Family!

This weekend, Eric and I went up to Philadelphia, PA for the Bar Mitzvah of my cousin Miles. It was the first time seeing my family since coming back from deployment. I was anticipating this trip with such excitement that I lost sleep. And the end result didn't disappoint!

After a rough start to the drive in the form of a knocking engine/check engine light at the border of Virgina, having to turn around, go back home, get another car, and start the trip over again, (my reaction to this was less than stellar and I am shocked that Eric still wants to marry me) we were finally under way.

I found that I was unreasonably on edge for the first 24 hours. I am sure the faulty engine in my Audi didn't help, but I really believe the culprit was some weird just-getting-back-from-deployment thing that I can't quite put my finger on. I consciously worked on it and I managed to get almost back to myself. (Have I mentioned how amazing, patient and wonderful Eric is?)

The Bar Mitzvah itself was a wonderful, traditional Jewish ceremony at the temple (to the tune of 3 hours), and Miles, at the ripe old age of 13, was a true charmer to watch as he read from the Torah. He has a smile that could melt ice sculptures! You couldn't help but smile right along with him.

The party afterwards was in true Davidow Bar mitzvah style. Lots of food, entertainment, drinks, dancing, and HUGE family hugs! Seeing my cousins and my Aunt Pearl was just magnificent. Seeing my brother Chuck, however, was just fantastic. I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it was that took me on such a roller coaster emotionally, but it was a great ride.

The weekend was way too short to say the least and I found myself wishing we all had more time together to just sit and talk with no obligations or places to be. I have to make an effort to make that happen. Not just with Chuck, but with my cousins, sister, aunt, every one. Take a weekend that doesn't involve some grand family event and just make it about catching up.

My words can't do this weekend justice. So hopefully the pictures I am going to attempt to attach here will help give it some color!

A post-deployment...well...post.

I am two weeks post deployment. I suppose the first thing I need to put out there is just how quickly things begin to disappear from your memory when you come back from deployment. Places I went, names of cities, and most disturbingly the names of people I worked with and lived with day in and day out for months on end have already begun their exodus from my memory bank. I suppose if memories were FDIC insured I wouldn't have to worry about writing all this down now. But alas they aren't.

Fortunately for me, I had the foresight to realize that things were going on that I knew I would want to remember or at least SHOULD remember, and I kept a journal. The journal is made up mostly of my in-the-moment rants. I actually haven't even read though all of them.

I was pretty fortunate in that I wasn't involved in any IEDs or other such traumatic events.

Pakistan however, is a dangerous place and being on edge and hypersensitive to your surroundings in order to avoid being blown up, shot at or otherwise attacked, takes it's toll. On that note, I have simply taken one of my journal entries and am using at as my blog.

Day 38: As I was walking outside to the guards to share with them my bounty from the care packages I received today, my routine thought process began. These thoughts cross my mind every day. Our guards are paid to protect us 24 hours a day.

I smile and greet them in Urdu. They smile back and eagerly reach out their hands to receive my meager armful of snacks and cookies from back home. It's a lot to them. They think my attempt at Urdu is cute. They love the American snacks of chocolates and chips. It makes me happy to give it to them. I know they are chilly and can get very cold at night. They have a thankless job and, much like our SF personnel at home, I like to show them some appreciation. I am empathetic towards those who work long, difficult hours. Always have been. It is in my nature. This leopard will not likely change her spots at this late stage.

They are armed to the teeth. Even so, they would be the first to die in a suicide bomb attack of our residence. I tend to think the best of people. I tend to feel safe. Safer than I should. There is not a single one of them who wouldn't turn around and kill me for the right price. Who wouldn't sell me, or any one of my colleagues out, for a week's salary. I, especially, probably offend them. What with my English tongue, the audacity to go out in public sans headscarf, and my driving. Not only do I drive, but I drive alone. A woman should only be in the back seat of a vehicle. A vehicle is driven only by a man. My every day actions are an insult to their entire way of life. I don't go about day to day with a goal of insulting my host nation's people. I have a job to do. As I turn and walk away after delivering the goodies, I wonder if today is the day I will hear the shot and feel the bullet in my back?

"Best Hamburger" my ass.

In yet another glaring display of the public's sheep mentality, just because a bunch of people jump on the bandwagon of someone who says something is "great" or "the best", does NOT make it so. Tonight we went to a place called "Five Guys" burgers and I walked away extremely disappointed.

I had heard great comments from several people about how wonderful the hamburgers are at Five Guys. I even read a review (or two) that Five Guys was voted "Best Hamburger" in North Carolina. Needless to say, hopes were high.

In all fairness, I feel obligated at this point to share the start of my love-affair with a good quality hamburger. I like to compare burgers to a benchmark that was set for me years ago when I went to my first Fudruckers. I remember it like it was yesterday...1989, I walked into Fudruckers in West Palm Beach with my father, my Aunt Pearl, and my Uncle Dan. We go up to the counter and my uncle Dan promptly orders the "motherfucker" without so much as an apology (may he rest in peace), I order a burger exactly how I wanted it. Rare with mushrooms and nothing else. Always a sign of a great burger place. Being able to order it the temperature you want it. Means they use good quality meat. Did you know that? It's why you can't order a burger from McDonalds medium rare. They use barely-legal meat in their burgers. Cook 'em less than well done and you end up with lysteria or something else that I can't spell. I get my burger and it was amazing. Juicy, high quality meat without those little hard rubbery pieces floating around in it (you know what I am talking about..those little pieces that scream lousy meat pieces and fillers), fantastic hand mushrooms all seasoned to perfection and placed on a baked fresh bun that practically melted in your mouth.

