add an extra 20 to 50 dinar for the ride of your life.”

Otherwise, tipping isn’t necessary, but you can do it anyway. Other sites yielded equally unhelpful information. One would say don’t tip, another would say absolutely. Amounts varied. “Between 5-10 dinars a day or more.” Yeah, that’s helpful. “It’s not expected, but do it anyway.” One said only to pay in Tunisian currency and another suggested Euros.

One of the guides pointed out the daily salary for tour guides and then turned around and suggested tipping an amount that was more than that. This is what happens on the Internet – everyone’s an expert and in the end, no one knows what the heck is happening in real life. One site, I think it was the one linked above, clearly copied and pasted from a separate entry, because on the Tunisia page, one section started, “In Morocco …” Yeah, there’s credibility on the Internet

When you just want to do the right thing, it’s never easy. I also had the dilemma that I’d signed up for a group tour, so this poor guy normally would be making more tips had more people signed up. Do I compensate for that? OTOH, I paid extra because I was single (damn single supplement!). But from a different perspective, I got a private tour at a group rate. What to do?

The night before I left the last tour hotel, I sat down with a calculator and ran some numbers, putting aside two piles. I hope I did the right thing. The guide was amazing. The driver was nice but on the last drive back (which was after I’d set aside the tip money), he took a wrong turn, insisting a road was finished. The tour guide told him it wasn’t and not to go that way, but he did anyway, and guess what? The road was not finished. (Cue “Speed”: “It’s finished on the map!” “I guess they fell behind.”) We wound up off-roading in a minivan and had to double back more times than I cared to count. It probably added two hours to the total drive time.

Anyway, I’m parked at an AirBnB on La Marsa beach now and head back tomorrow. Yesterday was another full day on Cap Bon, meaning I’ve pretty much seen all of this country, which I really like. By the time we hit the medina yesterday, though, I was whipped. I’ve no room in my suitcase and just couldn’t handle all the “come into my store, no pressure to buy” from every single shop owner.

My days in Tunis – six days before the tour and four on the back end – have been spent on little day trips with a guide the hotel set me up with. (Since he was an independent contractor, I didn’t tip.) We did Carthage, Dougga and then Cap Bon. I’m done. Today is the dentist and tomorrow I’m headed out.

More on Star Wars later.

An R&R in ruins

 

It’s a great time to get a break from work. Since our people are mostly coming in on charter flights, we just got 10 of them, including my new bosses. The old bosses are still there, too, plus among the 10 there’s another senior person in my section and an additional deputy. Basically just layers and layers of people, and everyone has some kind of onboarding issue. That’s not their fault, of course, but trying to get one person lined up to receive a shipment while working on another’s email and yet another’s Teams account while simultaneously trying to get another couple of bosses out … it was just a good time to squeeze in R&R No. 2. I’m due three, but ran out of time.

But this time, I didn’t want to go far and opted for Tunis, which is a nonstop from Amman. Really, that’s how I landed on it. I just didn’t want to go more than four hours. It came down to this or London, which I figured would be far more expensive and a lot more lonely with just me. On this one, I am joining a tour on Monday and I’m also meeting a colleague tomorrow, so it’s not bad.

Today, I had a doctor appointment (gotta do these on R&R!) and just went to the mall afterwards. I wanted a real meal – I’m eating in the hotel lounge while I can – but couldn’t find a table to just park it and eat. I wound up finding a mostly empty table and kind of motioned to guy sitting there that I just wanted to sit and eat. He was too bewildered, I’m sure, to brush me off. I mean, some random tourist in a goofy hat just sits down and starts to eat. I’m sure he had no clue.

After I had been eating a fast-food meal from a Lebanese place – schwarma and hummus – for a little, a lady sat down with the guy. In broken English, she asked where I was from and I told her I was American. We wound up chatting – a little English, a little Arabic and a little French – for over an hour and a half! It was so much fun. She is from Libya and moved to Tunis for cancer treatment. The guy is her brother – one of three – and he has three kids; she married at 14 and has six! They were killing time before a doctor’s appointment and just hanging out. (It was maybe 1 p.m. and her appointment was at 4.) At one point, her mom called and I heard her say something about eating with an American, so I popped up behind her and photobombed the call. It made her day. Before that, they’d done a round of selfies.

