Taco Tuesday

There's only six Taco Tuesdays for the PB&J (photographer, broadcaster & journalist) team left here. To do Taco Tuesday right you really have to eat at the main dining facility ((ahem, you're welcome, April) or the DFAC) here known as Ala' Too. Yeah, you can get a touch of Mexican with some enchiladas or a burrito at the two smaller DFACs, but you miss out on heaping piles of shells or tortillas, ground meat or shredded chicken filling and the fixins bar of grated cheese, shredded lettuce, salsa, sometimes guacamole, and fresh whole chopped tomatoes.

On Taco Tuesdays I eat taco salad which means my plate is at least half tomatoes. Today, no chopped tomatoes, but no worries - I'll grab some tomato slices from the sandwich bar. No such luck. I love black olives almost as much as tomatoes so I'll over-compensate on those. No such luck. Just before I was about ready to give up on enjoying lunch, my eyes became glued to snow-white heaven. ***Sour cream.****

Sour cream for me is the equivalent of what BBQ sauce is to JG. It's the foundation of some of the tastiest dips, the key ingredient for a rich Stroganoff, an essential component to most cheesecakes and probably the only condiment I could literally eat by the spoonful. (No, peanut butter is not a condiment, it's a category all its own.)

I enjoyed a 'little' dab on my salad. I was then pleasantly surprised to see it at the Colonel Mac's DFAC to accompany my enchiladas at dinner complete with sliced (then Jenny-Chopped) tomatoes and black olives. Best Taco Tuesday EVER!

Zapped

You'd think that growing up on a small family farm with an electric fence I'd have been more prepared for the jolt I got late Monday night. I was determined to change my sheets and make my bed with the laptop on the bed, just moving it to the opposite corner I was working on. When I got settled in my new favorite flannel sheets (thank you, Martha) I noticed the battery wasn't full on my laptop.


The power source was secure in the computer - so I knew that the plug (connected to a 220 adaptor piece) had to be pushed more securely into the wall. Standing in my right foot to do this I heard a loud pop, saw a big white spark and instantly felt pain in my right hand and foot.


I'm still feeling bouts of tingles and random sharp pains, tho not nearly as bad as earlier in the week. I've had two EKGs and somehow I got dehydrated enough to suffer a bladder infection. I slept for nearly three solid days. Electric shock isn't widely written about unless addressing symptoms and care for instances severe enough to cause entry and exit wounds. If you google it, you get mostly electric shock 'therapy' (insert extreme sarcasm based on this experience) and - on the accidental extreme - how victims are at risk for cardiac arrest, muscle deterioration and burns. 


So, our team has about five weeks left before our office starts rotating the staff. Two of the public affairs folks coming in have each had a prior deployment here both within the last three years. For another it will be her first deployment. The other gentleman is no stranger to working in a host nation environment serving in Air Force News detachments.


There's more that I want to accomplish here than I have time for. Our event calendar is hectic between now and when the new superintendent arrives at the beginning of December. I hope the next few weeks go by fast.

Halloween Three (Not the Movie)

It's been about two months since I've blogged - spookey, huh?

Halloween is my least favorite holiday. As kids my sister and I would have to be driven the mile or so between houses to trick-or-treat. Rural trick or treating is probably one of the best kept secrets of the country. Most folks in the town of Abbot, Maine, were lucky to get three or four trick or treaters total so homeowners would make elaborate Halloween goodie bags - none of the city "take one piece" nonsense at the hoards of ghosts, princesses and movie of the year characters with the occassional ATV-sized cadillac stroller mixed in. Anyway, most years we were too poor to get proper costumes so we'd decorate paper bags and cut out two eye holes. Well, that childhood memory didn't really bother me too badly until as a teenager I heard crude boys make comments about how some girls would have smoking hot bodies but an ugly face - and you know the saying "put a paper bag over her head." My dreaded nickname in school was also Ogre (thanks to a 'tool' of a maiden name) so that didn't help matters any.

Flash forward a few decades and this year Edward was Darth Vader and Zachary was Darth Maul. JG was Indiana Jones (insert word "sexy") he was equipped with a bull whip we bought during our road trip adventure in April when we stopped in Mark Twain's home town of Hannnibal, Missouri earlier this year.

JG is much better at Halloween than I am. Last year I was Marge Simpson. (Oddly enough it was timed the same week as her debut on an adult magazine cover.) Green dress, pearls and blue-colored hairspray and so much cement-like gel and only one person looked at me. Edward was a samauri and Zachary was a .... drawing a blank .... Scream? Something cloaky with a mask, I know that for sure.

Three Halloweens ago was the only 31st of October the four of us have spent together - it was also a month before JG and I were engaged. The kids were being such 'demons' we outright cancelled trick-or-treating. This was the night that the main water pressure valve in the house burst causing water damage to both bathrooms and the boys' bedroom. I couldn't even imagine what the damage would have been if we had been out trick-or-treating that night.

Yesterday when JG and I were skyping, he made the comment that Halloween was his favorite holiday but he didn't care much to celebrate. This deployment has been by far much more difficult for the both of this compared to his deployment last year. The only thing I've been good at is taking out my frustration, disappointment and anger out on him - something I'm not proud of.