So obviously with all the hype that preceded our visit today, at the very least I assumed that I could order the burger medium rare. We walk in and the first thing we see when we arrive at the counter is "We cook all our burgers to a juicy well-done". Another glaring example of saying something that just isn't true. It isn't actually possible to cook any piece of meat to "well-done" and still be "juicy". At that point I was ready to walk away. That sign screamed that their meat quality was lousy and I was too hungry to waste my money on something that I already knew was going to suck. But we stayed anyway. Perhaps I would be pleasantly surprised? We order our burgers and wait for the outcome.

Sure enough, this burger comes and I must say, the only thing that separated it from a hockey puck was the fact that it was nestled in a bun. One bite and I realized that McDonalds was actually better than this poor excuse for a hamburger. Little hard rubbery pieces scattered throughout the meat. Zero flavor. And, of course, zero juice. I was famished however and ate about 5 bites of the burger. Then I gave up the ghost. I left. Hungry.

I have not looked up the corporate or franchise history of Five Guys hamburgers but I cannot imagine these five guys would have become so monumentally successful cooking burgers like what I had tonight. Perhaps the nanny-state time we live in prevents them from serving anything that is cooked at a cooler temperature than well-done. Since no self-respecting meat-loving carnivore would ever cook their meat well-done, why would you waste high quality meat in a dish you were forced to cook well-done? At least that I what I hope happened here.

Either way, I am going on my own record to declare that I would never recommend getting a hamburger at Five Guys. Save your 5 bucks and get 5 burgers of the same lousy quality for the same price at McDonalds.

Things I will and wont miss from deployment

Things I will NOT miss from deployment:

1. Being cold
2. Not having hot water
3. Sporadically having NO water
4. Not being able to go outside for a simple walk
5. Being hungry. Mostly on Sundays.
6. The fear and unknown of being on the roads (terrorists, IEDs, shootings, and idiots who shouldn't be allowed out of their houses at all let alone to operate anything with a motor)
7. The smell. This place smells like a cesspool.
8. The lack of value placed on human life (The It's-ok-if-my-kid-falls-off-my-motorbike-and-dies,-I-have-another-one attitude)
9. Missing home.
10. Pakistani Parasites (I saved this one for last because there was a slight yet significant upside of weight loss that accompanies them).

Things I WILL miss from deployment:

1. The look of the Himalayan foothills after a rain
2. Wearing civilian clothes every day
3. Seeing the occasional monkey hop across the road (yes, I have grown fond of the monkeys)
4. The people I have worked with. Every one of them a true character
5. Working for Special Operations Command.

I was hoping to come up with 10 things I will miss. Not happening. Perhaps later on once I have gotten some time and distance away from here I will be able to think of more. If I do, I will update my list!

First plane ride

Another headline, another blog!

This time, I saw a headline that mentioned the impact your first plane ride has on the type of traveler you will be later on. It got me thinking about the first time I was ever on a plane.

I was 17 years old. That may have seemed old to a lot of people, but where I was from, that was pretty standard. There are probably people where I grew up who have STILL never been on a plane.

It wasn't for a lack of desire, mind you. I remember thinking that I always wanted to go somewhere on a plane. As a kid, my father would take us to the little Dutchess County airport where we would park on the side of the road right on the landing path of the "Command" commuter plane. We would sit on the hood of the car (a-la Wayne's World 20 years before that movie came out), and wait for it's approach. The plane, a huge, loud, clunky propeller plane that probably seated about 25 passengers or so, would come into sight way off in the distance. You could see it before you could hear it. As it got closer the familiar sound of the propellers got louder and louder and the plane got bigger and bigger, almost like it was growing right before your eyes. Us three kids would get all excited as thump of the propellers would begin to shake the car as it got closer. The key was to keep your eyes open the whole time. The closer it got to the runway, I would have sworn that it was going to hit our car and us along with it. I remember screaming "Daddy, daddy it's gonna land on us!!" And he would laugh and say "Keep looking up, Liss! Don't close your eyes!" My hands would finally fly up to cover my ears and I couldn't even hear myself scream with excitement (terror??) as the wheels crossed right over top of our car. We would watch the plane, cheering and clapping as the little plumes of smoke appeared as the wheels made contact with the runway. I am not sure there was ever a time when I didn't ask dad if we could go into the airport and just go for a ride in the plane. Show's how much I knew!

