Lord help me...

It's the third Saturday of the month, and we all know what that means. Yep - I'm at work.

I've been here 40 minutes and have already been told that I have ruined Christmas.

This was explained to me by a woman who was obviously (by the background noise) working in the kitchen in a house full of family.

[sigh]

Lady, if your family is in your house, and you're all going to have dinner together, your Christmas has not been ruined.

Harumph.

Another gray and cold morning, wherein I get out of bed and Jack dashes hopefully to my running shoes and looks at me - Mom, are we going to go outside and jog?

Alas, pupster, no. We are going to have cofffee and do pushups, and you're not much help with either.

The Evil Corporate Masters are holding the Annual Holiday Party this evening, and we have all been expressly instructed to act responsibly. I suppose that rules out tequila shots and gunfire, so I don't know why I agreed to attend.

Ah, the joy of being at home

Yesterday was a little nuts. After I finished what I had to do at "Port Wood," I dropped by their dental clinic to try to get an exam.

(One of the primary measures of effectiveness for Army Reserve commanders these days is the deployability of the unit. This means that there is a neverending barrage of requirements to go get a shot, get your teeth looked at, draft a family care plan, etc. I will be truly impressed if (and only if), when the deployment actually occurs, this leads to an increase in training time and allows us to skip the days spent at the immunization clinic at the mobilization station. I somehow doubt that will be the case.)

Of course, that wasn't going to work, so I drove like the proverbial bat out of Hell to get back up to join some other folks in getting a dental exam here.

I pulled that off and was declared in possession of deployable teeth (let's here it for flossing!).

Then, because it's a digital Army, I went to the ID card facility because I did not have sufficient functioning certificates on my ID card. This was preventing me from using my ID card to log in to the great Army Online Thing.

[sigh]

Got a new ID card (with certificates!). Then I called it a day and came home. Opened the door, walked in, and found this:



That, ladies and gentlemen, is/was my Sibley Guide to Birds. Not my little Sibley guide that covers the eastern half of the US, but my big one.

That #4 on my bird book "special" list. If he'd eaten 1,2 or 3, it may have been a walk out into the back yard with a 9mm and a shovel.

The annoyance level was elevated by the fact that my bird guides aren't just reference books, I record the birds I see and ID in them.

So now I have a pile of pages stacked on top of the gun safe to go through when I have some free time (ha!) and move my notes over to one of my other guides.

We're going to skip trying the whole kennel concept, and I'm going to just use a loop of logging chain and couple cinder blocks on Jack during the day, I think.

One more thing about that...

This whole exploring-a-new-and-giant post thing might not be so hard if it the entire middle of the state wasn't choked in some sort of cold, dreary mist/fog that's been getting steadily thicker.

I like this sort of weather under most circumstances - I'm a kind of dreary, grayish gal myself. But it's not much for reading roadsigns and looking ahead for building numbers.

In one cheery note, the apparently almost-blind woman at the 7-11 up the way carded me buying cigarettes. I'll take that, thank you very much!

On the road again

Your tax dollars are hard at work, funding several days of me galivanting around central Texas. Stop it - you know you're envious.

I'm holed up in an only-mildly-scary motel right outside a major military installation that sounds like Port Wood. I have to attend a group hug for an upcoming training evolution tomorrow, and so I've already driven on base, and found a couple different ways to get to where I need to be in the morning.

I've never been to Port Wood before, and I was, as I usually am when I end up on a major Army installation, overwhelmed and lost within minutes. The Army, ladies and gentlemen, is big. I mean, really, really big.

Port Wood has two whole divisions and all the associated support units. And it's big.

My Marine Corps days involved Okinawa and 29 Palms - even Pendleton was huge in my book, and Pendleton does not have anywhere near the sheer number of people these big Army posts do. I've been amazed by the amount of people, and the sheer quantity of stuff, ever since I crossed over from the Marine Corps.

(Do you know that in the Army, you get brand new polypro long underwear? Nobody's ever worn them before, and you get to keep them when you check out of a unit! How's that for the wasteful luxury of a large organization?)

However, I think this motel is located at the corner of Crack and Gang, so I'm going to go check my route to tomorrow's location once more time and find somewhere to buy a paperback. Then I'm going to barricade the doors and wait for sunrise.

MY CAMPING TRIP

By Jack The Black Dog

First we left Sparky and Casey at Aunt Melissa's but they didn't leave me and I thought for a while they were going to drive out somewhere and leave me by the side of the road because somebody did that to me one time. But they did not do that and instead we drove for a long time and then stopped at someplace called Burger King. I did not get to have a burger but I got something called chicken fries and they were great because they were chicken but with no bones so I could eat them.

We drove a little more (I had to ride in the back of the truck which was not as much fun as being up front but I had more room). Then we all got out and we were in the place with all the pine trees and I was allowed to run run run.

Do you know what is in the woods that's great? Sticks. The woods is just full of sticks. I did get in some trouble for taking the sticks Abby piled up by the round pit thing, but those were apparently the only special sticks that I couldn't have.

Later they tied me to a tree and took their guns and went for a walk, but they came back real soon and said something about not being able to give corn to pigs so I guess they were done hunting.

Then they untied me and built a fire and cooked meat and potatoes and I got to have some. It was very hot but it was good. Then I got to sit by the fire by them and listen to the country radio station from Louisiana.

Then we went to bed and before we went I heard a bunch of coyotes running and making noise but I didn't try to go hang out with them because I had a good spot to sleep and I think coyotes are mean.



We all slept in the truck and they had sleeping bags and I had my bed and they said it was my job to protect them from coyotes but none came because I don't think there are any animals in that woods.

Then this morning we got up and I ran around and ate some more sticks and we came home. I did not get any chicken fries on the trip back so it was not as much fun.

The end.