I wish I would have put *blank* in my UAB

UAB: It's the first of your belongings to arrive at the new assignment. abbreviation for 'unaccompanied air baggage'. I think. Another acronym to remember.
Or 'Underwhelming and Broken' if we're describing my UAB shipments.

This week, for the Weekly State Department Blog Roundup, the theme is "I wish I would have put {fill in the blank} in my UAB' being hosted by Jill at Run 2 New Places. I have peeked at some of the other ladies' submissions & I think mine is going to be downright pessimistic compared to theirs.

You see, UAB and I have never been good friends. Our first pack-out, I followed the guidelines down to a 'T'. I got plastic salt & pepper shakers. I put preferred non-perishables in, like a Sam's Club size package of toilet paper, diapers, paper towels, etc. I also put in things that would be immediately applicable; plastic plates, cups, forks, spoons, etc. I also included some nice touches of home, something to hang on the wall like sturdy picture frames. Also our desktop computer tower & screen. I mean, c'mon, a computer tower is pretty sturdy, right? Wrong.

Our UAB arrived seven weeks after we arrived at post. And one week before our HHE. I barely had time to unpack the UAB before the rest of our things exploded in the apartment. Stee-rike one. When the UAB arrived, we were asked to inspect the labels on the boxes where we had signed our name, to verify that they were still intact and therefore un-tampered with. Lulling us into a false sense of security, the labels were perfect. The contents? Trashed. Our desktop was the first casualty. The motherboard was pretty much the only thing we could extract. My picture frame, my decorative IRON picture frame, was bent and unable to hang flat against the wall. Of the things I shipped myself, the toilet paper and plastic salt & pepper shakers were pretty much the only things to emerge unscathed. Though the toilet paper rolls were ovals.

Most recently, we received our UAB here in Bahrain. I had learned my lesson through the two previous UABs and put nothing the least bit delicate in it. Still, they managed to screw up my shipment & pack it mostly full of weights, yes, gym weights, 2 laundry baskets & a bathroom rug. Oh, and the kid's folding picnic tables. None of the area rugs, plastic kitchenware, shower curtains or anything else useful that I had *specifically* labeled with their blue stickers. The kid's folding tables? Ruined. The bench is popped off of one & the other has a nice long gouge in the table top. The boxed up, unused exercise bike? Cracked case. Usable, but abused.

So you can see why I'm not that trusting of the UAB shipment. You know what I did this time? I mailed myself all my little comforts of home.

- at least one good kitchen knife - can opener - vegetable peeler - a screwdriver - utility scissors - apron - dish towels - small cutting board - whisk - spatula - batteries - small plastic mixing bowls (2) - a ruler - and various other notions that I can't live without.

What did I pack in my last UAB? (if they hadn't screwed it up)

- exactly what is in the welcome kit.

Comforters, pillows, sheets, towels, tablecloths, lap blankets, shower curtains & rings, hangers, bathmats, unbreakable plates, cups, bowls & cutlery. {pack enough dishes so that if you *need* to go a day without washing any dishes, you can make it through}, area rugs, select pots & pans, plastic colander/strainer, toaster, spatulas & cooking spoons, toys & books, and anything else that is pretty sturdy that you want.

Bottom line: Mail anything you can't live without {for 6-7 weeks} that can fit in a flat rate box. The UAB is not the savior of your household's sanity. Our HHE's have always arrived {mostly} unscathed. {Never anything damaged as seriously as it was in the UAB.}

Oh, and btw, we've been in Bahrain 11 weeks, still no HHE. We have a tentative arrival date of Nov. 22. Thank you, Lady in D.C. that forgot to file our paperwork until we'd been in country for almost a month. Gotta love the State Dept. Ma'asalama, my peeps.

Out of Synch

I'm just not feeling it today. Or this month, for that matter. Try as I might, I stare at my screen, willing prose to pop from my brain, to my fingers & assemble itself into coherent thought. I have at least 4 *really* good blog posts I want to put up. I even have a good, no, great step-by-step recipe!

That last paragraph took me an hour to get down. I feel like one of those screen saver balls bouncing around the screen, aimlessly plowing straight as an arrow to the other side of the box. I have the feeling of being purpose driven, but the mission hasn't been revealed to me. Time seems to slip right through my fingers, but it can't move fast enough.

We just got our vehicle two days ago. One caveat**: It's been sitting in the Embassy Motor Pool parking lot since the first week of October, but two days ago was when all the paper pushing & money shuffling was done. Here she is:

Baby Beluga asks: Does this driveway make my butt look big?