Fast forward to March of 1989. I am 17 years old and getting ready to move to Florida. We were leaving out of Newark, NJ on a morning flight. Dad told me that there would be a car coming to pick us up at the house at 6am. I said to him "A 'car'? Do you mean a limo"? He assured me that it was NOT a limo. Well, one quick phone call changed that. I requested a stretch limo with all the trimmings for us and paid for it myself. Needless to say it was a great trip to Newark. And it set the stage for this event that I had been waiting for my whole life. We get onto the plane and dad took the dreaded middle seat to make sure that I was able to sit by the window. My heart was beating out of my chest from the moment the plane started to back away from the gate. We were probably 4th or 5th in line for take off and as the pilot counted down our position I am not sure how I didn't come out of my skin. When the plane started to speed up I couldn't stop saying "Oh my god, oh my god! We're going SO fast!" The feeling in my stomach as the plane left the ground actually made me say "Wheee!!!!!!" My ears blocked up and the ground passed below us and as the plane banked it felt and looked like we were going to go upside down. This was by far the BEST ride I had ever been on in my life! Better than the Cyclone at Coney Island, even!

I knew going into it that I was going to love flying and that first flight didn't disappoint. I loved everything about that flight. Everything from the safety briefing, to the slight turbulence, to the peanuts, and the brilliance I saw in how they built neighborhoods as I had my face planted up against the window the whole time.

When we left Newark, it was about 30 degrees outside and there was snow on the ground. When we landed in Palm Beach, Florida, it was 76 degrees, sunny, and the palm trees were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I felt like a rock star.

I loved that flight back then. I still love flying now. I still get excited during every takeoff and every landing. Perhaps it was late in life for a first flight, but thinking about it now, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

A year...

It was one year ago today that Eric asked me to marry him. When I think about it I still get butterflies in my tummy! Valentines day is tomorrow and that he asked me so close to Valentines day really had nothing to do with Valentines day at all. I found out later on that night when we talked about it that he was planning on asking me the week before he ended up proposing.

He was supposed to come with me to a conference I had in Las Vegas and had planned on asking me to marry him then (he went to high school in Las Vegas so the area has meaning to him) but he ended up having to work and couldn't go. So we had planned a weekend away together as soon as I got back, but I ended up stuck in Las Vegas for two extra nights because we had a snow storm in Atlanta/Raleigh and all the flights were canceled (see that, everyone thinks that this year's weather in the southeast is so uniquely bad but we had the same level of storms almost to the exact day as last year. People just don't remember!). So when I made it back to NC he was finally able to propose. Poor guy! All his big plans kept getting spoiled!

Spending my deployment down-time thinking about the wedding really brightens my day. June is really right around the corner. I can't help but feel that a line from "When Harry Met Sally" is appropriate here: "When you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

The power of money

I love the show Say Yes To The Dress. I loved it before I got engaged and love it even more now that I am getting married. Since my deployment I have been relegated to watching episodes that cost me $2.00 a piece, take a full 5 hours to download, and I watch them on my borrowed-from-Eric iphone's 2x3 inch screen. Don't care. Grateful to see it. Even if it is in miniature.

Tonight's show featured a bride-to-be who came in with her mom to shop for her dress. The bride-to-be had a set budget of $5,000. She was paying for her own dress. Props! Now, in what was a very generous gesture, her mother comes in to the dressing room with a gift box. Inside the gift box is literally a blank check. Her mother decided she wanted her daughter to have an unlimited budget and as a gift, decided to pay for her daughters dress.

She had already tried on a couple of dresses (prior to the blank check gift) and the dresses the bride liked weren't necessarily the ones her mom liked. And vice versa. Cut to one of the knowledgeable consultants, who have been doing this for years, and they say that it changes the playing field when mom (or anyone else) is paying for the dress. Suddenly, they have a say in what dress you ultimately chose. *Queue sound of needle scratching across record here!* EXCUSE ME?

I have gotten some fantastic one-liner money advice in my lifetime. Here are two examples: "Never invest anything that you are not willing to lose" (Thanks uncle Dan!)and "Always view money you give to family, friends, co-workers or anyone, as a gift that you will never see again." (Thanks dad!) Don't get me wrong, if you give money to someone and they come to you the next day to pay it back, don't turn it down. By all means accept it. But never EXPECT to see it again. I have seen first hand how money has come between friends, family, and others and ruin relationships. SO not worth it.

Over the years I have developed my own views about the giving of money. When you make a decision to give money away, be it to family, friends, or whomever, you also need to be willing to give up ANY say in how they spend it. If a family member comes to you and says, I need $50 to pay my electric bill or they are going to shut off my lights and you give them $50 and they turn around and spend it on beer and cigarettes, so be it. You can always decide to never give them money again. You are not their boss, you are not a bank, you are not their mother (ok, maybe you are their mother, but this is not applicable to a parent who is trying to TEACH fiscal responsibility to an 8 year old). Money should NEVER come with strings attached.

Watching this particular episode, I have no doubt that this mom REALLY just wanted to give her daughter a very generous gift. It made her feel good. But perhaps, in her mind, she thought that her opinion should count for something since she was now paying for the dress. THIS, I have a real problem with. If you were with me when I was shopping for my wedding dress and you generously offered to make my budget unlimited, but there was a stipulation that YOU had to be happy with the dress as well, I would thank you profusely and then graciously return your check.