Jacob got his top tooth knocked out playing baseball last night during
our Memorial Day BBQ. At first he was spooked by it- the tooth is in
our yard somewhere – but after we assured him that the tooth fairy
will come anyway, he felt much better.
He found four quarters under his pillow this morning 🙂
More evidence that I tend to lead a double life. I have the honor of not just being a member of the military, but I’m also a proud Air Force wife.
When I was active duty, I’d attempt to participate in spouse functions, sometimes successfully, but sometimes NOT. Most were very welcoming and I had a great time playing Bunco, going on shopping trips, and attending countless bridal and baby showers.
The Air Force Wive’s group when I was in Korea in the late 90s was a prime example of not feeling welcome…most of their functions were tailored to times when the kids were in school, but once I made it to an evening event, and, to be honest, I wasn’t very comfortable listening to the men I worked with being referred to as “Billy”, “Joey”, “Tommy”, etc.
On the other hand, when I was stationed with the Army in my first years in the USAF, many of the Army ladies’ functions I participated in were great! They seemed much more laid back, and I didn’t see the distinctions between whether your spouse is enlisted, officer, the commander, etc. And they certainly didn’t care that I was Air Force, not Army.
If you’re a commander’s wife, you’re expected to be a leader in the spouse’s group. Obviously it isn’t required, but the other spouses will look to the commander’s spouse for guidance.
“What in the world is making you think of this NOW?”
Here’s what. Last week I attended a spouse’s appreciation function at Dave’s office. There were about 20 of us, we had a nice catered lunch and they even had some young Airmen who took Timmy and sat with him in a conference room where “Tale of Desperaux” was playing. After the lunch, we received the official Air Force Weather Agency briefing and then got a tour of the relatively-new building they work in now.
I like things like this. Dave will tell you about how much fun I have at social functions, and it’s important to me to know about the people and their families in Dave’s professional life, we help each other out in times of need.
During the function, the AFWA commander came out and addressed us, thanking us for supporting our husbands and even giving us these lovely certificates.
 |
| From 2009 05 11 AFWA Spouse Certificate |
Today was a gloriously beautiful day! I can’t believe I was able to enjoy just about all day outside…I mowed the lawn for the first time this season, worked more on my garden, and planted a couple of containers with annual flowers purchased yesterday from Timmy’s child care center’s fund raiser. I enlisted Timmy and a couple of neighbor children this evening to “dig for earthworms” in our future-hop-plant plot, thereby loosening the soil for me. They found some 30 earthworms that I had them deposit in my compost pile…which needs a lot of help this early in the season….
 |
| From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder |
Ta Da!
Can you see the bird feeders in tbe background? Maybe you can, then again, maybe not…
When we moved into the house in early August of last year, one of my first acts was to hang a birdfeeder on the tree in the backyard.
No action. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. The only birds around seemed to be giant blackbirds and they didn’t eat the black sunflower seeds I offered…
The week I came back from the desert, I saw some small brown birds around in the neighborhood…and that reminded me to re-invigorate my birding efforts. I went nuts installing feeders all over my yard. Can you count 6 of them here? Look REAL closely:
 |
| From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder |
I remember from North Carolina that inspiring birds to come to your feeder as opposed to someone else’s takes some time and effort. I had a perfect backyard in North Carolina, with a hedge of wax myrtle about 20 feet behind my house to provide nesting and hiding spots. It wasn’t until the spring following our arrival — I hung our first feeder right away there, too — that I saw anything worth talking about.
Same as this time…we moved about the same time of year (latter half of July), so it’s now spring and my bird feeders are coming alive with activity.
Of course, being in a new part of the United States means a new group of birds to learn about. In North Carolina I was greeted with house finches, goldfinches, Carolina chickadees, Carolina wren, tufted titmice, myrtle warblers, cardinals and eventually, hummingbirds.
I’ve been once again sleuthing to learn about eastern Nebraska suburban birds. In mid-April all I was seeing were grackles, European starlings, and robins. Since robins don’t really partake of bird seed (they’re mainly carnivores, eating worms instead), and the grackles and starlings were too big, my feeders remained quiet.