It feels so good to be up above the crowd again. I really only feel comfortable driving the biggest outfit on the road. I've felt like I was in a roller skate these last 3 months; surfing right along the asphalt. She is huge; Spence shaved the paint off the right door handle parking her the first night. But I don't mind. Within 12 hours of receiving Ellie (our 4-runner we drove in Egypt), I backed up & scraped a nice Morse code along the passenger side door with a metal pole. Then we remained unscathed (through any fault of our own) for the rest of our 4 years. So maybe this is a good omen.

I promise to compose & post. I really really really want to get them up. We had a fun weekend; the older girls & I toured the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier, actually a supercarrier! I got a picture of the refrigerated pork & beans! And . . . I made tortillas from scratch. Yep, it's been an eventful time. Also, we have a tentative arrival date of two weeks for our long awaited household goods. *phew* I'm going to go take a nap.



**Ooh, caveat. Another word you can type with one hand!

Spooktactular Bash

It was a monster bash. A graveyard smash. A witch, a vampire, a hippie and a ballerina. All escorted by Communications Officer Uhura. We all sure enjoyed it! Happy Halloween, all!

YouTube Tuesday: Reminiscing

Television programming for children sucks. There, I said it. We watch all of our T.V. on DVD. Not that that's much better; we get super bolus 92 minute injections of Dora instead of regular 23 minute intervals as live T.V. would bring us. There are some clever shows out there. Ben Ten has some pretty awesome aliens. And there's this other karate/ninja something show with a cowboy & a team of other things. But as a whole, it's really gone downhill since I was a kid. The 80s, in my humble opinion, were the pinnacle for Saturday morning cartoons. We had new ones and we had reruns from previous decades which {again my opinion} culminated in the perfect storm of t.v. viewing bliss. C'mon, we all enjoy a good show.

I have collected a list of different shows on YouTube and, to tell you the truth, I am a bit shocked! I didn't think I had seen that many different shows. But then again, it was the era of combining 4 into one. Nickelodeon had shows such as 'You Can't Do That on Television' and 'Pinwheel' which were comprised of a main story strung together with related vignettes of skits. Here's a quick list, in no particular order:

- Today's Special - Mr. Wizard - 3-2-1 Contact - Picture Page - Kid's Incorporated - Alvin & the Chipmunks - Smurfs - Gummi Bears - Gem (she's truly outrageous) - Inspector Gadget - He-Man - Pinwheel - Danger Mouse - Bozo the Clown -

I'm leaving a lot out. My parents will probably see this and think, "What is she talking about?" I know that's what I'll think when my children look back on their television viewing of the 2000s. {really, what's up with the name for this whole decade? well, that's a whole different discussion} It took me a while to catch on to Ben Ten. I realized, in Spring '08, that my kids had a whole cartoon figured out & were pretending it on the playground, and I had no clue what they were doing. I thought they had invented some of it, but then, I was suspicious. They explained it was from a cartoon called 'Ben Ten'. Hmmm. Let me tell you, Ben has some pretty cool aliens.

I haven't even mentioned sitcoms, but then again, I'd rather not delve into how much of my life I've wasted on television. I wish there was a way just to share my play list, but here's the highlights.

This first one still pops into my head at weird times. And won't leave. I can remember this silly short from 25 years ago, but I still don't know where I left my cell phone.



3-2-1 Contact. One of the finest shows that PBS had to offer. They need more of these kinds of shows. Everything doesn't have to be in animation. I loved this in first grade!



And a final addition, Picture Pages with Bill Cosby. Talk about an addictive song. Oh, and btw, when I was going through these vids with my kids, they were not sure how to react. First came the, 'You watched this when you were our age?' and then I could just see the thought bubble above their heads filling with 'Wow, she is demented! She thinks this is the best? Oooo-kay Mom.' Enjoy.

Come out, come out!

That phrase always makes me think of Glenda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz. "Come out, come out, wherever you are/To see the young lady/who fell from a star" But we're not calling on the good citizens of Munchkinland, we're calling for fairies! This weekend, we made fairy houses. And Grant made a sprite house. He said fairies were only girls, so I told him sprites were boys. Whaddaya gonna do?

I made little villages under trees and in the bushes when I was little. The premise is that if you build a little house for the fairies, they'll come live in it. But not if you don't keep it pretty & only use things found in nature, so that it will blend in, just like the fairies & sprites.

This is Eliza's house. She had a brilliant idea to tie the twigs together with long grass to make arches for the roof. And she's pretty proud of that little 'bed'. And that's a fairy scarecrow, to show the fairies that it's safe to sleep here.

