War

Today I received my very first care package and I am walking on a freaking cloud right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you SO MUCH, Carla!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have no idea (or perhaps you do :-) ) how much I needed this today. Aw man I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a fun, weird, and wild couple of days. We are in the middle of another dust storm right now so the wind is blowing like crazy lately, but that's nothing new, right?

I have begun a pretty intense physical/nutritional regimen with my friend Heather that will continue until we go home. We have a lot of support to ensure we stick to it, and I am really excited, although I know it will be exhausting. I have made some great drinking buddies here, including our squadron commander and his staff, and there has been a lot of tomfoolery and SHENANIGANS abounding. But it has been fun and things have certainly been different since he arrived. Amazing how new leadership styles can change the entire tone of the operation. He is a tough guy, but is fun, too. The friendships here have been incredible and have made the other stuff worthwhile. It's tough, but when you are surrounded by people who are going through it with you, it's all okay.

Yesterday, however, was quite a doozy. Everything started off normally and at about 1200, we lost power in the squadron building while I was over there entering our weekly report. We started receiving some calls from other buildings and realized that the power was out over nearly 3/4 of the base. The only section that did not lose power was the newest section of base, which is mostly housing for our long-term deployers and our commanders. Let me set the stage for you here when I tell you that the high was 118 yesterday, and that high was at 1200. Things started to get really ugly, really quickly. There was no power in the dorms, in the gyms, in the library, the offices, the bathrooms, the dining facilities, the BX - there was nowhere for anyone to go so people pretty much just stayed where they were. Soon most of the structures, which are pretty much just trailers, were sweltering inside and with sweaty bodies in them too, you can imagine how fun that was. The poor people whose responsibility it was to fix the electricity were out in this heat and I just have to say that I have the ultimate respect for them because those of us who are used to our air conditioned offices were panicking! And plus, we're wearing a thick layer of cotton and polyester, so it was SCHWEATY. They thought it was going to take them about an hour to get the power restored. It ended up taking about 6 hours. When I walked back into my office after 6 hours of no heat, it smelled so freaking bad. And the bathrooms, do not even get me started. So when it came back on we all rejoiced, jacked up our A/C to high, and awaited the next time this will happen. Oh yeah, this is a pretty common thing in the summertime due to the extreme temperatures and the jackasses like us who usurp the energy supplies by jacking up our A/Cs. However, I must admit, because I have connections I did escape to the air conditioned part of base for almost 2 hours and watched a movie. Some people did not have that luxury. Ah, beautiful sunny Qatar, how I love ye.

(stop reading here if you are overly emotionally vulnerable right now)...

But as I sit here and reflect this story from yesterday, I am humbled by the fact that right now, in a refrigerated room next to our tarmac, there is a young soldier waiting to be transported home because his deployed circumstances were much worse than mine. Al Udeid is a stopping point for planes carrying the remains of the fallen when for some reason their flight path gets diverted due to weather or unforeseen flight conditions. Normally, these aircraft are routed through the central location for such flights, which is located in Kuwait. Today, one was routed through here due to weather conditions in Kuwait. When a plane lands here, it is usually need of refueling and/or repair, and so the remains of the fallen member must be removed from the aircraft and transported to a refrigerated facility until the plane is ready to take off again. The EFSS (my squadron) is responsible for any detail related to this, including on our base. What happens is, a group of individuals, usually volunteers, are gathered together and driven out to the flightline, and the majority of them stand by the plane and render honors (salute) while the container is relocated from the plane to the vehicle and driven away to the facility. Then, when the remains are ready to be re-transported to the aircraft, the same group renders honors to the fallen member again when it is returned to the aircraft. And tonight the wind is whipping around like crazy, not making it easy for anyone out there, as if it were ever easy. Quite a sobering vision, and a reminder of why we are here. War is so damn ugly. This man was not yet 21 years old.

And I think I'm going to end it there. I miss and love you guys, and hope this message finds you well.

(And Carla, thanks again.)

Hodge Podge of Thoughts

It is 9:30 AM here in sunny Qatar and the temperature is currently a brisk 102 degrees. Wait, now it's 10:12 and it is 106. YOWZAAAA.

Yesterday we reached a high of 117. Let me tell you what 117 degrees feels like. See, I had this thought that once you got past 105, that hot was just hot. Who could tell the difference between 107 and, say, 117? Well, it is actually pretty easy. Once it gets above 110 here things start to change. The door handles on the bathrooms burn you when you touch them, you have to cover your hand before turning knobs. When out in the sun for more than a minute or so, your hands, which are the only uncovered things on your body, feel as if someone is holding a flame to them. When you go to take your hat off or to adjust your sleeve, the fabric is VERY hot to the touch, like when you touch a steering wheel in a hot car. And your mouth gets so incredibly dry from walking from one building to another, even if you just downed an entire bottle of water. Only two words to describe this: good times.

