Adventures in Paradise

Long Week

So, I graduated from the National War College on Thursday, and we celebrated at a relatively new restaurant in DC, a seafood place called Azur. My friend D and Mom were with me and we split a whole bunch of the appetizers instead of doing a full meal.

The dessert...D's hazlenut and chocolate dessert was not worth the calories (and was eventually removed from the bill...hopefully also the menu in the near future) but my strawberry "salad" was good. Mom's "cotton candy of the day" was a hit though - mom speculated that it was guava, D thought it was mango and I didn't even venture a guess beyond "tropical fruit". Turns out that it was pineapple. Yummy. But with all the eating, there had to be some payback, right?

On Tuesday I took mom to the trapeze school and introduced her to aerial fabic (aka silks). She's flown on the trapeze before, but she's got inner ear issues so upside down isn't really a good thing. There is a lot of upside down work in fabric, but you can avoid that in a first lesson, so that's what we did. I think she had fun. Probably more fun than on Saturday morning when I woke her up at the "crack of dawn" (her words...we didn't leave the house until 7:15) to join my Team in Training group for the weekly long run.

She looks pretty good at the turnaround point - 2.5 miles of five for the day. (Better than I did, which is why my picture from the midway point isn't up here.)

I don't look awful at the finish though, despite the big hill at the end. The big purple shirt just isn't flattering on me - to get it big enough to not be constricting across the shoulders, it's huge everywhere else. It's one of the side effects of circus arts - shoulders, lats and arms that don't fit the fashion norm. (Can't wait to get into my new house and set up the sewing machines!)

Mom looked pretty good at the finish, too! (We won't talk about her group getting lost and taking a completely different route back than the rest of us...we'll just be glad that they made it back safely.) I'd say my training is going really well, but we're only at the 5 mile long run mark, and since I know that I can run 13, that's the point where I'm going to be watching. My hip is slowly improving with weekly chiropractic adjustment and bi-weekly accupuncture. And strength training. Lots of strength training. I have until October to be completely healthy, so I'll just keep plugging away. And again, I'm running with Team in Training, which raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you're interested and so inclined, here is the link to my fund raising page (I am SO close!)

Tipper...so happy to see me after my endless trip to the restaurant restroom that her tail cleared an arc in the pine needles on the ground.

Friday Night Follies

My final day in command was Saturday, the 26th. I spent the evening prior with family and friends and a rubber ducky.

Mom pulled the ducky out of the small pool in the front of my hotel and yes, I wore it all night...from the hotel lobby, to the wine bar for a drink, to dinner down the street. Yes, I balanced it on my head, nothing helping me. I started sober, and managed to keep it there through three glasses of wine over the course of the evening. The nephews had a little to say about it...one would come take it from me, and the other would bring it back and put it on my head again.

How Cool!

A few years ago I sent my mom a beautiful set of red Signature needles for Mother's Day. Who knew that would turn into a relationship between the lovely Signature people and my mom?

See here...

House-Shape

Another before pic, this time of the office/second bedroom.

This particular room is fairly original in form - the walls, shades and even rug are from the previous owners. (Yes, I bought again...apparently my most recent collection is coming in the form of real estate.)

Two after pictures...

This is more of an interim "after" picture for a couple of reasons. First, because after finishing here,  I moved on to the living and dining rooms and much of the stuff in there ended up in here - yarn and fabric bins, that sort of thing.  Not quite out of sight out of mind, but at least not out in a public room. Second, They didn't bring all my stuff. The rest of it, including my big green chest and a sofa table that I think will both end up in here won't show up until probably July since after today I'm going to be unavailable to take delivery.

Bedroom, nearly final iteration. This room had a lot of adjustments made thanks to my mom. It started out a weird green/khaki color that I hated. I had already ordered this blue and white bedroom set, and had it sent to my mom, so she took a pillow sham and found the perfect paint color. She had the place painted out and the shades made while I was on my last leg of the deployment. (Pretty amazing, huh?) I finally have the blue bedroom of my dreams AND blackout shades which are a wonderful thing.

