Art La Flamme

Santa was pretty good to me this year. Which is cool, because being here is not as much fun as being home with the wife and kids.

Family and friends sent me some books, someone sent me a black toy Mini Cooper S, and the wife and kids sent me a digital picture frame. Great, great stuff.

I farted around this morning, playing with my new stuff, and then headed off to lunch to serve chow for about an hour. Not a bad gig. An interesting tradition — we started doing it in order to let our cooks have the day off or at least have an easier day, but these days, it’s all contracted. But we still do it.

And then this afternoon, my roommate and I did nothing. It’s been great. I’ve got to go up to work for a few hours, and then we’ll go back for the big Xmas dinner — turkey and all the trimmings. I suspect we’ll close out the night with some more Open Arena on the Mac’s, and maybe a movie.

Best surprise of the day? The hula girl gingerbread cookies. Maybe an inch or so tall, and very, very tasty. Hopefully, I’ll get some Skype time tonight with the family later, but bandwidth is pretty crappy right now since everyone is off for the day (in whole or in part).

Happy holidays, everybody…..

Because dropping off presents in this rough neighborhood sometimes means needing a back up piece.

I’m assuming he’s got spare ammo in the sleigh, too.

And here are the gingerbread men. I saved a couple for this morning — more photos later, maybe.

Oh, and Santa brought me a nose zit. Gee, thanks, man.

I celebrated Festivus today. And I am better off for it, too.

If you’re not familiar with this great holiday, well, go read the Wikipedia article. Also, go watch the Seinfeld episode, The Strike.

I aired my grievances. I’ve been feeling like Don Quixote lately, charging at windmills with no chance of ever defeating them. So, I let go. I got out my ubiquitous little green book, opened to a new page, and started a new section:

Things I Am Not Working On

And I started to list them. I just let them go. And damn, did it feel good.

When it was over — about 15 minutes later — I felt better, but was a bit sad. It was something of a turning point for me, with regards to this deployment. I came here all full of piss and vinegar, set to change the world. And here I was, writing out things that, for a million reasons, I would not be able to do.

But, it was honest. Hard to argue with the reality of it all.

So, grievances were aired. On to the rest of the holiday.

I decided that Feats of Strength wouldn’t be a good idea — heavily armed soldiers, stresses and all hopped up on caffeine, probably shouldn’t be doing anything of the sort.

So, I whipped out the cookies. See, a couple of weeks ago, I got two packages in the mail on or about the same time — cookies from my sister, and cookies from my daughter. They both had sent chocolate chip cookies, and both had made ones that were to die for.

And this week, I got another round from each.

Now, I know what you’re thinking — it’s probably not fair, to compare the two. My sister started making and sending me cookies when I headed off to Basic Training in 1995 — cookies for which South Carolina is a few inches lower in elevation, as I did about 10000 push ups because of said cookies. Since then, she has sent me and my buddies cookies more or less non stop, working on her chocolate chip cookies recipe mainly, but also the packaging (which she has down to a science, since the cookies arrive completely intact and as fresh as if they had been baked en route) and recipes for other cookies (though none compare to the chocolate chip cookie recipe.

And my daughter? Yeah, she’s barely in grade school. My sister had probably made and sent 10,000 cookies to places like Bosnia and Kosovo, before my daughter was even a twinkle in her mother’s eye. But damn — that little one, she can bake!

So, for Festivus, I grabbed some from each and headed to the office. I grabbed two neutral parties — two female soldiers who work in my area. I gave them each a hand decorated gingerbread man (actually, gingerbread soldier) from my daughter, and a chocolate chip cookie from my sister. I did not say who made what, just that they needed to eat them.

Gingerbread got rave reviews. Not just for being so damn cute, but for tasting more like cake than a cookies. But no — they could not hold off the power of the chocolate chip cookie from the sister. No contest — sister won, hands down. I gave the rest of the bag of chocolate chip ones to a warrant officer with whom I do a lot of work, to share with her soldiers. Later, she, too, gave them rave reviews. When I mentioned that they are the best cookies in theater (here), a guy nearby challenged me on that. I didn’t even have to say a word — about half a dozen soldiers jumped in to correct him, and I could tell pretty quickly who had helped polish off the bag of cookies. Not exactly a Festivus miracle but pretty cool.

So, Happy Festivus, everybody!