Too much Christmas

For Jack - he's kinda like a four-legged little kid.  He opened presents and ate and had treats...

And now he's sacked out on the couch.

Merry Christmas!

We have a standing rib roast in the oven, and are enjoying the day with family. 

Jack (and my Mom) hope all our readers are enjoying their Christmas as much as we're enjoying ours!

I know he loves me

because he pees on my feet.

I dropped off a hastily-prepared draft of some training materials on a captain's desk this morning, badgered the admin guy about getting paid, then made fabulous time from Fort Bragg back to Georgia to pick up the Man In My Life. 

Kinda depressing that he's neutered and has a tail, but...hell, you can't have everything.

I'm back at Bragg, snorffling out of the government trough, in early January, but til then...we're going home for Christmas!

Since I'm in Georgia and home is in Michigan...that means more driving.  As my Dad would say, yipee shit.  Today's drive was fine, and letting the dog drive through Indiana usually helps, but I did check the weather tonight.  And saw this:

Another major winter storm will move out of the Rockies and slowly eastward over the Plains and Midwest over the next few days.
[...]
On Wednesday the storm moves out of the mountains and into the southern Plains and produces snow, freezing rain, rain, and possibly severe thunderstorms.


Snowfall will start out light across the western Plains, northern Plains, and upper Midwest early Wednesday. Later Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night the storm will gain considerable strength and ample moisture will be pulled in from the Gulf

Great.

I'm heading straight from Michigan back to North Carolina.  So I'm taking Army stuff.  Jack will stay with Dad in January, so I'm taking the dog and all his crap.  And Christmas presents.  And decent clothes and rabbit hunting clothes.  And now, apparently, in addition to the usual road-rescue kit, medical kit and jack, I need to take the trapped-in-a-ditch-in-an-icy-snowbank kit.  Also, boots and gloves.  Fortunately, the Jeep is highly expeditionary and I already have a shovel and winch mounted.

It should be an adventure.  And, best of all, at the end, there's Christmas with the people I love.  You really can't beat a deal like that.

Just for the record

It is worth noting that just because one could, say...find one's way around Fort Bragg and the surrounding areas three years ago...

That does not mean that one will be able to even so much as find a gas station, or exit point, today.

It's good to be back at Bragg - it kinda feels homey.  I forsee spending a lot of time here over the next several months.  That means, I think, that I should figure out where the damn gates are again...

Not bored!

I landed a short set of orders to help fill the gap before my longer set starts.  So...I have to go meet new people tomorrow.  My Army outfit is all laid out, with the velcro attached, and my socks are even pre-positioned.

Now, I just have to make sure I'm not dragging toilet paper from my boot in the morning...

Good stuff

I was sitting around this evening, petting my dog and reading.  A warm beverage, I thought, sounds fabulous.  But, alas, even I try not to drink coffee after midnight.

Fortunately, there are non-coffee hot beverages.

First we need the World's Cheapest Kettle, and then my CNN cup.  The CNN cup is awesome because it's large enough that I can use it for expeditionary bathing.  Don't believe me?  Let me tell you about the week it took my landlord to get my hot water heater working...

Righto.  We're talking about a scrumptious chocolatey beverage.  In the foreground we have some nice raspberry hot cocoa mix.  Since I'm using a cup roughly the size of Lake Erie, we are also going to be using some el-cheapo plain mix from Wally World.

So...mildly raspberried hot cocoa...that's good.  But we're talking about a better-than-good beverage. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Abby makes good hot cocoa into a super-awesome grownup drink.  As a note, I rarely drink Bailey's, but I'm pretty sure it was invented for just this purpose.  Well, that and fortifying coffee during certain ungodly Army evolutions *cough* four-hour cultural awareness brief *cough*

Disparity of progress

Jack and I have been keeping up a fairly vigorous program of exercise.  Me, because I'm waiting on a set of orders and don't want to show up fat and sleepy, and him...well, because a tired dog is a good dog.

We've been running a lot, but this morning I decided we'd take a little time, go out to an old railbed (tracks long gone), and go for a good, long, brisk trudge.  I tossed a couple five-pound weights and bottles of water into a little backpack just to make it more interesting.

We took off at a brisk, clip and, with the exception of road crossings and a certain bridge, maintained it.  For 46:00 minutes.  At which point we ran out of trail.  Actually, the good people of Columbus are turning a big section of the old tracks into a "multi-use trail," and we hit the point where the trail was torn up and there were large pieces of construction equipment.  So...we turned around.

