Oh Fidel... Where did our love go?
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
In 1492
And on October 28
He landed on Cuba
I was pulled from the main body deployment to Kuwait and instead put on a detachment to Cuba to build a pier. The word on the street is that there isn’t any surveying to be done and so in lieu of my regularly scheduled activities I’ll function as quality control and safety for the project: that’s about as unglamorous as it gets. But I feel really lucky, mostly because I'm not going to the desert (tax-free income and hazard pay just aren't enough to seduce this girl) but also because I'll be with a small group of people and away from all the tiresome rules that larger groups tend to enforce. I'm lucky, excited and relieved.
The bum deal is that I’ll be so close to Havana with all of it’s music and food and steam engine trains (they never upgraded like the rest of the world), but not be able to swing by for a visit. Buena Vista Social Club is going to have to take up space in my memory as a movie with great music instead of the live soundtrack for my weekend carousing. Of course, Fidel has to die sometime. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll kick the bucket in the next month or two.
Despite the fact that my mother asks me, about once every two weeks, if I know where I'm going for deployment, I never told her that I was slated for Kuwait. I didn’t want to deal with the guilt of worrying her. But when we spoke on the phone yesterday I didn’t tell her about Cuba, either and I’m not sure why. Instead we talked about my dad’s radiation treatments and the unsettling fact that when the minister for my brother’s wedding told the happy couple that they would have to go to one day of secular marriage counseling before she would agree to perform the ceremony, my brother’s fiancé refused and found someone else in the phone book to get the job done. My mother suspects, and she’s usually right about these things, that the blushing bride knows just how high-maintenance she is, thinks that my brother hasn’t figured it out yet, and doesn’t want to run the risk of anyone cluing him in. After my mom finished spilling the gossip all she could say was, “I thought I raised him better than that. I guess not.”
It could be worse. My mom could think I was the disappointment.
In 1492
And on October 28
He landed on Cuba
I was pulled from the main body deployment to Kuwait and instead put on a detachment to Cuba to build a pier. The word on the street is that there isn’t any surveying to be done and so in lieu of my regularly scheduled activities I’ll function as quality control and safety for the project: that’s about as unglamorous as it gets. But I feel really lucky, mostly because I'm not going to the desert (tax-free income and hazard pay just aren't enough to seduce this girl) but also because I'll be with a small group of people and away from all the tiresome rules that larger groups tend to enforce. I'm lucky, excited and relieved.
The bum deal is that I’ll be so close to Havana with all of it’s music and food and steam engine trains (they never upgraded like the rest of the world), but not be able to swing by for a visit. Buena Vista Social Club is going to have to take up space in my memory as a movie with great music instead of the live soundtrack for my weekend carousing. Of course, Fidel has to die sometime. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll kick the bucket in the next month or two.
Despite the fact that my mother asks me, about once every two weeks, if I know where I'm going for deployment, I never told her that I was slated for Kuwait. I didn’t want to deal with the guilt of worrying her. But when we spoke on the phone yesterday I didn’t tell her about Cuba, either and I’m not sure why. Instead we talked about my dad’s radiation treatments and the unsettling fact that when the minister for my brother’s wedding told the happy couple that they would have to go to one day of secular marriage counseling before she would agree to perform the ceremony, my brother’s fiancé refused and found someone else in the phone book to get the job done. My mother suspects, and she’s usually right about these things, that the blushing bride knows just how high-maintenance she is, thinks that my brother hasn’t figured it out yet, and doesn’t want to run the risk of anyone cluing him in. After my mom finished spilling the gossip all she could say was, “I thought I raised him better than that. I guess not.”
It could be worse. My mom could think I was the disappointment.
posted by Jessica at 06:19
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