Catching Up

I've been redeployed back to Fort Campbell and my home for a little over a month now. Transition back into the normal grind has been a little tough for me, so blogging about being blah seemed blah. I'm feeling less blah now so here goes a little blog post to wrap up the last month.

 

 

 

We are proud to announce a new member of the family. Gertrude the Impaler. We call her Gertie or Gert for short. She's the cutest thing in the world. She's so sweet... when she's not biting. We got her so Picasso would have a companion. After a few rocky days of getting territory (food bowls mostly) settled, the two frenchies are best friends. Currently we are in the middle of potty training her, and she is probably retarded and unable to learn because this is a venture not going well.

 

 

James started terminal leave from the Army. First matter to be taken care of was growing a beard. His beard is still in its infancy, but it's already starting to look good. He's happy to be getting out of the Army and start a new career. I'll hold it down in the Army for the family. 

 

 

For Thanksgiving, James and I took the dogs with us to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, to see our friends Ashley and David. It was great to see them. You don't find friends like them often. I wish we were all stationed closer together again (we all met at Fort Lewis, Washington). Maybe someday we will be able to work that out. The dogs were amazingly well behaved on the 11.5 hour drive both ways. They were less well behaved at their house, but Picasso won their daughter Jayla's heart, so I can't complain.

 

I am on my last day of 23 days of block leave. 23 days is too long to be away from work. Even though I've been going to the gym and have been doing hot yoga, I still managed to put on weight while on leave. I swear, if I could be paid for gaining weight quickly, I'd be a rich woman. So I have a little bit of work ahead of me to get into shape for ALC (Advanced Leaders Course) in January.

 

That brings us up to speed I believe.

 

I'm gad to be home.

Old City & The Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Day 2 of my Israel tour yielded a few adventures. Today we toured Jerusalem and went into the Old City. It's a section of the city that is walled in completely full of merchants and The Church of the Holy Sepulcher-- where Jesus was crucified and his body was prepared for burial.

 

 

I'm not a religious person, but seeing this church was really impressive. Being in a place of religious pilgrimage was profound, even for me. I saw some really hard core Christians manically cleaning the stone slab Jesus was prepared for burial on, then pressing their faces on the stone. One man had a picture of Jesus laid out on the slab, which he gazed at while he laid on the stone for over a half an hour. I took a picture of him because it was so striking to me how dedicated he was.

 

We also saw the Wailing Wall, or the Western Wall. This is another pilgrimage site for Jewish people. People come to the wall to pray, and to stuff written prayers on paper between the stones. The wall is partitioned off into two sections-- one side for men to pray, the other for women.

 

 

 

Old City has a huge market inside of it where we were allowed to go shop and haggle with the local merchants. I learned two important lessons while in the Old City: Israeli men like blond hair and tattoos and will lower their prices simply based on that and to never, ever, ever under any circumstances step all the way into a shop unless you want to be sexually assaulted.  I was touched way too much and had too many inquiries about my marital status.

 

So, James, Sammy the creepy merchant told me to tell you that you are a lucky man.

 

The shopping was interesting though. Old City is just alley after alley of little hole in the wall (almost literally) shops peddling all kinds of things from pig hearts to leather purses to olive wood crosses. I bought a few things and ate some absolutely delicious lamb shawarma.

 

Everything is pretty expensive in Israel. One American dollar is worth about three and a half shekles. So paying 10 shekles for a can of soda is crazy expensive, but that is the standard. Today I ate well, learned things, bought stuff and spent a lot of money. A typical vacation day.

Masada & The Dead Sea

I am currently on an MWR bus trip to Israel. Today was the first day of the trip, so we spent half the day traveling. Not because North Camp is really very far from Jerusalem, but because it takes hours to get through the boarder between Egypt and Israel-- it really depends on how the guards feel that day as to how long you'll wait.

The other half of the day we toured Masada and swam in the Dead Sea.

Masada was really cool. I didn't have the slightest clue what it was until today. I'm not a Jewish or Roman history buff. I had a whole lot of knowledge dropped on me today about a Jewish King from around year 20 who built an enormous hide out called Masada in the desert of Israel so he could hide from his people when they had uprisings and wanted to kill him. This dude spared no expense on his hideout-- it was really legit and carved into the rock on the side of a cliff. Then long after he was dead a bunch of Jewish zealots moved into Masada and the Romans wanted to kill them. The Romans spent a lot of man hours making ramps to get up to Masada and they failed for a few years. But then they finally lit the front gates to Masada on fire and gained entry. But-- oh no!! All the Jews stabbed each other to death and committed suicide before the Romans got to the top of the hill. Bummer for the Romans who wanted to enslave the Jews.

 

 

 

 

But anyways, history aside, I toured the mountain top complex and it was really cool. Masada overlooks the Dead Sea. Which is where we went next.