It was just a totally random thing to do and was the absolute highlight of my day, and theirs, too. I mean, even if I hadn’t been coming from a doctor appointment and they hadn’t been heading to one, it would have still been the highlight. Something so insignificant as strangers sitting down together and talking. I had a great time.

Yesterday was more of a tourist day. I got a driver and did Carthage! Wow. I am so at home in ruins. I love this part of the world. I went to the amphitheater, which is still in use. The tour guide said he saw James Brown perform there, and there was some kind of event going on that evening. The “good seats” had cushions laid out – colorful rugs over a section of seats.

Oh man, the rugs. I do not need any more, but man, I love them. I already found one that I am still thinking about, which is not a good sign. It’s gray with Berber designs. Unfortunately, he has the same design in many shapes. I bet I could fit it in somewhere, but I don’t need to get another. I need to stay strong.

The Roman baths were phenomenal, too. Gosh, I wandered around forever. My driver guy probably thought I was insane. He was a great guide and I might see if he can take me somewhere else on Sunday. Saturday the plan is to visit the American cemetery – WWII – which I did not know existed until yesterday. The driver gave me a drive-by yesterday and it’s pretty moving. Tomorrow I’m headed to another set of Roman ruins, which are the largest in Africa.

Despite doing little to no planning, this is coming together all right.

Positively doing time

Don’t tell anyone, but I just took my trash out. The garbage room is maybe 50 steps outside my apartment door, down to the right. I also grabbed a couple of Vanity Fairs that were lying on the free table. But please keep it a secret.

I’m in jail and cannot leave my apartment until Tuesday. I tested positive. Crap! 

Somehow, this is my first go-round with COVID, and it hit me like a truck. I felt fine until Tuesday night, but I still didn’t think anything of it. I NyQuil’d myself to death and felt better Wednesday morning, so I went to spin class. Right now, the spin class consists of me and the instructor, who happens to be one of our nurses.

Came home, showered and ate breakfast. Business as usual. I was dressed for work and even had my bag over my shoulder when I got hit by a truck. It was mostly exhaustion. I took my temperature and was shocked that it was pretty high, but I figured it was a mistake. I gave it a few minutes and took it again, and it had gone up.

Since I figured it had to be COVID, I felt I owed it to the spin class instructor to warn her, because, although we were more than six feet apart and in a giant room, she would have been my closest contact. And since she was the nurse, she came over and tested me. At that point my fever had started to come down – it hit about 102.5 – but I was still exhausted. The nurse asked me why I still dressed for work, and it was simply because I was too tired to change. I couldn’t even pick up the remote.

I worked from home, which was a bummer because last night was my boss’s going-away party. The bigger boss is leaving and was giving all the big bosses send-offs, and last night was my boss’s turn. I was bummed to miss it. Although someone brought me take-out, we were giving him going-away gifts and I wanted to be a part of that.

Instead, I crawled into bed at 7 p.m., which was the same time the party started. I guess it went well; I haven’t heard, and I haven’t eaten the take-out. Really, I haven’t eaten much. I haven’t lost my taste but so far I have zero appetite, which seems strange because I am hungry.

Fortunately, I still have plenty of food in my apartment. I’ve found lots of pasta on the free table, plus some quinoa. The freezer also has a couple meals, so hopefully I’ll make it till Tuesday. If I change my mind, though, I can always ask someone to bring me something from the cafeteria.   

Mostly, though, it’s just going to be fighting boredom. I mean, I have work to do, but tomorrow is the weekend. I have no idea what I am going to do to stay busy. I guess it will probably be streaming, because there’s really nothing else to do. I can’t even go outside and walk around the compound.

This place is already like a minimum-security prison, and now I am in solitary confinement.

Yeah. It’s hot. It’s July. What did I expect, right?

 

Happy Independence Day!

Happy America’s birthday from The 100 Acre Sandbox. We had a congressional visitor, which is when someone who depends on being elected wants to come and take patriotic pictures with military people in uniform.  Even though the U.S. is in Iraq solely in an advisory capacity, we have some teams over here doing other work, like medical stuff and to support the Americans who live in the Sandbox. We gathered in our lovely dining facility, where our cafeteria employees went all-out and laid out a great menu, including mock Chick-Fil-A sandwiches. They were fantastic, as was the fruit carvings they’d done, like this fantastic watermelon. But our carvers’ talents are not limited to food.