Until this week. I started to see some brown birds feeding routinely, and I saw a downy woodpecker off and on. I stood inside at my kitchen window with my Canon Digital Elph camera set on 12x zoom and attempted to photograph the bird action so far as best I could….
 |
| From 2009 04 16 BirdsInYard |
 |
| From 2009 04 16 BirdsInYard |
 |
| From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder |
 |
| From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder |
 |
| From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder |
 |
| From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder |
The birds are as follows: downy woodpecker, robin, house sparrow, American pipit or female house sparrow, another house sparrow and common grackle. Thanks to Maryann for helping me identify the sparrows — definitely a new species for me to identify!
The sparrows are definitely telling their friends about this place…there are more and more every day…
This morning I saw my first goldfinch, but didn’t get a chance to photograph any yet. Maybe in the morning. I’ve also seen a couple of cardinals, they sit VERY high up in my backyard trees…but when they sing they’re LOUD!
For now, I’m listening to the songs of a pair of robins who sit perched in my tall trees…a regular thing here now and I’ve loving it!
I went out shopping at the “Villagio” mall yesterday with Rose. As expected, I wasn’t able to take that many photos, since we’re advised not to get natives into our photographs.
I did a little bit of shopping — H&M had some pretty head scarves that I could wear as non-head scarves (i.e., around my neck). But mostly it was awesome to window shop with Rose, the stores there cover the entire spectrum of shopping experiences, from Claire’s jewelry all the way to Chopard! We had a fun lunch at a Mediterreanean lounge, mezzahs and chicken sandwiches. Then we just wandered for the afternoon.
I got to pay a visit to the Carrefour store, which I had mentioned previously is a French-owned “hypermart” chain, like Walmart. No, like Super Walmart! So I browsed the grocery section and came across something I hadn’t had since I got here…
Orange juice!
For some reason, the juice selection at the dining facilities has been lacking. They have one of those from-concentrate dispenser machines that sometimes works, and the one time I successfully got juice out of it…the juice was brown. Ew?
You can buy shelf-stable juice (i.e., not in the refrigerated section) at the BX, but at Carrefour, they had full-fledged dairy, meats, produce, etc. I decided I’d pick up a carton of fresh orange juice.
That was harder than I thought. The juices were mostly blends of mango, strawberry, apple, pineapple, lemon and orange juices. They all seemed delicious, but I was on a mission.
And then I found it:
 |
| From 2009 02 17 Villagio_BilingualSigns |
Oops…let me turn the carton around for you:
 |
| From 2009 02 17 Villagio_BilingualSigns |
Jackpot! I was a good girl and only took one carton, though I was tempted to get about 10 of them! I love orange juice — especially the super-pulpy stuff. The rest of the family prefers the less-pulp kind (to quote Dave: “I don’t want to chew my orange juice”), so I usually enjoy super-thick juices when I’m on my own.
Then I noticed the price: 14 Qatari Riyals. That came to about $4.25 for the 1/2 gallon carton!
Phew!
But I don’t care — I have my OJ and today I’ve enjoyed to nice 8 oz. glasses (okay, plastic cups) of the liquid sunshine!
One of the things I did take pictures of today were the signs for many of the western companies as translated into Arabic. In fact, visit the original photo album and you can play the “what American company is it?” game with some of the signs…
I might be tempted to sneak in one more glass — er, cup — of juice before I head to sleep this afternoon.
This is my attempt to share a video I took about 1/2 hour after the first wall of dust and wind hit us here on the 11th. Visibility was about 1/10 of a mile and the winds were from the northwest at 35-40 knots.
It takes a REALLY long time to upload a video to You Tube from here, so this is a Google Picasa attempt.
Click on it and see what happens…also feel free to view the rest of the pictures from this album here. I didn’t take many, conditions weren’t great for the camera.
The wind has died down considerably today, but the dust is still suspended in about the lowest 500 feet. Visibilities are up to about 3 miles, but dust is still getting everywhere, including my laptop as I type this. Don’t fret, Dave sent me plenty of canned air and computer cleansing wipes.
I sorta figured this would happen while I’m here.