The kitchen, bathroom, dining and living rooms are all pretty much acceptable, but won't be done for a long time since also not included in my shipment were the majority of my bookshelves. Right now the entryway is stacked about three feet deep in books...

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...

 

Beach Combing

Mom’s flight home kept getting changed and delayed, but on what finally became her last day, we spent the morning after breakfast walking the beach (man-made, like everything else here) at the hotel. One of the funny things about staying at a hotel like the Ritz is the sheer perfection of everything.  The doormen, the bellmen, checking in and out, the people eager to walk you around the gym, spa and grounds so you what what is where and how to use the amenities.  I'm not used to perfection, I spend most of my life in what is essentially an industrial environment and my eyes are always open for trash laying around, signs of corrosion, tools left laying around.  So perfection to me is kind of creepy, which is why it was almost a relief to see this single soda tab laying the in water on the beach.

What we were really looking for was interesting shells.  I don't know if the Ritz trucks shells in or if these are really from the waters of the Gulf, but we spent a good hour and a half walking along the shore and picking up some cool shells.

I think Mom has enough for her and to give to the two girls on her list who still didn't have gifts from Bahrain.  I picked up my own to add to my collection of sand and shells from beaches all over the world.  I hope the girls like them as much as I do.

Bahrain Port Visit the Second

This time with family!  Mom and I visited the Grand Mosque while we were in Bahrain.  There are smaller mosques all over the place, including in each of the malls, but this one was built in the 1980s and is the largest of the bunch.  Including overflow into the courtyards, it can hold up to 7,000 people.  I’m told it’s full on Fridays and on the two big holy days, but that on normal days there are just a handful that come through.  It’s very modern, unlike the other mosques I’ve seen in my travels, but I really liked the clean lines.  In order to go in, we had to wear abayas, which make me look awfully like a local.

You can see the basic, modern lines as they are blended with traditional Arabic acrhitecture here.  It seems like even the new (non-skyscraper) buildings are built along the lines of old forts, which is interesting.  Mom can talk about that more later. 

Because we got there right at prayer time, our guide brought us to the balcony (where the women worship, but where the guides bring all guests.  You're not supposed to take pictures of people actually parying, which seemed reasonable, but I took this one of mom before the service started.

Change of Command

I gave my computer to my cousin, and between him not being much of a photographer and also being at a weird angle, there wasn't much in the way of good pictures on my camera.  Hopefully I'll have some more to share after I see the ship's pictures. After the ceremony, which we moved inside because of the three day sandstorm, Mom pinned my command pin on me.

Then she decided that since she had put up with me for so long, she deserved to sit in my chair...which is true, I suppose.

You should know that the Captain's chair on the bridge is sacrosanct.  The XO has a chair and can allow people to sit in it if said XO is particularly kind.  The CO's chair has few such dispensations.  After my mom and cousin got into the chair, I got my own turn...

The boxes with your packages are due to arrive at the ship this morning, but I'mplanning to keep the individual bags to give out on Christmas morning. 

Hats (and other stuff) for Sailors

From Shanti's Mommy:

It's 3:30 a.m. and I can't sleep, so thought I would do something I should have done days and days ago ... update the Hats for Sailors project. 

And the winner is:  On November 11 I took the list of names of everyone who had contributed a beautiful, hand knit or crocheted hat, accounted for each individual hat (knitters who sent more than one hat, got an equal number of chances), mixed them up on my spread sheet, and went to www.random.org and selected the winner of the generous $75 gift certificate from Signature Needle Arts.  And (drum roll) ... the winner was Marla Gardner of Santa Monica CA.   Hopefully Marla already has her shiny new needles clicking away.  Congratulations Marla and thank you again for the seven beautiful hats you contributed.  Thank you again to Cathy Bothe of Signature Needle Arts for her generous contribution to this effort.  It was a driving force in doubling our original goal of 278 hats.

Which brings me to my next item.  We received over 550 hats and they are still coming in ... I received one in the mail yesterday. Here's what they looked like in my living room just before the Packing Party began on Nov. 17.     My thanks to the post office for allowing me to keep several of their bins so I had somewhere to keep them.  We actually have enough hats to outfit two entire ships with handmade wool hats.  There were hats from all over the country, one from England and one from Singapore.  What an amazing response. 

