I was again the big winner at mail call over the past two days, thanks to my loyal readers out there. God bless each and every one of you. You have kept me plied with sweets, books, magazines, music, and even canned fish, to wit:

Yesterday, my dry-eyed friend Diana Telles came through on her promise via e-mail a couple of weeks back to send me a second package. Her first one, you may remember, was chock full of delicious homemade biscotti. Since that last package, I have discovered that this world is made up of exactly two types of people: those who like biscotti, and those who like double peanut-butter stuffed Oreos. I am proud to announce that, thanks to the valiant and selfless efforts of Diana, I am now firmly a member of Team Biscotti.

This week’s package from Chef Telles was packed to the brim with cookies. What kind, you ask? When I opened the package at about 3:45 PM yesterday, I uttered that single word which strikes such joy and gladness into the hearts of mankind: “Tollhouse.” I was immediately surrounded by people with M16s asking politely if they could have some of my Tollhouse cookies. My answer, of course, was “no.” As I opened one of the packages, I noted that the cookies still had a bit of moisture to them, an extreme rarity in these parts. I’m not saying it’s dry here, but this is a place where I have seen a slice of bread shatter when dropped on the ground; where you can pick your own prunes right off of the trees; where I once soaked a terry cloth towel in water and voila! a poodle appeared (etcetera, etcetera, thank you ladies and gentlemen, goodnight).

But seriously folks, Diana’s cookies were delicious and gone in about three and a half minutes (except for the secret bag that I hid in my file cabinet, which I am counting on washing down the “beef brisket” (read: jerky) which KBR will be feeding us for lunch tomorrow. Thanks, Chef Telles!

A second package came from an Oncologist at Walter Reed (and truly one of the smartest guys in the building), MAJ Brendan Weiss. Brendan was a fellow in the class ahead of me, and was instrumental in making that particular fellowship program a better place; he is now staff at Wally World, along with Dr. Wroblewski who was mentioned in yesterday’s post. The package contained some truly delicious homemade maple cranberry granola, which is incredible fresh and real-tasting, again not a common finding among the institutional foods we are served in the mess hall. Brendan and I both suffer from a bit of intellectual ADHD, and recognizing this, he sent me a few magazines, including the April issue of the Atlantic Monthly, a brilliant magazine to which I subscribe, and which I have not been able to read in print since I got here. And a cover article by Christopher Hitchens to-boot! He also sent me a copy of Seed magazine, which is a great science publication, with big glossy pages of interesting stuff to read. That’ll kill a few hours of “Iraq time.” Thanks to Brendan and family for your thoughtfulness.

Last but not least, over the two-day span, I got four boxes from big sis Melissa (nee “Mit”) Tompkins, who sent cookies, Flips (yogurt-covered pretzels, which made an excellent dinner tonight), and loads of great books for our library. Missy, I opened your boxes right in the hallway with a bunch of people standing by, and you should have seen the looks on their faces as I pulled out books by Roald Dahl, Jane Austen, Ian McEwan, E.B. White, Charles Dickens, and many others. Also, I thought SFC Langer’s head was going to explode when she saw the entire DVD Star Wars set. I’d wager one of those is being watched even as I write this. I saved the twizzlers for our next movie night, and will eat the sardines when nobody is around to make fun of me. Somewhere far, far away from my recently de-kippered bedspread.

So the Al Asad Troop Medical Clinic’s library is getting bigger and better, our collective visceral fat pad is enlarging (no problem—next PT test isn’t until September), and our brains are getting more and more full of wonderful infotainment. Thanks to all of you, for your goods, your services, and your much-availing prayers.