Chillaxin'!!!

Wow!  Sleep and relaxation have never felt so good.  I am to the bone tired and didn't realize it - no gunfire, bombing or rocket attack sirens at night do a girl good!  So far, this has been a perfect trip and there are MANY more days remaining.  Time is thankfully passing slowly and we don't wear our watches, so we eat, drink, swim and wander whenever we feel like it.  Dubai was amazing but hot and muggy unlike anything I have ever experienced - good for a day though.  Made an exotic purchase of a Samsonite and then some perfume oils that are fabulous and then got on a plane and headed the hell out of there!  Here's a steamy pic of one of the street sculptures and the tallest building in the world from the inside of the largest mall in the world - size complex, maybe?  I ended up in the Dubai airport for many hours waiting for my 11pm flight, then tried to sleep sitting up for six and a half hours - by the time I reached Thailand I was exhausted, but only a 5 hour layover until Phuket!

I absolutely love Thailand.  It's incredible - excellent resorts, but still the soft underbelly of street life that I am so drawn to - tons of ladyboys here which has been interesting.  So different than their counterparts in the states, but since they aren't ostracized here, it creates an obvious difference in demeanor.  The resort we are enjoying this first week is amazing - the villa is 3 stories with a private plunge pool on the top and our own butler.  We are so used to doing grunt work that it's been an adjustment to let someone else cater to your every whim, but I am somehow dealing with it :)  It's incredibly serene, quiet and beautifully landscaped here - every place on the street has gardens, potted plants, little spirit houses and shrines all over AND they burn incense 24-7 here.  I brought a ton with me because I cannot burn it obviously in my tent room and miss it greatly.  I have thrived on it from way back in the day of being 12 and burning my strawberry incense from Spencer's Gifts, while listening to my Rush albums - oh yea, and ELO along with the K-tel mixed albums.  Haven't thought about any of that until arriving here!  This is the lobby of this stunning place - I really can't say enough about it except that we are here off-season and that made it much more affordable!

We lounged by the pool the first night, ordered some delicious grub from the 5-star restaurant here, drank a ton of wine and beer and basically reveled in gluttony!  The pic on the left is one of the lagoon pool areas in the main section and the one on the right is the Jewbilee in the corridor walkway from our swanky residence.  Yesterday we explored the streets and local shops around the resort, swam and floated around in our pool then shaved the legs and were off to the beachfront bar and restaurant which were AMAZING - and they shot off fireworks on the sand.  Lots of menfolk with their Thai dates and you know how much I love what that scene insinuates - seediness!!!  Here's a pic of me before I realized I needed to button up and a pic of the bar.  Boobie alert!  AnyDrunkyMcMurphy ... we ended a fabulous day with an evening swim.

More to come later this week, but count on it being self-indulgent and low-brow!  Of course I would be speaking of me, as my traveling compadre is the pinnacle of self-control and appropriateness - that was, until this trip!  We are truly having a blast and a wonderful time and thank you all for your enthusiasm and well wishes for this much needed vacation!

Drink of the Day - a wine-beer-rum-fruitjuice assortment of beverages!  My liver is in excellent form so far!

Roger that!

What an interesting week!  Our fearless general and his comrades come off like 20-something stoners at a frat house, one beer bong away from restrained conversation - I still cannot believe that McChrsytal's commentary was not somehow ... purposeful? A way to exit a losing military strategy due to the fact that we will never be here long enough to win "hearts and minds?  Who knows, but allowing a reporter to partake in your alcohol fueled chatfest with your besties of girlfriends certainly wasn't the smartest thing in the world.  I just kept thinking of Beavis and Butthead ...  "heh, heh - you said "bite me" - heh, heh" - poor, ignored Biden - that's more press than he's received since he became vice president.  They should have all run off to Fire Island for a weekend of throw-caution-to-the-wind male bonding, and worked it out privately rather than via a Rolling Stones article.  Not much reaction over here and possibly some disappointment that the strategy isn't planned to change.  Maybe we'll at least get Burger King back.  This war has long been less than newsworthy in the US, but hopefully we now have a population of citizens who at least know where Afghanistan is - and hopefully they took note of Pakistan's location as that little nugget of peace-loving people will become the next poster children for "democratic opportunity"!

Next weekend at this time, I shall be blogging from the comfort of my private plunge pool, in a destination full of lush greenery - cocktail in hand, satisfied smile on my face, flutter kicking my way to happiness and joy in clear, chlorinated waters.  I'm pretty excited to just get to walk around - freely - and not be around a bunch of people dressed alike with weapons.  I've almost forgotten that people can do things. like laundry or take in a cup of joe, without an automatic assault rifle dangling from their shoulder.  I've been goosed more than once by weaponry while trying to navigate narrow walkways so I think certain parts of my anatomy will actually be able to relax while walking through a crowd - what a novel idea!  Even walking barefoot will be a liberating experience, not to mention a hot, soaking tubbie.  Needless to say, I cannot wait and then you will not have to read about it anymore.

