Not in a great mood tonight, and I can’t entirely explain why. Read: time for a good old-fashioned rant. Sit back, dear reader, relax, and bask in my unmitigated irritability.

Our AFN has been down for going on four days now. This, of course, happened on a weekend where the Armed Forces Network broadcast the Yankees-Mets game (a rare opportunity to root against BOTH teams). At home, no TV is not such a big deal, as there are lots of other things to do, but here in Al Asad, our measly six channels are precious company. When I think about it, there are really only eight things that we actually do here: eat, drink, sleep, work, poop, pee, lift weights, and watch tube. That’s it. I want my AFN!

I cleaned my room this weekend, and even went to the considerable hassle of not only borrowing someone else’s vacuum to do my carpets, but also of borrowing my neighbor’s heavy-duty transformer, so that I would not kill my last remaining outlet. When I went to bed on Saturday night, my room felt clean for the first time in a long time. And then when I woke up this morning, as I was attempting to peel my sticky eyes open, I could smell that unmistakable chalky scent, and felt like someone had been banging erasers over my head all night. When I finally got my lids pried apart, I could see the Orange Glow Of Death through my windows, and I knew that I was doomed to a day of coughing, snorting, and unintentional guffawing. And, ask anyone who knows me, I don’t guffaw easily. Chortle, maybe; snicker, occasionally; hoot, sometimes; but guffaw? Rarely, if ever. And, my freshly-vacuumed carpet now has a slight orangish hue (except for the footprints).

Also on Saturday, I took my sheets in to be washed. This is a relatively rare occurrence for me, because I do not have an extra set of sheets, and thus for the 48-hour laundry turn-around time, I have to sleep directly on the pillow-top which Lorri sent me many moons ago. So I went to pick up my beloved bedding today, along with three other bags of laundry which I dropped off at the same time. All of the laundry bags were ready for pickup except one. I’ll let you guess which…

On another note: I am giving a big Hematology presentation at the hospital tomorrow afternoon. It is just about ready to go, and looks pretty good, jokes and all. Gonna put some finishing touches on that now, so will check out for the moment.