Various Things

Sitting in the kitchen, wearing half of the Santa outfit. Today's the last one. I've been glad to do it, but I'll be glad when it's done, too.

I've been reading Love My Rifle More Than You. It does not give me great hopes about my daughter being in the military, even though I know that she won't be going in -- if she goes at all - for five years, and when she does, she'll likely be on a ship or a naval base, where the probability of seeing combat is low. Just the thought of her having to encounter some heavy handed military people is daunting. I recall when I was in the Air Force and I read about female cadets at the Air Force Academy complaining about getting groped and worse. As I recall, the Air Force ignored the complaints for a long time before finally doing something about it. According to the book, the Army is much worse -- and in a combat zone, worse than that. It's a good book, but it scares me - not only because of the reason I just cited, but because it reminds me of how little we know about what combat does to people, and the crap we put them through to get any kind of support once they get out.

You'd think that with me being retired, we'd have plenty of time to decorate. Somehow, that hasn't happened. If we're lucky, we'll get the tree into the house tonight, and decorated tomorrow. We hope. I haven't gotten hardly anything in the way of gifts for my wife == I did get a nice silk blouse, but I wish I'd had the chance to get more. Perhaps I'll try to get out tomorrow and hit what passes for shopping around here. We are buying things for Christmas, but its more that we're finally buying things that we probably could have gotten before -- replacing the bookshelf stereo whose tape player died years ago; replacing a small minicassette recorder whose speed control is frakked . The only reason we're getting it is so that we can play, and transfer, tapes that we made when my daughter was small. It's not expensive, but I kept thinking there must be a better way. Nothing comes to mind, though.