Learning to love the ironies and absurdities

I spent the evening playing Santa's little helper / photographer at an Army Christmas party. I have come to the conclusion that there is something very demented about Santa and this whole tradition. As I stood through hours of trying to get miserable children to smile, while they are screaming bloody murder because they are petrified of this strange grey-haired old white man dressed in a plush red suit that is trying to persuade them to perch on his lap, the absurdity of it all dawned on me. We teach our kids "stranger danger" with the exception of this Santa tradition, in which case we want them to actually sit on this man, and be thrilled about it. You can see in their horrified little faces... they know he's a creeper... I kept having these moments where I would look around and wonder, um, is this my effing job?Did I really join the Army to be an elf? Lol!! I actually got a kick out of it, even enjoyed it, including the weirdness, and I think everyone else did too. I especially enjoyed all the hard-core super-duper Paratroopers, dressed in the gayest hand-knit Christmas sweaters and santa hats, oogling over all the rosy-cheeked, snotty kids... and being run ragged by them. We can save the world, but toss us in with a few 3-year olds and suddenly we are sweating, gasping for air,... and in desperate search of a beer. While all the mommies look incredulously like "why is this so hard for you?!" Absurd. Even more absurd is that I completely identify with both the mommy and the Paratrooper, yet still cant figure out how to mesh them together, so watching the roles collide in such mass quantity at an event was completely... well, there's not a word for it, besides absurd.
The Elmendorf housing informed us that they are all booked up over the holidays and so can not grant us an extension in our quarters... so 2 weeks before Christmas, we are moving back to Fort Richardson. I have lived in 2 rooms at Fort Jackson SC, 4 rooms at Fort Meade MD, one at Fort Benning GA, my apartment in Houston, Fort Richardson, Elmendorf and now back to Fort Richardson. That is a total of 11 moves in 2008. I love to travel, and I love moving... but this is an important lesson in the "be careful what you wish for" philosophy. The Army has issued me enough gear and shit in general to build my own private fort, and moving it gets harder and harder every time. And, I have to move the day after Christmas too. That makes for 12 moves before the completion of year 1 in the Army. I should be packing right now... and looky-here, I'm blogging... go figure.
A and I attended our "Sharing Children" class at the courthouse today, which was the last step we had to take before submitting our paperwork. We were laughing through the whole thing, because everyone there looked so damn grumpy, and the couples that were there at the same time were sitting as far away from each other as possible. I guess its not funny, but for whatever reason we were giggling at the sternness of it all. The made-in-the-80s cheesy movie didn't help either.
Speaking of movies... Spc Steve is a bit of a movie buff, he was a film major in college and he's a broadcaster. So he brings me these "classic" movies that I "must" watch. We Were Soldiers was the first. Which was indeed a very good movie... but not if you're deploying to a combat zone in two months. I was sobbing 20 minutes into it (as all the Soldiers are kissing their families goodbye) and cried the whole way through the whole stupid movie. OF COURSE, there is a journalist in it... yay, me. At the end of the movie he says "I don't know how to write this story," which is something I always struggle with. How do you portray Heroes to be the amazing people they are, how do you put into words an experience that is far beyond explanation??? And the officer replies to the journalist "You have to." Ahhhh... lots of tears. Lots of realization. Lots of fear. The second was Cold Mountain, a horrible love story set in the civil war, after which I am very hesitant to watch any more of Spc Steve's movies because the end result is an abundance of tears and snot and puffy eyes in the morning.
This week was "jump week" which really is a fancy way of saying that the Army is shoving 1300 Paratroopers out the door of a c-17 in one week. I luckily had convenient appointments (ok, one of which was a well-woman exam, Army style, use your imagination... so maybe not sooo convenient) so I didn't have to jump. Normally I am very hooah about the whole jumping thing, but toss a few feet of snow, single digit temps, and a ruck sack into the deal, and nooo thank you!!! I did however have to escort the Anchorage Daily News and Channel 13 media out to the drop zone, in a blizzard. The snow was coming down sideways and the wind was as fast as it can be for them to still drop Paratroopers out the door. We couldn't see the first of the c-17s flying over, just heard them and then suddenly all these little parachutes appeared... These poor guys came down sideways, right along with the snow, and FAST. They were all cursing coming down, it was quite entertaining from the ground! I watched them eat shit on the DZ, and proceed to get dragged. Some of these guys weigh twice what I do, so if they were plowing snow with their bodies... well, lets just say I have never been so thankful that my feet were firmly on the ground... even if I was frozen solid tromping around in snow up to my knees for two hours. Honestly, I have never, ever been that cold. My poor toes didn't thaw out for at least an hour. Unfortunately, this means I have to jump in January, when it supposedly gets colder (although I cant even fathom how that is possible.)
I slid off the road twice this week. Well, once I stayed on the road, but my car was moving in a sideways direction down the middle of it. I guess the positive point of that is getting a nice small dose of unexpected adrenaline here and there. Sigh. Whatever. Poor Kia hates Alaska. I also got stuck and was screaming explicatives at the car and the snow and the state before I realized that there were definitely people standing a few yards away, laughing hysterically. I flipped them off when I got unstuck, but they were too busy laughing to notice. I find myself constantly thinking of the irony, how I made fun of Spc Steve for getting assigned to Alaska before I knew I would be here too, how I called A and played the April fools joke of a lifetime "we got stationed in Alaska"... and got "Fort Richardson, AK" as my station three whole days later... even back to my childhood, when I always wanted to live in a southern warm city and my sister dreamt of Alaska, and now she lives in Houston (where my heart is) and I live in the frozen fucking tundra where the streets cant be salted because the moose will roam onto the road to eat the salt, and every other business name starts with "Arctic." Oh, the irony...