“What’s that?”
A shamal.
“What the heck is a shamal?”
Well, let’s define it here. It’s a strong northerly wind that picks up dust from Syria and Jordan and carries it all the way down the Arabian peninsula.
And it’s shamal-ing right now as I type this. The winds are gusting to 40 knots from the northwest, and the dust came down all the way from Syria — we watched it on the satellite! I even saw the wall of dust towards the northwest minutes before the winds started here, but I was in a no-photography area so I wasn’t able to capture it for you.
(Side note: I have to give public kudos to the forecast team in the U.S. and here at my base for the great job they did predicting its onset here. They said it would arrive by noon, and it got here at 11:55am!)
I have a couple pictures of what shamal vs. non-shamal conditions look like here, but they didn’t turn out really well. I won’t include them here, but I wish I could have captured how it looks here better.
It looks like fog. That “you can’t see your hand in front of your face” kind of fog. If you’re standing inside looking out into this stuff out the window it looks like a brownish-yellow fog. But the wind is howling…and if you inhale too deeply, you start coughing. If you breathe the air without a cover over your mouth for too long, you feel the grit on your teeth. It smells sort of like chalkboard chalk. Do you remember clapping together blackboard erasers when you were younger? And inhaling that dust for too long? That’s the sensation.
You feel the grit on your hands, in your hair, and on the surface of your skin. I stood outside for 5 minutes waiting for a bus from my duty location back to my dorms and could feel how dirty my hair was in that short time. Again, remember how chalk dust feels on your hands after you’ve dusted off the excess. A fine grit.
If your eyes aren’t covered, the dust gets into the eyes and it’s difficult to see as your eyes get watery. I have goggles for my eyes and am carrying around a small towel to cover my mouth.
I was talking to a British fighter pilot today right when the storm started and in a typical British no-holds-barred fashion, he gave gory details about where on our person we’d be finding shamal dust remnants for days after the event ends. I can’t wait.
It becomes hazardous to do things outside in these conditions. As if the winds and reduced visibilities aren’t enough of a problem, the respiratory hazards associated with prolonged inhaling of this dust can be a problem too.
Even though I’m inside right now typing this (I am usually outside where the WiFi is stronger), there’s still a layer of dust settling on my keyboard, and the table on which my laptop is sitting.
A shamal event wreaked havoc on the coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. For you weather weenies, here’s a paper about the meteorology of the shamal that impacted the “march to Baghdad” in late March ’03. There are arguments to this day about the amount of advantage coalition forces were able to gain from the duststorm, but I’m not going there.
So it’ll be interesting to see how I feel when this is all done, and how long before I blow all the dust out of my nose, clean it out of my ears, and wash it out of my hair.
I’ve been sitting in the “Desert Eagle Lounge” where the WiFi is okay, enjoying more from the blog Cake Wrecks. Check it out if you haven’t already, it’s fun and FUNNY!
Anyway, on the big screen TV to my left is SkySports, which airs in Britain (I think) and was showing informercials. I just watched this one with interest. (You can see part of the infomercial at the bottom of the page). It’s called the “Titan Vegetable Shaver” and is essentially a multi-functional veggie peeler.
Were it not that the U.S. dollar is so weak against the British pound, perhaps I’d be willing to shell out the 19.95 GBP + 16.95 GBP shipping + handling to the US for it. What would that all come to? About $50 for a veggie peeler?
But the commercial showed how many amazing things it can do! You can back a truck over it! You can use it for cheese, chocolate, pineapples, giant radishes, other strange British foodstuff…
I have only ever ordered one thing off of a TV commercial in my entire life: Aqua Globes for my Mom this past summer. There were so many problems with the order — they took so long I had moved and changed my billing address on the credit card which resulted in an error come processing time, they were available in stores months before my Mom actually received them. Sorry Mom — I tried!
Okay, before I start my next story, let me show you my new Crocs!
 |
| From 2009 01 10 Southwest Asia |
I guess Crocs is discontinuing their collegiate Crocs, since I could only find Penn State Crocs in their smallest adult sizes online. Oh well.
