Flashbacks to Fort Lewis

When I saw this:

I had a wild flashback to my time spent at Fort Lewis, WA. Notice it's dark, raining, 57 degrees and my car is in park in the middle of the road.

I do not miss the traffic and weather at Fort Lewis!! So when it happens here at Fort Campbell, I'm so sad!! I thought I ran away from all that.

Whenever I start to get nostalgic about Fort Lewis, and I think I want to go back, days like this happen and I'm reminded why I'm glad I left.

Military Wives Part 2

Military wives were blowing my mind again at Warriors Leaders Course graduation. The ceremony was at 10:30am. Between black fishnet stockings and completely see through white pants, I didn't know who to take pictures of first!



She was a clear favorite.



See Through White Pants Girl in the background.



I've made the decision that when James graduates from WLC, I'm going to show up like I just left the club. Like, maybe literally. Last night's dress, make-up and hair like I was doing the walk of shame to his ceremony.

Rabies!?

A few weeks back a Soldier at Fort Drum was killed from rabies that he contracted from a rabid animal while he was deployed to Afghanistan. Of course, the Army has blown this isolated incident out of proportion, because that's what we do around these parts. A survey was sent out Army wide to pick out Soldiers who are "high risk" for having contracted rabies while over seas in 2010-2011.

I love animals. I would pet any dog or cat I could get my hands on while I was deployed. Thus making me "high risk".

So I had an appointment at Preventive Med to be interviewed about my experiences with Iraqi animals. As I was sitting in an exam room explaining to a Captain all of the interaction I had with wild animals, I started to rethink my initial thoughts that this was a completely unnecessary medical appointment.

I was reminded of Combat Stress Kitty and how we evacuated her head to be tested for rabies after she went bat shit crazy and attacked a Soldier. I used to pet that cat all the time. And she would lick me: lick me with possibly rabid saliva on her tongue!

The doc that I was telling all of this to started to inform me of the rabies vaccine. He told me it was a very expensive series of shots ($700 on Uncle Sam's tab!). And then about the 10cc of imunoglobin that were going to be injected into my thighs and the weekly shots in my arms for 4 weeks. He then pulled out a Rx pad and wrote a prescription for me to get the series of shots. HeHe put me in an exam room and told me to remove my pants in preparation for the shots in my thighs.

PANIC!

When he came back to the exam room in what seemed like hours later, he told me I didn't need the shots after all. He said I did not fall into what "Army protocol" requires to receive the vaccine series.

After the relief washed over me, and I put my pants back on, I started to feel slightly offended. Why wasn't I good enough for the shots!? What part of the Army protocol didn't I meet!? Was it because it's an expensive vaccine and I'm not worth it!? WTF!

All I have to say is, I better not have rabies.

Basic Life Support

Basic Life Support, or BLS (as the Army loves acronyms), is the "new" term for CPR. New is used loosely because I think it's been called that for a long time, but most people still call it CPR. Anyhow, that's enough back story.

Since the God who deems the rules of BLS is constantly changing his mind on how he wants it performed, I had a recertification class today under the new standards. Really, not a lot changed. It actually is easier now.

I was partners with a good friend of mine, Sagen. We sat down at one of the tables and quickly realized we were going to preform CPR on an interracial family. Black man and a white baby. Then we looked around and noticed ALL the dummies had been paired that way. It's not a big deal, but what are the odds!?

Sagen and I saved our interracial family from certain death and were rectified for another 2 years under the new standards of BLS.

Smart Phones Are Not So Smart

Who needs a social life with your co-workers when you can stare mindlessly at your smart phone instead?

I know it's not just the people I work with. I know it's my entire generation. Those smart phones are ruining our ability to interact with our peers.

Studies have shown (studies courtesy of Jackie) that when people go through bad experiences together, it brings them closer together. An unspoken bond. United through the suck. The Army is generally one big bad experience, and the only way we Soldiers get through it with a smile on our faces is because we can joke with the guy next to us about how much our situation sucks. At least, that's how it is deployed.

Smart phones are spoiling that bond in garrison. How are you supposed to get to know your battle buddy before you deploy if your eyes are always glued to your smart phone. Your Droid isn't going to save your life down range. Your iPhone isn't going to laugh with you when your physically and mentally exhausted down range.

I'm just saying, maybe we should put the phones down more often in the name of camaraderie.

Skittles VS Picasso

Perhaps you remember my neighbor's cat, Skittles? She's always sleeping in my yard, driveway, back porch, front porch or car. She wouldn't be a bother at all if she wasn't completely deaf. You have to actually physically touch her with something and scare the shit out of her to get her out of the way of your vehicle.

Just today I was watering my garden and she shot out of the flowers like a rocket because I sprayed her with the hose while she was napping.

