Saddam's Daughter's Palace - Originally Posted 14 December 2005

This is the picture I was trying to post yesterday. It is a palace across the moat from us that Saddam reportedly built for his daughter. Tomorrow is election day here in Iraq. I know that many are very skeptical about how successful the election will be but we have to remember that democracy takes time. Remember that the US was born in 1776 but fought a civil war in the 1860's . I hope the Iraqis will be able to take care of their own country soon. The region filled the vacuum we allowed to be created after the fall of Saddam and the vacuum that would be created by us leaving precipitously would, I feel, destabilize the whole region even more than it already is. Anyway, I try to pray every day that nobody dies tomorrow. Sometimes it works.

Hot Water - Originally Posted 13 December 2005

Here's the hot water issue - taking hot showers is a pretty important thing around here. So when I got to the tent/shower container (the container part is a little trailer thingy that has the shower stalls in it) this morning and it was full of women yelling that there was no hot water, I was certainly a bit concerned. Actually, I woke up feeling like crap with a sore throat and stormed out of the tent/shower container heading toward the generator to reset it since nobody else would. Well, what would by wondering eyes should appear but a soldier in full PT gear, M16 and a Santa hat chatting with a Filipino guy. Of course, all of the Filipino guys have to say "Good Morning, Ma'am" to you even though, or especially because, you are half dressed storming toward the generator. Next thing I know, Santa soldier whips his head around to see who it is just as I slide on a pile of loose dirt in my shower shoes and continue to storm, pinwheeling toward the evil generator. Finally I reset the generator and head back to the tent/shower container and wait for the hot water. I'm thinking it will take at least 10 minutes for some tepid water. God Bless the Army, because that generator boiled about 100 gallons in those 10 minutes and I had one of the best showers ever!

Mr. Authoritative - Originally Posted 11 December 2005

This is a mural on one of the walls at Camp Stryker. It is supposedly of the Iran-Iraq war. We look at it when we are waiting for the bus to take us back to Camp Victory. I wonder if that would irritate Saddam? Hmmmm, anyway, back to Mr. Authoritative. Last night I was rudely interrupted while watching on my new laptop the first episode of South Park from a pirated "compleat set" that I bought in the "Haji Mart" for 20 bucks. I was just laughing at Cartman setting the cat on fire when I started hearing AK-47 fire. A LOT of AK-47 fire which has a pretty unmistakable sound to it. So Nancy, Kristy and I looked at each other over our laptop screens and decided we were going to go investigate this. Stepping out of our tent we see tracer rounds sort of in the distance, but flying all over the place. Then we hear some 50cal rounds going off and start thinking that this beginning to be irritating. Enter Mr. Authoritative - he comes sauntering over with his kevlar helmet and flak vest with no shirt underneath - yuck! For some reason, Mr. Authoritative sees three female military officers and thinks "Damsels in distress! I must save them!" So he and his barely shaving companion decide that they are going to tell us all about how they had heard that the insurgents were going to be attacking the compound in advance of the elections and that this was what was happening. I told him that I thought there would be a HELL of a lot more outgoing fire if that were true and Nancy said that it looks like they are shooting straight up. Just then the "Big Voice" comes over the loudspeaker and says "ATTENTION Camp Victory, we are NOT under attack. What you are hearing is celebratory gunfire because of the Iraqi national soccer team's victory. Stay indoors until further notice." Well, Mr. Authoritative vanished into thin air. It was amazing. We couldn't stop laughing. Now we think we know why the Iraqis are so angry. They don't get enough sleep! They stay up all night shooting into the air, then the Allah Akbar Guy wakes them up at 0500 to pray. Well, I'm off to bed. Hopefully no more soccer games.

Just When I Had No Hope - A Miracle! - Originally Posted 10 December 2005

Since I left the wonderful US of A, I've had a few things more than I should have had to worry about and still do. Some of you know about it - I'll tell anyone who doesn't later. I try to get through the day the best I can knowing that my dear husband is holding down the fort and taking care of our kids. Soooo, here's the deal - I've been ordering things to be sent here, just little things, like rubber boots, shampoo, toothpaste - stuff like that - that make life go. Everyone else has been getting their packages just fine after a week or so. I ordered things before Thanksgiving and still nothing. Well I found out today that our mail room here has had all of my packages for the last two weeks and didn't deliver them. AND they just mailed them all back to where they came from. For some reason THIS has caused me to cry and blubber just like a baby. So I called LL Bean and told them my situation - they are Soooo wonderful - they are going to try to intercept them - LL Bean - at Christmastime!! They never do that, but are making a special arrangement for me because I am in Iraq. Then I called Estee Lauder online to track down my moisturizer, again, not a big deal. I got Leslie on the phone who was just beside herself that this had happened to me. She was asking me about which free sample I wanted and then we were chatting about that I had other packages sent back too with my shampoo that I'm not allergic to, etc. So she asked my what kind of shampoo I wanted - I thought Estee Lauder started making shampoo and she was going to send me a sample. NO - she made me run down a list and she is sending me a care package of all kinds of stuff. Leslie apparently sends a big care package every year and never knows who get it. This time she is sending it to me and I promised that everything she sent I would promise that all the things would be passed out to some very grateful women that live with me in tent city. We had another unit arrive last night - so the tents will be filling up again. Can you believe how nice that is? Just when I was ready to lose my mind - a miracle of nice people to make me feel better.