We also had a giant Statue of Liberty, which had caused me to do a double-take earlier in the week. We have stuff stored all over the place in boxes like the back of a semi-truck and, while walking by the cafeteria, I noticed an employee digging through one. Since I figured it had to be food, it was quite surprising to see a big Styrofoam Lady Liberty among the boxes.

In a discussion with some colleagues about the amazingly carved fruit, someone mentioned they’d witnessed someone carving out an Easter bunny out of Styrofoam; we speculated that our cafeteria employees, who are contractors, must have one heck of a weird job description. There are some crazy talented people here – carving up watermelons and giant holiday decorations.

It's hot!

We have a new ambassador over here, which means we said goodbye to our old one. We all loved him, and he was quite active in our monthly 5ks, so, in coming up with the theme of the May one, they named it after him. We get T-shirts for every one we run (or walk – that’s 3k) and in the end, I’m going to wind up making a quilt or something out of them because I’ll have so many, but in the meantime, I am using them for my daily walks or runs. And, as you can see, it’s flippin’ hot here. We’re easily topping 105, but, unlike Florida, it is not humid. The goofy hat I bought in Kazakhstan has served me well thus far and it’s almost impossible to walk outside without shades on. I wake up early to walk the compound 2-3 mornings a week (the others I go to the gym) and it’s gotten to the point where, even though it’s only 40 minutes or so, I have to not only take a water bottle but change shirts when I am done. It’s a leisurely stroll but it’s still brutal.

So there’s a lot of hanging out indoors. This week, I bit the bullet and subscribed to Disney+ for a year, and even with my crappy internet I’ve managed to watch a few things, such as the retro Escape to Witch Mountain and the trendy Hamilton. I’m all over the place.

The retro stuff is a lot of fun; I’ve also tossed The Cat From Outer Space in my queue. I really don’t remember much about it, but once it comes in, it all comes back. It sure did for Witch Mountain.

I’ve also rediscovered MasterMind. With all the discussion of Wordle recently, I started thinking it sounded familiar and remembered that we used to have the little hands-in MM and that I really liked it. Of course, it’s online now, and I’ve taken to playing a game a night. For the most part, I figure them out, but getting started is a lot of luck. Imagine my surprised when I landed on this one evening:

 

Wish I could claim skill.

I’m sure someone can calculate the odds (there are eight colors and four spaces; I don’t repeat any colors, so it’s a finite number, I know) but for me it was like wow, I’ll never see that again.

But a couple weeks later, I won this one:

 

I didn't calculate the odds,
but they're dang long.

Again, I wonder these odds, because I first was 0-for-4. I knew for the second try, I’d be 4-for-4 in colors, but somehow had them in the right order but one spot over from where they should have been. Had I shifted in the other direction, I would have solved it in three, but I’ll take it.

Dust to dust

Temperatures are now topping 100 on a daily basis here in the 100 Acre Sandbox and stepping outside is essentially walking into God’s hairdryer. The heat is a jolt from the office because they are kept at icebox level, to the point where I keep a blanket, thin Nike hoodie and my LL Bean bedroom slippers at my desk.

Early this morning, I wished I’d had the blanket, because I did a 4-hour leg of work that was as boring as watching paint dry, probably because it was literally watching paint dry. One of the offices is being redone with new carpet and paint, and the freshly-painted door had to stand open for 24 hours. Since the office was one that required a security clearance to enter, someone had to guard the door as the paint dried. My shift was at 4 a.m. this morning; it’s been a long day! It wasn’t too bad but I’d worn capris and flipflops and my feet were so cold. I didn’t think to stop by my office and pick up my blanket. Man, I missed it, but overall the shift wasn’t horribly bad; there was a little loveseat and I positioned it where no one could get by me (like there was foot traffic at 4 a.m.) and catnapped.  

