Adventures in Paradise

A Few Things

Time has certainly been rolling along, and my life has changed dramatically. There will be a lot fewer posts about Navy life as I get more senior and things I say start to matter more. I'm still loving it, though I'll admit that at 25 years, I'm starting to get tired of the moves and the long hours. One of my mentors mentioned to me after she retired that she didn't realize how physically TIRED she was after 30 years of service. I told her that I figured it out when I was on maternity leave (12 weeks, because for once the military is more progressive than American society in general...see, that's the stuff I have to be careful about saying. But it's true here.) The enforced slow down made me come to a complete halt...it was an emergency C-section, on the 4th of July, and I had post-delivery complications. When you've stopped running for the first time in 23 years, you realize how hard you'd been working. And then I got back on the treadmill, with a little added (welcome) baggage.

 

Anyway, we are doing great, and I'm still knitting and sewing. The advantage of traveling as often as I do is that I get uninterrupted knitting time on many flights. That offsets the no knitting I do at home.

The first things I knit for her were leg warmers. My first two trimesters I was working 18 hour days, coming home and crashing, then getting up at 4am to run with the dogs. So...that's all that got made. And I was working on the pink and greens ones while waiting for the c-section. The little sweater had been intended for someone else's kid (long since aged out of a tiny sweater) and only needed to be seamed. I have no idea why I didn't finish the darn thing.

When I first went back to work, I pumped in the awesome lactation rooms at the Pentagon (seriously, haven't found better ones yet, plus a tight community of mothers who all know the challenges of working stupid hours while getting through new mom life.)

These two sweaters were knit entirely while pumping...sadly, my Italian nanny managed to felt both of them within two weeks of starting work. At least she was about to grow out of them. The pink one is Garter Babe (on Ravelry) and is a rarely knit sweater that is really quite awesome. I need to make a second one as soon as I figure out how to size up correctly. 

I did make a cute kid, didn't I? (Not quite current photo...Thanksgiving in Prague at a playground we found thanks to the Rick Steves walking tour of the city.)

Just Because I Can

No knitting or sewing today, just handstands and stretches that end with me being able to feel the ball and socket of each hip moving against each other for at least two full days. (You can't handstand for an hour, so in between each set of handstands we do core work and hard core stretches. He teaches contortion, too.)

I did however, spend a fair portion of my non-occupied work day exploring the Free Motion Quilting site that Teresa pointed out in the comments on yesterday's post. Thanks for the tip and the push towards the next great time sucker that I've been drawn into!

Hats

I wasn't sure I was going to post this because it feels a little bit like bragging, but since you lovely knitters made the last few lines of the article (and you're probably a bit less horrified by my mother sounding like a proud mother...) I figured I would.

Very nice article about me in the San Diego paper.

I made someone else read it before I did :-)

This is Funny

I really have made it to the big time! The Free Republic forum has a whole thread devoted to me and how screwed the Navy is because they let a girl command a war ship. Seriously, don't go read there if you're going to be offended - because there are some ignorant jerks who apparently last served in any military capacity about 50 years ago and still think they know what they're talking about. (And guys? Yes, the Vertical Launching System does in fact carry rocket launched torpedos and your argument about the difference between the Mk 13 (one-armed bandit) and Mk 26 (two arms) missile launchers is moot because there's not a single one of either system left in the Fleet today.)

They're not saying anything I haven't heard said to my face in the last 18 years, and I've still managed to do okay here in the Navy. Only now they're blaming it on the current President, ignoring the fact that the first time I took command, it was under the previous President. And of course they don't know that under said previous President, I was responsible for launching more than 30 Tomahawk missiles (so yeah, probably killed a few people there) and they weren't on the bridge when the (entirely male) watch team were freaking out about six high speed inbound Iranian gunboats - but that's okay because they're young and they needed someone with a little experience to bring the focus back. But probably I'd have just gone to pieces if they're actually started shooting, right? (Why yes, that was sarcasm!)

Mind you, I do have a couple of defenders on the board, which I appreicate. As for the others...well, they probably wouldn't want to run into any of my female Sailors in a dark alley...

And that was after taking a face full of pepper spray.

Safe

My satellite connections were down most of yesterday, nothing related to operations, just a function of where we are in relation to the satellite. We shifted and are up on a better satellite now. Because I've gotten a few e-mail questions - we're nowhere near Japan and the tsunami was essentially blocked from our region by large shore areas, so we're completely unaffected. We won't be going to help because again, we're too far way. That, and there's a reason the ship is called a "Destroyer" and not something else - we're just not well equipped to do the sorts of things Japan will need. The Navy has ships staioned in Japan that are much closer and better equipped and who are either already there or on thier way.

