Cold Dust Season

Has it been a year already since 'Dub flew over here with that plastic turkey? Man, time flies whether you're having fun or not, so why not have fun?

Here's a thought for the day: if you're at work, on a computer, chances are its called a "workstation". why not call them funstations? It's not that hard a thing to do, and it would change the way people feel about their jobs completely. In fact, why call it work at all? Just call it fun. Perception is everything, after all, and if you insist on calling it fun it will actually be fun in time. It's true, I know from experience. Do you use worksheets of some sort at your office? Call them funsheets. I'll bet you can think up lots of other such examples.

Know why we don't think that way? Because our parents made the same mistakes we did in raising children. We end their "fun" days too early, bring them to the grown up table too soon. Proof: there are no playgrounds in middle schools in America. This is a huge mistake. Turn 12-14 year olds loose in a playground and they'll have a great time - I've seen this happen. We should let them stay at the kids table longer, but no - we turn the fun dial down to about "2" as soon as our kids turn 10. The real world is a harsh place, you know, and it's going to grind you up and wear you down, and that certainly isn't fun. Suck it up. Get used to it. Thus we become workaholics, each and every one of us.

But how rude of me - here you've stopped by, likely taking a break from whatever your job is, and I'm wasting your time with this drivel. That's not why you came here, is it? Throws you off a little. "Hey, I clicked in here to see how goes it in Iraq and you're telling me to have fun! Outrageous!" Sorry, I'll try to fulfill your expectations now, return to what you're used to.

After all, we mere humans are creatures of habit. Nowhere is this more apparent then in a confined environment like that experienced here in camp life in Iraq. We wake at proscribed times, we eat at proscribed times; we conduct our duties on a rigid schedule and return to bed within a few moments of the exact same time every day. If we're not careful we become obsessive about this routine, then little things like mortar attacks really throw us off and we blow them all out of proportion. Damn - that was not on the agenda...

I'm going to avoid that obsession, intentionally bust out of that routine, do something exciting and different. Get ready - here it comes. If you've visited here a few times you've seen plenty of pictures of the moon, but yesterday I pointed my camera at a different target to provide you with this

The sun, in all it's glory.

Of course it's behind an enormous curtain of dust and sand. A storm front made it's way across Iraq earlier this week, and high speed cold air whipped in behind it, lifted the sand and soil, cut visibility down to a very few hundred yards, and turned the sun into something like the pathetic "energy saver" light bulb that even now is "illuminating" an area extending several inches from it's glass shell suspended above my head as I type...

And something somewhere whistled in that wicked breeze. A quiet howl that persisted through the day, a chilling sound to go with the chilling air. Chilling? In the desert? Yes - and given that it's windy and the air is full of solid particles for our breathing pleasure it seems hardly fair (and strangely unreal) that it should be cold too, but it is indeed, though admittedly the sort of cold that causes shivers rather than frostbite.

The sort of cold that reminds hunters that the time has come...

The sort of November cold I associate with Thanksgiving at home, arriving right on time, even in Iraq. Right on time to remind us one and all that time flies whether you're having fun or not, that soon it will be Christmas, and a more intense cold will be upon us. The sort of cold that brings both numbness and pain to the fingertips, and for those far from home and family a different numbness and pain to the soul.

Speaking of fun Christian holidays, lets repel any lost or lingering lefties with a passage from the Bible. Today we read from Genesis, chapter 12:

1 Now (1) the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And (2) I will make you a great nation, And (3) I will bless you, And make your name great; And so (4) you shall be a blessing;

"We're going to do great things, Abram, you and me, we're going to really get things started. But first you must get out of this corner of the earth. Put it in your rearview and don't look back." Americans can relate to that - we as a nation came from elsewhere, left home for a promised land. We got there and met other travelers, and sat down with them for the first thanksgiving. Odd that I'm an American writing this from the very same land that is the answer to the question "What did God tell Abram to put in his rearview?"

There are good reasons for leaving this land. One is certainly the flies. Not the time flies, the real flies. The cold weather brings them in to the tents, like a Biblical plague. They're persistent creatures - small, quick, annoying. Not annoying enough to drive you away by themselves, of course, but enough to make the ultimate good bye to this place a bit less sorrowful than it otherwise might be. Hard to tell whether they're brave or foolish, these little pests, they land upon you while you try to eat - or while you're doing anything, for that matter. This just makes us more determined to swat them, of course, to keep them from taking some of the fun out of Thanksgiving.

And though in the end the flies won't drive us away we know that when we do leave they will remain.

And though it's still a bit too early to talk of leaving that time will be upon us all too soon. The elections here in Iraq will mark a significant waypoint on that road home, one of many, after which things will be different. How so? What then? That's conversation for the grown up table this Thanksgiving season. And how amazing it will be, to be here for that talk, and those elections, and for the American elections that came before, when those seats at the grown up table were divvied out. We'll see soon enough if the right people got them.

Time flies... kids grow up too fast...

Are holidays away from family too great a price to pay to be here in this historic time? Great things have great price, of course. So it goes. And the Mrs. set a fine Thanksgiving feast for us before I left, and I anticipate another on return.

And I realize that wherever I am I've much to be thankful for.

I pondered linking something, someone else's efforts that support my own claims, the fundamental heart of blogging, of course. I realized I have something different for you this time, and it's from a source I?ve already quoted from. On arrival here I opened a Bible to a random passage, read it.

This is what I found:

Fear not, O Jacob My servant,' declares the LORD, 'And do not be dismayed, O Israel; For behold, I will save you (17) from afar And your offspring from the land of their captivity. And Jacob will return and will be (18) quiet and at ease, And (19) no one will make him afraid.

So I've got that going for me - which is nice.

It's Jeremiah, chapter 30, and if you prefer to think I, a guy in Iraq whose family is in Germany, read the whole book just to find that quote rather than discovering it via supernatural guidance then I'm certain there's nothing I can say to make you change your mind.

After all , this is just a blog.

I close with my sincerest wishes that your Thanksgiving is a fun one, free of flies or other foul things that plague us on the edge.

For our time together has certainly flown by, and I'm afraid I must go now - I've got to get back to work.