Good Morning All,
And HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!! I knew I would miss Shreveport the most come this time of year. I absolutely fell in love with Louisiana as I saw neighbors with big beaded wreaths on their doors, viewed the elaborate invitations to the local balls and of course partook in the absolutely to-die-for king's cakes! I can almost taste Julie Anne's Bakery's king cakes as I'm typing this out. (Linsey, I know you can remember the time we devoured that entire pastry by ourselves a couple years ago...or should I have kept that a secret?) I wonder if Julie Anne's delivers to Afghanistan?
Well, as I will be doing my fat Tuesday and subsequent Lenten season desert style this year, I thought I'd share in some of the other adaptions I've made as of late.
To begin, I've taken up chronicling our days. I figured as the shifts begin to melt together and since days of the week have no real reference that I would instead keep track of our ventures by milestones. I've even got the guys in on it now. Each night as we drive back to the Mods (nickname for our barracks--this might be the topic of another blog so I'll keep from gettin into the details of our beloved homes away from home for the time being) I query our crew by asking the open-ended question: "Today was the day ______" and they fill in the blanks. I learn a lot about my fellow compadres by the feedback I receive.
Some reply with work related events; others have more colorful language; and still others twist humorous headings that normally involve embarrassing moments of fellow crewmembers (these are the best). After a few minutes of grappling and laughing and making of defenses by the guys' whose actions have now been publicly displayed, we decide on that day's theme.
So far we've had: the day B almost landed at the wrong HLZ (helicopter landing zone); the day we rescued a military working dog and had to give it a catheter (this was quite hilarious to have to explain to the guys whilst they were airborne--- "wait, you want me to what? NO! I'm not probing a sick attack dog in the back of a helicopter!!";) the day Olivia pissed off the Group commander by telling him his squadron missed a target (not my proudest moment); the day of the biblical flooding, followed by the day we went off-roading in a 15 passenger van through the mud and almost fell into the sinkhole (yikes!); and, most recently, today was the day we got a parking ticket for parking perpendicular in a 'parallel only' spot.
The latest was a very comical way to end our night. So we got the ticket a day ago but we didn't discovered it until tonight. The citation reads, that one must appear before the base police with one's supervisor and ultimately receive the daily punishment. Well our driver didn't pack his military drivers license and upon discussion we realized we all had forgotten to bring our mil drivers licenses from homestation or had it but had let it expire. (real smart ones aren't we?) After much discussion, and with lots of head nodding, we decided the best thing to do was to have one person take his California license to base police, explain that this should trump a military permit as driving in California is actually a lot more hazardous than driving in a war zone and then hope that the discipline would end there and not make its way back to our commander.
This plan failed.
While the cops let our crew car go with just a warning, our sacrificial lamb got a mark on his driving record. Don't worry, he's the lowest ranking--it's kind of a right of passage to get pinned with this stuff.
Trying to park again after all that we were again left with a poor choice of spots. Either we pull another perpendicular job in a parallel only street or we try to squeeze our 15-pax van into a Mini-Cooper space. Luckily there was a third option: the truck parked at the end of the lane had left his door unlocked...Now before I divulge this next part of the story, you have to realize that things operate differently while deployed to an austere location and sometimes one must do things that just make sense in the moment.... Before anyone had a chance to verbalize it, I hopped out, slipped behind the wheel of the little Toyota Hilux and popped the clutch. The guys were already thinking along the same lines, got behind the tailgate and started pushing the little hoopty slowly down the street. This Hilux had a lot of nerve taking up so much real estate for his little pick-up...he fit much better in the new spot we found him down the street. He might be a little surprised come the morning. Ha!
Well, I'm off again! Special thanks for the Girl Scout cookies--Thin Mints are always a good choice! For all who've been wondering, while I'm gone Brandon is hanging out at the house and watching over the chihuahuas and he's even made rare stealth visits to Bath & Body Works for his wife who is in deseprate need of smell-goods--thank you, Brando! As always thank you all for the prayers and I hope your Lenten seasons are filled with much spiritual regeneration!
love, Olivia
*ps: if you are finding difficulty posting a comment to this site, please let me know ;)
And HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!! I knew I would miss Shreveport the most come this time of year. I absolutely fell in love with Louisiana as I saw neighbors with big beaded wreaths on their doors, viewed the elaborate invitations to the local balls and of course partook in the absolutely to-die-for king's cakes! I can almost taste Julie Anne's Bakery's king cakes as I'm typing this out. (Linsey, I know you can remember the time we devoured that entire pastry by ourselves a couple years ago...or should I have kept that a secret?) I wonder if Julie Anne's delivers to Afghanistan?
