As one prepares to leave Afghanista, Another Arrives

BabaTim is getting ready to exit Afghanistan. Catch his latest post on his blog, Free Range International. It's called Diplomacy 101, and you'll find out why. It's hilarious.

Artist Skip Rohde has deployed again. He's a contractor in Afghanistan. Last year, he was in Iraq working with the Army Corps of Engineers (I think). Catch his updates on Storypaintings.

Our House, The Cat, Dog, The Swiffer

The main reason for Swiffering

Because I cannot regale you of gunfights a la BabaTim of Free Range International,  I' can only tell you about my preoccupation with this house.

We've been cleaning a lot as of late. I've discovered the Swiffer family. Meaning, Swiffer as in those little things that you push around. Swiffers are the tribbles of household cleaning products.  First you buy one product, and then another, and suddenly there's an entire closet filled with white fluffy things in plastic tubs, and in boxes. There is never a time when there isn't a bit of swiffering to do around this dustbin of a house,  (and I'm also amused over the new verb --to swiffer, to have swiffered, am swiffering). Anyway, swiffering is sort of like using a tape roller. You can't help but notice how much dog and cat fur the pad picks up. My small mammals aren't much into learning how to swiffer, so I've thought of just wrapping their paws in Swiffer materials and letting them pick up their own fur.

The only place I have yet to conquer is under the fridge. Watch this, to find what Simon's Cat finds.

Essay: Why I'm Not Running For President

Three weeks ago, I succumbed to the gentle deterioration of middle age and had Lasik eye surgery. I had always resisted what seemed to me to be a barbaric sounding operation. My impressions of it came from an old photo from the 1970's showing Russians doing this surgery routinely. I remember it clearly, a machine, with patients lying down on tables encircling it. It seemed a beastly thing, ghastly, and perhaps I had watched too many episodes of The Twilight Zone. But three things happened: the surgery has gotten leaps and bounds better utilizing an Excimer laser, which to my way of thinking is stronger than Kryptonite. Over the years, my lenses were of such increasing thickness the weight made my head weary.  Plus, I could no longer read without taking off my glasses, and holding the paper 8" from my face. It was a reminder that my parts were getting worn out.

The Hubs came home from Afghanistan, and I told him I was going to take a stash of savings and pay to have it done. He thought it was a good idea --as he pointed out the surgery is calibrated by some big jumbo computer in some cloud somewhere and the data is constantly being re-calibrated. Obviously, I wasn't paying too much attention, or I could explain it better here. But he drove me over, and checked out the office --a slick office building in the ritzy part of Orange County. We met the surgeon, a fine fellow, and that was that. $4600 cash, and I was set to go.  I had to wait a few weeks after The Hubs had left because the surgeon doc was going to Fiji, and I was going to wrestle with Hurricane Irene.

Come the day of surgery, best friend Pam gamely drove me to the surgery center. Pam had the option of waiting, or accompanying me and watching the surgery through a glass window as though it were a pay-per-view channel. Wisely, she opted for the comfort of a good book. I was led through a procession of specialists who knew the drill. I followed, which was even easier after they gave me the 1 gram of Xanax. The operation went off without a hitch --I think the grand total for the actual surgery took less than ten minutes. But the most peculiar thing happened afterward. The surgeon completed the work and then said, "Quick, sit up, you and I are going to have our picture taken together."

I had been lasered and Xanaxed, so I sat up on the table, the surgeon sitting next to me. Before I had time to think about smoothing my hair, or holding out a thumbs up, or giving my surgeon the bunny ear treatment behind his head, the nurse clicked away.  I thought it odd then, and when I got the actual photo delivered to my email the following week, found it positively bizarre.  It's all shrewd marketing, a ploy to get people to reflect enthusiastically after their operation and give a positive review through social networking. In other words, I could help their business handsomely, add to the already persistent ads on pop ups by giving it a yelp, or a Facebook "like."

I shook my head when I thought of all the untapped possibilities we had missed in our own private surgical practice: hernia repair, gallstone or gallbladder removal, hemmoridectomies would have been good as they relieved people from pain.  "My surgeon took the pain out of my ass," would have been a common recommendation. However, the most compelling testimonials would have been from patients who had undergone life saving operations --trauma or cancer surgeries. I doubt any of our patients would have sat up on the table next to The Hubs while waiting to have their photo snapped. We would have had to snap their pic while they were still down, tubes in place, maybe ask them to crack a smile right when the anesthesia wore off.

Anyway, I've decided not to run for President of the United States. I know this is of great disappointment to all of you, but I'd rather save myself the humiliation of having this photo leaked to the press. My eyes are light sensitive, and I find wearing sunglasses while computering eases the stress. It's very Hollywood, a dash St. Tropez, but neither Panda or Louie think twice about it. They're just grateful I won't be running for President.