Since this evolution was not sucking quite enough yet, I decided that we could jog a little bit to break up the brisk walking.  Ah, yes...there's that sucking sound I was looking for.

Note the surface under the happy dog.  Apparently, the vast majority of the whole rail bed is covered in rocks.  I had noticed this as we trudged out, but really noticed it when we were trotting coming back in.  I'm really not the most coordinated woman in the world, so it was very slow and careful trotting.

(Because the whole concept of me going on orders in the intermediate future would be seriously impeded if I  broke an ankle jogging through rocks with my dog.  Also, I'd have to figure out my TriCare coverage)

We made great time coming back, until, maybe half a mile from the Jeep, we encountered the Bridge Of Satan.  On the way out, I'd figured we could just walk across it.  This was stupid, and scary.  Please observe said bridge:

Yeah.  Jack and I made it not even ten feet out on it before I realized that was a very bad idea.  Of course, once you're picking your way across a rotting railroad trestle with you four-legged buddy, turning around is even more of a problem.  So we crept across.  The ties, of course, were just far enough apart that my buddy could have gone between them - it was, I repeat, a very bad idea.  Also scary.  So on the return, we opted to go under and around.

This was a much better approach.  And, because it was steep, it also meant that you-know-who got to have his leash off. 

After a brief time-out to play in the creek, he got hooked back up and we climbed out to the road, where it was a short jog back to the Jeep (total of 94:00 on the trail, bumper and back).

Now - to explain the post title...  We've been, as I said, doing a lot of this stuff lately.  And I'm in better shape than I was a month ago.  Problem is, Jack is in waaaaay better shape than he was a month ago, and he already had me beat.  So we run, or we trudge, and he's not wearing out anymore.  More annoying, he is not creaking around the house like I am.  Asleep in his bed - yes.  Groaning and complaining - no. 

Sigh.  Guess that's the advantage to being the black lab.  In my favor, I can drive and order cheeseburgers.

We [HEART] Football

We managed a park run, a little cleaning and I even made it to the store and back, leaving the entire afternoon/evening free for watching college football.

I'm still trying to figure out which teams I like and which I don't in the SEC.  Jack has thrown his support firmly behind Alabama today, but that may have more to do with a residual fear of alligators from our time in Florida.  I'm kind of sick of hearing the sports media gushing like 12-year-old girls over Tim Tebow, though, so I guess both the dog and I will be cheering for the Tide.

Tales from the internet

We're not going to dwell on the epic Hell and Fail that is Abby Trying To Do Christmas Shopping.  I'm mildly irked that it seems to be socially unacceptable to buy all my loved ones a flashlight every year (because, really, what says I love you and care about you better than a flashlight?  It'll keep you safe, it's good for morale, and you can never have too many).

All that aside, I was browsing the Cabela's website, desperate to see if there was a single website that might, just might, offer more than one of the gifts I'm looking for (answe - no).

Did you know you can buy a caribou mount from Cabelas?  Like a dead caribou shoulder mount?  Like you might have made if you shot a caribou?  But, I guess, if you'd never shot a caribou but kinda wish you had? 

Now, I know that as the woman who bought a whimsical mounted squirrel, I may only have limited credibility on the subject, but I think there's something a little weird about buying a big-game mount.  Also, the caribou are not whimsical, and are not pieces of art, which is how I categorize my squirrel.

Also available are mule deer, and "life-sized" mountains goats and nyala (nyalas?  some deer-looking beast).  I'm not really sure if that means those animals are fabricated and not actual dead critters, or if they're just indicating those mounts are not shrunken goats or nyalas.

Sorry, loved ones - nobody's getting a caribou this year.

The most tempted dog in the world...

is the one who is watching me start ribs.  I simmer them, and I'll throw them on the grill (or, if I'm lazy, under the broiler) to finish them off.  But he just had to watch the part where I cut the rack into sections and stage the meat on the counter. 

You can see the calculations going on in that wee little canine pea-brain.  I can take that meat, he thinks, but I think she might really kill me for it.

Just too hard

Today was Jeep Washing Day.  Trust me - it was sorely needed.  So I took a mitful of quarters down to Ye Olde Concrete Bays and knocked off the top eight layers of road filth.  I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I parked and went inside...

Ten minutes later I needed something I'd left, so I went out to find that, having parked beneath a tree (there's really not much choice), my clean hood had already received a liberal coating of berry-filled bird crap.  Or squirrel puke.  Something vile, I didn't run tests.

The small victory came when I found I not only had some stamps to send out bills, but that the stamps I have are actually the current first-class rate. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, my dog is pinging off the walls and I think a trip to the park for a good, long run is in order.