Church

Our normal priest is away right now and the Australian priest conducted today's service. When it came time to begin, it was only the two of us for worship, but as the Prayer Book says, "When two or three are gathered together in his name..." He'd originally told the American priest he would use the Rite I liturgy as we usually do, but since there were only the two of us, he asked if I minded if we used the liturgy he uses at the Australian compound. I told him that was fine by me and I'm very glad I did. (Two more soldiers joined a few minutes into the service.)

The liturgy he used was more like the Rite II service we use back home, with only a few minor variations. It was comfortable, which is funny since I grew up with Rite I and know it almost by heart, but now Rite II seems normal and today's service put me more in mind of home. He used quite a bit of silence during the prayers, which I enjoy, and is something we do at Holy Communion as well. I hate feeling rushed during prayer and silence seems to me to make that time more interactive with God.

The final part of the service was actually after we'd received our blessing and dismissal. As we were chatting with some "biscuits" he'd brought (he attends every week and always brings some Australian cookies) he asked if we noticed there were questions at the end of the bulletin. I had but hadn't looked closely. He said those were for us to take and think about this week if we wanted. Someone said, "Not only did we have a church service, but we have homework!" We laughed.

But as I was walking back to work, it occured to me, we always have homework following church.

Cheers, Pearl

Phenomenon

A couple of days ago, I saw this:



I wasn't sure what to make of it. Perhaps, something had gone wrong but I thought I'd ask some questions first. Turns out, what I was seeing were these things called "CLOUDS."

Interesting.

Clouds.

I had to look them up on the internet. Apparently, when enough moisture builds up in the air, the moisture condenses into these things. Odd.

But there's more. It seems that these clouds can continue to build up moisture and eventually some of that moisture falls to earth. This is called, "RAIN."

Learn something new every day.

(On a slightly more serious note, no kidding I took a picture because these were the first clouds I'd seen since I left the States. And, according to the weather guessers, late October and early November mark the beginning of the rainy season here. We haven't even had a hint of rain but I understand rain makes a big sandy country into a big muddy country. I can hardly wait.)

Cheers, Pearl

Unexpected things

Bats, foxes, and bands. Never imagined I'd encounter these here in Baghdad.

There is a man-made lake here where I like to run run. When I first arrived it was way too hot to try and do any exercise except in the early morning. Lately, we've barely cracked 100 degrees during the day and so it is cool enough to run in the evenings (I know it's hard to imagine 100 feeling pleasant but temperature is quite relative when you've been living through 120 degree days). Anyway, the evenings are quite pleasant and it makes for any enjoyable jog. One of the things that I particularly enjoy is watching the bats come out just before the sun sets. They silently flit around, diving and swirling, eating dinner (breakfast?) and keeping me from having to deal with any bugs - a double win for me! It is facinating to watch them as they fly around, but the other evening I saw something even more beautiful. Right as it was almost too dark to see, a fox came running out of the vegitation next to the lake right past me. (One of the reasons I like running around the lake is it is the only green area around with vegetation along the shore and fish jumping to get bugs the bats miss). The fox didn't even really give me any notice and we just passed jogging in opposite directions. He/she was deep auburn/brown with a big, bushy tail with a white tip, stereotypical fox markings as if it had been drawn by Walt Disney.

Another unexpected find here is dinner music. It is not unusual, especially over at the Division dining facility (DFAC) where the big staff eats, to have some small combo band playing during dinner. I've heard everything from jazz, to winds, to electric rock (the last play outside but rest assured you can hear them just fine in where we are eating). I've never been able to find out if these are just soldiers who want to keep up their musical skills or if they are over here as part of a military band and their job is to go around playing these gigs. I would like to think they are playing just for the fun of it; I can't imagine being a piccolo player, deciding to join the Army, and finding out that my piccolo skills are needed most in Baghdad. But, then again, I can't imagine joining the Army and not expecting to spend a tour or two or three over here.

But, I wasn't expecting to be over here with a U.S. Navy tape on my Army uniform either so what do I know!

In and on

Yippee; I'm in my new quarters and online again! Life is good! My room is the far door. As you can see, I have a lovely view of one of our ubiquitous concrete walls but still, I'm in a place I can make somewhat permanent. I've added a couple of small area rugs to cover up the grey tile floor and will work on getting something to put on the bare, panel walls. The big coup was getting internet established but again, my Chief came through and now I'm online to the world. One of the other O-5s has the near room and we share a small bath in the middle. Oh Mom, in the small world category, he is a graduate from Appalachian State and he has a relative who works at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.



Speaking of my Chief, he's been here a little longer and has done some extensive modifications to his quarters. We grilled steaks there again tonight and it is such a nice break from the DFAC. Having just a few of the guys over in a relaxed atmosphere makes for a great change of pace to everyday life. The only thing missing was a cooler full of cold beer; guess I'll have to wait until I throw my, "Back in the World" party when I get home and can enjoy my deck again.

Life is settling into a good routine now. I'm getting comfortable in my job and now I've quit being a nomad for a while. The job is rewarding and there's nothing quite like giving a live demonstration of our equipment to a soldier and having him say, "Wow! Your stuff really works!" Makes them feel safer and takes away one more thing they need to worry about while on mission. Like I said, life is good.

Cheers, Pearl

PS - I've added a new link - Gritty Kitty Blog. "Toonces" is a junior officer with whom I went through training and is over here doing the same job I am. I was checking my statistics for the previous blog and saw I was getting referrals from her blog. I thought I'd return the favor. Quite the blog network we have going.

500!

Right now I don't have internet access in my room so I'm trying remote posting through e-mail. On government internet systems I can read blogs but I cannot log in to make posts or edits. Hopefully this remote posting works, or even better, hopefully my room internet is connected tomorrow and I'll be back to normal operations.

In blog news, I'm over 500 readers! Unbelievable! That means that over 500 times y'all have had so little to do that you've checked in to see what, and how, I was doing; simply amazing! My goal when I started was to have an easy way to send news back to a few folks at home. Selfishly, I just didn't think I'd write enough e-mail to everyone to stay in touch and thought that if I had one central news location I could keep folks at home informed with the least amount of effort on my part. And now, my site has had over 500 hits!

The polite response I suppose would be a simple, "Thank you" to everyone who is keeping up with my adventures in Iraq. As the one over here, I don't always see the interesting story in what we are doing here on a day-to-day basis. I certainly don't find my personal day-to-day life that exciting. But one thing I will admit, it is unlike anything I have ever done before!