Today is my much anticipated day off where I clean my 10 x 10 foot tent space and stay inside all day.  Yesterday was 122 degrees and not much cooler in these tents - I felt like the skin was going to melt off of my arms.  Thank the higher power for good, technical clothing because you can actually dry off in this heat once you find air circulation.  I have long gotten used to brushing the salt deposits off my face and eyebrows that the sweat leaves behind - my very own, homemade exfoliating salt scrub.  The only thing that really gets irritating is that you will sweat so much that you can be temporarily blinded by it running into and burning the hell out of your eyeballs.  That's especially fun while driving, but since we can't go over 20 Km, there's plenty of time to correct the wheel - you seriously are never out of second gear.  It's like permanently driving with your Grandma - at war - on a Sunday, to the pharmacy ...  I so miss my grandma - Grammy P - she would get a kick out of me being here!


Well - this Desert Warrior (that's a computer and pen Warrior) is soon to be a fruity Dessert Warrior!  Can't wait for some fresh fruit and veggies, Thai food and some high brow umbrella drinks - the countdown is on! I hope you are all enjoying your weekends - I certainly intend to!

Drink of the Day - Water, with a splash of water - chilled and stirred to the left.

This one's for Poo!

Good Morning Everyone!  Hope you all enjoyed a fantastic week and are in the midst of an excellent weekend.  I was reminded that its Geotta Fest in my place of residence - a whole festival dedicated to one of my favorite foods! Although I have to admit that I have no clue what's in geotta and I'm not sure I want to know - the most important issue is that I love it and that it pops when you cook it!

Today I'm dedicating this post to my active fantasy and day dreaming life.  These pics are from one of the resorts I will be enjoying in just about 12 days.  I can almost smell the pool and ocean and hear the ice clinking in my rum and fruit drink!  I have not been totally or mentally committed to Afghanistan for the past month and it gets worse as this two week reprieve closes in.

Oh my!  The words I am typing just ran into the bed I will be enjoying for an entire week at this particular location.  We are staying at another mind boggling place the week before this - Phuket, for two weeks, in two different resorts!  My Momma did not raise a dummy!  Being crammed into a bottom-bunk twin bed will only be a memory once I am here!  There will be no walls that flap in the wind nor any co-habitants that are right on the other side of a plywood wall divider.  This place also has a soaking tub, access to ice cubes and from the looks of it, very little dust or dirt!

What?  You say I can fall from my room directly into the pool?  Fabulous!  As long as nobody pulls a "Natalie Wood", this sounds perfect so far.  So, this is how it plays out in my head day after day after day...  it will be so nice to swim in a pool as compared to showering in non-potable, chlorinated water.  I am also planning to leave a day early and spend the night in Dubai.  That should give me a day to "get right" so that I will be less potentially annoying to my traveling companion.  I feel like I've been here for years!   The Thailand adventure will also involve a day of cooking school on the beach and also a day of boating, sea canoeing and snorkeling in the outer islands.   Being over here seems to be worthwhile if I can continue to travel like this!  It really can't get here fast enough.  OK, I'm finished with  the vacation talk.  On to more pertinent matters...

Our tent now has 3 more residents as these women from the Department of Development just moved in - it took some minor adjusting, but I am used to them now.  For the last several months it has been just me and one other person in this tent - she and I are pretty quiet and extremely clean - hopefully these women will be as well.  Apparently the friends and family of Menno Paws must have still been living in the tent because once the new residents moved in, the mice were back - I think their ghettos were torn down and they were therefore provided with housing vouchers and moved to my room.  I came back from the gym yesterday morning and kept hearing a horrific squeaking only to find TWO mice stuck on the sticky pad my parental units had sent me!  Still alive, biting each other, stuck to this glue trap - it was really horrible.  I had to call a friend over to retrieve them and they were tossed into the dumpster.  I seriously felt horrible about it for a few minutes, but then remembered how afraid I am of what exists right up the food chain and got over it.  Hell, those glue traps work well!  The other traps in my room didn't even go off.  Today I spent pulling everything out of its place and cleaning - surprisingly, I found mouse poo everywhere and they apparently have an appetite for  Ramen Noodles and like hanging out in my metal locker-closet.  Nasty!  But now all is clean and I have a better idea where to check for evidence in the future.