The BX here had navy blue “Beach” Crocs, khaki “Professional” Crocs (no holes), and orange “Cayman” Crocs.
Orange?
It turned out they were shipped by mistake and were 1/2 price ($12).
So I got a navy blue pair and I’m happy. I plan to order some PSU Jibbitz. Of course.
So let’s get onto my next story:
It’s about hydration. Water here is offered by the pallet-load in these water stations throughout the base. We help ourselves to what we need, whether it’s a single bottle, or a 12-pack. Or several 12-packs.
Here’s a picture of a bottle to show you:
 |
| From 2009 01 10 Southwest Asia |
The company claims this water is from a “Well out from Qatar’s desert from the depth of 70m under the ground. It includes all the necessary mineral factors which help in supporting the bones and suit all ages.”
I checked the label twice, that’s what it says. Really.
Anyway, these are the standard 1/2 liter bottles, like the Ozark, Zephyrhills, or other local water companies in the states. In my room, in the box of leftover stuff donated to the next occupant, there were about 6 boxes of assorted brands of “singles” of beverage mixes, such as by Kool Aid, Crystal Light and Hawaiian Punch. I think Gatorade makes them too. You get a single serving of beverage mix, you dump it into the bottle of water, shake it up, and you have instant FLAVOR for your Qatari water.
I’ve decided these are pretty cool…if anyone’s thinking of a cool care package item, I recommend these, preferably sugar-free. The dining halls carry Crystal Light tea and peach tea here already, so other flavors would be welcome.
And speaking of hydration, the dining halls here also offer us carbonated soft drinks. We get “native” Coke, Pepsi, Fanta, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper and most of their diet variants:
We’re allowed to take 1 or 2 cans of soda out of the dining hall to enjoy later, which I usually do. I either take them to my desk at work, or else I keep them in my fridge and enjoy them later.
A couple days ago, I was unloading two “Pepsi Diets” [sic] into my fridge and I dropped one. It fell to the floor, got a hole on the bottom edge and started spinning on the floor, spraying Pepsi Diet all over my dorm room!
Remember, it’s a small room, so before long, my floor and walls, along with my shoes, backpack and open fridge were covered in Pepsi Diet! UGH! I was able to wrestle the still-spraying can into the trash can to finish its fireworks show with about 1/3 of the soda still in the can.
I had a few cleaning supplies, but what I lacked were rags, towels or sponges for cleaning. I happened across a towel stuffed up on the curtain rod, in place to further darken the room for us night-shift folks. I grabbed that and wiped up what I could.
Good thing it was Pepsi DIET…no harm when it dried up. I picked up a couple of inexpensive washcloths at the BX today with my Crocs…expressly for such emergencies.
Coming soon: they took my extra bunk beds this morning! I’ve finished rearranging the furniture and am beginning to get comfortable! Also, I found signs of life here — my photo album of desert foliage!
This one is about the the incredible support structure at this base. Permanant Air Force bases have an assortment of “services”: a fitness center, lounge/bar/club, library, laundry/dry cleaners, a finance office, movie theater, food service, chapel services, and medical services. They usually operate at hours similar to civilian versions.
All of that stuff has been made available to us here 22-24 hours per day, 7 days per week! Since I’m working nights, it’s fascinating knowing that I can grab a Starbucks coffee* at 11pm, check out a book from the library at 6am, cash a check at 3am, or see “Marley and Me” at the theater at 8am! The fitness centers are open around the clock, laundry drop off/pick up is available around the clock and many of the other services are closed 1-2 hours per day just for cleaning.
The WiFi here is great, by the way! It’s a decent connection, but I’ve been plagued with having to find an available power outlet…along with everyone else with laptops whose batteries don’t last that long. So my first day here I dropped about $100 on not one but TWO batteries (I have two battery ports, since my DVD drive is broken). I can’t wait till they get here…I can plant myself anywhere in the “base services” area and blog or post Facebook statuses…
I’ve attempted the webcam thing with the family just once so far, my work hours have made it hard to merry up with Dave’s and the boys’ school and sleep schedules, but I think that’s going to improve as my schedule settles in better. We have a couple of prime opportunities on weekends…when my battery arrives it should be better. I can plant myself near the WiFi source and get better signals.
