Author: cdwan

4:30 is freakin’ early. In related news, the sunrise was delightful.

I’m spending *way* too much time lately trying to sleep with my head leaned up against the side of some vehicle or another.

What an awesome weekend. I really don’t want to go to work tomorrow … especially given that work is in Maryland and I have to take a flight at 6:30am to get there.

redmed was on call yesterday, so I spent the morning going all obsessive compulsive on the flower beds. Die, crabgrass, die. Made a bunch of little pots of pansies for color around the place, and moved other plants around. It was nice. Then I “fixed” the dishwasher again. Our dishwasher has these little tabs on the front-top that attach to the underside of the countertops. The countertop is the cheap-ass crapola laminate that is totally stripped to hell and gone in the spots that you would attach these things. Therefore, the dishwasher falls forward if you open the door and put the racks out. Suboptimal. I bent the tabs up and screwed them into the front edge of the counter. Screw it … that’s what I say.

Then a nice dinner with my friendly neighborhood masons, followed by hanging out around a fire at Dustin’s. Good times all around.

Today, we went to Block Island, on a whim. Just drove down with the bicycles, hopped the ferry, and rode around the island trying to identify birds. What a stunning day to be randomly outside all day. I slept through the ferry ride back.

It’s the first believably stunning, gorgeous weekend of Spring. I love it. It’s like lotion for my soul.

Speaking of lotion, we’ve progressed through the “peeling” phase of the tattoo. It actually doesn’t hurt anymore (though I’m told that redmeds feels bruised. There’s still a little scabbing on the bottom of mine … but it kinda just feels like skin outside of that.

It was good to be back at karate. Went for a run this morning. Went to the grocery store with redmed. You know, pretended to be normal.

Back to Baltimore on Monday … down to the Navy gig. On Wed night, I drive down to Norfolk to serve NASA instead. So, two one-way airfares, a “return to a different location” car rental, and two hotel reservations. It’s starting to feel a teensy bit lame to travel this much.

On the other hand, I got a totally unexpected raise. That was nice.

Make a goddamn choice

Tattoo status: Peeling and itchy. Lotioning.
Back status: Still painful, but better thanks to redmed
Work status: Stunned at the number of open commitments we seem to have.
Food status: Full of spicy noodle soup.
Scheduling status: Booked
Sleep status: About to fall behind again.

31 people (give or take) died in Blacksburg, VA today, at the hands of a gunman who rampaged through a dormitory. 31 students at Virginia Tech died.

If you have friends or loved ones there, please call them to be sure that they’re okay. If your friends and loved ones were among those killed or wounded, I have no words to express how much my heart goes out to you.

I’ve stared at my keyboard for five minutes trying to find a decent way to point out that this is something like an *average* day in Iraq … but there is no decent way to do so. It’s only when our calm is shattered that we realize how very calm we were.

Will this wretched winter never end?

Psych. These are gonna keep coming forever.

Note that the tattoo location gets *higher* on the body according to the *age* of the individual.