So, no rocket attacks at all this week.  Weird and creepy.  Apparently the intel is rather disturbing with reports of the Taliban hoarding their supplies in order to launch a bigger attack.  They had better hope that nothing disturbs my two week escape from this place or there will be hell to pay and a few less virgins to meet them in their promised land!  I can't remember how many they are promised for being martyrs, but it's significant - which is quite interesting since their religious beliefs lead to significant sexual encounters with other men and boys.  I talked to a doctor working over here with the Afghan/Taliban population who told me that anal gonorrhea is at epidemic proportions here - "yuck-O" - anyone who knows me well would know how much i enjoyed hearing that information and placing it in my Fun and Disturbing Facts file in me head!  That's a lot of sore butts and may explain some of the defecation issues here (I sat in yet another meeting where pooping in the shower by these guys was discussed).  I have requested pictures of the signs they post at these FOBs.  One is of a man squatting in the shower over a pile of poo with a line thru it (not permitted) - there's also one for no standing on the toilet and another that nobody understood, which I can't even begin to describe.  So, be excited!  I will post these as soon as I get them.  What am I, 2?  I don't know why I find this whole situation so unbelievable, yet entertaining.  So to be fair, here's something the Afghans do very, very well - garden!

This is a greenhouse that an Afghan resident had constructed and grown at one of the FOBs I am planning.  It was beautiful.  They also like to grow a ton of weed and hashish and spend many hours a day high as kites.  Oh yes, and there's the opium - they need to open a University here ... Must make training them pretty interesting.  I'm totally confident in their abilities to defend their own country from the Taliban - right... but they certainly do have green thumbs (and troublesome posteriors).

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend.  I plan on thoroughly enjoying the remainder of mine!

Drink of the Day - Ice Cold Water, but with no ice...

Afghan Boys School

Hello all!  For some reason, I can only access my blog page once or twice a week - I have my suspicions, but overall it's just a frustrating situation.  SO!  Big, busy week that just passed - planning for 20 pounds of flowers in a 5 pound vase so to speak and all from the lovely confines of Kandahar Air Base.  Between the troops coming in and all the fire and rocket activity around here, I luckily didn't have to fly anywhere this week.  However, it was the first time in a long time that I have spent an entire week on base.  These days we refer to it as the low-rent, Federal Prison - without the conjugal visits, tennis courts, visitors or stock advice.  I cannot, but will, speak for my co-workers in saying that everyone would like to get the hell out of here and soon - if just for 2 weeks!  The monotony of living and working in the same space, combined with ... the monotony ... is making me impatient and stir crazy.  I officially have less than 3 weeks before my vacation begins and I hope it will cure what ails me.  Actually, in 3 weeks I will be in my own private rooftop pool, sipping on a cocktail and taking in the view - it doesn't even seem possible.

In order to deal with the sameness and boredom, I have resolved to try new things - all two of them - my options are limited, but I will say that I surprisingly like Yoga, and the Pump and Crunch kicked my behind.  I was motivated to pursue new and interesting endeavors after learning that the shot we heard the other day was actually a young soldier who had recently arrived, putting a round through his own head.  He did this in the middle of the day, right across the street.  Very sad, and a reminder of how important it is to keep yourself focused, positive, busy and just how precious it all is.  Also a reminder to watch and listen to what you hear and observe every day - people are going through all kinds of things while here and some don't handle it well.  Therefore, lesson for the week - bad things happen, so make sure they don't happen to you!  If that sounds callous, I truly apologize, but it takes so much energy to keep yourself focused and on top of your own game, that you have very little to give to those who may need or crave way too much.

All in all, this week culminated in my doing something rather odd for me - volunteering to spend a morning with children that were not relation nor the offspring of my friends.  They didn't speak much, if any, English which seemed to be a plus too so I said to myself, "yea, I will go forth and enlighten the little children with my mad painting and puzzle assembly skillz - shizzizzle...".  So, after a bumpy beginning, it ended up being a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, no girls are allowed to go to the school - something I equate with the lack of electricity and western toilet usage capabilities - once the girls are allowed to be educated, this country should flower into a cultural hotbed complete with toilet facilities!  The other issue is that it took a while for the kids to show up as compared to their normal arrival - something that didn't go unnoticed by the rest of us.  Made for a nervous morning, but finally they all arrived.  People don't show up here for work, to run their shops or for these schools if something bad is about to happen - they always know - so standing around a new school with no kids showing up was a little nerve jingling.  Even though this school is on the base, it's right on the perimeter fence where the weekly bazaar is, so it wouldn't be difficult to hit.  Luckily, that wasn't the plan and it ended up being a lot of fun.