The dust storms are getting more and more frequent, too. Everything turns red and visibility stinks. We aren’t allowed to take photos on compound, but the dust storms have been bad enough to make the news, so this is what it looks like, except we don’t have motorcycles, although we do have a lot of people riding bikes and wandering around with grocery bags from the little store here. Due to the dust storms, we’ve had a couple of our flights delayed and we’re told it might happen more frequent this summer. Joy. It’s bad enough we can only get out of here certain days a week; now if we get a dust storm and the flight’s delayed, it really messes up travel plans.

Hopefully, nothing screws up my second R&R, which is only going to be a regional trip. Looking at a trip to Tunisia in August, which is completely the wrong month but the only option available to me. If the Star Wars tour doesn’t go, I’ll just hang out in Tunis for the whole time. Crossing fingers on being able to go. Travel, not just from here, has just gotten so complicated. 

When we’re not on R&R, we have to make our own fun. Today there was a beach party, although I am so messed up from the early morning shift that I skipped it. Last week, we had the most amazing thing ever in a macaroni and cheese cookoff. We have a cafeteria here and it doesn’t occur to me to cook, but there are some who do and about a dozen people entered variants of mac and cheese. Everyone was welcome to taste and judge, and my guess was there were probably close to 75 people who did. The winner was someone who smoked his. (Same guy who routinely BBQs for big parties.)

Not everyone is super social but they still manage to have fun in their own ways. Recently, I noticed someone had put up a notice for a dog that was missing. Since we don’t have pets here – just the occasional stray fox or cat, I moved in for a closer look and discovered that someone had posted a photo of a dog, saying the cute little dog wasn’t really lost, but the person who had posted it was the owner and missed him. It made me smile. I’ve no idea who did it, but obviously someone in this place has a sense of humor.

Sock Hop

At the beginning of March, American Airlines threatened to eradicate all my frequent-flier miles because I haven’t flown them in so long. Somehow, I don’t think it’s possible I haven’t flown them in a couple years, but whatever. My R&R had been canceled in January and I had a flight scheduled but it went kaput and to avoid losing the miles, I placed a $35 order from Walmart.

I felt there was a chance I’d have them by my birthday, and still I wait …

I ordered two bottles of conditioner, which was a mistake because of rules for shipping liquids. It was too much. Still, sometimes they slip through, but after getting a random refund from Walmart, I went to check the order and it appears it got turned around. Oh well, so much for that.

Because, though, nothing is ever shipped together, I am still awaiting a package of socks. These are not special socks; they were just socks enough to push me to the free shipping level. I really didn’t need socks so much as I did $35 in merchandise, and shippers have drastically eliminated things that they’ll ship to me, such as Junior Mints. No dice on candies, so I settled for socks. I think they have polka dots. As of Memorial Day, I have not seen these socks.

The socks, however, have seen the world. In checking their journey so far, they’ve covered more territory than a Flat Stanley. They started near Tampa, then ventured through Chicago, and Cincinnati before heading overseas, where they visited Bahrain before going to Copenhagen and Vilnius. Not finding me there, apparently they decided to head back to home, albeit not in a direct path. They’ve now meandered through their domestic stops again, but the last known update was on April 5.

Yes, life dependent on the diplomatic pouch is as glorious as it seems. I recently feasted on candy corn that had been mis-shipped to someone else; it was supposed to be chocolate. When the customer informed the shipper of the mistake, they told him to keep the candy and assured him he’d get the chocolate. (NOTE: this entire story has taken place in a fairly short time frame that started long after my socks went abroad -- long enough for the candy corn to be eaten, which, admittedly, didn’t take as long as it should have). It eventually arrived, but it was not only wrong, but the box was bashed to heck and had gotten soaking wet somehow. (It had been clearly marked “store in a cool dry place.”) So this is what we overseas put up with for a taste of home.

Hope springs eternal and I’ve just placed a Target order. According to their annoying little happy update messages, they (because there will likely be more boxes than items ordered, go green team!) are scheduled to arrive any moment but in reality, we lose track of everything once it gets thrown into a postal sack and onto a plane bound for overseas. The shipping history mutes; it’s like it’s circled to the dark side of the moon.

The bison's back

Still, one day, I will eventually get mail. It’s always a surprise because by the time the little automated “You’ve got mail!” email arrives, I’ve completely forgotten what I’ve ordered. It’s like Christmas all over again, except Christmas packages usually arrive well past the new year.