Since Skittles is oblivious to everything around her, she has no idea when Picasso is en route to "play" with her. "Play" is interchangeable with "maul" in that sentence.

A few days ago Picasso was going nuts at the backdoor. Our backdoor has a full length pane of glass in it so it's just the right height for Picasso to see out of. Sure enough, Skittles was asleep on my patio furniture: not giving a shit that a dog was barking his smashed little head off at her. 10 minutes later Picasso was still barking, so I got up to check out the situation and Skittles was awake (shocking) and peering through the glass back at Picasso.

Skittles and Picasso fought through the window for at least 10 minutes. It was absolutely hilarious. Skittles was holding her ground. In fact, had there not been glass keeping them apart, I'd put money on Skittles whooping Picasso's ass. After a while, she got bored in pure cat fashion and sauntered deafly away.

Skittles 1: Picasso 0.

Zombie Farm

I am obsessed with a game. It's a stupid iPhone app that has slowly taken over my life. It's called Zombie Farm.

The idea of the game is I have this little plot of land in which I can plant vegetables and zombies. Once I build an army of 16 zombies I can go to battle with different villains such as: Old McDonald, lawyers, pirates, etc. You can plant certain vegetables alongside zombies that will mutate the zombie and give it super strengths. For instance, planting broccoli can give a zombie hair like broccoli and +2 to strength.

This seemingly leisurely game gets time consuming because all the plants and zombies have different grow times. And if you don't log in shortly after the crop is ready to be cultivated, it will wilt and die. Thus the gold you spent to plant the crop is lost.

Of course there is gold involved. What kind of game would this be without a gold currency system??

I find myself logging in almost every 15 minutes to ensure I don't lose my crops.... (Go on and judge me, I am right now, too...)

Before I go to sleep I plant crops that take 8 hours to mature so they don't die over night. I plant crops that take 2 hours to mature while I do PT in the morning so when I'm on my way home to shower I can cultivate and plant different crops.

I have a problem.

And I need to harvest some corn in about 5 minutes.

New Hairstyle

I generally get my hair cut once a year, and it's never really a hair style. Just a cut to get rid of all the gnarls and witchy ends to my hair. It goes up into a boring bun everyday for the Army, so why do I really need a style?

But yesterday I took myself to the mall and got a $50 hair style and cut (because my hair really was looking and feeling like straw).

It looks so much better. Which makes me feel so much better.

Sometimes a gal needs to pamper herself. Even if it'll be in a bun 90% of the time and no one will know there is a cute hair style under there.

Chubby Soldier

So I don't know what the Hell happened, but I just recently noticed that I've gotten chubby. It was a sudden onset-- I never saw it coming! I'm all about having a little "junk in the trunk", but it seems I've got a U-Haul behind me nowadays.

I think the downfall to my decent figure was moving in with James. You know what happens when you're in a happy relationship: you eat together. And you stop trying to impress other members of the opposite sex so you "let it go". And by that I mean, you get drunk and eat Wendy's at 2am with your boyfriend every weekend.

It's time to start dieting.

But I can't let go of beer! I love beer! The Soldier in me is screaming, "YOU CAN'T GIVE UP BEER!" So this is what I've resorted to:

It tastes like pee and water. Why am I still drinking this?

By the way, please excuse the band aid on my thumb. I cut myself while I was chopping green onions to put in super yummy red skin mashed potatoes. Oh. Maybe I should attack my fatty cooking style before I attack my beer.

Tomorrow starts the diet. Yuck. But there is no room for a chubby girl in ACU's. I won't let that be me!

Hearts Are Not Punctuation Marks

I was browsing blogs with military themes just a moment ago and I came across one that was actually quite clever. I had thoughts of adding it to my "follow" list until I reached the end of her first post. The author of this blog (which shall remain nameless) signed off each post with this signature:

Nothing makes me hate another woman faster than a heart or a smiley face in her signature. Especially in the military. (This particular blogger was in the Air Force, and I know that's not REALLY the military, but for all intensive purposes, we will call it that.) It screams that you don't want to be taken seriously one moment of your professional life. God help me if she signs military documents with that signature.

Maybe it's just the independent and strong woman that I am, but I loathe signs of weakness in other women. And I absolutely detest military women who take 2 steps back for our gender while I can barely inch forward.

I work a physical job and get dirty with the best of them. I know a lot of military women who bust their asses at work, but all it takes is one: One paper pusher girl with a pound of makeup on who looks for a man to lift heavy things for her and signs her damn name with a heart to tear down everything the rest of us worked so hard to be taken seriously on.

Whew. I just needed to vent.

And besides, Paris Hilton signs her name like that. Nothing about Paris says "professional".