Friday Follies

Last night, a group of us went out to dinner at a DFAC over on the other side of the base where our offices used to be. Friday night is seafood night and this particular DFAC is known for its crab legs. As well it should be! Unlike our own culinary catastrophe, this one cooks crab legs up so they're just right, and then they pile them on your plate. All-you-can-eat, all-free crab legs. It's almost enough to make you want to sign up for a tour in Iraq. Almost.

Then we went over to one of the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) facilities for Salsa Night. Yes, here in a war zone, they have salsa night. They had a salsa class before everything got started. No, your intrepid reporter did not get up and stomp around like Lurch: he stayed on the sidelines. Salsa has a few steps to memorize and, as Janis will tell you, I have no memory. One of our group did try to teach me a little merenge, which was more my style: not quite as complicated as the two-step, it was more like "one, one, one, one ..."

Then the band started up. There's a real Army band on post and they so salsa/merenge, and they're good. It was great to hear live music again. And the dance floor came alive. All the latinos/latinas were out there moving like they'd been doing it their whole lives. Lots of palefaces, including several of our group, were out there doing their Lurch impressions. One of the most memorable dancers (NOT from our group) was one Army woman. She must be a senior Army reserve officer because she was way older than even me. Now soldiers aren't authorized civilian clothes on base, so when they want to dress casual, they wear their PT gear. So here was this senior Army lady, in shapeless Army black PT shorts, a shapeless Army grey T-shirt ... and gold high heels. Yes. I kid you not. She could move pretty well, but I could not get over those gold high heels on a senior Army officer.

Today was somebody's worst day. This morning, just before I went in to work, a couple of our security contractors parked their armored Land Cruiser, hopped out, and as they walked away, the Toyota quietly rolled backwards, then over the edge and SPLASH ... right into the canal. Took a great big tow truck, a team of riggers, two fire trucks, and three hours to get the now-ruined Land Cruiser back out. (It's just a little water, you say? You haven't seen Iraqi water!) There's probably a guy packing his bags tonight for his flight out tomorrow. Poor guy - it could have happened to anybody here.