It will be a happy day when the socks arrive. (I don’t need them; that’s just how boring my life is right now.) They’ll almost double the number of socks I have, which, sadly has been diminishing. Baghdad is mean on clothes, and I’ve had a couple pairs bite the dust, including cute socks I just got in Belarus.

That made it all the more painful when one of my cool Belarus socks with bison on them disappeared on laundry day. The laundry is down the hall and I traipsed up and down, assuming I’d either left it in the dryer or dropped it, but I could not find it. I’d bring a lot of clothes, and I kept rifling through them, trying to find the little guy. No dice. I’d washed the sheets and convinced myself it had stowed away in the deep pockets, so I double checked there, but it still didn’t appear.

I’ve gotten better about not panicking or freaking out over stupid little things, and, as cool as these socks are, they are stupid little things and I just knew that the little guy had to be somewhere. I kept looking for maybe two weeks and he didn’t turn up and then I went on R&R. I mean, I live in a one-bedroom apartment. There aren’t many places to hide.

Finally, last week, I went to wash my sheets again and when I pulled up the bottom one, there he was. Static cling had gotten him. Guess I should order some dryer sheets.

On second thought, nope. They might wind up in Copenhagen.

Back from the islands

I’m baaack! Well, not quite, but, assuming the COVID test brings good news, I am headed back to Baghdad tomorrow. I won’t get there til Sunday, but I should be en route 24 hours from now.

 

This vacation has been utterly amazing. Logistically, it’s been a nightmare but the payoff has been worth it. After connections in Amman (where I had to get a second COVID test because the airline changed the requirement *that day*) Frankfurt and Houston, I arrived in Cancun on my way to Isla Mujeres. It was my first foray to Mexico, and what a way to go! I went to an event put on by Sam and Gina Densler, who organize music events. They’re nice as can be and have been doing this for years, but this one was a bit different than their norm. See their site: http://www.songwritersisland.com/may-19-island-showcase.html.

 

This show came about when Paul Overstreet, one of my favorite songwriters, had been stuck in the Caymans during the initial COVID lockdown and started doing what became  a Facebook “Sunsets and Songs” little low-key performance, with Julie Overstreet videoing him as he told stories about songs as the sun went down on the island. At some point, either he or his wife asked if people would be interested in attending a little beach show, or series of, and I thought why the heck not? In the end, it got switched from Cayman to Mexico and timed during a time where I could take off, so why not, right?

 

I went and had a blast. There were about 100 people there, and several of the couples were just so awesome to hang out with. I’ve never spent half a day in a pool, but I did there. It was just so relaxing. The people were so nice and the music and stories were just so fun to hear. I mean, I love the guy’s music so I was in hog heaven. The funny thing was, it seems everyone else had attended the little music events there before or knew the Overstreet family personally, whereas I was this random lone chick who showed up from Baghdad, of all places. As host gifts, I’d brought both the Denslers and the Overstreets flags that had been flown over the embassy in Baghdad and both sets were extremely grateful. I was glad because it’s kind of a weird gift, but my options were limited.

 

One afternoon, we had a pool party that was hosted by one of the daughters, Summer, who is in a band called the Chattahoochies. She was phenomenal, too – I told the dad she made some new fans. Her stuff is a bit edgier than his – he’s got “She Only Likes Me for My Willie” but she has “I Take the ‘O’ Out of ‘Country’.” I need to track down some of her singles, because I really enjoyed them. (See if you can find “Itchin’ for a Bitchin’, “I Dodged a Mullet” and “Talledaga 10” to see what I mean.) Another daughter, Sky (there are six kids total, but AFAIK there were only two there), also joined her sister in singing. It was fun to watch the proud parents during the kids’ performances.

 

When the event was over, I headed to Cancun for two nights and had gum surgery (for a mere $800) and went to Chichen Itza. Cancun wasn’t the destination for me – too Vegas-like -- but I liked the ruins. Living in Istanbul does that to you. I’d totally do the same event again, though if I did, I’d aim for Cozumel as a side trip next time, plus coordinate the dentist a bit better.