Well, as I will be doing my fat Tuesday and subsequent Lenten season desert style this year, I thought I'd share in some of the other adaptions I've made as of late.
To begin, I've taken up chronicling our days. I figured as the shifts begin to melt together and since days of the week have no real reference that I would instead keep track of our ventures by milestones. I've even got the guys in on it now. Each night as we drive back to the Mods (nickname for our barracks--this might be the topic of another blog so I'll keep from gettin into the details of our beloved homes away from home for the time being) I query our crew by asking the open-ended question: "Today was the day ______" and they fill in the blanks. I learn a lot about my fellow compadres by the feedback I receive.
Some reply with work related events; others have more colorful language; and still others twist humorous headings that normally involve embarrassing moments of fellow crewmembers (these are the best). After a few minutes of grappling and laughing and making of defenses by the guys' whose actions have now been publicly displayed, we decide on that day's theme.
So far we've had: the day B almost landed at the wrong HLZ (helicopter landing zone); the day we rescued a military working dog and had to give it a catheter (this was quite hilarious to have to explain to the guys whilst they were airborne--- "wait, you want me to what? NO! I'm not probing a sick attack dog in the back of a helicopter!!";) the day Olivia pissed off the Group commander by telling him his squadron missed a target (not my proudest moment); the day of the biblical flooding, followed by the day we went off-roading in a 15 passenger van through the mud and almost fell into the sinkhole (yikes!); and, most recently, today was the day we got a parking ticket for parking perpendicular in a 'parallel only' spot.
The latest was a very comical way to end our night. So we got the ticket a day ago but we didn't discovered it until tonight. The citation reads, that one must appear before the base police with one's supervisor and ultimately receive the daily punishment. Well our driver didn't pack his military drivers license and upon discussion we realized we all had forgotten to bring our mil drivers licenses from homestation or had it but had let it expire. (real smart ones aren't we?) After much discussion, and with lots of head nodding, we decided the best thing to do was to have one person take his California license to base police, explain that this should trump a military permit as driving in California is actually a lot more hazardous than driving in a war zone and then hope that the discipline would end there and not make its way back to our commander.
This plan failed.
While the cops let our crew car go with just a warning, our sacrificial lamb got a mark on his driving record. Don't worry, he's the lowest ranking--it's kind of a right of passage to get pinned with this stuff.
Trying to park again after all that we were again left with a poor choice of spots. Either we pull another perpendicular job in a parallel only street or we try to squeeze our 15-pax van into a Mini-Cooper space. Luckily there was a third option: the truck parked at the end of the lane had left his door unlocked...Now before I divulge this next part of the story, you have to realize that things operate differently while deployed to an austere location and sometimes one must do things that just make sense in the moment.... Before anyone had a chance to verbalize it, I hopped out, slipped behind the wheel of the little Toyota Hilux and popped the clutch. The guys were already thinking along the same lines, got behind the tailgate and started pushing the little hoopty slowly down the street. This Hilux had a lot of nerve taking up so much real estate for his little pick-up...he fit much better in the new spot we found him down the street. He might be a little surprised come the morning. Ha!
Well, I'm off again! Special thanks for the Girl Scout cookies--Thin Mints are always a good choice! For all who've been wondering, while I'm gone Brandon is hanging out at the house and watching over the chihuahuas and he's even made rare stealth visits to Bath & Body Works for his wife who is in deseprate need of smell-goods--thank you, Brando! As always thank you all for the prayers and I hope your Lenten seasons are filled with much spiritual regeneration!
love, Olivia
*ps: if you are finding difficulty posting a comment to this site, please let me know ;)
Too funny.
ReplyDeleteThe poor Toyota driver didn't see that coming. Now I'm in the mood for a King's cake, I think Cardenas has some. Hank was here today and says hello and said you need to come home. He was helping John with a recommendation letter. Sending out 2 more boxes tomorrow.
Love you and God Bless,
Mom and Dad