 

 

The Dead Sea was so awesome. I was so buoyant that I didn't need to tread water to stay afloat. It just looked like we were all standing in chest deep water. I swam out and had trouble sitting back up because my legs wanted to float out from under me! The water is so ridiculously salty. We were advised not to put our heads underwater because it would burn our faces. I went ahead and followed that advise. I didn't want to melt off my face. After I got out of the water and rinsed off, I realized my skin was incredibly soft and smooth. I always thought that Dead Sea skin treatment stuff was a bunch of bullshit but apparently it's not! So next time you're at the mall and some pushy dude at a kiosk tries to sell you that skin care stuff from the Dead Sea, go ahead and consider it.

Night Time Downtown Providence

James and I stayed in a nice hotel in downtown Providence while we were visiting. We explored our surroundings and found a pretty sweet microbrewery right around the corner. The atmosphere was decent and the beers were tasty. The bar tender was super cool, and thought we were basically amazing since we both are in the Army. He thought we were so amazing, in fact, that our tab at the end of the night was $30. Now, I can tell you, our tab should have been triple that because James and I like to party.

 

We had a really good time hanging out. (So good, that we went twice.) But when it starts to be closing time, something triggers your drunk belly to demand food. So James and I went on a food quest. I think we found the holy grail of drunk food.

The poster on the side that bragged Man VS Food had visited this mobile burger joint just screamed, "Eat here!!!" I did have a Murder Burger, as suggested by the poster. But I opted out on the egg. Eggs don't belong on burgers. We brought our bag of burgers up to our hotel room and proceeded to devour the most delicious burgers I think I have ever had. Or at least, the most delicious burgers Drunk Jackie has ever had.

House Rules

I went home to Davenport, Iowa to see my mom and dad for Christmas. It had been almost 6 months since I had seen them, so the trip was way over due. That means it had been 6 months since my parents saw their granddog, Picasso, and well, that is completely unacceptable.

 

Mom has a few known house rules. First and foremost, you always come in the back door if there is any chance you may have anything on your shoes. Tracking in is absolutely unacceptable. That's an easy one to do. Even Picasso followed that rule. I'd let him out to go potty from the front door and he'd walk all the way around the house to the back door to be let back in.

 

Second on her list is no dogs on the furniture. Well, I'm good at that one. But Picasso had a few problems catching on to that:

Sorry, Mom! Picasso can only learn one new rule at a time! Maybe next time!

Recovery

Its been 8 days since surgery. I ran out of percocet today. Not that I really really need it. The pain is bearable... but it sure would be nice to just pop one and take a peaceful, long, pain free nap. However, I'll survive.

I'm getting 21 days off from work. (YES!) I wasted the first week lying on the couch with Picasso all drugged up. I watched a shameful amount of America's Next Top Model. Maybe this next week I'll dress myself in something other that orange sweatpants and an MTV t-shirt (which is red, so it makes the ensemble truly repulsive) and get out of the house.

Actually, getting out of the house is actually something I won't be doing, actually. It's been 105 degrees here all week. I don't do well with heat. Neither does my yard. The grass so so dead and crunchy that it hurts Picasso's feet to walk on it. All my flowers burned up-- except for my roses, which I think are cousins to weeds anyhow.

Sorry snapdragons, but you burst into flames.

In short, my bruises are fading and the incisions are healing. I can sleep on my side now instead of my back, in a far less Dracula-like fashion. Its supposed to take 6 weeks for everything to heal and feel good again. I'm anxious. Right now I have Frankenstein boobs: all sewn together. (Wow, 2 fictional villains in 1 paragraph.) I'm confident everything will turn out great.

Except my yard. That is a lost cause.

Hiatus

Please forgive my temporary leave of absence. I am compiling all my blog entries (along with some filler) from my latest Iraq deployment to write a book. So updating the blog is going to fall to the way side unless something truly hilarious or incredible happens. Wish me luck on the book thing, I might just need it.

Hooting Owls

I stepped out on to my mom and dad's back porch around sun down this evening and I heard owls hooting. Yes, my parents live in Iowa, which most people think is all farm land, but they do not live on a farm and I've never heard hooting owls before. So went back inside to spread my joy and I ran into my dad first. I said, "Dad, did you know there are owls out back?" And he looked at me like I was freaking stupid. But my mom overheard my joy of owls from the back bedroom and was excited about the prospect of hooting owls, too. She came out to hear them. Mom spotted them. There were two of them.

It was spooky and very Halloweeny (hee hee, that sounds funny) for the owls to be hooting so close to the house this evening.