[Edited for confusion]

I have been back in touch with some old friends lately and it has been wonderful, but also painful to know what hurtles life has brought some of us in the years that have passed. Still, I am consistenly amazed at the strength of the women I know, particularly the two I have in mind right now, and am blessed beyond belief to know them and to learn from them.

This week has been a busy one and is flying by at mach speeds. The only thing slow about it is the rate at which my green bananas are turning ripe, which is really slow.

I have been thinking a lot what heaven will be like when I get there, and I think it is going to look a lot like my childhood - it will be a perfect spring day, my grandmama and grandaddy will be sitting on the front porch in their rocking chairs with mason jars of sweet tea in their hands, and us kids will be running around in their yard barefoot, with the smell of honeysuckle and freshly mowed grass in the air. Yeah, that would be pretty amazing. I could go on, but no point in getting weepy this early in the morning, is there?

That's all I've got for now.

Love. xo

Tooty Fruity

Today has been another good day. It has been busy busy and everybody has been all smiles. We had a military aircraft full of Navy sailors that had an emergency landing here today - 180+ people on a plane that lost cabin pressure and dropped 20000 feet in a matter of 10 seconds - lucky that they were so close to Al Udeid! So they've all been coming in here today for phone cards, telling their stories and burning off all of that extra adrenaline they've got in their bodies. Airplane fun!

My buddy Leo works in the rations warehouse, where all of the food is delivered to base. And he knows that I loooooooooooooooooooove fruit - I have a table in my office with at least 10 pieces of fruit on it at all times (we've been getting these awesome oranges lately...hoo-wee!) Anyway, tomorrow he is going to hook me up with a bunch of freshly delivered mangoes and strawberries when the shipment comes in. They normally don't give us lowlifes the mangoes and strawberries - those usually only go to special functions. But I've got the fruit hookups now and the MAN can no longer oppress me.

My other buddy, Gabe, and I were going to go on a tour called Arabian Adventures next Saturday which I was SO EXCITED about because you get to go to the beach and hug camels, but they are full so now I have to wait. Boo! I am on a camel crusade, determined to show these animals that they deserve so much more than to be eaten and ridiculed (not necessarily in that order). Now they'll have to go another week or two before they experience my pure love.

I discovered a website the other day that has so much cool information on it! It is actually http://www.livestrong.com/ - what a freaking cool website with so much good stuff about nutrition and fitness on it! It is a little bit on the slow side because it is so graphic-heavy (I sent them a complaint, don't worry) but I love it! My friend and I have been using the daily plate section to try to keep ourselves healthy in a place without much healthy food, and it helps!

Today when I went in to do my weekly report, Gabe gave me this HUGE bottle of pure strawberry juice that he bought downtown. Strawberry juice! This thing must be about 40 oz - that's right, I have a forty of strawberry juice. That's how we kick it here in arabia. Anyway, it is just about the most delicious thing I have ever had. Now, they may mistreat their women here, sex and alcohol may be completely taboo, and their tomatoes may taste a bit off, but they sure do know about their fruits and fruit juices here in this piece. Going to Gabe's office is always a treat because every time I walk in there he gives me something - some kind of food or drink or other special goodness. I have asked him to please start mailing the stuff to me instead.

I am noticing a food/fruit theme, here. It is probably because that is all we talk about...well, here's actually what we talk about: how hot it is outside, what we ate today and what we will eat tonight, how we slept last night (too much/not enough), whether we got anything in the mail, and how sore we are from the gym. Seriously, it is a primitive form of humanity that exists here. It is like a big prison with a pool, except dudes don't get raped nearly as much. And we have a DQ. We call it "Camp Cupcake" or "Disneyland" depending on the day. Sometimes you feel trapped and cut off from the rest of the world, sometimes you feel SO LUCKY compared to where other folks are deployed and what they are experiencing, sometimes a little bit of both. But I am blessed.

Hope this message finds you all well.

Love. xo

Addendum

One thing I forgot to mention about last night.

There is a HUGE, really killer awesome-looking soccer stadium in downtown Doha. Soccer is a huge sport here and I would LOVE to go to a game! So last night there was a game, and the stadium is actually right next door to the Vellagio. And there were televisions all over the mall so that people could watch the game while they shopped and ate. There were televisions playing the game in the little cafes we went to. One of the things that was so interesting was that every time the cameras panned to the crowds, all you could see was a sea of white. It was such a fascinating sight - no color variation at all. The entire stadium, all 50,000 people in the stadium, consisted of men in crisp white dishdashas screaming their heads off and jumping up and down. You could see a speckling every now and then of someone wearing street clothes, and the only woman we ever saw on the screen was a caucasian woman - probably here on vacation or maybe to study at one of the universities. There were no Qatari women there - no black robes in the crowd. The entire crowd wore white.

