Where's the sweat?

This morning I left my trailer to start my normal trek to “work” when I noticed something peculiar in the air. I walked a little further and strained my senses in search of the difference. Was it the smell? No. My nose told me that the place still stank of porta-potties and burning trash. Was it the amount of light? Well, my eyes told me that it was a little darker than usual, but there was something else that I couldn’t put my finger on. That’s when I realized that I had walked more than 100 feet in my body armor and my pistol belt, which normally acts as a makeshift damn for the river of sweat that flows down the small of my back, was not sopping wet. By golly... it was cooler out! In the shade of the palace with a cool breeze finding it’s way through the trailers, it was significantly cooler out. Where was the normal blast of dusty air normally blowing this time of day? I consulted the digital thermometer I keep on my assault pack to see if this was just delirious. Sure enough, it stated that the temp was a brisk 79 degrees. Holy frijoles Batman! I don’t think that in the last 5 months I’ve been here that the mercury ever dropped below 80, and now here I was experiencing a cool fall morning in Iraq. Was it just last Thursday that I was reveling in the fact that it felt like summer? I think fall is my next favorite season to spring. The brunt of the summer sun makes way for cooler air and you can look forward to finally turning off the A/C and sleeping with the window open (although you only get about 10 of these days a year in Texas). Fall also reminds me of college. In my four years in upstate New York, I never really appreciated the beautiful surroundings of my campus until my last year. It was then I noticed the colors of autumn touching the tips of the mountains around mid September and avalanche down in sunset hues to the Hudson below around mid October. What I wouldn’t give to see a real tree right now. The IZ is void of a lot of vegetation with the exception of the palm-like date tree, and the dead palm-like date tree. The temp did top out today at 109 which is still considered a summer day in Texas, but I’m giddy at the idea that they will drop more and more as the days roll on. This reminiscing of seasons makes me realize I need some better topics to write about instead of the weather.

Okay, so not only was today the first day of the autumnal equinox, it was my first official half day off. We are suppose to get one day a week where we leave work at noon and not have to return to the prison of our desks until the following morning. This is the leadership’s plan on reducing stress around here and I’m all for it. The sad thing is that I pretty much wasted the day. In fact, I didn’t get to leave work until 3:30 pm and when I did return to my trailer, I didn’t do much of anything; not because there wasn’t stuff to do, but never before had I this much time to myself and I was a little befuddled as to where to spend this new allowance of freedom. I wandered over to the internet trailer (still refuse it to call it the ‘internet café’ until they start serving some coffee there) to do some surfing. I’ve got a vacation in need of some serious research and bills that I’ve put a little too much trust in the auto-pay feature from my online bank to take care. I ended up spending a LOT of time over there which normally happens when I get sucked into the web. The piles of laundry in my room didn’t get done, the letters I planned on writing are still in the planning phase and the books I want to read have a fine layer of dust on them (which really isn’t that big of a deal seeing as how everything in my room has a fine layer of dust on it). No matter though because for a few hours today I didn’t have to make a PowerPoint presentation, answer a work phone call or have a field grade ask me a question about how many left handed, blue eyed, Iraqi border guards know how to drive a stick shift and dance the Macarena.


Interesting quote of the day:

“I work from 8am to 10pm every day and I like going to the gym for an hour during the middle of the work day. I think of it as my “time in the yard.”