A New Day

WOW! Where does the time go? I have been back in Iraq for six and a half months now. I've decided to challenge the rainy season. I'm determined to make it through. I can walk on pavement almost the entire way to the palace. It just adds on about a quarter more of the distance.

Food, however, is a different story. That may pose a problem. It's all gravel and dirt right now from the street to the DFAC, so it may not be my route to work. Maybe I can bring my meals, or use the truck to go get them. Well worrying about it is not going to do me any good, so I guess I'll work it out as I go. And besides, the option to transfer may be my only alternative if this proves too much of a problem for me.

I'm thrilled to say that I had another Pin-Up rendering done and I'm really excited about how it turned out. Visit http://www.karinadale.com to see the artists site. Here's the art work.
Yep, the secret is out, I really do have a tattoo on my leg, just like the picture shows it. This pose is in honor of my pool playing days when I was on a league back home. I was never really consistent, but I loved it and had a lot of fun with my friends. I hope to get back into it when I return home to stay. I love the personal touches of my thumb rings (which have a lot of emotional meaning to me) and my own pool cue!

So it rained mud yesterday from what I was told. We had a sandstorm, and then it rained in the middle of it. It's a bit early for rain, but it's been humid here lately so I guess it's been building up. It doesn't encourage me! I ordered some boots, but the were being sent to my Stateside home and my kids will have to send them to me. Probably none too soon to get the over here!

I guess things back home have been pretty good. The family has had time to be together and my grand babies adore my daughters. Then put my son and his wife in the mix and you have non-stop enjoyment ... in the form of either intellectual stimulation or laughter, or several combinations of both! But now every one is back in school or work or steeped in personal projects. It's tough to get back to the real world, but yet there are some wonderful challenges ahead for all of them.

Ah, Life! What do you hold for me? I can't wait to find out!

Well, just though an update was in order, so, there ye be! Sending much love to all my family and friends, and the love of my life.

Quirks. Idiosyncrasies. Peculiarities. Pet Peeves.

Quirk: A peculiar habit, mannerism, or aspect of somebody's character
Idiosyncrasy: A way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is peculiar to an individual or group, especially an odd or unusual one
Peculiarity: The quality or state of being unusual or strange
Pet Peeves: Somebody's constant topic of complaint

Yes, they are pretty much all interchangeable; redundant might even be the right word. But I wanted to make a point. There are some really strange things here that just aren’t right! Well in a "normal" environment they wouldn’t be right, but out here they are acceptable.

So where do I start?

How about the men’s showers? I can’t tell you how many men I have seen walking to or from the showers wrapped in nothing more than a towel. I don’t know if there is anything under the towel, but it is just wrapped around them as though they just got out of their shower at home and are walking to their bedroom. I would like to point out to all of you… young, old, military, civilian… this isn’t home. And all those women you see walking around trying not to stare (not at how good looking you are, but at how ridiculous you look) are not you family members! They… no, strike that… WE are strangers! Get a robe. Or shorts and a T-shirt!

OK. That’s one down.

But speaking of military, I know they changed the age you can join to 40 something, and if you are physically fit and able to fight for your country… good for you! BUT… I have seen a lot of very overweight soldiers out here and I don’t understand that. I always thought you had to maintain a certain BMI to stay active duty. Maybe that has changed as well. Can someone explain that to me?

Rumor has it that one of the companies over here was given funds to put in cement sidewalks throughout the living areas. Instead they have cemented their own living areas and made their accommodations very cozy, and we still have gravel and sand. I won’t mention names, but here’s a link you can look at! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg,_Brown_and_Root. I really hate the gravel. Yet come the rainy season, I’ll be happy to walk in that instead of the mud. Well... there are places where the gravel is so thin that we will have a lot of mud anyway. So I hate the gravel and I hate the mud. Now you know. Big WHOOP! Nothing I can do about it but get over it, get through it and keep on truckin’. Well so much for that thought process.

Did you notice this is pretty much a bitch session? I mean after almost 4 years here, it had to happen. Right?