When I was younger I used to balk at the limited hours other base agencies would have and the premium placed on morale services available to the troops. Remember, I’m a weatherman…and weather stops for no mission!
The Air Force is often ridiculed by the other services for how laid back they seem — think about it: Air Force troops historically have the best quarters and best services in any given war…
…and because of it, the best morale of all the services and (in my opinion) the most fortitude to work their tails off when it comes time to do so! Like here at this base, right now!
The last time I was in a hostile fire zone, I was a 1st Lieutenant. I was working 16 hour days — and expected the same from everyone around me and didn’t think it was fair that I had to work 16 hours per day, and others on the base only had to work 12 hour days.
I’m now older and I wiser, I guess, and since I’ve arrived I’ve been constantly processing my information as a leader instead of a follower. I’m watching the younger troops’ well being like a hawk and constantly asking if they’re happy with the food and dorms, if they’re getting enough sleep, can they communicate with their families enough, and is there anything more they’d need in terms of morale items? Yes, even in the 4-5 days I’ve been here!
That being said, here’s a link to a photo album I’ve started that covers some of the morale and quality of life items we’re provided over here. You also can enjoy the stunning scenery here. We have strict restrictions on what we can/can’t photograph: no operational stuff, such as aircraft or buildings that contain mission-related stuff and no foreigners without their permission. Some of the things I’d want to photograph often have foreigners around so I’m avoiding it.
*Yes, you read right: We have Starbucks here. See the photo album if you don’t believe me! YUM!
This is Patricia (don’t let the Dr. Dave fool you). Tonight we made our first batch of cookies….
…but not before a shopping extravaganza at Costco on Veteran’s Day. Bulk packs of eggs, butter, sugar, powdered sugar, oatmeal, dried cranberries, vanilla extract…
…but not flour. There was a great deal on a 25 lb. sack of flour, but I couldn’t see myself hauling it home and taking up so much space in my tiny pantry. Two 5lb. bags of Gold Medal from the commissary was fine.
So, the first batch of cookies: Holiday Surprise Cookies, courtesy of the Quaker Oats company. Hit the hyperlink to go to the recipe straight from the horse’s, er, Quaker’s, mouth.
I gave Dave the camera tonight and asked him to document our experience so I’d have some nice pictures with which to blog. He told me, “Okay, I’m going to be like Maryann!”. He did a great job, he took almost all the photos…
So, to start, we have to come up with a filling…this is the “surprise” in the cookie. In years past, we’d used Wilbur Buds, a Lancaster County, PA staple. In fact, the first time I made this recipe was to keep Dave and me from eating an entire bag of Wilbur Buds we’d gotten for Christmas in one sitting, I think. It was either 1999 or 2000…I can’t remember. The beauty of Wilbur Buds is (a) you can buy a combo pack of milk AND dark chocolate together and (b) the buds aren’t individually wrapped.
If I’d had the foresight to order the Wilbur Buds ahead of time I would have. But it was much easier to pick up some assorted flavored Hershey’s Kisses from my local mega mart. As can be seen in this photo, we had a lot of unwrapping to do.
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
As the boys were unwrapping about 100 Kisses, in 3 flavors shown here, I was preparing the dough. It’s essentially a sugar cookie dough replacing about 40% of the flour with oatmeal.
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
Look at those oats — your cholesterol is lowering just looking at it, right? Don’t worry…won’t happen: there’s 2 sticks of butter in the basic recipe…and I doubled it tonight!
Once the chocolates were unwrapped and the dough was ready, I set up the assembly line in the dining room. The boys were great — Jake stuffed the chocolate in the dough, and Timmy rolled the little ball of dough in the colored sugar and placed the ready-to-bake cookie on the baking stone. My job was quality control — I pre-measured wads of dough for Jake to stuff so they’d be uniform in side, and I made sure the cookies were properly spaced on the stone.
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
Does that look holiday or what?
 |
| From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies |
We tested the cookies, of course, and everyone in the Vollmer clan gave them a thumbs up!
Recent Comments