I was always taught to respect the sea - it's an unforgiving medium and one that shouldn't be disregarded. I love the sea, but I don't much feel like sharing ocean pictures today, so you get a Bahraini kitty instead.

Tree of Life

I can't remember if Mom shared pictures from her visit to the Tree of Life in Bahrain, but as things there continue to fall apart, I thought this was the next set of pictures you should see. This tree has managed to live for hundreds of years in the middle of the Bahrain desert, miles from the closest fresh water. A good symbol for people struggling for freedom, no?

More Fort Pictures

These are from during and after sunset - XO and I spent well over two hours wandering the fort, crossing from late day to early evening. In fact, our driver and the guard at the back gate actually came looking for us when we were a few minutes late. (We were on our way, but I got caught up taking cityscape pictures and XO was trying to take one of me taking the pictures and it wasn't working out well. We weren't lost!)

This little girl was out with her dad and two brothers, and they were all clambering around the fort. This was taken during a brief break in the action.

The action resumed again quickly, as she followed her brothers back up the stairway.

I think this may be my favorite picture of the evening - looking at modern Bahrain through the doors of old Bahrain. I hear the next few days may be dicey there as everything in the Middle East is right now, hopefully it will all work itself out before our next visit, there are still places I want to see!

Wow

For the last few weeks I've been watching the crummy US television newscasts on our satellite connection, while monitoring the running Al Jazeera live blog for much better content. (Scroll down to 0324 for a great editorial cartoon.) I've watched plenty of Al Jazeera in the last few months when we've been in port and I really respect them - there's a great world-wide focus and some interesting commentary. I wish we had it more available at home. (So should you, no matter what your political leanings - it's actually less annoying than CNN, Fox or anything beyond the BBC.) All I can say is Go Egypt!

I have spent the last week in Bahrain, which was slightly unexpected. We were supposed to visit Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, but got shifted, as often happens with our schedules out here. It didn't have anything to do with politics, just a schedule change.  It was a nice visit and I got to see some stuff that I will share pictures of soon, but first I have to apologize to my mom.

Not only were there woven huts in the middle of the fort, but I took pictures of them. No idea why I didn't remember them when we talked on the phone. Damn. I'm nearly 40 and my mom is still right sometimes...

 

Torn

I wasn't sure I wanted to post anything tonight - hence the "Torn" title, but it turns out I do have something to say.  This came out as a bit of a stream of consciousness, but it's what I'm thinking at midnight on Saturday (Saturday morning/afternoon for most of you.)

I'm tracking the story on Rep. Giffords right now in absolute horror.  I'm trying not to jump to any conclusions about whether she's alive or dead (since the news can't figure it out) or who might have done it (fringe Tea Party psycho, Drug Cartel, random psycho stalker...too many options to choose from.)  I do continue to hate major news organizations.  The CNN hosts ask moronic questions ("So, I'd assume that your hospital, like many others, prepares for events like this.") and Fox News chooses to use a diminutive version of the name of a United States Representative ("Gabby Giffords"...REALLY?  Yes, I know that's what her family and constituents call her - national media outlets are neither her family nor her constituents and should treat a Member of Congress with a certain level of respect) AND asks moronic questions. (I don't have a choice in news organizations...The Armed Forces Network is agnostic in programming (equal parts Fox, CNN and ESPN) so I get what I get.) 

I only met Ms. Giffords a couple of times.  I know her husband is an astronaut.  I thought they had kids, but don't remember.  Her district is important to the Navy - all of our missiles are built there.  She sat on the Armed Services Committee while I was working with the Legislature in my last shore tour.  I thought she was nice and I liked the questions she asked, even though she didn't really have much to do with my subcommittee.  This stuns me.  I wish her family well and I hope that the reports that she is in surgery are true and that she recovers.

For those of you who complain that Members of Congress work short hours and leave DC all the time, I want you to consider this incident.  These people do not leave DC on Thursday night or Friday morning to go on vacation and chill out.  They go and hold events with their constituents.  Yes, it's all about getting re-elected and often there is fundraising, but the bread and butter is talking to the people they represent.  I remember the first time I actually met a Member of Congress was at some silly local Highland Festival where Rep. Norm Mineta opened the event.  These people have relatively little down time, and if you walk around with them at a public event, you'd refuse to run for office - everyone wants a piece of them.  They travel constantly, so if you see them sitting in First Class, they got there the same way I did when I was working with them - buying a lot of regular tickets and upgrading with miles.  Your tax dollars that pay their salaries aren't buying thousand dollar plane tickets.

There are some bad apples out there.  Some of them start that way and some of them end up proving that power does indeed corrupt.  But most of them are decent human beings who are trying to do what they think is the right thing for their nation and their constituents.  I disagree with many of them, but I don't think any of them are evil, or inherently bad.  So give them a break - progressive, conservative or moderate.