OK... Onwards we go. The post office. Bless their pea-pickin’ hearts, but give me a break… if I bring a footlocker in, to mail to the States, I have to remove everything in it and let some stranger go through it all. They throw it back in the footlocker and don’t worry about how it is packed. It takes a long time to go through it, and people behind you are not real excited about waiting. But I have been in there when someone in front of me had three footlockers and a couple large boxes to send. So you learn to deal with it. You never learn to like it, but you deal.

The rooms in the trailers we live in are pretty small. We have a roommate, and each of us has a bed, a night stand, a wall locker, and a little extra room for a couple plastic style chest-of-drawers. Or a refrigerator and microwave. We have to go to the port-o-john around the corner from our trailer if we have to use the bathroom at night or we can walk to the other end of our row to the latrines, and the shower trailer is next to the latrine trailer. No we don’t have running water in our rooms. We can get our bottled water at the water station between the men’s latrine and showers. They come complete with a thick film of dirt over the package of 12 bottles, all nicely bundled up in plastic shrink wrap. Yes, they are outdoor temperature when we get them. So if it is 125 degrees outside, chances are the water is going to be pretty warm until you have it in your air-conditioned room overnight.

Speaking of air-conditioning… I have walked into a warm room after work a couple of times. Nothing that my roommate did, just the A/C not working. After a sweaty half hour of cleaning the filter, going outside and standing under the unit and punching it as hard as I can with the handle of a broom to shake it and watch all the dust fly out of it, and then taking a water bottle and putting a hole in the top with my knife and squirting the water inside the unit (as much as I can reach of it anyway) to clean out the rest of it, then waiting for another hour for it to actually start feeling cool before I go take my shower and get rid of the dirt and sweat. I then come back to a nice cool room. Until next time.

Then there is the heat. On my days off, if I go to the showers, take in my laundry, walk to the PX or the DFAC, I walk out into what has lately been in the 120 degree temperatures and as I go down the steps from my metal porch, I hold the metal railing or put my hand on the metal siding and about burn myself. I’m very serious, it is so hot that if I were to leave my hand on any of the metal surfaces I would come away with a very red and probably rather sore burn on my hands.

And I will make this my last statement for this entry… I’m very lonely. I used to have so many friends here, and a lot of other people emailed me. Most of the friends left and I don’t get many emails anymore. I’m kind of feeling neglected, forgotten, and unloved… if anyone is reading this, it’s not easy being over here away from everyone you love and everything you know. Maybe I’m the one who has neglected my friends, if I have, I’m sorry. Write to me and ask me why… maybe I didn’t even know I had done it.

So, until next time… Peace to you all.

Oh yeah, Happy Labor Day weekend!

Starting Over - Again

My roommate moved out, but she brought my new roommate in and introduced her to me. I cleaned the room and rearranged things a little bit. But I still didn't have any space. I thought I'd have to do a real thorough cleaning of all my belongings and scatter a lot of items to the wind. I figured I would either give or throw them away, depending on usefulness and condition. I hold on to everything in my life. I can't let go. Hmmm... is that what "shrinks" call baggage? NAH!!

Anyway, my new roommate is very cool. I don't think we will have any problems, we seem to get along quite well. Her second day here, she put in a request for larger wall lockers and about an hour later we got the bigger wooden lockers like I had in my last room! I was shocked! It just never occurred to me to even ask! We have them down the middle of the room as a divider so we both have our little private areas. It's kind of nice. Kudos to her for thinking of asking about them. I was able to find storage space for almost everything now, so I can put off the cleaning out of my junk for now.

I'm very excited, I was able to get a professional PinUp artist to do a rendering of me! I'll be adding her banner to my blog when she sends it to me. Her website is www.karinadale.com. I love how she depicted me in a semi sexy outfit with the OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) insignia on the pocket of my dress, and me wearing combat boots and socks, and you can tell it's a palace as the background... well, I can tell... because I work there and know what it looks like! Yes of course you can see it!


