May 30, 2007

I love this picture. I don’t have a name for it, but if I had to come up with one, it would be something along the lines of “Really Sweet Old Man Puts On His Sunday Best, Grabs His Folding Chair And Visits The Memory Of Someone Special”.

We actually chatted with this 86 year old man for quite some time after I took this picture of him, but I don’t know if it needs the story to accompany it. The picture alone is beautiful enough. And you can’t see it in this shot but at the base of the headstone is a single red rose.

We (The InLaws and Mike and I) took Delaney to her first ever Cemetery. It’s funny to me that the thought of a Cemetery used to instill feelings of grossness, spookiness and other such emotions involving facial contortions and gagging sounds, but now, I really find them peaceful and thought-provoking and very very interesting.

(more…)

May 27, 2007

Mike’s parents are here. Can you see a resemblance at all?

I’ll see ya’ll in a day or two. In the mean time, you can look forward to a post about my In-Laws when I return. I’ll leave you with that. But here’s a hint: they’re pretty great. I played Russian Roulette in the In-Law Department and I won.

She won’t respond to anything but Bonzo Beans Butterfly these days. This is her inner Butterfly in action. I love this shot.

Non-Denominational

Something that kind of confuses me and a little bit drives me crazy is when I see signs on a church that say “Non-Denominational!!” and then “We love Jesus!” next to it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t Non-Denominational mean NO Denomination? And, uh, isn’t Christianity a Denomination? I’m quite sure it is.

So, the concept of a Non-Denominational Christian church seems a bit contradictory to me. You?

Just a passing thought. Welcome to the inner ramblings of my mind.

May 23, 2007

I am continuing along my tangent of posting pictures of Iraq and my cute husband’s deployment there. I have been meaning to do a post on Iraq for awhile, like since I started this blog 3 months ago, but I have been putting it off. One, because I had to smuggle the pictures onto the blog from the death grip of my ever-so-wierded-out-by-blog-stuff husband and Two, because I had to be in the right mood to talk about that year and 7 months of our lives.

But, I cracked open the photo album today and after a quick and pleasurable debate (as always) with my good friend Erin at Seriously?, I decided that today was the day.

And since you know me, you should know that the journey won’t be too heavy, emotional or dramatic because I am typically anti-those things and need to keep up with my Robotic and Cynical Persona. And for those of you who may be visiting for the first time right now, please don’t be scared. You will usually find here the most useless and mind-numbing information on the web and I have not given up that theme for this blog, therefore the posts about boob jobs, puking and our family toothbrush will continue to edify your souls once we get this little glitch out of the way.

Mmmmmkay?

Here we go.

Mike leaves. These are all the soldiers piling onto the plane on the tarmac. The families had to stay behind this big yellow line. I cried very hard this day:

My Mom was with me watching Delaney in the car (who was 4 months old at the time) and I just stood there so overwhelmed with what lied ahead of me. I HATED that it was just the beginning. I remember thinking the next day that, thank God, at least one day was down, it wasn’t the very beginning anymore.

The boys took off for some training before heading overseas. They were stationed in Texas and Louisiana for awhile where their rigorous training excercises included:

Playing with spiders:

and practicing Ping Pong (Mike said the enemy greatly fears ping pong prowess):

This was his home away from home in Louisiana, a condemned WWII Barrack:

There was a big sign within the Barracks that instructed the soldiers to NEVER sweep the floor due to the asbestos. Luckily the asbestos had a nice stawberry musk to it.

Hey, he’s cute:

So, the stateside trainings ended and they headed off to Kuwait. Kuwait is nice to us, they like Americans. And they also like Camels and if my neice Olivia was here, she would tell you that they are, in fact, Dramadearies, NOT just Camels:

After a short stay in Kuwait, they headed off to Iraq in a massive convoy in order to get all their equipment up there.

Their convoy was actually at night when they made their initial trip in. Mike recounts that he was so tired, scared and freezing cold that trip. People think of Iraq, they think insanely hot, but it is actually very cold at nights in the winter and since the Army had shipped ahead all of their winter gear, well, that sucked for them. So anyway, Mike gets so delusional from lack of sleep and being so cold for so long that he actually thought that at least if they were hit with an IED, that he could be warm for a split second, and that would be nice.

So, they get there and so begins the year of “boots on the ground”.

You can’t tell in this picture, but this whole truck is packed with Iraqi Prisoners of War, or Terrorists, whathaveyou:

This was taken at Chemical Ali’s house. You may remember him from when he made the mustard gas that killed all the Kurds. The soldiers made a fort out of his house, mostly with sofa cushions and Mike says he left a little bit of pee on the lid of one of the toilet seats:

Oil fields aflame. A display of protest:

Kurdish girls blowing kisses to my husband. He’s still got it goin on:

Army Urinals:

An all too common sight for Mike, Arabs chillin along the side of the road. Are they good guys? Are they bad guys? Are they going to try to blow up a convoy? Or are they just chillin alongside the road? He said the expressions on their faces never changed from these:

If you look closely at that picture you can see that they are holding rosary-type beads. The bad guys will hold those and use the beads to count how many vehicles are in an American convoy or they use them to count how far back in the convoy is the vehicle holding the goods. They then report the info to the REALLY bad guys who were waiting ahead. Or, you know, they could just be some nice dudes counting prayers on their necklaces, which is what the necklaces are supposed to be used for.

Here is either the Tigris or the Euphrates River, Mike couldn’t remember which one this was. Many people believe that this was the location mentioned in Genesis:

Here is Mike looking at the foot of a man that tried to set an IED on their convoy but accidentally blew up himself:

Their convoy steering clear of a roadside bomb:

A random act of unkindness:

The welcome sign into the base. “Military Vehicles Only. Civilian Vehicles Stop Here or YOU WILL BE SHOT”

It was hot:

The locals invited Mike’s unit out to their hometown to eat a real live, home cooked Kurdish meal. Mike rode a donkey and DRANK FROM THE RIVER (so as not to offend, but holy shenanigans that would have turned my behind into the likes of a chocolate fondue fountain):

Finally, the flight back home:

Some previous soldiers had tried to sneak this home through Customs. It didn’t work.

Mike with some random hottie he met at the airport. She is a hottie, I’ll give her that.

And after all that, his kid was all “Um, listen strange guy, I’m not sure if you know me, but I don’t do the whole hugging affectionate crap, so lay off”

AND… cut.

That wasn’t so bad, right? I guess you CAN talk about Iraq politely so long as you don’t bring up religion or politics or President Bush or civil war or the Iraqi Army or Oil or non-dictatorship. IT CAN BE DONE! Imagine that.

The end.

May 22, 2007

So, I wanted to post a picture of Iraq, because I am continually striving to share my life with you my interpeeps, just as you do with me. So I was sifting through Mike’s arsenal of pictures and found the one that I posted in the post below.

Then Mike came home and was all, “Babe, that picture is totally photoshopped and was circling the internet for years because it was taken during Desert Storm.”

heh. Sorry!

So, here is my second attempt at trying to post a picture of Iraq:

These guys are in the Iraqi Army and have to wear face masks as they commute to and from work in order to avoid being recognized and murdered by anti-Americans. Why haven’t the Iraqi Army taken control over their own Country by now you ask? Well, for starters, they are scared out of their minds to even be seen in public as the Iraqi Army.

Decide amongst yourselves whether or not you think the situation will be remedied in the near future. I have ye no answers.