This flower is the one I mentioned from a few posts ago. And - I got my laptop today!!! Thanks to Dave and my brother in law Allen for my wonderful computer - you guys rock!! Life is good. :)

All the Comforts of Home - Originally Posted 5 December 2005

Here's a picture of my Army issue rack in my oh-so spacious tent. Thank God Michaela made me the whale pillow you see. Otherwise I would have been pillow free for a long time. I have 550 cord (parachute line) and bungee cords strung up so I can hang up my stuff. I also bought a black plastic foot locker so I can get at my stuff without rummaging through my duffle bag. The tents are heated and air-conditioned but the dust still blows in the sides and gets on everything. It's not so bad here. The Dee-Fac (dining facility) is good and they have Baskin Robbins ice cream and diet coke. We even have a laundry service here that turns around in about 36 hours. I was sooo allergic to the soap they use though and have to provide my own. Because all of the laundry employees are TCNs (third country nationals) anything out of the ordinary causes a huge rift in the space-time continuum. It's funny turning your stuff in. You dump out all your dirty clothes on the table so the KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root - a Halliburton company) employee can inventory everything. Two brown towels, two pairs pants ... etc. Of course everyone but me is carrying a weapon of some kind. I really have to get used to the people wearing these pistol harnesses that leaves the muzzle facing directly to the rear. On base they cannot have magazines in them, but after being taught gun safety by my extremely safe Dad, I can't get over having weapons nonchalantly pointed in my direction.

If you are not in the palace, you are relegated to using porta johns when you have to use the rest room. Luckily, they are cleaned once a day and new, blue goo added. The ones by our work trailers are sort of at an angle canted backward, so you don't feel especially secure. What's even better is that the humvees and other armored tactical vehicles come around the corner in the dark - oh yea, you're in the dark too! I would hate to be a casualty from being hit in the porta john by a humvee!! I have several little LED flashlights attached to my badge holder because there aren't too many lights around here and you have to walk everywhere. Civilians have to have their IDs, passports and orders on their person at all times - hence the badge holder.

Life here is pretty spartan, but it has a certain elegance to the simplicity. Last night I was awakened by what I thought was an alien spacecraft hovering over our tent. It sounded like a jet not the usual low-flying helo. But in retrospect I don't think it was alien. I'm still here anyway and haven't been abducted. I would consider letting myself be abducted by aliens if I could use a real bathroom. Till tomorrow ...

Evenings Are Beautiful In Iraq - Originally Posted 6 Dec 2005

This is a picture of one of our beautiful sunsets here in Baghdad. It might be because of the light filtering through all the sand in the air that makes it so pretty, but it may be also because things are so bleak, vegetation-wise around here, God thought to give us pretty sunsets all the time. I saw some pretty pink flowers on a tree the other day. I have to go get a picture of them because they are out of the ordinary.

You can see Saturn and Jupiter pretty brightly here now. Saturn was so bright I thought it was Venus at first but it was too high in the sky. There is a lot of light pollution here, mostly because of us Americans, but you can still see a ton of constellations. For some reason, the Army insists on having a night flag football league. It's not that hot here during the day now, but whatever. They have generators running at about a million decibels powering lights bright enough to alert people that might live on Neptune that there is a football game on. The Iraqis have about three hours of electricity a day because of rationing. If I were Iraqi, I would mortar the football game, just on general principles. But apparently nobody is too concerned about that happening.

I am trying to learn about how Iraqis think about things. They are very indirect communicators, meaning, they beat around the bush and think those who just say what they mean are rude. Hence, they usually think all Americans are rude. But they try to adapt to us and we try to adapt to them. All of the Iraqis I've met are very nice and like to hear that we are passionate about helping them bring peace and democracy to their country. Enough for now! See ya!

Good Morning From the Allah Akbar Guy - Originally Posted 7 Dec 2005

Actually, this is another beautiful sunset picture. I will try to get one tonight from another vantage point without military vehicles and buildings in the scene. But back to the Allah Akbar guy - As some of you may know, in the Muslim religion, one is required to pray five times a day. The first time of the day being at around 0500. Soooo, at 0500, there is a loudspeaker seemingly right outside my tent blaring the morning Muslim call to prayer. It is actually really a beautiful sounding call. How can someone singing God is Great (Allah Akbar in Arabic) be anything but beautiful? Well, I would prefer if they kept the volume down at 0500, but I really do sleep through it most of the time. I think it is very sad that the F$%^ing Insurgents or RBGs (Really Bad Guys) always say Allah Akbar right when they are blowing our guys up, or taking out Iraqi civilians, or GIs and the kids they are giving toys and candy to. I wish I knew what God thought about all this mess. He's probably sad.

DFAC Booty - Originally Posted 9 Dec 2005

It's amazing the kinds of things that make you happy here in paradise. Just the fact that the dining facility (DFAC, pronounced DEE-fak) had Iced Oatmeal Raisin Power Bars today is enough to put a little extra skip in my step! The milk here is made from powder and then is irradiated to make it shelf stable. As you can see in the picture, they are kind enough to translate what you are drinking from the Arabic. It's nice to know before you stick the straw in that it's not camel pee! They just got those little Cremora pot of nice creamer last week. I thought I went to heaven!! Back to the irradiated milk - I really doesn't taste too bad as long as it is in cereal. I have a sneaking suspicion that this milk will still be around for the cockroaches to drink if there's ever a nuclear holocaust. Off to get another cup of Joe!! xoxo