I have had a few people say it looks like me (guys I know) and some say it doesn't (females). I figure maybe they don't quite understand what Pin-Up Art is. It is basic caricature. Anyway. I'm happy! So there! :)

I've been making plans to go to some classes around the September or October time frame. I want to get certificates for several things. I think they will look good after my name, kind of like degrees... titles... good stuff to have for job hunting after my contract here is up. And, speaking of which, I'm close to 6 months into the one year I signed up for, and even closer to having been with the company for four years! Time has flown by so quickly! My grandson is 7 weeks old already, and he has gotten so big! I get pictures all the time of the boys. They have all grown. I miss them very much. But before I know it, I'll be holding them all in my arms!

Well, I guess that's the updates for now. I need to get motivated to start writing my books again. I don't think writers block is supposed to last this long! Writing here in my blog helps me think about how my stories will go, but then after I hit "publish now" and check to see how the new entry looks... I forget the books! Ah well... I feel that good things will happen for me. Soon. Very soon.

They Pave Paradise and Put up a Parking Lot

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone?”

So much introspection. So much thinking about where I was, where I am, where I want to be, and why I’m not there yet.

I had it all. A nice big beautiful rental, a great roommate, with my daughter living there as well. And we had a lot of fun together. I more or less had a boyfriend whom I loved very much. I had a job where I had a lot of friends, and I was involved in a pool league that made my weeks complete. Then I went to Iraq. I thought it would be a good move. More money, more experience. Bigger and better resume with a secret clearance. New friends. And little by little I lost it all. Or should I say I exchanged it all. I bought a house and pretty much dislodged my roommate and my daughter, I lost touch with my pool pals, I quit corresponding with my friends, my boyfriend left me (several times), and now I hate my job. Actually I used to love my job until I went home for my surgery and became the wicked Witch of the West.

Now here I am back in Iraq, wondering if I made the wrong decisions. What if you could go back in time? Like in Family Man, just for a “glimpse”. Would I like what I would have been if I hadn’t left and if we had stayed in the other house? Where would that have left my son and his wife and kids? Would I have hurt so many people I love?

But what’s done is done and now it’s time to make the best of it all. I need to cherish what I have. I’ve got the love of my son and his wife and boys. I have a beautiful house. I have a good job that will help us get out of the red and into a good situation. I have a few very good friends. I have the opportunity to get some certificates while I am overseas so that I am more valuable when I can come home. I am free to find love or let it find me. Why would I sit and waste my time on wanting what once was, when I can make a wonderful life on what now is? I can miss the things I had. But dwelling on them is not helping me to go on with my life. By going on, I can let go, and by letting go, sometimes the things you let go of come back to you. Not always, and not always the exact same things or people, and it isn’t the reason to let go. But it has happened, and if it does, at that time I can decide if I want those things back in my life or if I am better off without them. I always learn something when I write about what I’m feeling. I’ll always miss what I once had. But isn’t that true about everything in the past? I miss my life in Oregon when we lived in a little two room shack. I miss my life in Ohio when I had 9 people living with me. I miss the times when I used to drive almost an hour each way to pick up my daughters just to drive them a mile to school, or to pick them up after school so I could spend time with them. I miss the circles I would drive in front of their house before I would leave them at their Dad’s, and they would run out to the back yard so they could wave to me as I drove past on the main street. I miss the farm we lived on, with the awesome old house, the barn, the trees, the land, the privacy. I miss my job as the head designer/manager of three flower shops/garden center/landscape department. I miss the time I spent with my kids before they started school, I miss the gang I grew up with on West Blvd. All through my life there are things that will stay with me forever. But they have brought me to where I am now. So in effect, where I am is a product of all of my past experiences, so how can I really be unhappy with what I have and where I am?

Well, I don’t know if any of that made sense to you, but it sure helped me. And after all, this is my blog, I’m just allowing you to read it, letting you touch my life. So if you get anything from this, that’s great, if not, it’s OK… just read. I’ll live my life and share what I can. In the meantime, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…" so, cherish it all now, while you can.

Life Goes On

Things just keep changing. People leave, new friends appear, policies get re-written, goals change, minds change...

I've met some people online over the past few weeks who were very interesting to talk to. I believe that the saying is true that every person comes into your life for a reason. I learned something from a couple of them, then we never talked again, but they were profound lessons. I have had ongoing conversations that have been very deep and stimulating. I'm looking forward to new friendships.