I learned to be very careful when opening the packages as sometimes there were checks or cash included.  All totaled, the cash contributions came to over $1800.

There were hundreds of letters from school kids in various cities around the country.  One from NJ had a letter from every student in the school, from kindergarten to 8th grade and some from high school.  My grandchildren, Allie and Nick, created holiday cards as did some of their schoomates. 

November 17 was the Packing Party which we decided to hold in my garage.  Students from Christa Mcaullife Middle School participated along with a couple of the knitters who had made hats, a couple of search dog handlers, my neighbors and a gentleman I ran into at Costco the day before.  I was standing there with a flatbed cart, loaded to overflowing when a voice behind me said "does your mommy know you are eating all that candy?".  I told him I was the mommy and what I was doing.  He promptly pulled out $20 for the project and offered to come over with his two sons (who are in the Young Marines) to help.   20 people got right down to business and four hours later we were finished packing 14 big boxes of goodies.

My thanks to Sandra B. and Billie, two of our knitters, for showing up to help. 

At one point we had hundreds of gift bags in the driveway waiting to be rolled up, tied with a ribbon and packed into a big white box.  Thank you Henry Ford for the assembly line concept!

DHL agreed to ship all the boxes to New Jersey where they will be loaded onto one of Shanti's dad's planes and flown to Bahrain.  From there they will head out to her ship one way or another.  We haven't figured that one out yet.  Thank you so much DHL for picking up the boxes 
at the house and shipping them at NO COST!  This allowed me to spend several hundred dollars more on goodies instead of shipping costs.  Too cool!  Here they are, loaded and ready to go down the road:    If you look closely, you will notice that the kids from Mcaullife sent notes of encouragement and love to all the sailors.  I was also told that there were little notes written inside the flaps of the boxes as they were packed and sealed. 

I wish I knew how to appropriately thank everyone who had a part in this effort.  You all absolutely ROCK!  Little did I know what I was getting into when I first talked to Shanti about this the day before the Decatur sailed out of San Diego.  It was not a one-person project, it has blossomed into tens of tens working to make this project a booming success.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

I am hoping we get lots of pictures when the sailors get their gift bags.  I'm also hoping that Shanti can arrange a mass picture with everyone wearing their gifts of love!  Stand by for that.

More progress ...

From Shanti's Mom:

Wow!  What do I say?  The response for hand knit hats has been amazing ... even got a few crocheted hats as well.  I can't tell you how beautiful all of these amazing hats are.  So here's a picture ... this is what 523 hats look like all in one place. 

And my knitting studio looks like this:     then there's my office (that's River checking out all the goodies) ...      And that doesn't count the load of stuff I am going to pick up tomorrow from friends in Santa Cruz.  One more trip to Costco for the non-perishable foodstuffs and we will be ready for the packing frenzy on Wednesday afternoon.  Some of the local knitters are coming over to help with that, along with neighbors and some kids from the local middle school who are getting community service hours for their time. 

We almost have enough hats to outfit two entire destroyers ... and that is wonderful.  Thirteen more came in today.  Thirty two more and we can do it, and I know more are coming.  If not, there will be more than enough for a smaller ship ... like maybe a cruiser.  How cool is that?

Last night I went through over 300 letters from kids in OH, NJ and CA who wrote wonderful letters to the sailors, some kids drew the most imaginitive pictures and all wanted to know what it's like to be on a ship.  It warmed my heart.  I hope some of the sailors will respond to these letters.

I found out yesterday that DHL, who sponsored one of my ex-husband's race cars, is going to be picking up all the boxes at my house on Friday and will deliver them to NJ at not cost ... so all the $$ I have will go to goodies and not postage.  From there Shanti's dad will have them flown into Bahrain.  It's all coming together.  The generosity of everyone has been overwhelming.

I can't thank y'all enough for your love and generosity.  Along with the hats came mountains of other goodies and I quickly learned to check the bags and boxes because there was a little cash floating around in some of them.  All told, there was almost $1500 in cash donations ... WOW!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!