This is Mairyn's house. She may have had a little help from me, but she did the decor. See the yard for the fairy? That date tree bark has a little hollow in it, that's the bath. She did find a discarded piece of blue cord and that's the towel rack. It is man-made, but hey, we're running a bit short on acorn caps and pine needles.


Here's some shots of the girls deep in their labor of love. It took some convincing; it's still a bit warm outside & who can blame them. Who wouldn't want to hang inside in the A/C instead of crouching under a tree in 99F weather? I made some lemonade & fairy snacks for them & we sat in the shade weaving little ladders for the playground and tying plumeria leaf stems together. I wanted this to be some 'creative independent playtime', but it turned into a whole girl affair. You won't see much of Grant. He liked the idea, but ultimately found more joy in digging holes & climbing trees. And destroying some of his sister's creations.

Jacqueline: Ga-rant! You woo-ind my house! {translation: grant, you ruined my house}
Grant: Well, something would have ruined it! That's why you make them, then they'll be ruined!

{I prefaced all this house building with the reminder to only use things found outdoors, naturally, so if the wind blew it over & it got ruined, it wouldn't pollute the fairy's habitat. My reasoning: when they are abandoned next week, I won't have trash blowing all over the yard. But the whole nature thing, too. ;) And I saw this as a big insight into the boy's reasoning. You make things so they can be ruined. The whole build a lego tower then knock it over doesn't seem so pointless anymore.

That's where I am . . .

Ah, the roundup! The theme for this week is: "A picture from the place where I am now'. Physically, emotionally, whatever we want to choose. Also if there's pink, there's bonus points! A fellow blogger, Jen, was diagnosed with breast cancer recently & we're all showing support!

We haven't been here in Bahrain for very long, so I haven't had the chance to 'capture' the country yet. But here I am, now. In the moment. All the fruit, backwards house numbers, *plumeria*, geckos, the fam, the big main mosque, shrubbery growing pink ribbons and I have no idea what the spiky thing is; a mutated cucumber? I couldn't include the ants which are a part of my daily life I'd rather not think about. I can't even look at those pictures.

Call out the cavalry!

*shudder* I've still got the itchy cooties all over me. This is about as close to losing control as I can come. Autopilot switches on & I'm transformed. Must. Kill. Ants. My thoughts become singular in a mission to destroy the incoming army. Die you evil six-legged devils!!

How did this war begin? I was doing laundry. Yeah. Laundry. I have to go outside to get to my laundry room. I was coming back around house with our tighty whiteys and noticed how dirty dusty the house was. Now, I can't solve that problem in one fell swoop or even at all, but I can hose off the column bases & around the windows. Why not? I said to myself, I have a hose.

I left the laundry wagon & Jacqui on the sidewalk and went to turn on the hose. Water running I snaked the hose over to the front porch area and began squirting. The white was showing again & I felt pretty accomplished.

"I'm on a roll," I thought to myself, "Laundry, hosing off the house, what's next? Maybe I'll even get the laundry folded!"

I turned around and just about jumped out of my skin. Ants were swarming up the wall from some unseen hidey hole!! Of course, I screamed. Then I ran pell mell into the house to grab my mega-huge bottle of Raid & a broom. Wait! (i said to myself) Nobody's going to believe this. (Well, they probably would) I grabbed my camera because pictures always illustrate the moment better. (I can *say* that I found a gecko in my bathroom sink, but what does it *look* like?)



After a few quick pics, I went to town. I sprayed & sprayed & sprayed & sprayed & sprayed & sprayed. Ew, they were just pouring out of that unassuming crack in the step. No previous sign that pure evil lurked under that marble. Once they were adequately under control, I grabbed the hose and began some serious sheeting action to sweep those piles of carcasses out of sight.

This isn't anything new for me, we get ants inside the house. I put ant traps at the junctions of frequent sightings and along with a big bottle of Raid, we keep them under control. There is a bathroom that seems to attract them, but we just don't use that one anymore. At least until the weather gets colder (relatively speaking). The locals say that the ants go away during the "winter" months. What I witnessed was not unlike a scene straight out of Arachnophobia, but the ant version. (not that I've ever seen arachnophobia. don't want to, never will) I still can't sit still. My skin is crawling, ew ew ew . . . I've got to go shower. For a very. long. time. I don't even know if I can keep these pictures on my computer. I guess this is what I get for trying to be ambitious . . . As the old saying goes, If you give a moose a muffin . . .

Victory!!

I don't even know if this video works or my hyperventilating can be heard. I won't watch it.