I'm home!

It's before 5 a.m. of day three at home. JG is on his way to take Mike (the broadcaster) to the airport and Nate (the photographer) is still stuck in Kyrgyzstan. The white and red roses JG handed me after our first December kiss are showing the signs of being in a vase on my kitchen counter. It's only five hours to the new year in Bishkek. Luckily the time change means procrastination and I have all day to figure out what I want to cook for dinner tonight. I got the initial cooking itch out my first day home, but we'll get back to that.

First, I love American internet. This morning I just took Facebook Scrabble turns. Outside the U.S. or Canada you're not allowed - now I can appreciate the copyright issues having previous experience as a trademark and licensing special for the Air Force (JG brought me the Gillette razor to show me the end result of all the negotiations I had with their company and gave Edward an Air Force monster truck for Christmas.)

I love Scrabble. One of the things I was really excited about doing before I left Manas was helping my friend Karly break in the Chapel's new Scrabble board. And, JG got me a scrabble shirt for Christmas. It's very clever because there's no "Scrabble" anywhere, just the alphabet with their point value for the game. "Z-10" looked funny in print and for a minute I doubted that was the value of the letter. I was corrected.

So, if you have Scrabble games in the works on Facebook they fortiet you after 60 days of non-play. But, Heather started a Scrabble game while I was gone and you can't forfiet a game you don't start so I had one Scrabble turn on Facebook waiting for me - a four-way game with her, JG and my mother-in-law.

If I haven't mentioned it yet, JG had a patch made on his last deployment to look like a Scrabble tile and had it sewn on the microfiber towel to cover an Army trademark. (No Air Force license at that time.) It was a "J" to represent the first letter of our names - 8 points if you were wondering.

I had debated on whether or not I wanted to take a shower before I left Kyrgyzstan. I knew the KC-135 would be cold (story coming on that too, wait for it) but at the same time I didn't want to look like an unprofessional dirt bag so I did shower the morning we left - it was a Tuesday. I was careful not to put the towel in my bag - I just folded it and put it in the pouch and carried it separately to the truck. The morning we left.

Nate was nice enough to bring Mike and I to 'Ops Town' at 0500 and when we pulled up to the operations group building I realized I dropped my towel when I got into the truck. By this time I had already a lump in my throat at the thought of saying goodbye to Nate. The night before I had to say goodbye to Karly - I cried when I hugged her, I cried on the walk to Shooters (a recreation center at the Transit Center) and tears were still streaming down my face as Super Troopers played. I told Nate this on the way back to Ops Town and he said not to worry because I won't be crying when I said goodbye to him. I said that I had a lump in my throat all morning, he protested and I said "don't fuck with me" as the tears started.

Nate and I butted heads a couple times on the deployment - despite that we became really good friends. So, you can understand me saying "I hate you" while crying giving him a hug goodbye conveyed more than any other phrase. If I had to fight my way out of a dark alley Nate would be a close-second to Batman if I got to pick backup.

So - Mike and I end up on the KC-135 with more than a dozen other folks wanting to get home. For some their final destination was RAF (Royal Air Force) Mildenhall where the aircrew would take their crew rest for the night before flying into Fairchild Air Force Base. What we didn't know was that Spokane was going to receive nine more inches of snow while we were crew resting. Mike was expecting to fly out the next day - getting back to his family before his originally-scheduled flight leaving Manas. Since we had offered to bring him to the airport we just had him crash at the house - Heather was kind enough to give up her bedroom downstairs and spend the night at a friends.

The kids had wanted to wait to have Christmas when I got home. My first obstacle was getting through the inprocessing line with the maintainers who flew home. While waiting to get my blood drawn I sent JG, the boys, Heather and Mike home until I was finished - which only ended up being ten minutes after they left. As antsy as I was I decided to start walking home. I almost slipped and fell a few times and I waved off three motorists who stopped to ask if I needed a ride. The plow trucks hadn't caught up with the new snowfall. JG asked me if I was crazy for walking home. We parked for a few minutes and I got my second December kiss.  The roads were horrible and thankful to be done with the mile drive. Then Mike realizes he left a bag behind so JG ended up making three trips to the deployment reception center. After we had our family Christmas with a special guest photographer Heather left to give Mike space to decompress. I cooked mashed potatoes and roasted chicken with carrots and gravy - and became increasingly frustrated with how the kitchen morphed into a place that I couldn't find anything in. The same reality followed me when making bacon, omelets and blueberry pancakes the next day.

We got Mike off to the airport without incident. I gave him a quick, teary hug at the truck and was thankful Edward distracted me from further tears while I tried to help him find a toy lost in the back seat. Then Zach and JG come back out to the curb .... with Mike's luggage. His flight was postponed until 0600 the next day. I felt so badly for his family who was counting on him being home in less than 12 hours and it was heartbreaking listening to Mike break the news as we fought our way out of the airport craziness. Defeated, we went to have hot chocolate at Starbucks then visited Walmart and later met Heather and the Airman JG supervises and her Mom for dinner then went back to our house to play Apples to Apples. JG made mojitos and white Russians. I had three and right after Heather and the ladies left I crashed for the night. The next morning JG took Mike to the airport at 0430 - and a second goodbye hug proved easier than the first. If I had known this I would have said goodbye to Karly and Nate on two occasions before actually leaving.

As I've written the blog this morning I made baked spaghetti for breakfast and declared needing a break from my missed hobby. JG treated me to lunch today at Red Lobster. Cheddar biscuits rock. And, I'm continuing the theme of eating seafood and fish that I've lacked eating the last six months. At Rusty Moose last night i had seared ahi tuna salad and today for lunch i had lobster bisque, lobster stuffed mushrooms and salmon, steak and shrimp. I watched over-cooked lobster tails being served every Sunday and had refrained so today was a victory in having perfectly cooked lobster meat. Also, I haven't had fresh mushrooms in six months either - not even the pizza hut on manas served fresh mushrooms. So, lots of boxes checked.

We returned a camera lens, picked up comic book boxes and visited a 'First Night' Spokane festival on the way home. The kids walked away with cardboard dinosaurs, some paper rodent on a skate board and a festive hat from the crafting stations. I was nodding off in the truck on the way home and went to bed right away - like before 6 p.m. with JG laying next to me reading comics. We both woke up to a Happy New Year text from his sister Julie who lives on the East Coast and realized the kids were still awake and we needed to get them settled. About an hour left to the new year in our time zone. I'll be able to make it now. Maybe I'll even get 'lucky.'