I have watched some good movies, seen some great music videos and have started studying for one of my certificates. All in all, life has been interesting.

I'm still carrying my cane to work with me, I haven't used it much on the way TO work, but after sitting at my desk for the majority of the 12 hour shift that I work, I tend to get a little stiff, and it helps to have the cane to walk home with. By the time I make it halfway home, I can carry it again. Pretty soon it will be stored away in a corner and I'll be free of the "cruth" I have been using. I wonder what other "crutches" I need to put in the corner.

Wonderful things are going on at home. There is a true sense of family and it's something I am truly happy about. So often I wish I could be with them, be part of a real home. I just realized I have been back here for very nearly five months already. One more month and ten days and it will have been six months since I left to come back here. Half of my contract will be up. I'm seeing more of the old crowd coming back. Some military, some civilian. All acquaintances, but good to see. I have a few friends here. But I don't want to try to guess the future of those friendships. I still keep in touch with a few people from the past years, but it is not often, and it is just to say hi and let them know they haven't been forgotten. But even some of them have dropped out of my radar. No responses. I can only say... it was great while it lasted, I hope that all is well for you and that you are safe and happy, somewhere.

But there are the ones I know I'll never lose. There is a bond. A friendship that no matter how long since the last time we talked, the feelings of the friendship we had will always be there. I know I have friends distributed all over. I know that if I contacted them and asked if I could stop by because I was near them, they would make time for me and probably give me food and a place to rest my head. It's a beautiful thing to know there are relationships that will always be that special. My time here in Iraq has been special. I don't know how much longer I'll be here, but I know it has been worth everything I have gone through to have had this opportunity.

Yes... Life goes on. And I'm going on with it. As a special person told me recently, "In the words of Doris Day 'Whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see. Que sera, sera.'"

So roll with it. Stress gets you no where. Enjoy what you have while you have it, make the most of each day and always remember "Life is too short for drama and petty things, so kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly."

Happy Fourth of July!!!

This is not the place I want to see fireworks or hear loud noises. We had a huge ceremony today of the swearing in of 1100 troops who reenlisted. Patriotism isn’t dead. I don’t really understand how.

Over here it seems there’s more patriotism
than there was back home.

Apparently the swearing in was for Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and maybe even a few Coast Guard, but whatever it was it was huge.

Wonder how things were back home. Probably had the Thunderbirds do their thing and then Fireworks all around the city. I miss that.

I hope that one of these days I can enjoy the kind of Fourth of July we used to have when we went to the lake in Cleveland, or into the mountains in the springs. Or something like the fun we had when just us girls went to watch the meteor showers in Oregon.

I’m looking at happier times. I’m here so we can have them again. I know it will all work out in the end.

Meanwhile… HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO ALL OF YOU.

A New Day

O Muse!
Sing in me, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...
A wanderer, harried for years on end...

A wise man once told me to let go of the past. That when I talk to my friends or loved ones the past can only be a wall that cannot be scaled. How simple it sounds. Even the Bible says to forgive and forget. I've thought I could forgive, but the forgetting part is a lot tougher. But then, have I truly forgiven? I feel pain inside. Anger. Hurt. Something that is festering and when I try to ignore it, it just opens the wound and it gets infected with more pain and anger and hurt.

O Muse!
Sing in me, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...
A wanderer, harried for years on end...

What right do I have to be the victim? Maybe in reality I have made that "wanderer" the victim. Maybe I'm the bad guy. Maybe I'm the perpetrator. I am guilty. I have expected so much from so many, that I have become like my father in many ways. He expected perfection from his family and we always disappointed him. Am I doing that to those closest to me? Everyone else who knew my father loved him. He didn't expect anything from them. We were his Achilles heel. We made him imperfect. He could never understand us or just love us for who we were, because we were him.

O Muse!
Sing in me, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...
A wanderer, harried for years on end...

I laughed today. I let go of the heaviness and let myself appreciate all I have. Maybe someday, the ones I love will understand. Maybe someday I will just let myself forget it all. Maybe someday my love will be pure. But today, I am just a human being stuck in this body with this mind telling me that it's OK to be imperfect. It's OK if some don't understand. It's just all OK.