A Friday Laugh!

I received quite the e-mail from Josh this morning. It gave me a much needed laugh - the laugh out loud, pee your pants kind! I will share as much as I can, though unfortunately I can't share it all and therefore, it may not come across as funny to you. If you can picture anything about where they are living/their current situation/how loud the interior of the humvees are, you'll get a good sense of why it was so comical.

Our nephew Dominic was spending the night with my parents a few weeks ago and they put together a package to send to Josh. Dominic decided to add something special to it.

"I did get your mom's package with Dominic's rock. haha. It has been sitting on my little home shelf with the pictures and other things. haha. I meant to say something too about his name. You can pass it on that I am really impressed with his name - it starts with a capital letter and all the other letters are lower case. So many kids come from pre-school spelling their names all in caps. boo! And it goes from left to right - a stunning feat really. haha I guess the kids in killawog are lot smarter than the kids in c-town haha. Tell him i want a rock that says Forrest on it. haha. I don't want any toilet paper from Jonathan. haha." (Jonathan was successfully potty trained recently!)

And of course the wait continues for the Pisciotti twins to arrive...

"When is Diane going to have her babies? I am tired of waiting. I am just kidding. I told everyone that Franny was over three feet tall and everyone laughed at me. Winner winner chicken dinner. I get a prize. What do I get?"

Good thing Josh is in Afghanistan, otherwise Diane might be kicking him in the shins right now. There was a brief discussion on if Diane had them on September 17th what they might name them. Brian being a 7th grade Social Studies teacher thought that some connection to Constitution Day should be made.

"You can tell Brian the whole dining hall was decked out like it was the Fourth of July - streamers, banners, red white and blue table cloths, balloons, on and on. Someone was like what the hell is today? And without missing a beat, I said, 'It's constitution Day.' haha. Everyone was like geek! haha."

Where's the beets?!

"(Soldier across the hall) is back and now (another soldier) is in his room 24 hours a day and they play World of Warcraft - some computer game into the dead of night. Dwight (Schrut - aka the Beet Farmer) plays it on 'The Office'." (One of our favorite, if not very favorite shows).

The life of a driver...

"(New soldier) got to the truck, and he starts yelling at me... 'You guys are bullshit-this is bullshit. I am not a driver(like it is some dirty word). I already put in my time driving.' -blah blah. He has been here a week. I said listen you need to shut up. I have been driving for almost six months. I have driven almost six thousand miles in country, in this patched up piece of shit, so go to your truck and sit and spin.

"We lead out today because I was the only veteran driver, and the third truck driven by (soldier) completely went straight when two other trucks in front of him turned right. How hard is it? He says it is because the power steering went out. Uh... (soldier) is huge and my power steering has goes out too and I have made all the turns. He was not paying attention.

"And then (another soldier) went to (two higher-ups) after the mission and said I was horrible driver and that he couldn't keep up because I was setting too fast of a pace. The pace was 40 on a hardball on a Friday (in other words... their weekend + during ramadan + middle of the day= no traffic). So now later today, I cannot go more than 35. Why we were out, I blew two lines of something, so we had to go right to maintenance along with (soldier) and his "power steering" problem."

A window-licking good time...

"We had to go to (base) yesterday among a million other places, and Sgt. (Soldier) was like 'you, (Soldier 1) and (Soldier 2) will all ride with me. I am not sure who is going to do what, but one of you will be a window licker (= sitting in the back seat).'

"I never ever never get to window lick and I was like I would love to sit in the backseat.

"Sgt. (Soldier) said, 'fine, I will make (Soldier 2) drive and (Soldier 1) gun.' "

Later on, Josh wrote...

"I don't have a headset in the back, so its not like I can comment. As it was, after (base) we had to go to this other smaller american fob down the street from us, and I was the only one in the truck that knew the directions on how to get there. I was like are you guys serious? So, I had to shout the directions to (Soldier 2) from the backseat - that was humorous."

Working 7 days a week... Most people probably don't realize that other than Josh's leave, he has not had a single day off since he arrived in Afghanistan.

"Even today, they split up the missions so the new people could have some "down time". So (Soldier 2) had off in the am, and (Soldier 1) has off in the pm. Guess who has to do both? I guess I should be flattered."

"Today was supposed to be our scheduled day off -- haha -- that did not happen again for a combination of reasons: (someone) that doesn't give a crap + (another someone) with no testicular fortitude + (many people) running (acronym) = no days off ever. haha. Do you like all my math equations?"

And last, but not least...

"ps. no frost here, but big dust storm!"


In other news...

It's the 19th of the month!!! Eight months down!! For me, I am guessing that the next month will fly by, with the arrival of the twins and the marathon ahead for me. I hope that Josh can live vicariously through those moments with me. We were so excited for September to arrive and I constantly say, "Oh my, it's only September (insert any date)" This month has seemed to drag on.

All I have left to say is . . . TGIF!!