Quite unexpectedly, the past two days have seemed to go by much more quickly than days in my actual office. I'm not sure yet if that's simply due to the novelty of a new place, or if it's because I get in the zone and stay in the zone with no outside distractions. Probably a little bit of both. Whatever the explanation, I've been happily typing away at the book I'm ghostwriting. Well, I say typing, but it really goes more like this:
Type. Stop. Ponder next step. Type. Backspace. Ponder better. Re-type. Stop. Glower at screen. Check email. Type. Look out window at the bird feeder being blown down. Google a quote to throw into the text. Ponder. Type. ...and so on and so forth. For me, writing has always been a stop and go business. I suppose there are some people who can sit down, let the words gush forth in one steady torrent, and then stop. I'm not one of them. I'm more like a defective faucet that spits out water for a few seconds, stops, spits more water out, stops, ad infinitum. The bottom line is, though, that I get the job done. And that's what's important!
Meanwhile, Spike started his classes "for real" today. Last week was essentially orientation, and Monday was what the Captain described as an interminable lecture on the history of Fort Sill. It's always a shame, in my opinion, when instructors make history boring. It's not. I think the instructor should have asked all of the students to re-enact Custer's escapades. Now that would have been interesting.
Today, though, the class launched into gunnery. To quote the Captain, "Gunnery is not funnery." Right now, he's sitting across the table from me doing his homework and making faces at his binder. He's been telling me all about ideal shooting conditions (apparently the earth has to not be spinning...huh!), trajectories, rounds, charges, fuses, etc. I'd estimate that I understand about a quarter of it. There's a lot of math involved and, well, I'm a humanities girl to the hilt. I have to say, though, it's very interesting to learn about what a day at the "office" is like for him.
So far, Spike has been coming home around 4:30, which coincides nicely with the end of my workday (4:30 here being 5:30 Eastern time). Tonight I fixed beef stew, which cooked in the crock pot all day long and made the condo smell delicious. I'm going to have to start planning my menus better, though, as I currently only have ingredients for one other meal (beef enchiladas). I guess my mother was right when she called me "Susie Homemaker" on the phone today. Well, I might not be there yet--but we're working on it! And anyway, there are definitely worse things to be than a part-time homemaker.
For instance, one could be an enemy sniper. The Army lets it be known in no uncertain terms that we do NOT like enemy snipers, and Spike has posted this important message on our refrigerator so that neither one of us forgets. While I maybe shouldn't make light of what is, in reality, a very serious thing, I can't help but laugh at the anti-sniper pamphlet. Take a look:
You got that? Is that clear? KILL the SNIPER! And don't forget it!
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