They try...

but they fail.

Higher sent some people down today with some crap for us to hand out. They also brought snacks. A couple cases of soda (good), a box of fresh fruit and veggies (great) and a big box of bagels (awesome!).

Ok, so maybe not so much awesome on that last one. I popped it open so we could stick most of them in the freezer, and...



Now, seeing as we've been begging for them to send us something - anything - for months now, it was a commendable effort. But...nothing says you've been written off like a great whopping box of moldy bagels.

Wild and crazy

I tell you what, there's no bored like bored in Iraq. Well, actually, I bet bored in Afghanistan is pretty similar, as is bored in Kuwait (but that bored lack indirect fire, so maybe it's not the same).

But, the World's Coolest Grandmother used to say that only boring people get bored, so we do our best to resist. I thought I'd bring you a couple of bits of recent things that have passed for diversions.



I was playing with my knife (Benchmade Nimravus tanto - significantly less than MSRP thru AAFES - seriously, less than half. It's a pretty nice knife, but not that nice) when I noted that it had degraded to only sorta sharp enough to shave hair, but that it was reaping an impressive quantity of dry skin.



Bossman yelled at us when we started gathering materials to collect all our dry skin in a baggie to take to Higher, so that was the end of that.

Shortly later, sitting on my porch, we were absolutely enthralled by, well...



Hooah, fly sex.

Is it any wonder we've taken up arts and crafts to kill time?

Freakin' Lovely

Seriously - if only I could figure out how to buy retirement property here...

It's warming up, which is fine. I mean, it is Iraq - it's not supposed to be cool. The warmth brings the flies - fine. Flies are an integral part of the Iraq experience (can you eat with one hand while waving flies off your food constantly with the other and not break up your conversations? We can).

The mice are gone, and there are rumors of snakes. Great. I had mice running through my walls all winter and sneaking through holes in the interior of my trailer - I love to visualize sand vipers doing the same thing. Comfy feeling, trying to drift off to sleep, hearing something odd in the wall, thinking it might be a poisonous snake.

HAAATE.

And now - now the Iraqi mosquitos have come out. Vicious little bastards, with the emphasis on little. Much like American mosquitos, interestingly, they really seem to like my A NEG blood. I can sit around with both of my dudes, all of us wearing PT gear, and I am the one covered in bites in moments.

No - I don't use some sort of mosquito attractant soap. I just seem to have brought the "drink my blood and make scratch" neon sign that's been hovering over my head since childhood.

The things one sees

I was trudging back to the trailer after Evening Sadness (supper) last night. And off to my left, I saw...this:



Yeah. That would be a terp, in some sort of man hotpants, trying to get a cellphone signal, while striking a rather unfortunate pose.

[sigh]

The cell issue drives us crazy here - several nights a week one can see my guys boosting Tim the Superterp up onto my roof because that's where we get the best signal after dark. If one wants to stay in touch with local contractors and municipal bubbas, one does need some sort of communications beyond DSN and VOIP phones.