The Vellagio was full of them last night, however. And the thing that strikes me the most is how during my second time out in Doha, seeing hundreds and hundreds of women covered completely from head to toe in robes of black, felt somewhat normal to me. How could this ever be normal? There were so many women there last night that do not even show their eyes, they have black scarves covering their entire faces. You do not see them in any of the cafes, sitting around enjoying coffee and conversation like the men do. They are walking around with their friends or their children, shopping and living life as usual, and it still strikes me every once in a while but for the most part last night it didn't give me that gut-wrenching pain like it did the first night. And that bothered me.

One of the interesting things that you notice here is the affection that men show for each other. Fathers and sons, brothers, and friends will walk around holding hands with their fingers interwoven - sometimes three or four in a row. Men kiss each other repeatedly when they greet each other, and they tend to be so loving towards their children. I don't know if I have mentioned it in this blog before, but it is quite refreshing to watch.

Saturday, Part II

Tonight, my flight commander Heather invited me to join her and our Shirt downtown for dinner, so I got to leave work a couple of hours early on "official business." They went to work getting me signed off base while I changed out of my uniform in a hurry. We drove downtown and went first to a place called King Kebab, where the waiters bring you endless platters of hummus, olives, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, garlic and olive oil infused naan, grilled meats, and salads. And we all ate for less than $30 total. Ridiculous. So we roooooooolled out of there and then went to the Vellagio Mall. Now this is no ordinary mall. I really don't like malls, but this place was GORGEOUS and very impressive. It is set up much like the Venetian in Vegas, with the sky-scaped ceiling and the crystal blue water canals running all through the mall with gondoliers and the whole thing. And every store you could think of plus many that I WISH we had back in the states. Gorgeous, honestly. But there are TONS of fabulous little cafes there, and people just go from cafe to cafe to cafe drinking coffee and eating desserts - kind of like the Qatari version of bar-hopping I guess. So we went to one cafe and had delicious coffee and then we walked around for a bit (we went into a big Walmart-like store called Carrafour and I FINALLY found some soy milk!!!) and then we went to another cafe and had another cappuccino and delicious eclairs. So decadent. We just spent the whole evening talking and enjoying ourselves and it felt so wonderful to just be normal for a night - no uniforms, no laptops, no food on styrofoam plates - just normal. I enjoyed it very much. Now I am back on base and WIRED from all of the coffee but am so glad for having been blessed with the opportunities that I have here to experience.

The sandstorm is over too, finally.

So, yay!

Saturday

Today we are having our second "duststorm" of my deployment. The winds are blowing at around 60 mph and there is certainly a lot of dust/sand in the air. Everybody's walking with their heads down, so a lot of bumping into people, things, flagpoles, whatever. You have to lean into the wind to get anywhere and if you look up for even a second, it stings your eyes! It's craziness!

My workouts have been really good lately and I am on a routine now that keeps me excited about going back. Loving the gym!

A belated blog-grats to Resa and Seth on their sweet baby girl! The sex was unknown to even them until the birth, so it was a true surprise - and she is GORGEOUS (obviously). Adelyn Grace Thomas, you are going to have an amazing life.

I have been ordering all kinds of stuff from online stores and I love it when my boxes are delivered!!! I've ordered movies, books, greeting cards, jewelry, toiletries, etc. I haven't figured out who will deliver natural foods, but I am doing my research. And if I can't find it, I'm going to open up that niche business because there is a need for healthy foods in weird places like Doha! I discovered that drugstore.com delivers Balance Bare bars, which I have had a craving for since I got here, so I ordered several boxes of those.

We got some news a couple of days ago, the new guy who is supposed to be coming here in less than two weeks (to replace Kehinde so she can go home) is not medically cleared and won't be able to deploy. What that means is that either Kehinde is going to have to stay longer until they get someone here (which we doubt she'll agree to) or we'll be one person short until the newly designated person arrives. It's gonna get a bit iffy up in here for the next few weeks. If we go down a person, then we will have to reduce our operating hours and Jason and I will be going to 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week. BUT maybe they'll find someone. I am remaining optimistic that everything will work out just peachy.

So I have discovered another new love from something hat I used to despiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise: Twizzlers. I don't know what is happening to me here - it's like some kind of alternate universe. What's next, watermelon? I think not.