Uncasing Ceremony

Today was the Uncasing of the Colors Ceremony. Before we left for Iraq over a year ago, we had a ceremony to case the colors. Basically we put our brigade and battalion flags in an ACU printed sock and left them in it while we went to war. Now that we're back, we can remove it from the sock and add a little streamer on the flag that says we were awesome on our deployment. It's a long ceremony. People give speeches. The I Corps band plays their instruments. Soldiers stand at attention. There is singing involved.

I lucked out and got to pull medical coverage. Which basically meant I stood behind the spectator bleachers with a litter and an aid bag and talked shit with 2 other medics. There was a lot to talk shit on. I love getting to see Soldier's wives. Because all Soldiers generally look the same, but wives come in all shapes and sizes and classiness.

There were an insane amount of babies present. If you do the math, that means most Soldiers had a really good mid-tour leave with their wives or there was some scandalous stuff going on while Daddy was at war. There even seemed to be designated, yet unmarked, stroller parking behind the bleachers.

The best part of this particular ceremony is that it kicked off our block leave period. 30 days where every Soldier who deployed has a chance to take leave and finally relax and go on vacation. I have quite the vacation planned for myself. First off: Las Vegas with my bestie. Then I'll be whisked away to wonderful Richmond, Virginia to visit another bestie. Lastly, but certainly not least, I'll go to fabulous Davenport, Iowa to visit my fabulous parents! It'll be nice to put my uniform away and feel like a real human being for a month.

Home Sweet Home

After 3 days of international travel, I find myself back in my little room at Camp Taji, Iraq. And to tell you the truth, I'm happy to be back. I just can't describe how good it feels to walk into a room after being gone 25 days and have everyone be genuinely happy to see you. This is my little family, Cco 702nd BSB (especially the peeps in EVAC), and I really wouldn't want to trade them in for anyone else. Well, now that I got all that mushy stuff off my chest....

The trip back was as awesome as I expected it to be. I use the term awesome loosely, of couse. Long flights, tiny seats, a sore neck from sleeping with my head impossibly craned to one side or the other. Landing in Kuwait made me sad because the temperature was displayed on the TV screens in the airplane: 101 degress. Oh, and it was ten o'clock at night when it was 101 degrees. Lovely.

I came home to my room, got a good 4 hours of sleep in the most comfortable bed on the Earth-- really, my bed surprisingly kicks ass over here! I took a shower in the public bathroom that reeks of mold and stale water, no hot water, but at least I was the only person in there. A fresh uniform, and I feel as good as new.

I'm glad to be back. And I only have about 2 more months of this deployment until we redeploy back to Fort Lewis, Washington. Hooray!

The Shedd Aquarium

I took a little road trip to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois a few days ago with my mom and Erin. It was a really fun trip even though it was raining and crazy cold. I could see my breath. It was half the temperature I'm used to in Iraq. I was freezing and being a total cry baby about it. Also, I was wearing flip flops, which could have been most of the problem.

The actual aquarium was really cool. I hadn't been since I was in 5th grade. It was a field trip that my elementary school took us on. And apparently that's still a very popular thing for elementary schools to do, because the amount of rabid, loose children was astronomical. I don't ever ever ever want to be that close to so many yelling, running, pushing, dirty little monsters again. EVER. This trip reinforced my decision that having children is a huge buzz kill and I won't participate in that. All these rug rats had camera phones. Who does a 5th grader have to call?

Originally the trip was planned because I wanted to see the otters. They are my favorite animal because they're just so goddamn cute. Have you seen their cute little faces?? Well, the otter exhibit was super disappointing because I only saw one otter and the viewing area into his home was plastered with children. The children made sitting with the lone otter to ooooh and aaaah over how cute he was completely out of the question.

In the gift shop Erin and I found otter masks and that was almost as good as the otters themselves. I also got a hot pink otter stuffed animal and that made me happy too.

Old Chicago

I left Iraq for the United States on the 2nd of May for a 15 day rest and relaxation break. I'm home at my parent's house in Davenport, Iowa currently. I couldn't be happier to not have my uniform on, to let my hair down, and to drive my Ford Escape.

Oh, and the Booze. I'm really happy about the booze, too.

I went out to a restaurant bar last night called Old Chicago with my good friend Erin. I had just meant to go eat a tasty calzone and have a couple drinks and catch up with a girlfriend I hadn't seen in 9 months. Well... the calzone happened, and the catching up happened, and the drinks happened, though, way more than a couple drinks happened. I don't really have a recollection of exactly how many drinks I had, but my tab was $90 so you can only imagine the damage I did.

Erin dropped me off at my parent's house around midnight. As I was walking around the house to enter through the back door I unexpectedly vomited. I didn't feel sick, I just opened my mouth and a steady stream of calzone came out onto the grass. It was kind of disturbing. I went directly downstairs to my basement lair, put on my pajamas backwards and slept on the couch instead of my bed (which is approximately 10 feet away and I had to get my pajamas off the bed in the first place). I love being on leave.