Boys are boys no matter what country and culture they are from, I will tell you that!  And some of them had decent English capabilities - my Pashto still isn't good enough to keep up with them.  They called the  women "MADAM" and kept singing Happy Birthday Canada - it was a bit weird, yes, but glitter and glue are universal  and the little artists, con-men, flirts and sweethearts all showed themselves throughout the morning.  Most Afghans from the area aren't able to write or read their own language so this school teaches them to do so and also some English.  Although they can't write, they love pens, and will try to hustle you out of them every chance they get.  I brought a ton of pens, but I doubt they got much joy out of them.  The government does an excellent thing and that is buying many of our supplies and equipment from a company that employs individuals with particular types of disabilities - one group being those dealing with blindness who, by no odd coincidence, make our pens.  The unfortunate thing is that the pens don't work very well, if at all, and it always strikes me as ironic.  I value my vision, so I still think it's cool we buy from this company even if the result isn't perfect.

Today is a beautiful Sunday with only a few, biscuit shaped clouds in the sky - they are giving me the munchies.  I plan to sit in a camping chair, on top of the picnic table, and try to even out my hillbilly tan - at least take it to the shorts and shoulder line.  Reading an excellent book that was highly recommended called "Three Cups of Tea" - I am hoping to learn something.  Hope you all enjoy your week - I plan to post more frequently as soon as the inerlet, lets me.  I suspect they have been jamming the signals the last several weeks ... whatever.

Drink of the day - a Chrystal Carrington light mixture of  peach and lemon-aid!

Back in the Game!

Finally. Finally I have enough bandwidth to access this site!  It's been a crazy, busy week but combined with limited internet access, I've felt really cut-off.  I also have a bad case of vacationitis to boot.  I did receive some excellent items in the mail this week - St. Alphonso's T-shirts and also some Wine Festival wear in addition to DVDs, snacks and some high end facial treatment products.  On that note, I am absolutely certain that I am the only customer of Arbonne who opened her package with a switchblade.  But thank you for the constant thoughtfulness and generosity in the package department.  You have no idea how much it settles and calms one to open a box of fun and be clearly reminded of those who sent it - that includes receiving the emails too!  Working over here is certainly not for everyone and I often wonder if it's for me, but for the most part it's become "normal" - and then you remember you live in a tent and haven't seen ice in months.  I do have it much, much better than the majority of the military here and I am aware of that every day - I worry about who will be injured or killed for what now is shaping up to be such a futile effort, and think of their families.

As for what's happening here - it's simply nuts.  Work-wise, this whole troop surge situation is a cluster of confusion and too-many-chiefs syndrome.  It has resulted in many interesting little trips for me, but  not much being accomplished in the decision making realm and therefore nothing significant ending up on a map or in any written documents.  I have to constantly remind myself to simply plug along and remember that this is the unusual experience I was hoping for - one that will hopefully result in captivating work for the next several years - in exotic places - and some much needed financial freedom.  Big Picture, right?  All of this would be pretty much a flake of poo on the bottom of my shoe if I were ending the day with a steaming hot bath in my air tub accompanied by a large goblet of wine and the company of loved ones, but alas, that is not the situation so I just power through it.  I am simply caught up too much in the day to day and forgetting my big picture - one that is so cheery and bright (think Van Gough) that all of this will just eventually be an interesting conversation among friends and family over a savory dinner.

My family has high-tailed it out of town for the annual family vacation!  Last year the theme was "catch with your face" after too many rousing games in the pool with the little ones and their Aunts and Uncles - no tears are allowed if you happen to take a shot in the face with a wet, NERF football - you simply have to learn how to catch it!  This year I am missing out on the fun, but hope to be able to someday provide my own Florida haven for the family and friends to descend upon several times each year.   Besides, the kids are getting one more solid year of good mental health without this particular Auntie there to inadvertently scar their little psyches with my boisterous displays of love, affection and commentary.  They will be stronger for next year!  I was, however, shocked to be informed that one niece - a pre-tween - has placed herself up for adoption solely to my brother and his wife.  I have a feeling that's something my sister may take her up on in the next couple of years... that kid cracks me up and is certain to be a handful!  I wish I were participating in the annual vacation event, but certainly plan to next year!

So today I am enjoying an odd day off thanks to having to fly out to a FOB on my official day off tomorrow.  We are hosting a cookout later today which has me very curious as to what we are actually cooking and where it originated?  I might finally enjoy the scent of food on the grill - I'm being cautiously optimistic but really hope it happens just like it was described!  I feel like a member of a remote Amazonian tribe, confronted with the curiosity of that which is "different".  If there are actual, totally real, steak or hotdogs that will literally be grilled, I am totally prepared to act out the Monolith Monkey scene from "2001: A Space Odyssey".  Lets hope it happens - Oook Oook!

I hope the rest of you are enjoying now what is officially summer!  The summer of 2010!  I hope it's a good one for everyone and I wish I was enjoying mine at home - but alas, I am not so I will sign off now and go look at my checkbook to remind myself of why being here isn't really so bad~

Drink of the Day - Fake cold beer to be enjoyed around a real BBQ (hopefully)