Man… just woke up from a hardcore nap, it’s about 9:30pm. Fell asleep on the couch watching TV, that damn flickerbox robbed me of another evening of productivity. I had big plans: unpack from New York, because my suitcase is still sitting on the bedroom floor; repack the camping equipment from this weekend, as it’s still piled in the garage from when I aired it out after returning; start picking up around the house, as it’s still littered with debris from the bridal shower and party Sharaun had here more than a week ago; I would’ve even settled for just doing the dishes from this evening’s meal. But man, I’m so out of practice with the regular chores that I’m really letting them slip. I feel like I’m all out of continuity or something. I set my alarm for an hour early on Monday, thinking I’d get up early and do some tidying before work – but of course I snoozed that entire thing away. Anyday now, I’m ready to get back into my routine…
When I was in the second grade, our teacher had a small squarish picture-book dealing with “hobby sports.” It had full-page action shots of people doing different things, with the title of the activity at the bottom of the page. There were pages for skiing, skydiving, surfing, boating, etc. I can remember looking at the book and flipping the pages. One of the pages seemed a little thick, too thick to be one page. Upon closer inspection I discovered that it really wasn’t a single page, but two pages that were somehow stuck together. Being curious, I carefully tried to pry apart the stuck pages. Turns out the were stuck together purposely, by our teacher, because one of the now hidden pictures portrayed the sport of “skin diving.” With the pages torn apart, I could make out the nude forms of a male and female diver. (Is it proper to have my pluralized “forms” be mated with the singular “diver” in that sentence?) At this point, I either began showing this to other kids, or Mrs. Kline spotted me – either way I was found out. I can remember her lecturing me for “ruining” her book. I think that’s kind of unfair. You glue two pages of a book together and expect inquisitive second-graders not to pry them apart in curiosity. How about cutting out the offending page, or not using the book at all – it was probably 15 pages max anyway.
Got a call from my little bro over the weekend. He’s busy making all the preparations for his tour in Iraq come December. His unit finally got their orders the other day, and they will be stationed at Camp Liberty (Camp Al-Tahreer in Arabic, and also formerly known as Camp Victory). Camp Victory is “… one of the largest US overseas posts built since the Vietnam War, [and] … lies northeast of Baghdad International Airport…” It is planned to be able to accommodate 14,000 troops at capacity. For a long time, my brother telling me he was going to Iraq was pretty much just that – nothing too scary. But hearing him tell me where he’d been ordered, and how he’s making preparations to send his wife home to her folks while he’s away made me really think about it. I don’t know, I don’t have a lot of fear for his wellbeing, I feel like he can handle himself and that the odds are with him… but all the same I wish he wasn’t going. I can’t imagine how it’d feel on the eve of leaving all the things I know and love for a year. Bugs me.
As much as I’ve been looking forward to our upcoming high school reunion next month, I’ve been dreading it nearly as much because tickets to FL are running between $500 and $600 per-person right now. Considering we’re only going to be there for a couple days since Sharaun’s scheduling around work, it was just hard for me to justify dropping more than a grand on the trip. So today, out of desperation, I started reviewing my various airline miles. Turns out, that we could fly for about $240 if we’d be willing to each fly a different airline. I called Sharaun, presented the ~$800 savings scenario to her, and she was down. So, I’m on United and she’s on Continental – but at least I was able to score pretty similar flight times so we’re not too disparate. Yeah, it sucks – but we already shelled out a hundred or so just for the reunion festivities… I am really looking forward to it, despite my lamentation. More importantly, it’s another trip to the airport and some more quality time on an airplane!
Need to make reservations for my trip to Shanghai, apparently I’m needed the 1st week of August. Also wouldn’t hurt to book travel for the (now two-week) September Taiwan trip. I’ve never been to Shanghai, so I’m looking forward to it – since I’ll know some folks in town who can show me around. Taiwan is Taiwan, we don’t need to go into that again until the time comes. I brought some work home tonight, y’know, to work on; never got to it.
Oh, and Wes is right about McD’s, I had already forgotten the whole McRib incident… a textbook example of repression. Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- t-minus seven - 2011
- readying - 2010
- commiserating - 2007
- she get high - 2006
- a snickers and a diet coke - 2004