 

Next up, after a short visit to Tallahassee to see Mackenzie graduate from FSU (but not Jameis Winston, because we left a little early), Leila joined me for a bucket list item of the Key West Songwriters’ festival. I say bucket list item, but at this point, it’s a must-do annually – I had that great of a time. Now, I’m not a Key West partier, but I enjoyed the heck out of the music and atmosphere. I popped in on the free shows here and there – Jeffrey Steele was great – and bought tickets for one show. I’d bought them for Chuck Cannon, barely even realizing it’s set up as having three sets of performers doing an hour show each.

 

We’d found a store that was going out of business or something and had everything for $5, so we dawdled there and arrived halfway through the first show, Trent Tomlinson and Clint Daniels. We’d looked up everyone before hitting the show, but I pretty much forgot what all they had written because there were so many. Each set of performers played so amazingly well off each other. It was fantastic.

 

Chuck Cannon, who had the middle set with Tommy Simms, did a hits medley with most of his ones with Toby Keith plus “The Way You Love Me” and then went to some of his “I wrote this for me, not for others to record” stuff, including something about the fox watching the henhouse. It was great – quite a sing-a-long.

 

And did I mention the seats? I had bought them about an hour into the sale, and somehow I landed a table literally at the stage. At one point, I dropped my phone and was scared that, in trying to pull it back to me, I was going to unplug something necessary. We were so close that I could see a hole in the crotch of someone’s jeans. Leila managed to make eye contact with the middle performer of the third set and motion him for an autograph afterwards. I could see fingernails. It was just that close.

 

The third set of performers – Chris Tompkins, ERNEST (yes, that’s how he writes it) and Craig Wiseman – totally played off each other. ERNEST was freestyling off Tompkins’ stuff and Wiseman dusted them all. He was the “old man” of the group and had so many people record his stuff that he wouldn’t even let the announcer list them all – we would have run out of time before they even started! He did “The Cowboy in Me” (which Jeff Steele had also done) and “Live Like You Were Dying,” which had us all singing along. Tompkins had written (or co-written) Carrie Underwood’s hit “Before He Cheats” and it was pretty amusing to hear that from a guy who had a completely different range than Underwood. It was fantastic.

 

Since I have no idea what is on country music radio now, I hadn’t heard “Flower Shop,” which ERNEST had written (or co-written). Leila – or at least RJ – definitely knew this one, so Leila FaceTimed RJ during it. Then, after ERNEST came right over to sign an autograph for her, Leila FT’d her again and he was nice enough to say hi to her, which totally made her evening, as well as her mom’s.

 

Leila also embarrassed the heck out of me. I couldn’t get tickets to the Scotty Emerick/Dean Dillon paid show and hadn’t noticed there was a free show when I bought the Cannon tickets, so I missed my chance at seeing my No. 1 favorite songwriter perform. We went to the venue before it started, hoping to score a ticket, but at that point there weren’t any available. After venturing to hear some music at other venues, we circled back (Dillon and Emerick were on stage last that evening) and were appalled that people were LEAVING before those two performed. I mean, it was like, hello, this is DEAN DILLON. Yeah, Emerick is my favorite, but Dean Dillon is a flippin’ legend. Anyone leaving before that set should turn in their country music lover card.

 

But we still had no tickets, even though others had left. The security guards were really nice and at one point did this “hint hint” thing that the last performance was running a little late because the performers were having a drink in the parking lot before. Wink wink. I’m dumb, so I didn’t get it but Leila essentially drug me to the back – the guards had previously told us that when the show started we could probably hear it from there anyway, so I was for that. But I hadn’t caught on that Leila was dragging me for a photo op with Emerick. I was utterly mortified she did that and don’t even think I looked at him or said thank you (which haunts me). She just basically drug me over there, said could we have a photo and he took the camera in a failed attempt at a selfie before one of the nice people from BMI took it for us. (It’s hard to get three people of varying heights without a selfie stick, and I would shoot myself before buying a selfie stick.) I have no memory of anything else, other than making a comment about Emerick only having one beer or something like that. It really bothers me that I don’t think I had the presence of mind to say thank you – I didn’t even register that he’d walked away.

