Mr. Stinky's bud shriveled up and fell off last week. There are another couple of what appear to be teensy buds trying to make an appearance. We shall see what happens. I fear that it is just too cold and dark up here right now to get one of these bad boys all the way into full bloom.

Annabelle and I went down to E'town tonight to see a touring company's production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Great show! Annabelle and I both left the theater in the mood to re-read the book.

I went to the meeting tonight and got the skinny on what is going on. Bottom line is it'll all work out fine for us; nobody with a deployed soldier will be asked to move before September. By that time, Fred will be home, and we will be long gone from Knox. Others aren't so lucky, and I'm still rather pissed at how the whole thing was handled. Hard to work up a good head of righteous indignation right now though with the news coming out of Fort Hood. I've been watching with relief this evening as friends at Hood come online on Facebook and report in as OK.

Before I got distracted last night by the threat of impending eviction, I was going to share a delicious recipe. When we go to Orlando, we almost always eat at this one Thai restaurant that has the most delicious Tom Ka Gai (Thai chicken soup). I have been having a wicked craving for it lately, but alas there is no trip to Orlando in my immediate future, so I found this recipe on the web and gave it a try.

Cooking it was kind of an adventure, as I had to go to our local Asian grocery for 3 items I had never cooked with before: kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal, which I have no idea how to pronounce but appears to be some sort of cousin to ginger. Then there were the other, less-exotic exotic ingredients that I am more familiar with, such as fish sauce and coconut milk.

Annabelle gave it a good try but declared it to be not her thing. Mike scarfed down a couple of bowls and seemed to enjoy it. I loved it, and I loved it even more tonight. I think the flavors intensified overnight.

I seem to be in a soupy mood these days. This one is next on my list. I'll let you know how it goes!

Ginger pooped a dollar bill today. As I scooped it up and tied it inside a poo bag, I wondered to myself what denomination it would have to be to inspire me to try to refresh it enough to make it usable. I decided that as a one-time thing, I wouldn't bother for anything smaller than a fifty. If, however, I could get her to produce twenties on a regular basis, I would get into money laundering . . . literally.

***

One of my friends from down the street posted as his Facebook status tonight that Knox Hills (the company that runs the military housing here at Knox) wants to move him to another house EVEN THOUGH HE WILL BE RETIRING AND LEAVING POST ALTOGETHER IN UNDER A YEAR. I had heard rumors of such nonsense but figured we were safe after our housing manager paid us a visit last week and said nothing of it. Well, when I was reading Andre's report on Facebook, all of a sudden I got a feeling of dread, so I sent Mike downstairs to check for a letter. Sure enough, we've been put on notice.

Bottom line is that they have until September 2010 to finish renovating the houses in the historical district. So if you're in unrenovated housing (like us) and not moving away before June 30 (like us), then they will move you to another house so they can get to work on the renovations. Andre says they've known of this deadline for 4 years, and if that is so, BASTARDS! Also, I don't see anything in this letter guaranteeing housing in the historical district, just that the people who volunteer to be relocated first will get first dibs on what is available. I love my neighborhood and have no desire to leave it prematurely.

Let's look at our timetable. Fred won't get back here until July, and I have no intention of moving Annabelle out of Kentucky until youth theatre is over for the summer, plus I know Mike is going to want to maximize his last summer with his Kentucky friends. Maybe it would be possible to go ahead and ship everything to our next duty station and live in temp quarters through the summer (although that would mean I get the pleasure of yet another packing out without Fred). There is no way in hell I am packing up and unpacking just to do it all over again this summer.

There's going to be a town hall meeting to discuss the matter on Thursday night. You better believe I'll be there. I'm ready to lead the frickin' revolution. What is the saying? "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." I feel a call to my congressman coming on.

Wow, I just realized that yesterday's post was my 1000th on this blog. How cool is that? I might have another miniature Snickers with almonds to celebrate. (EDITED TO ADD: I did in fact celebrate just like that, plus I introduced Annabelle to the wonder that is Snickers with almonds.)

Swim season definitely feels real now. I spent an hour and a half this afternoon handing out equipment. It was fun though--we've got the best kids, and the nicest parents, and the most awesome coach! Tomorrow is a scrimmage meet again Meade County, and Mike can't wait. I'll miss part of it when I take Annabelle to her dance class, but I'm eager to catch however much of it I can after that.

Mike informed me today that one of FKHS's losses of this season was transformed into a victory when the other team had to forfeit for having played an ineligible player. Wow, three wins in one season! It's hard to imagine that there are schools where victory feels normal. Each one here feels like Christmas.

It dawned on me earlier that I haven't updated on my contact lenses lately (and I'm sure you guys have just been dying to know). I am officially a contact wearer now. It's still not 100% perfect. Any time I go into a store of any type, I don't know if it's perfumes or lack of humidity or what, but I swear I can feel them drying to my eyes. I'm using Restasis though, which seems to help a lot with the overall dryness. I continue to be amazed by the crystal clear vision they provide (so much better than glasses!). I still need to learn how to pop them out at the end of the day. This is how you're supposed to do it:



I am still 100% reliant on my little eyeball-sucker tool. In fact, I bought five extra so that I will always have one on hand.

I decided to join NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) this November in hopes of inspiring myself to post more often. Here are some random bullet points to start the month off right:

• I can't stop eating miniature Snickers with almonds. I woke up thinking about them this morning and had one for breakfast.


• Swim season has started, but it doesn't seem quite real to me. I think that is because Mike is driving himself to and from practice in Fred's car, so it has very little effect on my life (unlike the past 3 years of needing to be home at a certain time to pick up after practice). Right now though my van is fully loaded with warm-up suits, swim parkas, swim bags, and god-only-knows-what-else that I need to distribute at practice tomorrow. So it'll seem more real when I'm in the frenzy of handing out equipment, I'm sure.


• FKHS won AGAIN Friday night! We haven't won back-to-back games since 2003, so this is huge. I never thought the day would come when I would care one way or the other about football, but man, it's nice to have a little victory going on.


• We are hoping to move to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, this summer. Also never thought the day would come when I would want to move to Kansas, but it really does look like the best possible move for us at this point. And maybe I'm jinxing things by mentioning it publicly on the blog, but I sat on the news of our move to Germany for 2 solid months last year and look how that turned out.


• In fact, I think that one thing that has gradually shut me down as a blogger over the past year is feeling intimidated about talking about this or that publicly. If I'm going to keep this up, I need to be a little more honest and open. So the Germany/deployment thing? KILLED me! Annabelle's 2 years in middle school? AWFUL, and yeah, middle school is generally recognized as horrible, but this was really, really bad! And the class I'm taking this semester for my own school? SUCKS! Honestly, if this were my first class in the program instead of my eighth, I would probably drop out entirely, fearing that every class would be somewhat like this nightmare.

So there. That's enough for one day. Stay tuned for another post tomorrow, and maybe this will start feeling normal again.

Another fun Halloween! Annabelle's friend Katie, who moved off-post this summer, came back to trick-or-treat with her, while Mike went around with his buddies.

Annabelle went in a different costume direction for tonight from yesterday's updated Little Red Riding Hood, dressing up as Brandon Lee in the film The Crow:





Mike's costume was inspired by a Saturday Night Live Christmas skit:





If you can't go a little crazy at Halloween, when can you?