I have been wheezing the Youtube juice today trying to deny school is looming in less than 15 hours...sigh.

Blech.

All the week off did was make me want another week off. Do you know the worst three weeks in a school year are those between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Seriously. I suspect tryptophan affects synaptic firing cause when these kiddos come back turkey gravy has more neural activity going on.




Two favorite things of the day:
White and Nerdy
Yes. I know. I'm easily entertained. That seriously cannot come come as a surprise to anyone.

and

Gandalf vs. Bogroth.
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!"
One of my favoirte movie lines of all time.

Second favorite: Gandalf's line at the other end of this scene:
edit (thanks Sarah): "I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountainside."

Good stuff.

Heard more from Taji today.

You could hear the aircraft in the background and a unit offering artillery support to a position probably miles from camp.

In closer proximity, but still over 7000 miles by this phone connection, doors were slamming as classes changed and instructors came in with questions for the director and to let him know it was pouring rain and one of the company trucks had a window down.

My office is being planned and my living quarters will be assigned once the contract is submitted in December.

Now I wait for my passport and try to make myself believe this isn't all going to evaporate any minute.

It's so damn quiet here.

The night's temperament such a stark contrast to that of Thanksgiving day.

I have a million things flying around in my head.
Work
home
milsupport

The school break is 2/3's of the way over.

My boss in Taji gave me a call today confirming airline tickets and whether I prefer window or aisle.

I didn't have time to absorb it while I was in the midst of everything else today.

Now those last two words ring in my ears.

Window or aisle.

Kabul, Afghanistan July 2008

Hindu Kush range


Some young guys from 6-4 Cavalry are out here on Combat Outpost Lowell.

It's their first deployment in Nuristan,

a lethal, remote province in northeast Afghanistan near Pakistan.

They are about to spend their respective 19th or 20 somethingth Thanksgivings

10,000 ft above sea level

in unheated, rock buildings

amidst new fallen snow

and amongst people who's sole purpose for living is seeing these calvarymen dead

and who pursue this endeavor at least once or twice a day.

Be sure to keep these men in mind.

I'll be posting more about them and what we can do for them very soon.

Just tying up some loose ends.

We are both interested in reading what everybody has to say on this topic. I'm supposed to send him the comments so he can answer, so show the boy some love. You know you wanna!!!

Yeah, it's a tough job, but someone has to support them.

I'm such a giver.

Okay so I know the question of the day is
W_T_F
are you doing going to Iraq??

Shrug.

I'm goin'.

I'll be working as an instructor...

training other instructors
developing curriculum
offering administrative support

and basically making a lot of money
and
more importantly,
taking up a challenge.

I need one.
I need many.

I'm just figuring that out.
The importance of having one I mean.

Do I know, if I can manage myself with an almost entirely male population all loaded up on testosterone and machismo?

Nope.

Do I know if I am doing the right thing by my family?

No, I don't know that either.

Do I know, if I'll be safe in the middle of the Sunni Triangle?

nuh uh...

But.
I'm sure as hell going to find out.

I know I have mentioned in the past that at one time I was a special events florist. I owned a company in Houston. I called the post Working and Breathing or some such thing and it was an appropriate title.

I'm one of those people who has to be working.
HARD.
I get bored when things get too routine or offer no challenge.

Floral work was great because a bride was rarely unchallenging, nor was her venue, her other contractors or the inevitable planner whether hired or self proclaimed--every single family has at least one obnoxious aunt or second cousin...it's a rule.

Still I loved the ebb and flow of the week.

By Wednesday floral would come in to be processed and fussed over.
By Thursday I was assigning tasks and making sure my arrangers were copying my designs well.
By Friday things were tagged and lists were checked-
what truck was going where with who,etc.

Running all along side that was the handholding, the phone calls, the snags with the wholesalers, the logistics--all of it. Maps, photographer schedules, when linen companies would be throwing the linen, when the usually medicated cake lady would have the cake ready...lots of details. for an end product that was expected to look effortless.

Loved it.
The Devil's in the details and man--
He and I
hung
out.

Now granted I expect that which contributed to the final demise of my business was mostly being no longer able to do more than think:

Come on people
This is floral work.
You aren't even going to really see it, you'll be so hung up on the blur of the day and in 6 months you'll be pissed you blew it on hydrangea and not a down payment on a house.

Still at the time it served it's purpose.
It provided the hard I needed.


Fast forward 6 years and I get this call from an old client on Tuesday.
How she found me I still don't know, but she did.

She wanted flowers for her other daughter's wedding.

(Sigh.)

Just a couple of pieces she said.

(Sigh.)

No one else would do she said.

(Sigh. )

Hmmmm, I think.

It might be nice to see if I still have the hands and eyes for it.
The money would be handy, too.

Still.
Ugh.
Sigh.

Awww--- what the hell?
I mean really.
Isn't going to be like riding a bike?
What's the worse that can happen?
I'll come up with something mediocre and she'll never call me again.

