Okay, not quite 1300, but it is bright and cold here, which is an unexpected surprise. There is a part of my brain which knows that, sooner rather than later, I will be walking around post in my manditorily long-sleeved uniform in the 120-degree heat, sweating bullets down the side of my shiny head. It is this same part of my brain which is embracing today’s cool temperature, along with the nice, fairly-clean (read: less dusty than usual) wind which has been whistling down the halls of my clinic all day.

By the way, first one to get the literary reference in today’s title wins.

I have a few essays on the workbench, but not quite ready for prime-time. This includes one about my ongoing search for a suitably accessible and usable latrine on post, a post about the plodding sameness of the days here and how the soldiers combat the stir fever which this threatens to create, and a discussion of the medics themselves—my lifeblood here on Al Asad, and the source of 90% of my daily human contact. How did each of these men and women ended up working as an Army medic serving in Iraq? Each one has an interesting story, often poignant. Look for those longer pieces in the future (or, not at all—depends on where things naturally take us from here).

Today, I have a few brain droppings for you, on seemingly random subjects, though as I read back over this on final edit, they don’t seem so random to me any more.

1) I bought a bike two days ago, from a SPC (E-4) who came to my clinic for a post-deployment health assessment. 60 bucks, included the locks and a nice Schwinn helmet. It needed a bit of work, but 36 hours later, I was taking this fine machine out past one of the checkpoints, and near the flight line. as I got about two miles away from the busier part of the post, I looked around and saw no people at all, nor any signs of them, except for the pyramid-shaped “yugo” bunkers which I have described previously. Looked like a lunar landscape to me, except with birds circling (not circling ME, mom!) and those crazy, whacked-out pyramid thingies. When I got to the flatter area, the wind started whipping me and my poor little bike around like Dorothy, and so I flipped around and headed back to the main area. I’ll be taking that trip again, soon, on a less windy day. The bike, with brakes I had just recently adjusted, help up pretty well. I have a severe case of “bicycle bottom” today—need to toughen up that backside a bit.

2) When I went to pick up the bike at the Specialist’s can, I was reminded how good we medical types have it. He and another soldier were crammed into a room about 3/4ths the size of mine, and they had clearly given into the dust many many moons ago. Which means they have been here that long. I go home before either of them does.

3) The food here is really, really, really bad. Really. I could add a few more “really”s there, but my English teacher wouldn’t count them towards my word total. I know that you, dear reader, are saying to yourself something like “Didn’t Erik tell us the food was great?” Answer: the food in Kuwait was very good, but remember, I was absolutely starving from the 24 hours of travel by the time I got to Kuwait. Maybe it tasted better than it was. All I know, is that I ate twice at the DFAC today, and it was not good either time. Lunch was particle-board (a.k.a. chunked and formed”) turkey, like those Jennie-O turkey rolls I used to like when I was a kid. (I also liked the taste of boogers when I was a kid, let me remind you. Personally, after today’s lunch, if given the option, I’d take the boogers. They would at least have more non-synthetic protein.) Even slathering these pieces of turkey plywood with gravy, Texas Petes, Tabasco—in short, all of my “hide the flavor” tricks; none of these worked, gosh help me. Everyone at my table had something different for lunch, and we all left there with the same unsatisfied, slightly sickly look on our faces. Dinner was “Cordon Bleu.” That is what it said on the menu. Before I ordered, I did not think to ask what poor creature had been “Cordon-Bleued” (if you’ll excuse the awkward verb). I still don’t know. Again, it was particle-board, and would probably claim to be (mostly) chicken, but I left there wondering if perhaps on the shooting range earlier that day, there had been some sort of mishap with an M9 pistol and a camel, and the US government was trying to make the best of it, recouping their $5000 simoleons. Lorri, I’m looking forward to that jambalaya in September. I’ll be piling it high and deep.

4) You may have read on the always-reliable wikipedia that Al Asad has a Burger King, a Subway, and a Pizza Hut on post. Sounds like a reasonable alternative to the DFAC, but there is one problem, insurmountable to my feeble brain: the workers there are “regulars” at our clinic, and many have come in this week with hacking coughs, runny noses, ear infections, warts, you name it. To be fair, I have not heard of even one infection coming from the food there, and the workers aren’t unclean, just ill. But once you give antibiotics to a person, you want some time to pass before he prepares you a meal, especially in this The Land Of Non-Potable Water.

5) Our laundry service just went from 3-day to 2-day turnaround. This is nice, as I just happen to be a member of two groups (possibly the ONLY two groups in the world—you can figure out which ones they are) which require special undergarments, and I just can’t seem to keep enough on hand, always end up having to re-use a t-shirt before the next batch comes back. This will be remedied soon, as I have the appropriate undies on order as I write this.

6) Finally, I am really enjoying the Barack/Hillary circus. Once upon a time, I wrote a weekly column for a paper in Utah (and later, a larger paper) in which I often made the argument that we spend too much time on Presidential news, especially during election season. At that time (mid-90s), the President was becoming more and more irrelevant, and the Speaker of the House was actually Time’s man of the year once. It seemed, I wrote, that it didn’t really matter who became President, but rather which party was in power, writing the laws. That is very clearly NOT true today, something I can say with some conviction as I sit in my bunker in Iraq, 7000 miles away from my family, serving in a war which began 5 years ago, and which, as of Easter Sunday, has cost 4000 American military members their lives. Where will those sacrifices play into the history of this troubled region (and, by extension, the world), we do not yet know, but one thing is very clear to me: these days, it does indeed matter who becomes our President.