Sitting at work with nothing to do...

Since I left the visitation center I have really run out of material. No kids to complain about; no parents to lament; no toys to lug around. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy life at in-processing, but I really don't find it all that interesting anymore. Plus, the shift is longer everyday, so my free-time has been drastically shortened. Point being, that more and more of what I think about now has nothing to do with my job and location.

Here are some random thoughts…

-Last week I watched the first season of Desperate Housewives. It has all the characteristics of a horrible TV show: bad acting, cartoonish stereotypes, a predictable plot, the wise beyond her years/ smarter than mom/ really annoying teenage daughter, and Teri Hatcher; I had forgotten just how bad an actress she was. It is no wonder that she won the Golden Globe and Felicity Huffman won the Emmy. Teri joins the ever growing list of “Isn’t This Category for Acting?” Golden Globe winners like Madonna, and Paul Hogan (yes, Crocodile Dundee himself). And don’t even get me started on that holier than thou, omniscient, voice-over which contributes nothing to the show outside of stating the obvious. While it is cute and all that the dead lady watches over everyone, it would be nice to get a little insight like what the narrators on The Wonder Years or Arrested Development give. And that “breathy” voice she uses just makes me cringe.
Despite all these things, I was hooked. The writing was clever, funny, and captivating. Marcia Cross is amazing; in my opinion, she should have won both Golden Globe and Emmy awards. I found myself both getting into the story and caring about the characters. I can’t wait until I can get my hands on a bootleg copy of the second season once it is completed.

-All the magazines have started coming. It is GREAT!! So far I’ve gotten Esquire, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated, and The New Yorker. I read them all right away and then bring them to work to share with everyone else. Everyone I work with appreciates the link to the real world.

-The most bang for the buck definitely comes from The New Yorker. There is so much stuff packed into an issue. It takes me almost 4 days to read the whole thing. This is the complete opposite of Entertainment Weekly and SI, which I read both of in one evening. All the articles in The New Yorker are just so long. It has to be like reading a short book. Good stuff though.

-I read The House of The Seven Gables this week. Oh…my…lord, that is one boring book. He manages to cram about 50 pages of story into about 300 pages of novel. Good job Nate. I really was not interested in the way he described every minute detail of every damned person and thing in the book to me. What the hell ever happened to letting the reader use their imagination?

Never the wrong time for ice cream...

Living in a combat zone, you tend to take fire from the locals. Generally they aren't really aiming at anything and are just hoping they get lucky. Honestly, you get used to it after the first few times simply because you reconcile yourself to the fact that there isn't all that much you can do. If you are outside, you go to a bunker or get indoors for some cover. The one's who have it real bad are the detainees because they don't wear all the gear we do, so a stray round is bad for them.
We got some the other day when I was working. Everyone put all their gear on and some people were getting really excited. I took the opportunity to eat a bowl of ice cream from the freezer in the break room. It was rainbow sherbet. I hadn't had any for a while; generally I eat cookies and cream or mint chip, but today all there happened to be was rainbow sherbet. Rainbow sherbet is kind of a little kid flavor of ice cream; in fact, until I discovered chocolate malted crunch at Thrifty, it was my favorite growing up. It doesn't really match the uniform either. I think the only flavor that is worse to eat in uniform is strawberry. The best is probably chocolate. For some reason I think that chocolate is the flavor that embodies the Army the best.
I'll make sure to have some in the freezer for the next attack.