Just a few minutes ago, this guy Gabriel that I work with introduced me to a little thing known on base here as "RIP-IT"s. They are these little teeny energy drinks that are stocked in the dining facility and I always see people walking out with handfuls of them. Well I have never been one for energy drinks so I have never partaken. Partook? Anyway, Gabe forced me to try one today when I was hanging out in his office and it is like crack in a can! My hands are shaking and my heart is pounding out of my chest. And people drink these things like water here! Too funny. I am a major wuss. I cannot handle the Rip-Its! And they taste like cough medicine.

I miss my dogs!!!!!!!!!!! Man I cannot wait to cuddle with those sweet babies. Sweet little furry babies with their warm little bellies. Awwwwwwwwww...

I did a briefing last night for a large group of officers from the Maintenance Group, and the commander was so impressed that he coined me. I love getting these coins!!! I never thought I would amass very many but now I am thinking I will have to buy a rack soon to display them - they are such a good way to remind yourself of the people you have met along the way. This guy is on his way to be the new wing commander at Robins AFB, where my dad retired from, so I had a lot to talk to him about.

To all friends and family, I hope this posting finds you well. Life is good here at The Deid - Jason and I have almost reached our halfway point (SO EXCITING) and we will soon be on our way back down the hill towards home. :-)

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of those lovely mothers out there whom I know and love. It's a pretty cool thing to celebrate if you ask me. I have several friends and a sassy little sis who are all becoming mothers very soon and it's such an amazing and incomprehensible thing to think about. Today at church the Chaplain asked me if I was a mother and I said I wasn't, but he presented me with a rosary anyway and said that it was a gift for the mother I will be in the future. Can't wait to experience that.

Nancy Pelosi was on base on Friday. Didn't see her. She came and went very quickly.

Yesterday, incredibly late I must say, I was introduced to the "morale drives" on our base network. There are 4 of them, and they are chock-full of every movie you could think of, many many TV series (including my favorites Will & Grace and House), and tons of music. I am so excited! So when it gets a little slow here at the office we have something to keep us occupied. Right now I am at the beginning of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (because Michael Cera is so super cute and his characters are just so freaking lovable) and I am hoping I will have a chance to finish it before the end of the day today.

Still hot outside, obviously, but I am thankful for my air conditioned room and office to escape it.

Love to all. xo

Unsure

"Taken out of context, I must seem so strange."

I continue to be thankful for your support and love from across the miles.

"It said 'come hither baby' but then he's hard wood to whittle..."

Gosh these weeks fly by. I have officially been here 5 weeks and 1 day. Holla!

I am sitting out on the bra for my saturday night chillout. No beer today, though. I had some ice cream (which was TOTALLY worth it) so I am forgoing the spirits. Got my ration card for May, and it's sitting empty and ready to go for when I do decide to cash in on a libation or two. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see. Anyway, the temperature is great right now, it is about 75 degrees with a great breeze (the sun has long gone down). I had a fun workout at the gym. I have started going to the gym across base, which is about 1.25 miles one way, so I get a nice little warmup before I get there, and then have a good workout and then hustle back this way. My tennis shoes are still giving me a really hard time with the blisters, but I must endure.

I have been listening to some great music today - Killers, Kings of Leon, Patty Griffin, Old Crow Medicine Show - and am thinking much about the people who I have shared that music with over the years. Waxing nostalgic and all that. You know who you are...

I think Jason and I may switch our days off so I will be off on Saturday instead of Mondays - I just want to try something new...KICK IT UP A NOTCH, if you will. It's not set in stone but I will be excited if it happens. Several people that I know and like have Saturdays off so it would be cool to get to hang out with them more. I will miss hanging with my pal Leo, but I get to see him frequently around the squadron so it's all good.

I ran into a girl today walking to the gym that I was connected with informally by Tracy - her name is Lindsay and she lives in Charleston. I have only seen her Facebook pic, but she recognized me because I briefed her (and 400 others) at Right Start a couple of weeks ago - which is kind of like an orientation to the base. So when she saw me today she knew who I was and we talked for a while. I think she will be fun to hang out with. Super nice girl. So, rock on.

Maris 5th birthday is coming up, and I'm wigging out about it. How can she already be 5??? And starting school this year, too, whammies for real. I swear I'm going to blink my eyes and she's going to be calling me to bail her out of jail...er...I mean pick her up from the library. Big year this year - Maris starts school, baby girl Javery will meet the world, Meg & Jamie will buy their first home, I will buy my first home, Tracy and Jason will move back to Bridlewood, Todd will finally get out from under his hella-mortgage, Brett will finally get well and take NY by storm with his beautiful voice, Stephanie will have her baby...it's gonna be a wicked crazy time. Shibbity!

Damn it feels good outside. I can almost pretend that I am at the beach right now. And everyone at the beach is wearing PT gear. Why aren't they wearing their bathing suits? And where the hell is the ocean? There's sand all around me. Kelly confused.

I don't know. I'm rambling.

Love. xo