Happy Anniversary - 21 Years

Janae and I have been married 21 years today on June 21st. 21 on 21. Has kind of a nice ring to it. And like last year on our anniversary I’m deployed. And like last year we had to celebrate on a different day.

When I told the guys in my office how long I’d been married they were blown away. Two of the three officers I work with are all in their mid-40’s. One has only been married for 6 years and the other for 9. They couldn’t believe that I would get married so young much less still be married to my first wife. They were impressed and amazed…as well they should be!!

As you may have read in a previous posting, Janae and I spent two days at the Homestead in Midway. That was our anniversary celebration. And while we had a great time I miss not being home today to celebrate. I’m looking forward to next year when we can actually celebrate our anniversary on the actual day.

If you’ve read my blog over the last year you know how much I love my wife and how she is the one who has born the brunt of this deployment. As I sit here in my office with no one to worry about but myself she is at home having to take care of the day to day problems that arise. I know we’re heroes but you know what, our wives who are at home are the real heroes.

So to my hero wife, Happy Anniversary and know how much I love you!!


P.S.


After I wrote the above version, I went back and read last year’s blog entry. My I was verbose. In perusing my blog entries I can see where they have gotten shorter and shorter over time. Does that mean I’ve lost my zeal to write? Probably.

Last year I regaled you with the activities of my day so in the tradition of last year let me walk you through my romantic day.

I woke up at 0430 – a common occurrence these days and lay in bed for a while. Even when I was home on leave I was waking up at 0430 so there must be something “magical” about that hour. I thought about getting up and going to the gym but decided to lay in bed for a while longer. I was wishing I was home in bed with my wife on our anniversary so that I could…OK, I can’t say that as my boys may end up reading this entry. Anyway, I spent a less than romantic early morning in bed.

Actually I dozed off as I remember my iPod going off – I use it as my alarm clock and laying there listening to the music for a while. Finally about 0545 I drug my sorry butt out of bed, put on my PT clothes and went to the gym.

Today was biceps and back so after 10 minutes of walking on the treadmill to warm up I started lifting. Not too motivated today but I lifted for about 50 minutes. Then I went back to the treadmill to watch the last 15 minutes of Dodgeball that was playing on the Armed Forces Network. Our Inspector General is a 90 lb Puerto Rican woman. Boy she’s an animal in the gym. I realize that she’s only 90 lbs but it’s a wonder to behold her doing pull-up after pull-up. She asked me if I wanted to work out with her but I told her she scared me too much. We just laughed.

Went back to my room and had a delicious vanilla protein shake made with pineapple juice. Mmmm. Doesn’t that sound yummy?

My personal laptop has been giving me nothing but grief lately – oh, I was able to recover all the data off my hard drive, thanks to Larry at work. Anyway it’s now causing me other problems so I took it to the computer guys to see if they could fix the problem. After telling me all the horrible things that could be wrong with it, filling me with untold dread, they told me to come back tomorrow. My fingers are crossed.

Spent the morning reading e-mails and essentially twiddling my thumbs. I was supposed to be out East this week training but the prosecutors are at another conference so had to cancel my trip but in light of recent events, maybe that’s a good thing.

For our romantic anniversary lunch I had the choice of overcooked hamburgers with plastic cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches that had about a pound of melted butter on each slice of bread, baked ham and pork chops in barbecue sauce. I went for the pork chops. They actually weren’t that bad. Soggy broccoli, of course, carrot and raisin salad, all washed down with a bowl of chili. Doesn’t that sound just yummy?

This afternoon Asmahtullah came by to see me. As you may recall he was my interpreter at the KMTC. He’s such a great young man. I asked him about the recent violence in Kabul and how do the locals feel. As I thought, most people are happy to have the Americans here. He specifically mentioned paved roads, clean”er” water, relative stability, women’s rights and other things. He said the ones who are protesting against the Americans are the pro-Taliban – just like I thought.

Now it’s almost dinner and I’m all a tingle over the thought of what gourmet delight will be offered.

After dinner I’ll go back to the gym and attend the abs class. Still working on that ever elusive 6-pack. Actually, I can tell that I’ve got some definition, they’re just hiding under 10 lbs of flab that doesn’t want to go away and I’m not disciplined enough to lose.

After that I’ll head back to my room for a quiet evening, alone. Oh well, there’s always next year.