 

I did, however, park my butt on the stairs and listen to the show, which he opened with “Conchsucker,” a song Paul Overstreet, who had co-written it, had performed on Isla Mujeres.  Emerick told the ticketed crowd they were the "first to hear it" and I was thinking, "nope." I sat there the whole show, while Leila stood, star-struck, three feet from Rodney Crowell, who, for some reason, was also standing outside the venue. (She'd had no issue throwing me in front of my favorite writer but couldn't say hello to another who was in her personal space for the better part of an hour. Go figure.) What I could hear was a lot of fun, although some was overshadowed by the previous set performers spoken conversation going on right outside the doors. I wanted to tell them to keep it down because I was trying to filch a free concert, but it didn’t sound right.

So now that bucket list item is really on the “wanna do again and again” list. It was so fantastic.

There’s a method to it.

At work, our promotions are based almost solely on our evaluations, so there’s a lot of pressure to get them as perfect as you can, however you define perfect. They’re due on May 15, and theoretically, they shouldn’t start to be written until April 15, but that’s never the case. The pressure is so intense, people start in January or February, and some offices insist they are completed by April 15, which is really wishy-washy.

They are works of art, really, with polished writing that make a person sound so much better than the average bear, but we’re discovering that it’s no longer kosher to point that out. Sigh. What is the world coming to, really? Because these things carry so much weight, before they are finalized, they go to a panel of people who are only supposed to tell you if you’ve said something “inadmissible” but, to different degrees, give you pointers on how to improve. And this year, I’ve seen some really questionable comments that encourage parity.

One of the “inadmissible” criteria is: “Anything negative or pejorative about the work performance of an identifiable employee.

That’s all the rulebook says. I’ve now seen comments on two people’s evaluations that say things like “This person has the best work ethic of the 35 people in my section” and “This person shined at a job that would have overwhelmed others” as being “potentially inadmissible’’ because they “may be construed” as being “negative.” And on mine, I called my office “multifaceted and oversized” and was told that “was negative.”

Just. So. Stupid. Saying bacon is my favorite food doesn’t disparage pizza. It makes me so angry because for promotions, the people that read all these things will sort them into piles of high, medium, and low. Egads! Someone will be low! And then, as if that’s not insulting enough, they RANK the high ones. We don’t have 188 valedictorians. We have one No. 1, one No. 2, etc. (They do this because the people who divide into the piles don’t know how many people will ultimately be promoted. They could have 51 in the ”high” pile, but there may only be 36 people promoted; those panels don’t know that final number.)

And calling my office “oversized” is negative? Get real. It IS oversized. The taxpayer in me acknowledges this. It’s also not negative. And, you know what? If it is, so what? My office is not an identifiable employee.

I just feel like people are reading way too much into what’s in black and white and trying to inject things that aren’t there. It’s not like the evaluation says, “This person is the only one of my 35 employees that has a good work ethic.” But you know what, “work ethic” is not the same as “work performance.” Even that (which I’d never say) doesn’t fall in like with what’s inadmissible.

When I brought this up, I was asked how I’d feel if my evaluation was thrown out for that. I was like, bring it on. I’d take it to court because what was written absolutely is admissible.

 Seriously.

But my evaluation is done, thank goodness. I am scheduled to go out on R&R and I didn’t want it hanging over my head.

In celebration (not really) I took part in a couple of the drills we do here. This one staged a mass casualty car accident. In reality, we’d never have one of these in the location we did the exercise, but it could happen on the street outside the embassy.

Something I did not know about myself: I am a fantastic method actor. I was totally into it. For the first one (we did one for night shift and one for day), I had a hurt arm and was not cooperative patient. First, I stumbled out of the car and then, waiting on medical care, got agitated and tried to walk to the doctor’s office. Quite honestly, in reality, I can see myself doing that: I was mobile and conscious, and I knew where the office was. Why wait for help?

When they steered me back to where I was, I saw another “patient,” who was lying on a stretcher. I then turned it up a notch and flipped out: I started screaming "That's my friend! Cary, are you OK? Talk to me! CARY? Oh, no, she's DEAD! She’s dead, isn’t she?” Just over and over. The finally took me to the health unit (which wasn’t the one I would have walked to, so they were right to head me off at the pass!) and they brought her in, on the stretcher, at the same time I’d just gotten up to go back to be “examined.” I fell back down, crawled over to her and started tugging at her arm, begging, “Please say something, please talk to me.” It was quite a performance, and later she told me it was all she could do to not burst out laughing.