The lure to be creative drew me in and made my tongue form the letters
OK.

"Okay," I said, "I'll do it."

"You really should get back into the business," she said, "I can't believe you've been at home THIS long."

I know.
I can't believe it either I think.
I've been home with 4 kids for five years and no one has fitted me for an orange jumpsuit or flip flops.
I have have managed to avoid any and all felony convictions navigating Momminess.


"Think about coming back," she presses.

"Nah."
This I said out loud.
"You can't go back."
I said that out loud, too.
It sounded stark hanging in the air as we spoke via cellphone.
But it was also subtly comforting.

I'm finally getting that one.
I think this as I am hanging up and letting what I said out loud resonate.

Not only can't I go back.
I don't want to.

So
today--

I have flowers on my porch waiting for my hands and this wedding tonight--
Something my past brought.

and

I have an email regarding my job in Iraq--
Something my future sent.

I'll be working hard again soon it seems--just around the last week in February.

Note: I had to edit this. I wrote it early this morning and it seems my normal biorhythms will affect my ability to communicate.ha. Thank you to Fairy for being the first one to suck it up and say something along the lines of: "Huh, what are you talking about woman?" I wondered why no one had commented.
--------------------------------
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Not because I was the only one at work--
(incidentally, I like to work late,
in fact I don't even consider myself fully conscious until after 4 pm night person that I am).
or because it was dark
or because I don't generally believe in the paranormal.
well other than being accused of not being normal myself.

Still
Like I said, the hair on my neck was up on end night before last.

Ohmyhell," I thought straining to see and hear.

(Thanks for the new expletive L, I knew it would come in handy when I read it on your blog
just not this soon or for this kind of reason.)

Trying to reason things out did not correlate to other human processes,
in this case the process being thought--
I was trying to identify the noises I was hearing from the other part of the school. I was trying to be rational and not choke on my heart now pounding somewhere up around my tonsils as the sounds came from down and across the hall.

I looked down the hallway transformed from a lack of light.
The normally short, sunny, hallway with pictures of scarecrows and pilgrims plastered on the walls
was now a narrow, incredibly long portal
which I wouldn't run down now if I was on fire
and water was on the other end.


"Hello?"
Is anyone there?" I say trying to sound casual and vague.

Sick pause.

"Why are you asking that you idiot?" I think.
"It's 130 in the morning.
No one that you WANT to know is there, is there,
so why are you trying to strike up a conversation with them?
Finish painting your damn flag for Veteran's Day,
get your purse
and
get
the
fuck
out,
dumbass."

Logic and processing were starting to jibe.

Good plan, I think.

Fast forward to playground the next day.
Two faculty were standing on the steps having a chat.

I bypass pleasantries.
Actually,
I probably totally interrupted the conversation
about just how afflicted one of the kindergartners is
as we all watch him fall off the back end of the swing for the fourth brain stem bruising time to find out more about the night before from my colleagues.

"So umm..when did someone plan on telling the new girl?"

They look at me with eyebrows up.

"Uh huh...don't look at me like that.
When had you brilliant people planned on mentioning the 'night' faculty to me?"

"You,"pointing to the Blond, "went to school here and
"You,"pointing to the Brunette, "were here when she, pointing to the Blondie, was toting her Scooby Doo lunch box. You both have to know something about whatever is wandering around in that school at night."

Their eyes get bigger.

"WTF people?"
By this time I'm laughing and gauging a the 'should we tell her looks' they are exchanging.

"Spill!!!!, I say, then rethink.

"No wait.
I'll tell you what I heard and you just tell me I'm not crazy.
It's a good plan.
K?"

They nod.

"Okay here goes," I say as I tick things off on my fingers.

"Doors slamming,
someone walking with keys in their pocket,
and knobs turning on the doors.
How 'bout that?"

I look from one of them to the other them expectantly in a kind of 'so where is your homework?' kind of way.

They both start in at the same time:

"Well you have been coming late since school started and you never said anything"
"We wondered, but you never--"

I interrupted them for the second time silently comparing the goosebumps on my arms to theirs...

"Yeah yeah...what were you waiting for--the bad Monday night movie to come out???
I mean.
COME
ON
PEOPLE.
Why didn't anyone tell me about the ghost or whatever it is in there?"

"Yep," nods the brunette to the blond, "She definitely heard him."

"Ohmyhell...," I mutter.

"Well," the brunette goes on, "did you hear any growling? He'll growl at you sometimes."

OH.
MY.
HELL!!!!
now they know the new expletive,too.

Let me tell you something dear readers, I will never be hearing any freaking growling,
much less
door slamming,
knob turning
or key rattling again
cause, I am now officially a morning person.

Upon discussing my son Matthew's foray with dad to the Halloween carnival, I was regaled with tales related to all manner of fawning, spoiling and petting of my youngest offspring by teachers and student body of the girl persuasion...seems my little guy is quite the big man on campus.

I wonder if a lack of a self image problem at four bodes well or not?

Helping mom with mail to some Marines day before yesterday.