The next morning, I got to be the driver with two injuries, and I just faked massive pain. The poor guards, who are the first people on the scene, did such a great job and will probably never look at me again. They’d been told to keep talking to me and one asked if I had kids and I just screamed no but it couldn’t be more pain than this. I’d double up with pain and then just sob. I honestly have no idea how I did it.

Since the stretcher thing didn’t work out – I don’t know why – four people carried me to the transportation, which was a Bearcat. This was cool, because I have wanted to ride in one, but it was not a fun ride. Once they loaded me in – with me almost choking on my badge, for real, and getting a bit queasy, they shifted me to a litter and then taking off – slowly – but still over speed bumps. I honestly thought I was going to toss my cookies.

 

Finally,  I was brought into the health clinic and just kept it up. They gave me some kind of drugs (mimed this, I mean) and I asked (out of role) what would happen if I took it and the doctor said my mental state would deteriorate so I went with it. Gosh, it was so much fun.

They told me I was the best role player they’d seen! And I was honestly nauseous after it. It took about an hour for my stomach to settle down. But man, it was so much fun.

The illusion of cooking

 The 100-Acre Sandbox is a self-contained city. We have a power plant, a water facility, road construction and the like. In addition to those things you just have to have to survive in the middle of a desert, we also have some fixins of a much nicer place, like a couple of gyms, pools and a wonderful corniche where people hang out at lunch and after hours.

We have a couple of little stores, but they’re not really grocery stores. One has a limited amount of food for sale, but that’s mostly for stuff like Red Bull and Copenhagen, which seem to be hot sellers. They also have toiletries and an ever-changing variety of “Embassy Baghdad” clothing and lots of booze.

There’s really no need for grocery stores because we also have a cafeteria and two snack bars that have food available from morning to late in the evening. Last time I was here, there was food available 24/7 but they’ve cut back, but boy, there is still enough.

So far this tour, though, I’ve tried to back off a bit. First, I was pretty much sequestering myself so that I could focus on the degree, but I’ve now gotten into the habit of doing lunch in my apartment. Since the portions are sized for He Man Security Team Members, there’s generally enough for dinner, too. Plus, since I was essentially jettisoned from Minsk, I wound up with lots of staples left from there. I’ve been cooking, in a limited fashion, rice and lentils for awhile now and just eating on it as the week wears on.

I’m nearing the end of the stockpile, though, and I’m kind of sad. There’s more satisfaction in eating when you prepare it yourself, but it’s hard to justify buying ingredients when there’s a cornucopia right in front of you. However, the food’s pretty routine, especially after the six-month mark, which I hit on March 15.  Since the cafeteria is halfway across the compound from me, I usually just go to the snack bar, and their menu hasn’t changed since I arrived. Although there are cold sandwiches and usually a boxed salad available, the hot dish is the same for whatever day of the week it is. I’m good with Sunday – chicken sandwich (not even close to Chick) and Wednesday, “fried rice” day, but other than that … meh.

Some days are worse than others. Tuesday is some kind of chicken day in all the facilities and I’m just not a fan. But that’s the one night where one of the snack bars – the one that has a Fred Flintstone-sized Buffalo wing-like drumstick – has carrot and celery sticks. So far, if I’ve run out of Minsk food for the week, I’ve gone and gotten a cup full of them and then a soft-serve ice cream for dessert.

But this past week, I got an idea. I’m going to start scavenging for ingredients and pretend to cook. One day had cream of mushroom soup. That’s not a meal to me – it’s something you put in rice. So I got a cup and came home and froze it. Then Tuesday rolled around and I snagged carrots and sautéed them and tossed in with the soup. (I got celery too, but I also got hungry and then the celery was no more.)

The next move is to head to the other snack bar, which is closest to me. It always has this dahl soup and unseasoned steamed white rice. It’s probably the plainest and flavorless rice ever, but the plan is to take a bunch, toss it in a pot, add some spices (which I have from Minsk) and then add the carrots and cream of mushroom soup. Then I can shred one of the Sunday chicken breasts and have a real meal.

It’s no exactly home-cooked meal, but it has the illusion of one, and that’s a nice change of pace.